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The Womens March in Washington. Bryan Woolston / Reuters

ID: 10538093

Progressives are planning a series of demonstrations across 60 cities on April 15, describing the protest as the first major successor to the womens marches that drew as many as 4 million people over inauguration weekend last month.

The so-called Tax March set to coincide with the annual IRS deadline aims to pressure President Donald Trump and Congress over Trumps unreleased tax returns, organizers said, citing reports this week on his teams communication with Russian officials and long-standing questions about potential foreign conflicts of interest.

A coalition of liberal groups is organizing the march, including Bernie Sanders Our Revolution, MoveOn.org, the Indivisible Project, Americans for Tax Fairness, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the American Federation of Teachers.

Also involved are leaders from the Womens March, the day of protests that turned out to be among the largest demonstrations in US history.

The Tax Day plans make April 15 a key test for Democratic leaders working to harness that expanse of activist energy into a sustainable movement that yields results in Congress and at the ballot box in next years midterm elections. (Similarly, in 2009, Tax Day was one of the first major protest days for the conservative, anti-establishment Tea Party movement.)

Fissures in the Democratic Partys self-described resistance effort have already emerged since Trumps inauguration, with progressive activists demanding that lawmakers oppose the president at every turn, while various House and Senate members maintain some openness to pieces of Trumps cabinet and agenda.

The countrys highest-ranking Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer, drew protests from his own partys base outside his home in Brooklyn earlier this month. Activists on the left have also confronted other Democratic lawmakers outside their congressional offices and in recent town hall meetings, demanding top-to-bottom opposition.

On Wednesday, a group of former Sanders campaign aides and activists launched a PAC, #WeWillReplaceYou, aimed at challenging Democratic elected officials in primaries, asking progressives to pledge to support primary election challengers against any Dems who wont do everything in their power to resist Trump.

A Trump protester in San Francisco. Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images

ID: 10539477

The Tax March will be based in Washington, with satellite marches planned in cities ranging from New York and Los Angeles to Little Rock, Arkansas, and Boise, Idaho.

Organizers said the idea started with a tweet from Frank Lesser, a New York-based comedy writer who took issue with the Trump administrations claim that people didnt care about his tax returns. (Trump is the first president in 40 years to keep his tax returns private, breaking a tradition kept by candidates since Richard Nixon.)

In Washington this week, members of the Republican-led House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted down an amendment proposed by Democrats to have Congress ask the Treasury Department for copies of Trumps tax returns.

Tax March organizers also linked the effort to questions about Trumps ties to Russia.

On Sunday night the presidents national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned after the Washington Post revealed that he had discussed sanctions against Russia with the countrys US ambassador. And on Tuesday, a New York Times report cited claims from four current and former US officials that some involved with Trumps campaign had been in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the election, though officials told the Times that no evidence has yet been found that there was coordination with those Russian officials.

Until we see his taxes we dont know how much money he owes Russia, China, and other countries, said Ben Wikler, the Washington director of MoveOn.org.

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Progressives Want Tax Day To Be The Next Women's March Protest - BuzzFeed News

On February 14, former Secretary of Labor TomPerez arrogantly toldPoliticothat his campaign is within reach of obtaining enough DNC delegate support to win the DNC chair election. Perez claims to have 180 DNC delegate supporters, which is close to the 224 delegates necessary to win. The Associated Press, who notoriously called the Democratic primaries in favor of HillaryClinton on a day when no one voted, announcedthat Perez leads Rep. Keith Ellison by 66 delegates.

The DNC chair race is the Democratic Partys last opportunity to make a unifying concession to progressives, who were cheated and disenfranchised during the Democratic primaries by former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Wasserman Schultzresigned in embarrassment after Wikileaks releasedemails confirming she violated Section 5 Article 4 of the DNC Charter to helpClinton. However,the Democratic Party has yet to acknowledge the damage they caused by anointing Clinton as their presidential nominee.

Perezs main opponent in the DNC chair race, Rep.Keith Ellison, supported Sen.Bernie Sandersin the primaries, and he has received endorsements from Sanders, Our Revolution and several other progressive organizations. Though many have concerns about him pandering to the establishment during his DNCchair campaign, electing Ellisonwouldat the very leastbe a gesture of good faith to progressives.

Perez backs the same failed strategies that have run theDemocraticPartyinto the ground over the last decade. An emailreleased by Wikileaks from Clintoncampaign chair John Podesta revealed that Perez advised the Clinton campaign to whitewash Sanderscampaign during the Democratic primaries in order to repel minority supporters. Perez recommendedNevada as the best opportunity to do so. Despite the fact that Clinton ultimately won Nevada,pollsnoted that moreLatinos voted for Sanders. At Perez recommendation, the mainstream media and Clintoncampaign propagated the false narrative that Sanders supporters were sexist white males, though they had little to no evidence to substantiate these claims.

