There's a centrist Democrat running for governor of Virginia. I am not a centrist. I am a leftist Democrat. But Virginia is a state that Abigail Spanberger could win. Here's some info from WIKIPEDIA:
Spanberger is a centrist Democrat[45] and has described herself as a "passionate pragmatist".[46] Virginia's NPR affiliate WCVE-FM, found Spanberger's legislative voting record as being "typical in this highly partisan era" and she "always voted for Biden’s agenda" while still being the fifth most bipartisan member in the House when it came to cosponsoring legislation and opposing one of Biden's executive orders on immigration.[47] In the 2019 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election on the opening day of the 116th United States Congress, Spanberger voted for U.S. representative Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat, joining 11 other Democrats who did not back Nancy Pelosi.[48]
Abortion
[edit]Spanberger supports legal abortion.[49]
COVID-19 policy
[edit]On February 1, 2023, Spanberger was among 12 Democrats to vote for a resolution to end the COVID-19 national emergency.[50][51]
On January 31, 2023, Spanberger was among seven Democrats to vote for H.R.497, the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act, a bill that would lift COVID-19 vaccine mandates for healthcare workers.[52][53]
Crime
[edit]In 2023, Spanberger voted against overturning the District of Columbia's revision of its criminal code, which reduced the maximum penalties for burglary, carjacking, and robbery.[54][55]
Spanberger opposes defunding the police,[56] and has supported bills that would increase the ability of local police departments to hire and train more officers.[57]
Economy
[edit]Although not a member of Congress when it passed, Spanberger criticized the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act supported by President Donald Trump, arguing that its permanent tax cuts for corporations would increase the national debt.[49]
Spanberger has called for the passage of the USMCA trade deal negotiated between the Trump administration, Mexico, and Canada.[58][59]
In May 2020, Spanberger voted against the HEROES Act, a proposed $3 trillion stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[60] She said the bill went "far beyond" pandemic relief and had no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.[61] In November 2020, Spanberger led a bipartisan effort to secure the 340B Drug Pricing Program against changes that would lead to significant increases in prescription medication costs.[62]
Environment
[edit]Spanberger has called climate change "one of the greatest and most imminent threats to our economy, our national security, and our way of life" and said she will "stand up to attacks against science."[49] During a Committee on Foreign Affairs meeting in 2019, Spanberger asked the Trump administration to reverse its isolationist policies, saying, "it's in [the US's] national interest to reinforce our stature as a global leader on international environmental and energy issues."[63]
She described the Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a "bold compilation of ideas meant to address global climate change" but criticized it for allegedly including unrelated policy proposals and not identifying specific resolutions to the problems that it identifies. "Overall I am not a supporter of the Green New Deal", she said.[64]
In February 2023, Spanberger, along with Representatives Randy Weber (R‑TX 14th), Lizzie Fletcher (D‑TX 07th), Nancy Mace (R‑SC 01st), Don Davis (D‑NC 01st), and Anna Eshoo (D‑CA 16th), introduced the Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act, which aims to share federal offshore wind power revenue with states for coastal protection and restoration work. The bill was also introduced in the Senate.[65][66]
Foreign affairs
[edit]In February 2023, during the Russo–Ukrainian War, Spanberger signed a letter advocating for President Biden to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.[67]
Guns
[edit]Spanberger has called for a new version of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004. She favors requiring background checks on private gun sales and supported a ban on bump stocks.[49]
Health care
[edit]Spanberger supports the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).[49] She supports a public option for healthcare via the proposed Medicare-X Choice Act.[60] In November 2020, she described reducing the cost of prescription drugs as "the top priority of families in [her] district".[62]
In January 2020, Spanberger sponsored the Public Disclosure of Drug Discounts Act, which passed the House unanimously. The bill requires pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance companies, to publicize the rebates, discounts, and price concessions they negotiate, via a website hosted by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Spanberger also co-sponsored the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, which grants Medicare Part D the power to negotiate prescription prices directly with drug companies.[68]
Immigration
