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When you think of a Super PAC, the image that comes to mind probably isnt a few dozen people gathered at a community center in historic Filipinotown in downtown Los Angeles snacking on sliders and vegan tacos. But the founders of theYouth Interest PAC arent looking to act or spend like traditional war chests in US politics. Theyre launching this political action committee to fund progressive campaigns that its founders sayyoung people care about: gun control, tackling climate change, battling far-right disinformation campaigns, and training a new generation of political organizers.

Sim-Marcel Bilal, 22, and Lorenzo De Felitta, 18, two LA activists who worked on the successful campaign for the new progressive LA controller Kenneth Mejia, founded the super PAC, which launched on February 5. They want to take the samescrappy Gen Z techniques they employed in that race viral online campaigns, Twitch streams, clear messaging around the breakdown of city funds and taxpayer dollars, brazen attacks on the establishment, and a strong ground game on the road ahead of the 2024 elections.

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We were fed up with young people being used as political pawns for any politician that just wants to run. We're often an afterthought when it comes to the political process, even though progressive candidates or Democrats depend on us to win elections, but they wait till the last minute to either engage with us or don't keep the promises that they make to us, Bilal toldTeen Vogue.

The result ischildren keep getting shot up in schools. You can't walk anywhere. I grew up doing so many different gun drills and active shooter drills in school. It's just really sad to see every single year how many lives are lost to gun violence, to police violence, to everything, Bilal said. A lot of times, politicians or progressive candidates that run can't take on establishment power because theres so much collective money running against them. So we started this PAC to basically fund, not just candidates that are running on progressive values and interests for young people, but to also teach young people how to organize and become activists in their communities.

From Left: Youth Impact PAC founders Sim Bilal and Lorenzo De Felitta, outreach and communications coordinators Danielle Nunez and Shekinah Deocares at the launch event for their youth-issues Super PAC at The Robinson Space in downtown Los Angeles on February 5, 2023.

The team is rounded out by two other Mejia campaign alums, Shekinah Deocares, 25, and Danielle Nunez, 26. They plan to launch campaigns on gun control, public safety, climate change, and human rights in pivotal states like Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona, as well as train other leaders to build networks to campaign for these issues.

Deocares, a community organizer, said she was profoundly impacted by the 2020 campaign for Proposition 22. Corporations led by Lyft and Uberspent over $200 million to win the ballot measure that allowed California to classify gig workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

At the time, she was working at the Pilipino Workers Center with people who were either undocumented, gig workers, or both, and she saw how the deeply financed campaign worked to deprive them of full-time employee benefits, further destabilizing the fragile economic situation for many in the community.

People with money will use the language that we use, or token representation, to pass laws that harm us. We cant afford to have that continued system where all of the labor and suffering is on us, but all of the power and control is with those who dont have the same interests, Deocares said. She remembers seeing a commercial that featured a Black woman saying she needed a gig to be able to provide for her child, which Deocares considered deceptive advertising.

We did not have the money to go up against their ads and marketing. It was just one of thousands of moments where it's obvious who has money affects whether people survive and exist like humans, Deocares said. I dont think its a fair fight at all.

The reason we created this PAC is that were going to inherit this world, but were often overlooked, she added.

Youth Interest PAC cofounder Sim Bilals dog, Jeju, takes a break from hosting duties at the launch.

But does it seem contradictory for a group of young people who lean heavily into theBernie Sanders brand of democratic socialism, to adopt the very establishment, Big Money tool of a Super PAC?

De Felitta addressed the question head-on at the launch: We all know that banks are a tool of capitalism and white supremacy. Is there a good bank out there? Unfortunately not. We found the least bad bank.

Later, Bilal told me that finding a bank had been a major holdup. A credit union wouldnt be able to handle the millions of dollars they want to raise ahead of the 2024 elections. After vetting, he said they settled on Amalgamated Bank, which isunionized and majority union-owned, has clear progressive values, andhas pledged not to lend to fossil fuel companies.

Similarly, the Youth Interest PAC founders say they will refuse contributions from fossil fuel companies, police and the prison industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, and unsustainable corporate money. Nor will they support candidates who accept contributions from those sources. Instead, theyre courting grassroots donors, young people and their families, civic groups, and sustainable and environmentally focused investors and business owners.

When I pointed out that those arent necessarily avenues to sizeable donations, De Felitta responded, As progressives, we know how to use our money efficiently, noting that theyhandily beat the opponent in the controller race who had campaign coffers nearlyfour times the size of theirs.

