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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Well heres an interesting twist to the whole Russians hacked the election thing the Democrats led by the suggestive powers of the former President, Barack Obama have been trying to press into the public collective mind: The Russians are now accused of demanding hush money from progressive groups.

Those wascally wabbits. Theyre everywhere it seems, nowadays.

Heres how Bloomberg puts it: Russian hackers are targeting U.S. progressive groups in a new wave of attacks, scouring the organizations emails for embarrassing details and attempting to extract hush money, according to two people familiar with probes being conducted by the FBI and private security firms.

Theyve demanded their blackmail bucks by Bitcoin, apparently. To the tune of $30,000 to $150,000, depending on the organization.

And what exactly does that amount of Bitcoin buy?

Good question. Heres the answer: It covers up funding information tied to the big-time anti-President Trump movement thats been riding high on liberal waves for months.

This is huge. Democrats and leftists have been trying to sell the idea for months that all these Hate Trump protests in the streets, on college campuses and so forth, have been completely of, by and for the people, and not staffed with paid agitators and facilitators.

Of course, the smart money has been on George Soros, and his leftist cohorts but Dems have gone out of their way to deny the connections.

Now, we may have clarity.

According to this Bloomberg report, a dozen or so left-leaning groups have reportedly faced extortion in just the few months since the presidential election. Most are unnamed. But one is not.

The Center for American Progress you know, that nonprofit that claims to be nonpartisan but is led primarily by pit-bull progressive defenders of Mr. Obama and former President Bill Clinton, like Tom Dashle and John Podesta is one of the groups allegedly asked to cough up hush money for the Russians. A CAP spokesperson said this to Bloomberg: CAP has no evidence we have been hacked, no knowledge of it and no reason to believe it to be true.

But what else would CAP say?

Painting a picture of impromptu, organic protests against the president has been a cornerstone of the lefts messaging against Mr. Trump from the get-go. On top of that, its not like CAP is this bastion of honest wheelings and dealings. The FBI has already pointed fingers at the group as the mastermind of the hacking into the Democratic National Committee in 2016.

Lucy, I think youve got some splainin to do.

Mr. Trump has been calling out the protest movement as bunk for months, saying in one tweet in late February: The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually, in numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists. Sad!

Insert the word paid in front of liberal activists, and were probably getting a bit closer to the truth.

Read more:
Russians hit progressives for anti-Trump hush money: Report - Washington Times

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Original post:
Progressives once pushed eugenics - Tribune-Review

"We need those numbers," the California Democrat told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.

Senate Democrats face a daunting challenge in next year's midterm elections when they must defend 23 seats (as well as the seats of two independents who caucus with the Democrats) compared with just eight seats the Republicans must defend, many of which are in states that Trump won in November.

"We're talking about five Democrats who are going to be running in 2018 in states where Trump won by almost double digits," Harris said. "I just don't think it's a zero-sum game, and that's my point."

Harris urged pragmatism and cautioned the party's rank-and-file against weakening the Democrats' ability to serve as a check on the Trump White House.

"It's a practical, real question that we're all going to have to answer, which is what do we want?" Harris said. "For those Democrats who are running in those states, do we want that they will be there at the end of the day? Or are we willing to let them go?"

Harris, a rising Democratic star after winning the Senate seat long held by Barbara Boxer, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for president or vice president in 2020.

"I'm absolutely not thinking about that at all," Harris said when asked about a run, adding that she didn't want to lose sight of more pressing matters. "There are a lot of very big issues that are on the table right now, and we have to be alert and present, like, right now."

See original here:
Harris: Progressives shouldn't apply purity tests to Dems - CNN

They didn't win all their Democratic primary races on Tuesday, but a movement of young progressives continued a steady creep in its quest to overtake city politics in St. Louis.

Candidates backed by liberal supporters picked up three seats, held onto one big one and scored a major upset in contests for the Board of Aldermen.

Green won a special election in 2015, but she was expected to have a serious fight when Florida returned this year to try to reclaim her old seat. Instead, she nearly doubled up her predecessor, according to unofficial results.

"I feel like in a lot of ways, I was kind of the tip of the spear," Green said Tuesday night. "I was the first kind of outsider candidate that got elected that wasnt supposed to get elected, and then did some unconventional things like standing with Black Lives Matters protesters, and then still managed to get re-elected."

Not too far way in south city, Dan Guenther became the latest newcomer to take out a longtime incumbent. He toppled Ward 9 Alderman Ken Ortmann, who had held the seat since 1999. The ward, which covers parts of seven neighborhoods across an ax-shaped swath, includes long stretches of the new progressive power center along Cherokee Street.

Guenther, who doesn't own a car and supports standard-bearer issues such as a $15 minimum wage, had the backing of the increasingly influential Ward 20 Alderwoman Cara Spencer. He was also supported by Mobilize Missouri, which endorsed a slate of progressives in St. Louis races.

Two of the organization's picks John Collins-Muhammad in Ward 21 and Sarah Wood Martin in Ward 11 claimed open seats. Martin replaces Tom Villa, who decided not to run again. Muhammad is the new Democratic choice in a ward opened up by Antonio French's unsuccessful mayoral bid.