[edit]Spanberger objected to President Trump's travel bans from certain predominantly Muslim countries and argued that they would aid jihadist propaganda by allowing a portrayal of the United States as an anti-Muslim country. She has voiced her support for stronger border security measures but opposes Trump's proposed wall.[49] She voted for a bill that included funding for border infrastructure, technology at ports of entry and more customs and border patrol agents. She said she does not support "sanctuary cities" but also called the term "a campaign slogan a lot of people get caught up in." She added that it "degrades the value of the conversation if we're not actually talking about what the real concern is."[64] Spanberger called for a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrants who abide by the laws, work, and pay taxes.[49]
Spanberger voted to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be notified when undocumented immigrants attempt to purchase firearms, and voted against the House budget in summer 2019 because it failed to acknowledge the growing national debt.[60]
Ban on stock trading
[edit]Spanberger supports banning members of Congress from trading stocks. She has introduced legislation that would require lawmakers, as well as their spouses and dependent children, to place assets in a blind trust while in office.[69][70]
Abigail Spanberger has always served our communities, our Commonwealth, and our country. Abigail began her career of public service as a federal law enforcement officer — working money laundering cases and tracking narcotics traffickers with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Abigail then joined the CIA as a case officer. She worked undercover her entire time at the Agency — collecting intelligence, managing assets, and overseeing high-profile programs to combat terrorism and keep Americans safe.
In 2014, Abigail brought her family back home to Virginia — where she and her husband grew up — and soon began a career in the private sector. But when she saw division and dysfunction threatening the country she dedicated her life to defend, Abigail decided to run for Congress.
In 2018, Abigail became the first Democrat since 1968 — as well as the first woman ever — to be elected to represent Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House. In Congress, Abigail developed a reputation for finding common ground, getting things done, and never backing down from her principles. The Washington Post editorial board called Abigail a “thoughtful, knowledgeable legislator who has taken the trouble to legislate.”
Abigail led bipartisan efforts that were signed into law to prevent fentanyl overdoses, protect Virginia’s natural resources, and support our Veterans — and she fought to lower prescription drug costs, strengthen workforce training programs for Virginia students, clean up Washington, and protect Virginians’ fundamental rights.
Abigail grew up in Henrico County, Virginia. She attended J.R. Tucker High School’s Spanish immersion program and is a proud graduate of the University of Virginia. After college, Abigail moved to Germany and earned her MBA from a dual-degree German-American program between the GISMA business school and Purdue University. Abigail and her husband Adam are the proud parents of three school-aged daughters.
"The snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, January 27, 2025. Trump voters are finding out how they were lied to and they're outraged. Be nice if, over here on the left, we could be outraged by how our pathetic beggar media (DEMOCRACY NOW, THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, COMMON DREAMS and IN THESE TIMES) could be held accountable for how they ripped up Kmala Harris for three months with lies about how she was no different than Trump -- lies that basically all came from Socialists pretending to be Democrats because if they'd been honest that they weren't Democrats then their commentary would have been taken far less seriously.
This morning DEMOCRACY NOW! discovers the immigration policies. But, first, Gaza. First and always Gaza.
Just three days into President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportation operation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have already arrested a U.S. citizen who served in the military.
About 10 or 12 ICE agents raided a Newark, New Jersey, seafood wholesaler and restaurant on Thursday and arrested three people, including the Puerto Rican warehouse manager, Ocean Food Depot owner Luis Janota told PIX11 news. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
“I asked [the agents] what documentation they were looking for, and they said it was a license or a passport. I thought, who walks around with a passport?” Janota told PIX11, noting that the agents didn’t ask him for his white workers’ documentation.
“One of the guys was a military veteran, and the way he looked to me was because he was Hispanic. He is Puerto Rican and the manager of our warehouse,” he said. “It looked to me like they were specifically going after certain kinds of people—not every kind, because they did not ask me for documentation or my American workers, Portuguese workers, or white workers.”