During Perezs tenure as secretary of labor, he stabbed labor unions in the back bysupporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), despite virtually every large labor union strongly opposing it. Perez also granted special waivers to Credit Suisse by removing sanctions that were imposed on investment bankers for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes. Furthermore, hegave Renaissance Technologies, which is run by Bob Mercerone of Trumps biggest donorsand James Simons, one ofClintons biggest donors, a huge tax break.

The Democraticestablishment has rallied behind Perezs candidacy. Former Vice President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Eric Holder and several other establishment figures have formally endorsed Perez, while several others have attacked Sanders for endorsingEllison. It is very concerning that Bernie Sanders is so intent on taking over a party that hes not even a member of that hed insult the beloved vice presidentand really the presidentabout a failed status quo approach, said Texas Democratic chairman Gilberto Hinojosa in an interview. This resentment toward Sanders and his progressive supporters has lingered within the Democratic Party and its leadership since the Democratic primaries. Clintons election loss, which was a huge failure for the Democratic Party, highlighted the need for Democrats to enact meaningful reforms. Nevertheless, the party hasresisted change.

The Democratic Partys failure to reform has incited organizations on the left to emergeincluding theDraft Bernie movement and Justice Democratsin hopes of starting a new party to replace inept, office-holdingDemocratswith progressives. If the Democratic Party elects another establishment puppet to run the DNC, the number of people who are protesting the weak opposition that Democrats have exhibited toward Trump will exponentially increase. Even if Ellison wins, calls for party unity wont come easy. If the Democratic Party continues to shun progressives, these mounting slights may serve as a catalyst to the political revolution that Sanders supporters have been advocating for since the Democratic primaries.

Excerpt from:
There's No Saving the Democratic Party if Tom Perez Wins DNC Chair - Observer

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The union movement and the progressive movement just suffered a crushing loss at the Boeing plant in South Carolina yesterday. As Julie Johnsson and Josh Eidelson detailed in this Bloomberg story, the 3000 Boeing workers faced a massive, coordinated assault by not only Boeing management but the whole political class in South Carolina.

And the almost complete progressive media and political leadership apathy to the fight at Boeing enrages me. Despite a Presidential campaign during and after which everyone said you need to pay attention to working class industrial workers, workers in a right-to-work state like South Carolina stood up to megacorp Boeing-- and were left largely on their own as not only Boeing but the whole business and political class threatened them with retaliation and destruction if they voted yes for the union.

Unsurprisingly, in the face of threats of retaliation and jobs being sent to China and a half million dollar advertising barrage treating them as economic traitors to the state, most of the workers got scared and voted no in the end.

Here you had a company using threats of moving jobs to China-- a perfect opportunity to mobilize nationally and demand Trump put up or shut up and tell Boeing to stop such threats -- and you had mostly crickets among progressive media and activists.

And I have serious rage at everyone who endlessly talked about how Obama was the candidate of business and didn't help workers. You know who cared about union workers at Boeing? Obama. When Boeing first tried to move operations to South Carolina, the Obama NLRB filed unfair labor practices against Boeing and tussled with then-governor Nikki Haley over promoting the move as an anti-union attack. (The administration would drop the charges later at the urging of the IAM union based on settling overall contract negotiations-- and in the face of worries about hostile court actions).

I give props to the twelve U.S. Senators, including Bernie Sanders, who sent a letter to Boeing condemning the anti-union campaign- see here -- but where were the legions of Bernie-supporters who endlessly lectured Clinton for her supposed silence on labor issues during the campaign?

National support for the campaign would have mattered since workers voting on the union needed to know that if they got a union, they would have national support in what would be ongoing battles not just with Boeing but with their own state government. Boeing is a federal contractor and has to worry about public opinion, so that national support matters.

But instead, they were left largely on their own, mostly in a national silence.

Having a 3000-person labor beachhead in anti-union South Carolina would have made a big difference, not just for those workers, but for workers throughout the region. As Josh notes in the linked story, other workers were looking to the Boeing vote on whether to try forming unions themselves.

And politically, it's a statistical fact that the higher the union density in the state, the higher percentage of workers, especially white workers, who end up voting Democratic at election time. That is first because local unions supply a lot of the cash to support local progressive candidates but it's also because they help frame local politics in terms of working class issues and concerns and drive the debate in ways that help progressive candidates.

You can't just love the working class when it serves rhetorical purposes, but ignore all the day-to-day fights that matter. This was indisputably one of the labor fights that mattered and most of the progressive media and progressives on social media just downplayed it or ignored it altogether.

This is just a massive political fail for the whole progressive movement.

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Progressives Let Boeing Workers Down - Huffington Post

Perimeter Progressives, a new political group formed in response to President Trumps election, will hold its first meeting Feb. 28 in Dunwoody.

