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Primary elections continued on Tuesday. In Vermont, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, progressives had a solid night, either clearing the field before primary day or beating back challengers.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Wisconsin and Connecticut split between supporting establishment-backed candidates and Trump-boosted challengers to take on Democratic incumbents in the governors office (Wisconsin) and the US Senate (Connecticut). Still, just one day after the FBI raided Trumps residence in Mar-a-Lago, the former presidents influence over the party remained certain, with successful endorsements in both states and a concession by an incumbent Republican who voted to impeach him.

Here are three winners and one loser from the days races.

Progressives cruised to victory in their primaries in Vermont and Wisconsin; in Minnesota, Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar had a close primary, however, just eking out a win. It was a surprising turn of events given the advantage incumbents typically enjoy. In most cases, all the progressives who won their races did so in deep-blue territory and are widely expected to go on to win their seats.

Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, who was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and a slate of other progressive leaders, prevailed over Lt. Gov. Molly Gray in the states first wide-open US House race since 2006. Gray has earned endorsements from moderates including former Govs. Madeline Kunin and Howard Dean as well as retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy and was portrayed by Balint as a corporatist and a catastrophe for the left. The seat is rated solid Democrat by the Cook Political Report, meaning that Balint will likely become the first woman and first openly gay person to represent Vermont in Congress.

Rep. Peter Welch, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who was also backed by Sanders, cleared the field early in his bid to replace Leahy in the Senate after 15 years serving as Vermonts only House member. His Democratic opponents, Dr. Niki Thran and Isaac Evans-Franz, never came within striking distance. Hes also heading into November as the clear favorite and would be only the second Democrat ever elected to the US Senate from Vermont. Leahy, the first, has served since 1975; the states other senator, Sanders, caucuses with the Democrats but is an independent.

In Minnesotas Fifth District, which is also rated solid Democrat, progressive Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar narrowly fended off a challenger from her right, Don Samuels, leading by just over 2 percentage points as of Tuesday night. She faced a similar challenge in 2020 and won by a nearly 20 percentage point margin.

Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member, promised to be a more moderate representative, and ran heavily on public safety. He helped defeat a proposed ballot measure to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety after a then-city police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020. Omar, a proponent of the progressive movement to defund the police, had supported the proposal. Clearly, Samuelss message resonated in the district, and his near-win will likely encourage future challenges to Omar.

Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents Minnesotas neighboring Fourth District, successfully defended her progressive record against Amane Badhasso, who came to the US as a refugee from Ethiopia and sought to portray herself as a new generation of progressive. Its also considered a safe Democratic seat.

Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes effectively won the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Ron Johnson before Election Day even began. The Democratic primary was initially crowded, but Barness three main rivals Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, Wisconsin state treasurer Sarah Godlewski, and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson dropped out of the race weeks ahead of the primary to coalesce behind him, hoping that doing so would boost Democrats chances of winning what is shaping up to be one of 2022s most competitive Senate races. Nicole Narea

The Washington state Republican, one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 Capitol attack, didnt have her primary on Tuesday. But she did concede defeat Tuesday night after a Trump-backed challenger solidified a narrow lead in last weeks primary.

Herrera Beutler was starting a sixth term as a member of Congress when she voted to impeach Trump, inciting the former presidents fury and a primary challenge from Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed former Army Green Beret. He will now be the GOPs candidate in the states Third Congressional District, just north of Portland, Oregon.

With her primary loss, only one Republican who voted to impeach Trump appears likely to return to Congress, Rep. Dan Newhouse, of Washingtons Fourth Congressional District. Four decided not to run for reelection; four others, including Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer last Tuesday, lost their primaries. Christian Paz

Just a day after the FBI searched his Florida home, Donald Trump saw his bets in an array of primary contests Tuesday night seemingly pay off. Unlike on other primary days, the former presidents picks werent necessarily clear winners this time, Trump took some risks in order to pursue grudges and boost candidates who more fully embraced his election lies.

His pick in Wisconsins Republican primary for governor, the businessman and political outsider Tim Michels, was on track to defeat the establishment-backed former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch whom former Vice President Mike Pence endorsed. That win follows a similar one for Trump in Arizona, where his gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, defeated Pences pick, Karrin Taylor Robson (as well as a Pence victory over Trump in Georgia back in May).

