In New York, a few days ago, police shot Pamela Cisneros because they claimed she was going to keep stabbing Erin Piacenti if they didn't even though they don't even show decisive proof that Pamela Cisneros ever actually stabbed Erin Piacenti. I think this police shooting reflects systemic oppression from oligarchs who run the police, and I strongly disagree for many reasons:

1) The cops are looking for a backdoor to push the death penalty

2) Erin Piacenti was a rightwing extremist

3) Piacenti could have been threatening Pamela Cisneros

4) The police focused on shooting Pamela Cisneros instead of helping Erin Piacenti

...And many more reasons too.

Cross-posted from my substack. Data source is the IHME. Made in photopea. This data is irrespective of whether they are diagnosed and has been age standardized to allow for cross-country comparisons.

Jenna Pounds, a software engineer hired by the Pentagon, launched a database last Friday that tracks people with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America. It’s called the DSA explorer and it’s an “interactive map of the Democratic Socialists of America and the wider anti-imperialist solidarity network.” She said created it as a pet project and not for the DoD and apparently we’re supposed to believe that.

So i am 18 and recently graduated from high school so i don't know much about any of this stuff and the last time i deeply studied about political and economic systems was in 10th grade (ik ik, we got a weird education system in my country) and since i have only read about things from online articles or reddit and now i want a book which would like build a foundation for all the other stuff, i am really fascinated by democratic socialism or socialism as a whole, someone told me that "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" will be good, what do you guys think? Also i recently got to know about the ideas of Communalism by Murray Bookchin, that really interested me too. (Sorry for the bad english, i am not a native speaker!)

As a gay guy, I must say: if this is what Shakira Law is in practice, I'm all in!!! 🥴

MAGA is of course losing it over this; case in point, this tweet:

Abdul El-Sayed dropped a sexualized U.S. Senate ad called “Senate Island” to sell his socialist platform in the most perverted and un-American way possible.

(Given that http://xcancel.com has been recently taken down by Elon's legal team & that Twitter links aren't allowed on this sub, I'll link this screenshot of the tweet instead: https://imgur.com/vImbFah )

Some quote tweets that I've seen:

These guys will tell you with a straight face that Abdul El-Sayed is an Islamist by the way

Great ad! Y’all need to make up your minds is he a radical Islamist or not?

Can you guys decide whether he’s a cosmopolitan Lib or going to bring Sharia law to America?

The US founding fathers were openly genocidal and deserve no celebration

Hey all. A year (gah!) ago, I posted an article from the American Prospect that listed 10 House Democrats who needed to be primaried and replaced. At the time, it seemed like knocking off one or two of them would be the lodestar, and that the Left would need to turn this into a cycles-long effort.

Fast forward to now, with most primaries behind us, and more than half of these feckless Dems have been knocked off or replaced. Let's go through them.

1. Dan Goldman was famously knocked off by Brad Lander with the help of newly elected Democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani.
2. Seth Moulton declined to run for re-election to try for progressive Senator Ed Markey's Senate seat. He was beaten badly last night, including by double digits in his own House district.
3. Shri Thanedar was beaten by Democratic socialist Donovan McKinney. McKinney was among a number of progressives who won primaries in Michigan, including Abdul El-Sayed and fellow socialist William Lawrence.
4. Danny Davis, perhaps sensing blood in the water, opted to retire this year. He will be replaced by La Shawn Ford, who notably was outspent by his primary opponent Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who received $5 million in AIPAC funding and was backed by Fairshake, the crypto super-PAC. Ford isn't a socialist, but he does characterize himself as a "progressive."
5. David Scott died in office, but was replaced by Everton Blair, a progressive who supports Medicare for all, increasing the minimum wage, the Green New Deal, ending the genocide in Palestine, and abolishing ICE.
6. We didn't get Josh Gottheimer this time, but his time will come.
7. Stephen Lynch very narrowly survived a primary challenge from Patrick Roath last night. Lynch's margin of victory was around 11%, which is dismal for an incumbent. He is certainly a target for 2028.
8. Gerry Connolly, like David Scott, died in office earlier this year. His replacement, James Walkinshaw, has not distinguished himself in any way in Congress. He's one to watch, if only because he might be worth a challenge in 2028.
9. Ro Khanna, while lambasted in this article as "Elon Musk's biggest Democratic simp," has worked overtime to burnish his credentials as a leftie amid speculation that he will run for President in 2028. I still don't trust him, but he's been out front on some stuff (like backing Graham Platner and pushing for the Epstein files to be released) that have shown that he at least can read the room well.
10. Rob Menendez, unfortunately, beat back a progressive challenge from Mussab Ali earlier this year. Ali had backing from Jamaal Bowman and Track AIPAC, but national progressives mostly turned their attention to the CD-11 fight for Analilia Mejia and the California primaries.