The group has a left-wing name and support from several of the states notable Democratic elected officials, including Senate Democratic Leader Steve Henson and House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who may attend the event. Its Facebook and Twitter accounts promote Democratic causes and criticize Republicans. But the groups founder, well-known Dunwoody bicycling advocate Joe Seconder, said its open to anyone skeptical of the Trump era and who may not necessarily agree with either party.

The Perimeter Progressives logo.

The group will aim to hold nonpartisan political education events, Seconder said. It remains to be seen how many people will join, but the current list of those interested is in the hundreds, he said.

Seconder, who is widely known as the leader of advocacy groups Georgia Bikes! and Bike Walk Dunwoody, was careful to say that Perimeter Progressives welcomes centrist Republicans and independents. He pointed to the century-old history of the term progressive in a political party formed by former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. The groups meeting announcement says it will be a conversation on how we can set a balanced, inclusive and progressive agenda for positive change in our community.

But he also said the new group will let fellow Democrats know they arent alone in the heavily Republican top end Perimeter between North DeKalb and East Cobb. The desire for more connection came from social media conversations, he said, after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton did surprising well against Trump in local vote totals.

When you saw Hillary won Dunwoody, there were some eyes popping, Seconder said. Im coming out of the closet. I am a Democrat.

Joe Seconder, founder of Perimeter Progressives.

The groups host committee includes several prominent Democrats. Besides Henson and Abrams, others include: Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry; state Senators Mary Margaret Oliver and Elena Parent; state Reps. Scott Holcomb and Sam Park; former state Rep. Taylor Bennett; Chamblee City Councilmember Brian Mock; and Matt Gephardt, son of former congressman and presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. None of the officials could be reached for immediate comment.

The host committee members have not donated a dime, instead lending their names and contacts to the effort, Seconder said. Several of them are expected to attend and speak briefly at the Feb. 28 meeting.

The group already held a private organizing meeting. Among those involved in that meeting, according to social media posts, was former state Rep. Sally Harrell, who briefly threw her hat in the ring in the areas 6th Congressional District election.

Perimeter Progressives is incorporating as a nonprofit and likely will not endorse candidates for office, Seconder said. He envisions it meeting monthly with speakers offering information on such topics as how a state bill becomes law or who is running for various local political offices.

I do not have any particular platform or agenda, he said. We want to help people be knowledgeable about whats going on in their ZIP code.

The Feb. 28 meeting will include comment cards for attendees to suggest ideas for the groups activities.

The socializing is an important goal for the group as well. Seconder said its about the simple power of seeing people in person rather than just chatting in Facebook groups, and a reminder that not every day has to be spent in screaming and protesting in angst.

The debut Perimeter Progressives meeting is scheduled for Feb. 28, 6-8 p.m., at Caf Intermezzo, 4505 Ashford-Dunwoody Road in Dunwoody, with RSVPs requested by Feb. 26. For more information, see perimeterprogressives.org.

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New 'Perimeter Progressives' political group debuts Feb. 28 - Reporter Newspapers

I

n a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post, 25 percent of adults said they plan to get more involved in politics. Among Democrats, the rate was even higher, at 35 percent.

That resolve was on display in Raleigh Saturday, as the eleventh annual Moral March drew what organizers claimed to be more than eighty thousand peopleif they're right, the march's largest crowd yet, though Republicans and a News & Observer analysis have disputed that countmany of whom picked up picket signs for the first time.

Cardes Brown, religion chair for the state NAACP, says there was "more unity and ubiquity" to this year's march. Participants marched for many causes: repealing HB 2, bringing awareness to systemic racism, protecting immigrants' rights, extending access to health care. From a stage in front of the state Capitol, at the end of the march route, speakers gave out phone numbers for North Carolina representatives and urged marchers to call them with their demands.

But in the face of a Republican-dominated legislature, can the energy of 160,000 (supposed) feet be translated into actual change?

Jen Jones, communications manager for the nonpartisan group Democracy NC, thinks so. This movement, she argues, is not a flash in the pan. North Carolina has been dealing with "regressive policies" since the GOP took control of the General Assembly in 2011. Now, with a Democratic governor and attorney general, the state can be a blueprint for progressives in a nation under President Trump.

Effecting change will require a twofold attack, she saysand some time.

The next step, Jones says, is to get the people attending marches to go to local government meetings and run for local offices, creating a grassroots push that "ultimately rises to the General Assembly." At the same time, advocacy groups need to get people engaged in votingand fighting to preserve voting rightsto usher those new candidates into office.

"Groups are pouring in asking for help registering and mobilizing voters," says Kate Fellman, program director for the People's Alliance Fund. "People who have never really done anything before, folks who have never been activists are wanting to play a role and asking about training in voter engagement and support from us. It's been kind of overwhelming."

"It matters that you made the call the first time," Jones says. "If you make the call, you're more likely to go to the meetings. If you go to the meetings, you're more likely to run for office. If you run for office, you're more likely to be politically engaged for the rest of your life."

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Can Progressives Turn the Moral March's Energy into Political Action? - The Independent Weekly