Alison Gash, an associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon and co-author ofDemocracy's Child: Young People and the Politics of Control, Leverage and Agency said that Gen Z has been effective at organizing political campaigns that dont require deep funding. Look at what you can do with small donations, Gash said, referring to the success Barack Obamas first presidential campaign had withcrowdsourcing smaller donations. The community organizing approach to this is really savvy because ultimately you want those dollars spent to be transferred into votes. That's the key, right? So if you're engaging directly with other young people in asking for money, then using that money directly representing young people through the filter of young leaders, you're a lot more likely to get those folks to vote than you are in other ways.

The Youth Interest PAC leaders also plan to use funds to pay young people who are working on political campaigns. Being paid to work on the Mejia campaign, Deocares said, made a big difference. She found it liberating, underscoring the importance to compensate young people for their labor in politics.

We plan on running more issue-specific campaigns relevant to the state and paying local youth with specific skill sets to engage on the ground. When necessary, if we choose to support specific candidates we'll run independent campaigns hiring our own local youth staff to target youth voters and other key demographics, Bilal said.

Since they cant pay to fund campaigns or candidates directly, they will likely grant stipends to the young activists working on the campaigns that align with Youth Interests goals, Deocares added.

She emphasized that their Super PACs approach to money is unique: Were not lining our own pockets or buying candidates to help us make more money. Having money and spending money is not our end game. Were identifying candidates that youth in local areas support. Were investing in people and actions.

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The Youth Interest PAC, Founded By Mejia Campaign Alums, Will Fund Progressive Campaigns - Teen Vogue

A political group, South East/Igbo APC Progressives Roundtable (SIAPRO) has appealed to the Yoruba and compatriots in Lagos State to overlook any provocation, disrespect and or insult that they may have endured flowing from the last election cycle in the state.

The group said, Lagos State is no less Yoruba land as Anambra State is Igbo land just like Lagos is not a no mans land, just like Ebonyi State is not a no mans land.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Abuja, the convener, Dr Uche Diala, said any contrary view to these is as irresponsible as it is provocative, adding that these are facts that must be stated clearly.

Diala said Igbo have been known for ages to be noble guests who do nothing but add value to their hosts in a symbiotic relationship, adding that Igbos have never been known to be a burden to their hosts.

He explained that was the reason why regions, states, villages, hamlets, and families across the length and breadth of Nigeria (South, North, and West) are filled with noble, peace-loving, and hardworking Igbos, a multitude who have fully settled in and have no plan of leaving.

Diala said nowhere else in Nigeria is that bond of friendship, deep integration, and all round success more pronounced and enduring than in Lagos State.

It is therefore heartbreaking what happened in Lagos recently where largely misguided Igbos with little or altered sense of history embarked on a fight that was needless, tactless, and profitless.

An Igbo proverb says obiara be onye abiagbula ya a visitor should not be a burden or source of misfortune to his host. Unfortunately, some of our brother Igbo Lagosians allowed external negative influences to drive them to almost remove the seats from their own buttocks, he said.

As progressive democrats, he said the group believes that every Nigerian has a right to aspire to any political office that he or she is qualified for and to vote and be voted for wherever one resides and pays taxes and will not support any action to deprive anyone of such rights but the place of ako na uche (tact and wisdom) must always be preserved.

In view of all the above, with every sense of sincerity, and responsibility, we hereby publicly appeal to and urge our Yoruba brethren and compatriots in Lagos to overlook any provocations, disrespect, and or insults that they may have endured flowing from the last election cycle.

Friendship is a burden that weighs both ways. The mutually beneficial and long-term relationship between Igbos and Yorubas in Lagos is cemented in intertribal marriages, long-term, intricate, and rewarding business relationships, and decades of successful political collaboration cannot be jettisoned because of some individuals who have no or poor sense of history, he said.

He noted that the group is aware of some recent unhealthy and unproductive utterances by some individuals of significant standing in Igbo society.

It is trite Igbo wisdom that age and status compel a certain level of responsibility and restraint in words and conduct.

We condemn such comments that seek to deepen the divide and create unnecessary tension and bad blood and responsibly urge such individuals to desist forthwith in the interest of peaceful co-existence and national unity, he added.

He lamented the gradual and shocking decline and recession of the Igbo nation and the southeast geopolitical zone since the 2015 general elections that saw the electoral loss of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

This is due to a combination of factors, including wrong political calculations, deception, lies, and fake news and propaganda amongst others. The consequence of this is a gradual and continued isolation of the southeast and Igbos in the politics of Nigeria, he said.

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Igbo Progressives Beg Yoruba In Lagos To Overlook Provocation - Leadership News

They gathered in the community center of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh on Tuesday night like the remnants of a battered army trying to regroup and rally.