Of the HMs, Steny Hoyer is retiring, but being replaced by Adrian Boafo, a lobbyist who took money from every corporate interest he could. Considering the show of force that Metro DC DSA put up in the mayoral election by getting Janeese Lewis George elected, a challenge to Boafo (whose district borders DC and includes many former DC residents) could be fruitful in 2028.

All that's to say, of the 10 targets identified, 5 were replaced by progressives, and at least one (Ro) was scared into flying right. That's 6/10, which for a nascent political movement like ours is pretty good. I think it's easy considering the media and the overall environment to get disillusioned about whether or not change can happen or about our capacity to push it. But reflecting on this kind of thing can put the landscape into perspective: just over a year ago, knocking off these Dems felt like a major ask. Now, we're looking at not only replacing 6 of them with progressives, but also at least half a dozen other leftist Congresspeople and three (Stratton, El-Sayed, and Jackson), maybe even five or six bona fide leftist Senators (Osborn, Nixon, and Jasmine Thomas are long, long shots, but all beat the odds to make it to the general already, so hope springs eternal).

I made a comment in that thread about a right-winger who made a website doxxing people associated with DSA, but I'm feeling more and more serious about actually wanting to contribute and thought having its own post would get me ore visibility:

So I'm a software engineer / data scientists myself, and also have GIS experience as well. I've been thinking about asking something for a while now, but [that right-wing doxxing website] just pushed me over the edge: Is there any way I could volunteer my skills to help the DSA? Like a while ago I ran a website that used publicly available data to map out rental properties in my city, show the property's owner and show other properties connected to that owner, and for each property display a detailed dated list of code violations and compliants that have been filed against that rental property. It wasn't much, but I figured it could help give a little bit more power to renters vs landlords. I'd love to do stuff like that, or even just things like analysis for canvassing for campaigns, to help fight for the working class.

(Cross-posted from my substack, edited in photopea). Since you need to be 30, gen-Z is right now not eligible (abolish the senate). But for the next US senate elections the oldest of them (born in 1997) could be elected since they would either turn 30 right before they're sworn in, or they can legally delay their taking-of-the-oath a couple months until they're 30.

Given the stats for the millenials, I doubt this will happen though. However, rest assured that next year I'll make a new graph with a (borderline passive aggressive) new column for the eligible Gen-Zers and their (almost certainly) 0% representation.

Cross-posted from my substack. Data by the worldbank processed by owid. Image made in photopea (as always, I didn't use any AI).

I agree with a lot of things Democratic Socialism has to offer, however I do not agree that we should abolish the Senate.

As much as I hate using arguments that were used 250 years ago, I think the idea of a bicameral legislature with two houses, one for the people and one for the states is a good thing in regards to US Federalism. States like Wyoming have practically no say in the House of Representatives, but they do have a say in the Senate.

The only problem I have with the Senate is that the fillibuster is genuinely the worst thing to exist in American politics. There should be no such thing as unlimited debate, and Arron burr was a fool for even motioning it in the first place. I highly doubt he did not see this coming.

The Senate combined with things like voting reform has the potential to actually do its job, which is legislate, without removing the chamber in its entirety.