At the state government level, Robin Vos, the powerful Republican speaker of the Wisconsin assembly and perennial antagonist to the states Democratic governor, came out less than 2 percentage points ahead of Adam Steen, a Trump-endorsed challenger, on Tuesday night. Steen lost, but he did surprisingly well for a political newcomer with a small operation whom Trump seemed to back out of spite for Vos not trying harder to overturn the states 2020 election results. Trump-backed candidates in another Wisconsin state assembly race and a US House race, Janel Brandtjen and Derrick Van Orden respectively, both ran uncontested.

In Connecticuts GOP Senate race, Leora Levy, a Republican fundraiser whom Trump endorsed just last week, beat the partys former state House leader, Themis Klarides, who until recently was seen as the moderate frontrunner in the race. CP

Herrera Beutlers loss was one of several signals Tuesday night that the GOP has gone all-in on Trumps 2020 election lies.

In the Republican primary for governor in Wisconsin, the Trump-endorsed victor, businessman Tim Michels, has said that he agrees with Trump that there was election fraud in 2020 and that, as governor, he would consider signing a bill that would decertify the 2020 election results, even though there is no legal mechanism to do so. He has also said that he supports dismantling the Wisconsin Elections Commission, a bipartisan organization that presides over elections in the state. His rival, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, took similar stances.

In Connecticut, Dominic Rapini, the former board chair of a group that has advanced claims of voter fraud, won the GOP nomination for secretary of state. He has said that his first act in office would be to eliminate the position of Connecticuts elections misinformation officer, who will be hired this year to monitor the internet and defend against foreign and domestic interference in elections conducted in the state.

Trump-backed Adam Steen, who ran on a platform of decertifying the 2020 election results in Wisconsin, quickly came within striking distance of incumbent Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who has been in the assembly since 2005. As of Tuesday night, Steen lost by less than 2 percentage points a much smaller margin than anticipated, given his lack of a large campaign.

Other GOP candidates who prevailed on Tuesday, including Levy in Connecticut, have gestured more broadly at the importance of election integrity in the wake of 2020 and accused Democrats of making elections less secure.

It wasnt just Trumps election lies that saw success Tuesday, but his penchant for downplaying Covid-19 as well. Scott Jensen, a physician and former Minnesota state senator, won the Republican primary for governor after falsely claiming that Covid-19 death tolls were inflated. He argued that they were skewed because they accounted for elderly people who would have died within a few years anyway, and has also criticized incumbent Democratic Gov. Tim Walzs vaccine mandates. NN

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3 winners and 1 loser from the Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, and Connecticut primaries - Vox.com

Jason Maier is a teacher and progressive Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss his inspiration for writing a book setting out his case, as a progressive, for Bitcoin. The public narrative and FUD around Bitcoin are antithetical to progressives, yet, its utility is aligned with progressive ideals.

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Bitcoin should be a broad church. The original cypherpunks philosophy was predicated on anarchist ideals, to work outside of government controls. This attitude is analogous to a wide variety of political philosophies, including those on the left who feel disenfranchised by the current global capitalist hegemony. And yet, Bitcoin has historically been viewed as being antithetical to progressives.

The mainstream narrative is that Bitcoiners are predominantly libertarian, with explicit views on the need to reduce the size of the state, the coercive nature of taxation, and the importance of self-reliance. In addition, there is significant criticism about the environmental harm being done by Bitcoin mining through its energy demands. Given our polarised society, its not surprising that progressives are immediately turned off.

And yet, there has been a marked increase in the number of progressive voices entering the community over the past few years. These people have risen to prominence given their impassioned and articulate advocacy for Bitcoin. It is a new wave of orange-pilled adoption that has identified broad utility that is aligned to, rather than being at odds with, progressive ideals.

Whether its that Bitcoin is providing sovereignty and security to marginalized communities, that Bitcoin acts as a constraint to unfettered government economic power, or that Bitcoin is actually enabling market-driven solutions to environmental issues - there are many obvious fact-based reasons why progressives should be enthused by the application of Satoshis innovation.