The occasion was a meeting of the newly formed Peoples Coalition, a collection of 16 North Carolina progressive groups committed to promoting economic and social justice. The theme was mobilizing against the actions of the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

The warm-up music included Gil Scott-Herons early 1970s song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Many in the crowd of about 75 people were old enough to remember when it was an activists anthem.

The Rev. Nancy Petty, Pullen Memorials pastor, opened the meeting with a moment of silence for the three adults and three children killed Monday in the Nashville school shooting and all victims of gun violence. Earlier in the day, the state Senate voted to override Gov. Roy Coopers veto of a bill that makes it easier to buy a handgun. That contrast expressed a gulf much wider than the 1.5 miles between the church and the Legislative Building.

Petty said the pandemic had halted in-person meetings and slowed progressive activism, but she said that lull is over. We are back and we are ready to be back, she said.

Petty noted that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Moral Monday protests that united advocacy groups in opposition to actions by the legislature. She said it was time to reignite that resistance. Many North Carolinians, she said, are coming together as a Peoples Coalition refusing to let our lawmakers pass their dangerous agenda without a struggle and a fight.

Other speakers also spoke against the actions of Republican lawmakers, but the prospects for blocking those actions are bleak. Republicans, now in their 13th year in power, gained seats in the last election and are one vote shy of veto-proof majority.

Meanwhile, the election also gave Republicans a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court, replacing a 4-3 Democratic majority that had supported voting rights and rejected gerrymandered election district maps. Its likely the newly constituted court will approve new voting restrictions and redrawn district maps that will heavily favor Republican candidates in 2024.

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Sailor Jones, associate director of Common Cause North Carolina, alluded to those setbacks in addressing the audience. This time, my friends, the courts will not save us, Jones said. Who will?

We will, the audience responded, but it sounded more like a wish than a promise.

Yet a counter movement has to start somewhere. The Peoples Coalition hopes it is starting in the capital city. They plan to hold more town hall meetings around the state.

State legislative leaders from both parties were invited, but did not attend, though two Democratic state lawmakers did state Sen. Lisa Grafstein of Wake County and state Rep. Greg Ager of Buncombe County.

Grafstein, a civil rights lawyer, told me after the meeting that Democrats eventually will regain a legislative majority as voters respond to Republican overreach, much as they did to the Supreme Courts abortion ruling.

I genuinely do believe we will get it back, she said.

But, for now, belief is about all that progressives have.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com

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Boxed out by GOP gains, NC progressive groups seek to reignite resistance | Opinion - Yahoo News

Civil and digital rights groups this week joined a trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers in opposing bipartisan proposals to ban the social media platform TikTok, arguing that such efforts are rooted in anti-China motives and do not adequately address the privacy concerns purportedly behind the legislation.

The ACLUarguesthat, if passed, legislation recently introduced in both theU.S. HouseandSenate sets the stage for the government to ban TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and is used by more than 1 in 3 Americans. The Senate bill would grant the U.S. Department of Commerce power to prohibit people in the United States from using apps and products made by companies subject to the jurisdiction of China and other foreign adversaries.

The government shouldnt be able to tell us what social media apps we can and cant use.

The government shouldnt be able to tell us what social media apps we can and cant use, the ACLUassertedvia Twitter. We have a right to free speech.

In a Wednesdayletterled by the free expression advocacy group PEN America, 16 organizations including the ACLU argued that proposals to ban TikTok risk violating First Amendment rights and setting a dangerous global precedent for the restriction of speech.

More effective, rights-respecting solutions are available and provide a viable alternative to meet the serious concerns raised by TikTok, the groups contended, pointing to a Februaryproposalby Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) to expedite a probe of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States as a possible way to mitigate security risks without denying users access to the platform.

Rep.Jamaal Bowman(D-N.Y.) has emerged as the leading congressional voice against banning TikTok, saying Wednesday that he fears the platform is being singled out due in significant part to xenophobic anti-China rhetoric.

Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok? Bowmanaskedin a phone interview withThe New York Timeswhile he traveled by train to Washington, D.C. to speak at a #KeepTikTok rally, where content creators, entrepreneurs, users, and activists gathered to defend the platform.

In his speech, Bowman noted that TikTok as a platform has created a community and a space for free speech for 150 million Americans and counting, and is a place where 5 million small businesses are selling their products and services and making a living at a time when our economy is struggling in so many ways.

Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the San Francisco-based digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, concurred with Bowman,tweetingThursday that if you think the U.S. needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you dont care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.

Two other House DemocratsMark Pocan of Wisconsin and Californias Robert Garciajoined Bowman in addressing Wednesdays rally.

In an interview with theMilwaukee Journal Sentinelbefore his speech, Pocanacknowledgedvalid concerns when it comes to social media disinformation and all the rest.

