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SILVER SPRING While most people are winding down for the holidays, Progressive Maryland is gearing up.

The liberal grassroots organization held their first phone bank of the season on Dec. 18 to fundraise $20,000 before the start of the legislative session on Jan. 14, according to Deputy Director Larry Stafford. The group has 31,000 members and supporters throughout the state, with Montgomery County as one of the most active areas.

But going into a new session with a Republican Governor, Stafford said they have to mobilize.

We understand that the best way to (reach Governor-elect Larry Hogan) and to also hold accountable any elected officials in this state is to build a grassroots groundswell of support and thats what youre seeing tonight, Stafford said. Were calling through a list of about 1,000 or so of our members and supporters and we want to get those people in for other phone banks and have that build on itself, and then next thing you know theyll be in Annapolis walking around.

The group is focusing on two issues: campaign finance and keeping programs for working families in the state budget.

Montgomery County recently passed its own local public campaign finance legislation, and Stafford said he hopes that is one reform to which Hogan is receptive.

He ran and won using the public campaign financing system. I would hope that he could find some value in it. I think what he really should have seen is that it gives a fair opportunity to candidates of all kinds that may not have as much of a fair shake, Stafford said.

Progressive Maryland also plans to focus on the budget. The latest numbers show a predicted $1.2 billion budget shortfall over the next two years throughout the state, even more than predicted when Hogan ran on a platform of cutting state spending.

We believe we may have to do a lot of defense for working families in Maryland because we see the prioritization that this Governor-elect already has toward more wealthy individuals, Stafford said. So we want to encourage him as greatly as we can to prioritize the needs of working families and fund projects like the Purple Line and keep up our funding for our education system, which has been one of the best in the nation.

The importance of transportation is one reason Linda Saffell, a new Progressive Maryland member and Prince Georges County resident, decided to help with the phone bank. She said she wants to see more people from her county step up, particularly with a Republican governor.

Original post:
Progressives rally for new legislative session

The Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has said his desire not to be hostage to anyone was the reason behind his decision to rely on the sacrifices by ordinary Nigerians to fund his campaign.

Buhari said this at a press briefing on the General Muhammadu Buhari Crowd Funding Platform, in Abuja, on Tuesday.

This is even as he announced that the sum of N54, 415,386.70 has so far been received as donations through direct deposit and sale of cards to the First Bank account number: 2026724405.

He expressed confidence that the financial support he was receiving from ordinary Nigerians will see him through the campaign period.

According to him, his supporters who floated the platform drew inspiration from President Barrack Obamas campaign.

The candidate noted that when Obama first came on the scene, he did not enjoy the support of big corporations for a variety of reasons, but that he was able to surmount this challenge when he turned to ordinary Americans who shared his dream.

Buhari said, That is why I depend on them, we are taking this idea from what we have in the United States when Obama came out to contest, he was a coloured person, the big companies were not for him and so on.

But he knew, he had foot soldiers so when he came with this idea, he was able to finance his campaign without looking for money bags or anybody influential, so he remained independent and was hostage to nobody. And this is what I want to achieve.

He said the Buhari Support Organisation currently has 82 registered support groups with over 475, 796 coordinators and total membership in the region of 8, 492,226 across the length and breadth of this country.

Buhari explained that the organisation intends to use the registration and donation cards to enlist the members of the groups as volunteer change agents and also capture the spatial distribution of its donours.

See more here:
I dont want to be anybodys hostage -Buhari

The aggrieved senatorial aspirant of the All Progressives Congress in Osun East Senatorial Distract, Alhaji Sola Lawal, has challenged Senator Babajide Omoworare, who has been announced as the candidate of the party in the district to produce the evidence of his victory at the primary.

Lawal said this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo on Tuesday.

The aspirant was reacting to the statement from Omoworare. urging him to accept his electoral loss with equanimity.

Lawal, who is the Publicity Secretary of the APC in Ogun State, maintained that he scored 17 votes out of 23 in a modified primary election, which was conducted at the Government House, Osogbo on December 3.

He explained that the primary, which produced former Governor Isiaka Adeleke and Prof. Sola Adeyeye as the senatorial candidates of the APC in Osun West and Osun Central respectively was held at the same venue using the same method.

He accused Governor Rauf Aregbesola of upturning his victory because of the governors alleged bias for the serving Senator.

Lawal said he held the popular mandate of the party to contest the forthcoming election, describing Omoworares claim of victory as patently fraudulent.

The aspirant urged the federal lawmaker to state where, when and who voted in the primary that allegedly produced him as the candidate of the party.

Lawal said, As for me, the modified primary, sanctioned by the Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and the party, took place at the Banquet Hall of the Government House on Wednesday, Dec 3.

A total of 23 leaders of the party listened to five of us, including Omoworare delivered speeches, followed by a polling exercise in which I scored 17; Omoworare, three; Kunle Adeniji, two; Mrs Olusola Ibidapo-Obe, zero; Barrister Gbenga Awosode, zero; and one abstention.

Read more:
Osun primary: Show evidence of victory, Lawal tells Omoworare

The Democrats conduct since the midterm debacle is as sad and sorry as the campaign that caused it. The partys leaders are a big problem. A bigger one is the closed system of high-dollar fundraising, reductionist polling and vapid messaging in which it is seemingly trapped. Some say a more populist Democratic Party will soon emerge. It wont happen as long as these leaders and this system are in place.