The ICE officers also didn’t have a warrant, in “plain violation” of the Fourth Amendment, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka said in a statement.
That was last week. This morning, Amy Goodman does her best Christopher Columbus and discovers immigration policies as a news topic. This morning. Last week, Chump's immigration policies went into effect and many Latinos and Latinas took to social media expressing disbelieve with some admitting they had voted for the Convicted Felon and now regretted it. Ava and I noted last night in "Media: How Amy Goodman harmed immigrants and helpe...:"
And how did the program handle immigration from August through the end of October? That would be the general election campaign. How did they handle it?
In August, they did three stories on immigration policy. Two attacked Kamala Harris and the third one attacked Kamala and attacked Chump stressing that they were no different. In September they did no segments on immigration policy. In October?
Two.
They did two stories on immigration policies. One stressed that Kamala was competing with Chump for who could be the worst on immigration. The other was showing some of the documentary SEPARATED -- about what Donald did his first term as president. Neither Amy nor her two guests brought up what Donald was saying he would do if re-elected.
There was no noting, for example, that he was saying he would deport immigrants, round them up and deport them, that he would deport American citizens with them (to keep families together, you understand), that he would end birthright citizenship.
[. .]
It's worth noting that while Amy Goodman could only do five segments on immigration policy (again, two slamming Kamala, two saying Kamala and Chump were the same and one focusing on what Chump did in his first term), she had plenty of time for other topics during that same three month period.
105.
That's the number of segments she did on Gaza during the same three month period, 105. Many of those trashed Kamala. In fact, those same three months featured at least 33 segment with Uncommitted (at least 33, many of her guest didn't disclose on air that they were part of the Uncommitted 'movement' that urged people not to vote for Kamala).
So now Chump's been president for a week. And the biggest issue right now? His attacks on immigrants. Again, in the three month lead up to the election, Amy Goodman did 105 segments on Gaza. She only did five segments on the immigration policies of the two candidates -- four of the five slammed Kamala.
Is it really the Tik-Tok voter's fault?
Or is it the crap ass, beggar (send money, send money!) media?
Immigrants are being targeted and as Ava and I noted at THIRD and as I noted here, you couldn't implement what candidate Chump was proposing without also wrongly picking up Americans because his plan required profiling.
We covered that repeatedly.
But Amy Goodman didn't. She covered Gaza repeatedly -- as though it were the most important issue facing the United States. It wasn't. It isn't.
And she only did five segments in the three month lead up to the election on immigration policies. Two of those segments slammed Kamala by herself. Two more said she was no better than Chump. The fifth segment noted a documentary on what Chump did in his first term as president with regards to immigration but that segment made no attempt to note what he was campaigning on right then. They just treated it as historical from pre-2020.
We warned about it. The ACLU warned about it.
Amy Goodman and DEMOCRACY NOW! didn't have time to even cover the issue.
She couldn't cover it and still attack Kamala constantly. That's what our left did -- our no-Democratic Party left. They worked overtime to trash Kamala, to destroy any enthusiasm over the historic nature of her campaign (which went far beyond race and gender), their goal was to steer voters elsewhere and/or to make them stay home.
Voting can be difficult. You can be stuck standing in a long line, you have to rearrange your schedule. Any roadblocks -- many or major -- are excuses for some to not to vote. So when you spend forever attacking the Democratic Party nominee -- as Amy did, as THE NATION, et al did -- and telling your audience that there's no difference between her and Chump, you are deprssing and suppressing voter turnout.
That's the issue too hot for so many of your brave voices on YOUTUBE and at various websites too touch. But it is reality and until you address this reality, you are welcoming it to destroy the 2028 election.
The 'left' media had Socialists and others passing themselves off as Democrats and ripping into Kamala constantly. Had consumers of THE NATION, DEMOCRACY NOW!, THE PROGRESSIVE, IN THESE TIMES, COMMON DREAMS and others known these critics weren't Democratic Party members, they could have factored that in.