The reason why the increase in left-leaning adoption hasnt turned into a flood is in part due to education. There are a limited number of resources available to those starting on their Bitcoin journey. This is where people like Jason Maier hope to make a difference. Material written by a progressive will provide an authentic message specifically tailored to this audience.

This should be exciting for all Bitcoiners. If Bitcoin is to become global money we need as wide an audience as possible to see value in it.

Link:
A Progressives Case for Bitcoin with Jason Maier - What Bitcoin Did

By Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07)

After more than a year of negotiations, Senate Democrats finally passed a historic reconciliation bill. The Inflation Reduction Act lowers health care costs, begins to ensure that corporations pay their fair share, and makes the largest-ever federal investment to tackle the existential threat of climate change. While were heartbroken to see the care economy, housing, and immigration left on the cutting room floor, we should be very clear that the Inflation Reduction Act takes real steps forward on key progressive priorities. Progressives in Congress and movements across the country should feel very proud of our part in getting to this point: had progressives not held the line a year ago, insisting on real negotiations and an actual Build Back Better bill passing the House, we would not be where we are. Major pieces of that bill are now in the Inflation Reduction Act about to become law. Its an achievement we can all feel excited about especially when we dig into the details.

The bill will put the United States on track to cut carbon pollution by 40 percent by 2030 through rapidly accelerating the adoption of renewable energy technologies such as electric vehicles, heat pumps, and solar panels, saving the average family $1,025 a year in energy costs and creating 9 million good jobs. It includes roughly $60 billion for environmental justice going to frontline communities. The bill allows nonprofit and public utilities, for the first time, to receive direct payments from the federal government to rapidly adopt renewable energy production, and invests billions so utilities and rural co-ops can retire coal-fired power plants, improving air quality for frontline communities and saving lives.

Progressives have been clear: we dont support the provisions that expand fossil fuel leasing but critically, independent analyses show that their limited impact will be far outweighed by the bills carbon emissions cuts. Under a worst-case scenario, the Inflation Reduction Act will remove 24 tons of pollution for every ton produced by new oil and gas leases.

When we pass the Inflation Reduction Act Friday, 13 million people will immediately see their affordable health insurance coverage extended. The bill will cap seniors yearly drug costs at $2,000 per year, and insulin at $35 per month for those on Medicare. For the first time ever, Medicare can begin negotiating prices for a small group of drugs that expands over time. After years of fighting for legislation to take on Big Pharma, Democrats are standing up to one of the nations richest and most powerful lobbying forces.

In a win for progressive economic policy, the investments in this bill are paid for by finally beginning to make the wealthy pay their fair share. The bill imposes a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, taxes corporations that inflate their share values through stock buybacks, and invests in the IRS to go after large corporations and wealthy individuals (those who make over $400,000 per year) who evade taxes. As President Biden promised, the bill wont raise taxes on any family making less than $400,000 per year.

This isnt just good policy the Inflation Reduction Act has overwhelming public support. Polling from Data for Progress finds that 73% of Americans support the bill, including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. The majority of Democrats and Independents support the climate provisions of this bill and for many of the clean energy components, so do the majority of Republicans. The majority of all Americans are more likely to support the bill when they hear about its carbon-pollution-cutting power.

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A Progressive Case for the Inflation Reduction Act - Data For Progress

More than 100 election deniers have won Republican primaries across the country this year. Its a woeful reminder that former President Trumps seditious assault on U.S. democracy didnt end with his followers failed coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021.

This ominous trend makes the midterm elections much more than a referendum on President Bidens job performance. But Republican extremism isnt the only threat to our democracy.

A more subtle but corrosive danger is nosediving public confidence in the federal governments ability to function effectively. According to the Pew Research Center, only 19 percent of Americans say they trust Washington to do the right thing most of the time. Thats near the historic low point in public confidence since Pew started measuring it in 1958.

At the same time, solid majorities of Americans believe government should play a major role in tackling national problems. Their qualms about government are practical, not ideological; centering more on its performance than its size.

Paul Light of the Brookings Institution, a leading expert on public attitudes toward government, reports that demand for very major reform of government is at a 20-year high, rising from just 37 percent in 1997 to 60 percent today.