But to say that a single platform is the problem largely because its Chinese-owned honestly, I think, borders more on xenophobia than addressing that core issue, he stressed.

Garcia, aself-describedTikTok super-consumer,assertedonMSNBCThursday morning that before we ban it, I think we should work on the privacy concerns first.

TikTok speaks to the next generation LGBTQ+ folks are coming out, people are being educated on topics, I think we need to be a little more thoughtful and not ban TikTok, the gay lawmaker added.

Wednesdays rally came a day before TikTok CEO Zi Chewtestifiedbefore the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, some of whose members expressed open hostility toward the Chinese government.

To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and manipulate what you see and exploit for future generations, said committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

Chewwho committed to a number of reforms including prioritizing safety for young users, firewall protection for U.S. user data, and greater corporate transparencytook exception to some of the lawmakers assertions.

I dont think ownership is the issue here, he said. With a lot of respect, American social companies dont have a good track record with data privacy and user security.

I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analyticajust one example, Chew added, referring to the British political consulting firm that harvested the data oftens of millionsof U.S. Facebook users without their consent to aid 2016 Republican campaigns including former President Donald Trumps.

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US progressives stand against 'xenophobic' TikTok ban - The Real News Network

to eliminate gas hookups in new buildings shows that progressives are indeed serious about banning gas stoves. (Photo by Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

A proposal in New York to ban gas hookups in new buildings has reignited a heated debate about whether gas stoves should be banned. The proposal, which is likely to pass in the annual state budget this year in Albany, would exempt many commercial uses of gas lines but end new residential connections, thereby enacting a de-facto ban on gas stoves and appliances. The New York proposal follows one earlier this year by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency that was exploring a ban on gas stoves.

Supporters of these policies claim that they are essential for protecting public health and preventing climate change. Meanwhile, critics argue that they are an example of government overreach. Beyond the surface-level arguments, the Albany proposal also exposes a more profound issue about the nature of progressivism as a philosophy: Rather than acting as a force for progress, too often progressives want to take us back to the past.

Some studies purport to show that gas stoves produce harmful pollutants that can cause respiratory problems, such as asthma. Supporters of a ban point out that technology exists to replace gas stoves with more efficient electric alternatives that are safer and cleaner. Gas stoves and other gas-powered appliances are contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for global warming and its associated environmental problems.

However, critics of gas stove bans argue that they are based on bad science, as well as an example of government paternalism. They contend that the research into health problems caused by gas stoves is underwhelmingor at least the relationship is still unprovenand that products powered by natural gas actually lead to fewer greenhouse gas emissions than do their chief competitors: products powered by electricity generated from burning coal. More fundamentally, many conservatives accuse gas stove critics of fomenting alarmism, believing it is not in the governments mandate to tell people which appliances to use in their homes.

As the gas stove example illustrates, progressivism is too often based on the idea that ever-increasing amounts of bureaucracy and red tape should be added to American life to solve societal problems. Rather than empowering individuals to make their own choices and find their own solutions, progressives believe that government technocrats should take control and impose their preferred solutions on society.

Ironically, the debate surrounding the Albany proposal also highlights the phenomenon of gaslighting in political discourse. Critics of the Consumer Product Safety Commissions proposal earlier this year were accused of spreading false information. The commission had no intention of banning gas stovesor so we were told. However, the Albany policy demonstrates that progressives are indeed serious about eliminating gas appliances from homes. By accusing their opponents of gaslighting, progressives attempted to deflect attention from their actual policies, which they likely knew would be controversial. The Albany proposal shows that the critics were right all along.

By trying to ban gas stoves and other aspects of modern life, progressives show their true colors. Despite claiming to be for progress, supporters of these policies are attempting to return society to a more primitive and supposedly simpler time. They actually want to freeze society in its current stateor even go backwardspreventing progress from taking shape.

Rather than promoting innovation and creativity, progressive policies tend to favor the status quo. In this sense, gas stove bans are not outliers: they are emblematic of a broader worldview centered on coercion and technocratic manipulation. To truly promote progress in the 21st century, a dynamic and bottom-up approach is surely needed. Dont expect it to come from those who call themselves progressive.

I specialize in regulation, cost-benefit analysis, and the effect of regulations on innovation and growth. I'm author of the bookRegulation and Economic Growth: Applying Economic Theory to Public Policy. My writing has appeared in theWall Street Journal, theLos Angeles Times,and theWashington Post. I have also published in scholarly journals, includingRegulation & Governance,Contemporary Economic Policyand PLOS ONE. I received my PhD in economics from George Mason University and my BA and MA in economics from Hunter College of the City University of New York.

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New York Ban Proves Progressives Are Coming For Your Gas Stove - Forbes