Nancy Pelosi says it wasnt a wave election. Shes right. It was the Johnstown Flood; as catastrophic and just as preventable. One year after the shutdown Republicans scored their biggest Senate win since 1980 and their biggest House win since 1928. Turnout was the lowest since 1942, when millions of GIs had the excellent excuse of being overseas fighting for their country.

Every Democratic alibi midterm lull, sixth-year curse, red Senate map, vote suppression, gerrymandering, money rings true, but all of them together cant explain being swept by the most extreme major party in American history. Citing other statistics demography, presidential turnout, Hillarys polls they assure us that in 2016 happy days will be here again. Dont bet on it.

It took more than the usual civic sloth to produce the lowest turnout in 72 years. It took alienating vast voting blocs, including the young and the working class of both genders and all races. The young now trend Republican. Voters of all ages migrate to third parties or abandon politics altogether. Its the biggest Democratic defection since the South switched parties in the 1960s. If Democrats dont change their ways, their 2016 turnout will be a lot harder to gin up than they think.

Democrats are in denial regarding the magnitude and meaning of their defeat. It is a rejection not just of current leaders but of the very business model of the modern Democratic Party: how it uses polls and focus groups to slice and dice us; how it peddles its sly, hollow message and, worst, how it sells its soul to pay for it all. Party elites hope party activists will seek to lift their moods via the cheap adrenaline high of another campaign. For once, activists may resist the urge.

The vital task for progressives isnt reelecting Democrats but rebuilding a strong, independent progressive movement. Our history makes clear that without one, social progress in America is next to impossible. For 100 years progressive social change movements transformed relations between labor and capital, buyers and sellers, blacks and whites, men and women, our species and our planet. But in the 1970s progressives began to be coopted and progress ceased. Their virtual disappearance into the Democratic Party led to political stultification and a rollback of many of their greatest achievements.

Much is written of the rise of the right, but very little of the fall of the left. Were apt to see the lefts decline, if we do see it, as a consequence of the rights superior funding, organizing and messaging, of the corporate dominance of all politics, and of white backlash against government, liberalism or modernity itself.

Its a bad analysis. The lefts fall is as much a cause as an effect of what ails us. Middle-class anger isnt about race, taxes, social services or social change. Its mainly about middle-class decline and public corruption. Democrats talk a lot about both problems but if they were really trying to solve either one, wed all know it.

The prevailing analysis fosters passivity. Whenever people speak of forces rather than choices its a sure sign they arent about to do anything. Progressives who blame their losses on globalization, white backlash or money in politics are less apt to focus on the one thing they alone control: their own choices.

It also fosters denial. We know there cant be a strong middle class absent a strong government to help create and sustain it. Social Security, Medicare, civil rights and labor laws, public education and market regulation are middle-class foundations. In the late 70s they buckled and the middle class buckled with them.

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Lets abandon the Democrats: Stop blaming Fox News and stop hoping Elizabeth Warren will save us

Former Head of State, Gen.Muhammadu Buhari

All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) is to meet with the 22 Peoples Democratic Party aspirants, who are aggrieved over the conduct of the PDPs governorship primary in Akwa Ibom State.

An aide to one of the aspirants, who preferred to be anonymous, told our correspondent in Uyo on Monday that the aggrieved aspirants otherwise known as G22 had been under intense pressure to defect to APC.

He stated that the G22 who had earlier ignored the call to defect to the APC by the PDP governorship candidate in the state, Mr. Umana Umana, will reassess their stance following the manner in which the national leadership of the PDP handled the issues concerning December 8 PDP governorship primary in the state.

According to the aide, the planned defection to APC was being facilitated by one of the APC governors in the South-South.

The governor was said to have promised the aspirants of accommodating them as well as all other politicians in the state who are opposed to the alleged imposition by the Akwa Ibom State governor, Mr. Godswill Akpabio.

The APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) has expressly requested to meet with the 22 aggrieved PDP aspirants from Akwa Ibom State. The move is facilitated by one of the APC governors in the South-South.

The occasion of the planned special reception for the PDP bigwigs by the main opposition party in the country will be crowned by the formal adoption of Maj. Gen. Buhari by a cross section of Akwa Ibom people as their sole presidential candidate in next year presidential election, he said.

The aggrieved aspirants, who are expected to decamp to APC include former Akwa Ibom State Deputy governors, Obong Nsima Ekere and Patrick Otu; a senator representing Akwa Ibom-South, Helen Esuene; a former Nigerian Ambassador to Russia and Belarus, Assam Assam, (SAN); a former Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State, Ekpenyong Ntekim; a former Commissioner for Local Governments and Chieftain Affairs, Effiong Abia; Asukwo Okpo; Larry Esin; Prof. Richard King, and Chris Abasi Eyo.

Others include Okpolump Ette, Aniedi Johnny Ufot, David Okpon, Dr. Samuel Udonsak, Jerome Isangedighi, Dr. Peter Esu, Ita Udoh, Ime Ekanem, Michael Etuk, Benjamin Okoko, Ime Akpanebe and Effiong Usin.

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Buhari to meet 22 aggrieved AIbom PDP aspirants