Why I left the Democratic Party

The facts are harsh. “The number of Democrats holding office across the nation is at its lowest point since the 1920s and the decline has been especially severe in rural America,” Bustos writes in the report. In 2009, the report notes, Democrats held 57 percent of the Heartland’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now: 39 percent. In 2008, Barack Obama won seven of the eight Heartland States. In 2012, he won six. In 2016? Trump won six. There are 737 counties in the Midwest—Trump won all but 63 of them. “We can’t keep bombing in the rural parts of these states,” Bustos told me. And with arguably some of the most critical midterms in American history less than 10 months away, the 2020 presidential election already looming and redistricting control on the line, Democrats need to find a fix fast, said Robin Johnson, a Bustos adviser and consultant who teaches political science at Monmouth College in Illinois, and conducted the interviews for the report last summer. “If we don’t get this right in the next two cycles,” he told me, “we’re done”—rendered mostly powerless in Congress and in Heartland state houses. He called the report “a cold reality check.”

From the Appalachian regions of Ohio to the Iron Range of Minnesota and the northern reaches of Michigan and Wisconsin, across Iowa and Missouri and through the southern swaths of Indiana and Illinois—areas in which Bill Clinton triumphed and Hillary Clinton tanked—the quotes from the 72 rural Democrats Johnson interviewed read like a pent-up primal scream. And Terry Goodin’s comments pop out in particular. In the report, he says the Democratic Party is “lazy,” “out of touch with mainstream America,” relying on “too much identity politics” where “winners and losers are picked by their labels.” The Democrats in his district, he laments, “feel abandoned.”

Now, lash. Didn't this all happen in the 19TH Century? The Democrats back then were primitive. Today they are civilized.

Democrats should know.

Update: Following the article’s publication, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill e-mailed The Cable with the following message. "Leader Pelosi made clear that a vote against the amendment was not a vote for the surveillance activities in question and there were other more appropriate legislative vehicles to seek the changes many Democrats are seeking to make, like the bills introduced by Congressmen Conyers and Schiff."

they are asking us to abandon ethical beliefs

By the grace of God, Rev. Dr. Barber, along with local, state, and national NAACP leaders, has helped to lead the fight for voter rights, just redistricting, health care reform, labor and worker rights, protection of immigration rights, and reparation for women survivors of Eugenics, release of the Wilmington Ten and educational equality. Rev. Dr. Barber has been arrested three times for civil disobedience as he stood for educational, economic and equal justice.
Some of Rev. Dr. William Barber’s other accolades and accomplishments are:

The NC NAACP is the largest state conference in the south-second largest in nation.
•Rev. Dr. Barber is standing with Georgia’s NAACP State President to secure the release of Mr. John McNeil. A man, husband and father who was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentence to life in prison.
•Rev. Dr. Barber has help lead the North Carolina NAACP in filing Title VI filing against the Wayne and Wake County School Broads in the fight against re-segregation and inequality.
•Rev. Dr. Barber fought and helped to secure over millions of new dollars for low wealth and disadvantaged students.
•Rev. Dr. Barber has helped lead Historic Thousands On Jones Street: Peoples Assembly a coalition of over 104 progressive organizations with over 2 million memberships to champion a 14 point anti-racism, anti-poverty, anti-war agenda.
•Rev. Dr. Barber has helped secure the freedom of innocent African American men from Death Row and the passage of the Racial Justice Act.
•Rev. Dr. Barber helped win Same Day Registration Early Voting in NC- the only state in the south.
•Rev. Dr. Barber organized the Millions Voter March 2009 and helped more than 1.2 million black/brown voters go to polls.
•For over 19 years, he has been God’s servant as Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church DOC (1993), Goldsboro, NC. The man of God has allowed God to use him as a vessel in saving souls, transforming lives and allowed him to birth or strengthen ministries to bring glory to God.

Rev. Dr. Barber leads as Chairperson of Rebuilding Broken Places Community Development Corporation (RBPCDC), a non-profit community development initiative born out of a vision from God to build affordable single family houses, senior citizen housing, provide job training, affordable child care, after school tutoring for disadvantage middle school students and to bring inner city revitalization in Goldsboro. Through this effort Rev. Dr. Barber has helped to develop homes for flood victims, first time homebuyers, led the effort to secure a low moderate-income senior citizen’s complex, and the construction of a Community Development Resource Center. To date this has resulted in more than 12 million dollars of community development initiatives.

As a part of these initiatives, Rev. Dr. Barber developed Project YESS: Youth Empowered for Success and Service, which are programs designed to enable students who are failing academically to achieve success through tutoring and enrichment activities that emphasize Attitude, Academics and Art.

Rev. Dr. Barber has led in the efforts along with other clergy and community leaders in The Stop the Funeral Initiative and the Drug Dealer/Gang Member Redemption Conference focused on reducing drug and gang violence in Wayne County. As a result of Rev. Dr. Barber’s lead on this initiative, RBPCDC is embarking on a new effort, the 2nd Chance Education and Job Training program aimed at providing education and job training for formerly incarcerated individuals and others with significant barriers to employment.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is married to Rebecca McLean Barber and they have five children.

Isn't that like shaking your head yes while in actuality voting no?

Most interesting reading in a while.

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/01/a-year-in-review-democracy-betrayed-by-democrats-not-russia/

Democracy Betrayed By Democrats, Not Russia

Over the course of the last year, the ‘Russian hacking’ narrative has steadily deteriorated into accusations of nebulous Russian “collusion,” before morphing into claims of nefarious ‘Russian trolling.’ During this time, establishment interests have overtly attempted to use accusations of Russian interference to deflect from the DNC email’s revelation that the Democratic Party was caught red-handed in the destruction of the American democratic process. By the end of the year, the investigation into Russian meddling had devolved into an outright retaliatory witch-hunt, and the subversion of Democracy shown by the DNC had gone largely unaddressed.

In summary, the investigation of Russian collusion has amounted to a witch hunt in retaliation against those who threaten the oligarchic American status quo. It has amounted to a lackluster attempt to gaslight the public in hopes of preventing the realization that the power of their vote has effectively been stripped from them.

Russiagate as a war on dissent: Amicus brief filed by Brennan, Clapper, McFaul, other national security state honchos seeks to define American journalists & activists who criticize the US/NATO line on Russia as subversive fifth columnists.

Fine. If you want to think that MLK, one of the greatest if not the greatest American ever to live, would have sulked in his corner when faced with President Trump, who am I to tell you otherwise?

He didn't stay in his corner sulking when he was alive, though. He got **** done. He reached out. He built aliences. But maybe that's because he loved people, instead of hating them. Misanthropy is killing you.

I believe he would be fighting as much against oligarchy as anything else, same as me.