But the old guard has not lost all its power. Longtime incumbent Alderman Joseph Roddy stomped challenger Joe Dierkemper in Ward 17, which covers parts of seven neighborhoods, including Midtown and the Central West End. Roddy had been criticized lately as the practice of granting generous tax abatements has come under fire, but it did not seem to hurt him in his own ward on Tuesday.

Tammika Hubbard also rolled to victory in Ward 5, despite a string of body blows to her politically powerful family in recent months. She emerged easily from a six-candidate race that included progressive favorite Megan Betts.

Incumbent Sharon Tyus also held onto her seat in Ward 1, and Alderwoman Marlene Davis won big in Ward 19.

Thomas Oldenburg defeated former state Representative Michele Kratky for state Representative Donna Baringer's old seat. Brandon Bosley won in Ward 3 to replace his father, Freeman Bosley Sr., who is retiring.

Aldermen Jack Coatar, Beth Murphy, Joe Vaccaro and Shane Cohn all ran unopposed.

Danny Wicentowski contributed to this story.

We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at doyle.murphy@riverfronttimes.com or follow on Twitter at @DoyleMurphy.

See original here:
St. Louis Progressives Make Gains in Board of Aldermen Races ... - Riverfront Times (blog)

The nonviolent civil war between irreconcilable ideologies, Collectivism vs. Individualism, Big Government vs. Limited Government, Democratic Socialism vs. Capitalism is no more.

Protest rallies have morphed into violent, bodily assaulting, property destructive riots; no doubt, more to come.

The progressive's histrionic jolt at Hillary's loss to the inconceivable Trump victory is understandable. The historic upset of Trump's victory is an exclamation mark to the substance of his win, a major economic, political and social revolution that will fundamentally move America in closer proximity to our founding, and progressives understand this.

The palpable anguish apparent with progressives at large has much to do with their fears of losing the dependent class they have so successfully cultivate over the past many decades.

Progressives accuse Republicans of being anti-immigrants, conveniently leaving out the modifier illegal.

Think about it. If the economy were to grow beyond the tepid rates of the last eight years to a rate aptly described as a robust economy, and American workers could now proudly claim being self-sufficient, getting off the welfare rolls, what handouts could the progressives offer then? They lost their once invincible "blue wall" of white working class Americans.

Considerably reducing the role, if not eliminating entirely, of our dysfunctional public education system in exchange for parents having the moral right to select the schools of their choice for their children will mean a stake in the heart of the teacher's unions and the money historically lavished on the Democrat reelection campaigns and the loss of their central role of indoctrinating our young.

In light of this, one can understand their unhinged rage. But there is a more disturbing tell in all this, progressive interest on the hold of political power at the expense of the general welfare of our country.

President Trump's temporary ban on immigrants from the seven (or, now six) designated countries is constitutionally authorized. These countries were designated by Congress and President Obama as war-torn countries with governments hostile to America, or no government at all, which makes it virtually impossible to determine the true intentions of their immigrants towards America.

ISIS has stated its intention of infiltrating this immigrant/refugee pool with terrorists intent on taking the lives of Americans. Ignoring this, progressives, blinded by their obsessive opposition to Trump, claim Establishment and Due Process rights to these immigrants on foreign soil, and place supposed damage to universities on a higher plane than the security and lives of Americans.

Progressives accuse Republicans of being anti-immigrants, conveniently leaving out the modifier "illegal." Wanting to control and get a handle on the tide of illegal immigrants is, according to progressives, "racist." Never mind the negative consequences of the illegal immigrant tide. In California alone, the costs of illegal immigration is estimated to exceed $25 billion a year. This is not an insignificant sum. Add to this the crime and drugs directly related to this class of immigrants, and it clearly makes common sense to want to get a handle on this.

But so what, the illegals are progressive sympathizers, some of whom may very well be represented in our voter registration rolls; "build bridges not walls" what in hell does this mean?

The tsunami of regulations placed on the business community over the decades is estimated to cost the economy $2 trillion a year, an amount that exceeds the government's confiscatory take in federal taxes. With Obama's considerable addition to the regulatory roster during his eight years, is it any wonder why we haven't seen economic growth even hit 3 percent? Trump's moratorium on new regulations, and scaling back existing regulations is the much-needed life preserver thrown into the tumultuous sea of regulations. This, coupled with tax reform will inexorably mean economic growth we haven't seen in quite some time.

Progressives had their chance in Obama's first term with the executive and Congress in their control, and they focused instead on further building their dependent class with their (un)Affordable Care Act; "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," Nancy Pelosi intoned.

Progressives need victims just as the addict needs drugs. Politics and victimhood is their life blood. And they need the power of our government institutions to correct this, that, and whatever social injustice they can conjure up.

Progressives are in constant search of kindling for their progressives match to stoke the flames of social injustice, so they can represent themselves as the much needed firefighters to douse the flames.

Progressives, please, live and let live.

Manny Montes lives in Auburn.

Continue reading here:
Manny Montes: Progressives stoking the flames - The Union of Grass Valley