Light sorts voters into four groups with distinct perspectives on government. The largest (44 percent) is dismantlers, who favor smaller government and big changes in how it operates. Rebuilders (24 percent) want bigger government but share the dismantlers desire for major government reform.

Expanders (24 percent) are most enthusiastic about bigger government and less interested in reform. Streamliners (10 percent), want smaller government and only some reform.

These numbers indicate that a modest majority of U.S. voters now lean toward smaller government, while a more substantial majority favors big reforms of government.

They help to explain why the progressive lefts dreams of bold, transformative government action keep smashing on the political rocks. Progressives are full of ideas for expanding government but have no plan for fixing government.

That leaves them unable to allay public doubts that Washington has the capacity to efficiently manage federal agencies, much less run a health care sector that absorbs 20 percent of GDP; rebuild the U.S. economy to the specifications of the Green New Deal; bring back traditional manufacturing jobs; and massively redistribute wealth to abolish inequality and poverty.

Even last years Build Back Better debacle has done little to dent the lefts unbounded faith in the federal governments redemptive powers. Recently there have been calls to nationalize oil companies, even as gas prices come down, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is pushing a bill to empower the IRS which cant even answer citizens calls to do everyones taxes for them.

Trust in the federal government is unlikely to rebound without significant reform, says Light. Republicans are making the problem worse by stoking deep state paranoia. Because Democrats of all stripes believe in in active government, it falls to them to offer leery voters credible ideas for making it work better.

That begins with honest acknowledgement of underperforming public sector systems and bureaucratic dysfunction.

Public schools are a good example. Many parents are deeply frustrated with central school district bureaucracies and teachers unions, which kept schools closed for too long during the pandemic, failed to communicate clearly with families and have yet to figure out how to offset students steep learning losses.

The moment is ripe to press for a sweeping reinvention of our legacy K-12 system aimed at making schools more nimble, autonomous and accountable to parents. But Democrats mostly line up with districts and unions in defending the status quo.

What Light calls the steady thickening of government has made the federal government less agile and responsive to citizens. A striking example is the growth of presidential appointees, from 2385 in President Clintons second term to 5,000 in the Biden administration. Adding layers of leaders with portentous titles (like associate principle deputy assistant secretary) further paralyzes government by fragmenting decisionmaking authority.

The Progressive Policy Institute has documented the related problem of regulatory accumulation the constant layering of new rules upon old. Since Washington lacks politically viable ways to get rid of obsolete, duplicative or conflicting regulations, citizens and businesses are left to hack through an ever-growing thicket of rules.

President Bidens greatest domestic accomplishment to date is passing the landmark $1.3 trillion infrastructure bill. Yet it takes way too long to build things in the United States. As Philip Howard of Common Good has documented, endless regulatory reviews, public hearings and court appeals mean long and costly delays in building new roads, ports, railways and wastewater systems.

Environmental reviews of new projects can grind on for more than a decade. Germany and Canada put time limits (usually two years) on such reviews to force bureaucratic action. Both do at least as good a job protecting the environment as we do. Why cant our federal and state governments impose similar deadlines?

The Biden administration seems to be edging in this direction, but the last Democratic president to take government reform seriously was Bill Clinton. The Clinton-Gore reinventing government initiative (Rego) actually shrunk the federal bureaucracy, trimmed layers of managers and obsolete rules, and used financial incentives to challenge big federal agencies to boost their productivity.

More fundamentally, Clinton proposed radical changes aimed at making big public sector systems work. He balanced the federal budget, replaced a dependency-fostering welfare system with one that rewarded work and championed public-school choice to give low-income and minority families alternatives to failing urban schools.

Public confidence in government stopped falling and actually rose sharply toward the end of Clintons term.

What Democrats need today is a Rego redux a comprehensive blueprint for arresting the erosion in state capacity. It should harness the power of IT to modernize major public sector systems, making them nimbler, less rulebound and more performance-based.

Its also time for a serious push to decentralize decisions and resources to local government leaders, who enjoy the highest levels of public trust. Above all, we need to free public servants from the process-oriented constraints that keep them from exercising their authority and making common-sense decisions.

So, Democrats need a two-pronged strategy to defend U.S. democracy. First, stop Trump and his minions from sabotaging U.S. elections; second, start reviving Americans confidence in their governments ability to help them solve their problems.

Will Marshallis president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

Read more from the original source:
Where's the progressive plan to fix government? - The Hill

The paradox of the current Conservative Party of Canada leadership race is that the front-runner in the contest to replace Erin OToole is seeking to move the party in the opposite direction of where most available voters seem to be heading.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scales new heights of unpopularity, with more than half of Canadians now holding a negative opinion of the Liberal leader, Conservatives have a rare opening before them to capture the centre. With the ranks of disaffected Liberals swelling by the day, countless Canadians are scanning the horizon for a credible alternative to the Grits.

As it happens, it would be hard to find a Conservative leadership candidate better equipped to seize on that opportunity than Jean Charest. A recent Angus Reid Institute poll showed that the former federal Progressive-Conservative leader and ex-Liberal premier of Quebec could attract a sizable share of voters who cast a ballot for the federal Liberals in the 2021 election. He could even sway some New Democrats to switch their vote to the CPC. That is some feat.

Mr. Charests rival for the Tory leadership, Pierre Poilievre, could scoop up some Peoples Party of Canada supporters, but would make little or no headway among centrist voters.

Unfortunately for Mr. Charest, the Conservative base appears to consider his crossover appeal a strike against him. The base is more interested in applying purity tests than debating complex solutions to 21st-century problems. It is little wonder that Mr. Poilievre has struck a chord.

After skipping last weeks Tory leadership debate, Mr. Poilievre quipped that he had better things to do than find himself cooped up in a little hotel room around a small table listening to a defeated Liberal premier drone on about his latest carbon tax idea. His comment undoubtedly regaled his own supporters. But to almost anyone else, it smacked of contempt.

It was also reminiscent in tone of the kinds of things former Conservative leader Stephen Harper once said before he became prime minister. Remember when he signed a letter that talked about the imperative of building firewalls around Alberta? Or when he accused Atlantic Canada of harbouring a culture of defeatism because of the regions dependence on federal transfer payments?

Mr. Poilievre is also very good at stoking resentment among voters who feel estranged from the political process. So it is no surprise that Mr. Harper considers Mr. Poilievre his most worthy imitator. His July 25 endorsement of the Alberta-bred, Ottawa-area MP was surprising only to the extent that he felt a need to express publicly what most Conservative insiders already knew.

It is hard to believe, as some have suggested, that Mr. Harper broke his silence because he feared Mr. Poilievre was in any danger of losing the leadership race. A more plausible explanation for his endorsement lies in his antipathy toward Mr. Charest, with whom he clashed on plenty of occasions when he was prime minister and Mr. Charest Quebecs premier.

The two men are very different kinds of politicians. Mr. Charest is a consummate networker, much like his political mentor, Brian Mulroney. His circle is wide and inclusive. Mr. Harper always eschewed that Mulroney-style chumminess, refusing to go along to get along. While he has had legitimate differences of opinion with Mr. Charest notably over the latters (mis)use of a sudden federal equalization windfall to cut provincial income taxes in 2007 the long-standing grudge match between them ultimately comes down to their bad chemistry.

If Charest ever ran to be dogcatcher in Rivire-au-Tonnerre, Harper would drive all the way there in the dead of a pandemic winter on a Ski-Doo, if he had to to poleaxe his chances, Mr. Harpers former director of communications, Andrew MacDougall, wrote after his former bosss endorsement of Mr. Poilievre.

The question now facing the Tory leadership front-runner is whether winning Mr. Harpers seal of approval does him more harm than good in the longer run. According to a Nanos research poll, more than a third of Canadians said they had a more negative impression of Mr. Poilievre after Mr. Harpers endorsement. Only 14 per cent said they had a more positive impression.

Liberals could portray Mr. Poilievre as Mr. Harpers candidate to rally progressive voters behind them. By the time of the next election, however, Mr. Harper will have been out of power for a decade. It is doubtful such a strategy would be very effective.

Besides, Mr. Poilievre appears quite capable of mobilizing progressive voters against him all by himself. The student surpasses the master, once again.

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Opinion: Pierre Poilievre does not need Stephen Harper's help to mobilize progressives against him - The Globe and Mail