That's another issue the YOUTUBERS don't want to deal with.
Amy and others brought on Socialists and paraded them as Democrats to send the lie that even Democrats didn't approved of Kamala.
When FOX "NEWS" does that to smear the Democratic Party, we all call it out. But when our own 'left' does it, we apparently look the other way.
Continuing to avoid that topic puts every upcoming election t risk.
In the three months leading up to the election, DEMOCRACY NOW! just wasn't into Democrats. In fact, the most extreme guest they brought on was a Socialist whose father deserted the US military and fled to Canada where she was born many years later. And there she was trashing Kamala.
Viewers weren't told, "Hey, Naomi Klein isn't a Democrat." Let alone about her other history.
Yesterday, Miss Sassy appeared on CBS's FACE THE NATION and it did not go well for him. David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports:
CBS host Margaret Brennan challenged J.D. Vance on President Donald Trump's failure to lower prices despite making scores of executive actions during his first days in office.
"You campaigned on lowering prices for consumers," Brennan noted in a Sunday interview on Face the Nation. "We've seen all of these executive orders. Which one lowers prices?"
"Well, first of all, we have done a lot, and there have been a number of executive orders that have caused, already, jobs to start coming back into our country, which is a core part of lowering prices," Vance opined.
Vance argued that Trump's executive actions would "raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need."
"So, grocery prices aren't going to come down?" Brennan pressed.
"No, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time, right?" Vance insisted. "The president has been president for all of five days. I think that in those five days, he's accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years."
Liar. Or fool.
I have no idea which.
When these lies were being repeated during the campaign, we noted here and Trina noted at her site that these were lies. Grocery prices were not coming down. You'd have to be an idiot to believe that grocery prices were coming down. And a lot of voters were idiots. Blame that in part on the media.
The price of milk and the price of eggs may flucuate a bit.
But those aren't "groceries" for most Americans. Groceries are Campbell's soup or this or that frozen meal, canned vegetables, etc. Those prices are not coming down because they never do. Not in American history. No company has ever said to themselves, "We're price gouging and we need to stop." That's as common as them saying, "We need to share these huge profits with the workers." Just doesn't happen.
Now they are elected and they're continuing to lie.
Increased wages wasn't the promise they made. And I doubt any significant wage increase is going to take part via the party that thinks $7.25 an hour is a living wage. Can you even buy a McDonald's meal with that?
Let's check DOOR DASH. You can't buy a lunch meal with that. You can't even get their chicken mcnuggets meal with that. You'd actually have to work two hours to afford a lunch meal -- remember you're taxed on your wages and they also hold out Social Security.
I'm sympathetic to voters for a lot of misinformation. But not on this. Before taxes and withholdings, the GOP has long argued that an American earning $290 a week was making a living wage. $290 a week is what forty hours at $7.25 actually is. That's -- before withholdings -- $1160 a month.
How can anyone live on that?
Currently, the cheapest state for rent is said to be West Virginia . The average rent there for a one bedroom apartment is $831. In terms of cities in other states, Oklahoma City is said to have an average of $850. But the GOP thinks that $1160 a month in wages before taxes and withholdings is a living wage.
So, sorry, I don't feel sorry for voters who fell for the lie that Chump would lower grocery prices. And look at what was said on FACE THE NATION -- again, Miss Sassy doubled down insisting that he and Chump would lower grocery prices.
So if you bought that lie during the campaign, you were an idiot. There's no kind way to put it. You were an idiot and your stupidity hurt us all.
Ruth's written repeatedly about one such idiot. I don't know if her name's Linda or if I'm just using that. I believe Ruth called her Linda but noted in the first post about her that she was using Linda but it wasn't the woman's real first name.
Linda voted for Chump. And hectored Ruth for supporting Kamala. She bought into the grocery costs being lowered lie. And costs matter to Linda because she's a fifty year old woman living at home with her parents. She's a lazy ass who hasn't worked since 2020. She's a fat ass of over four hundred pounds who has not used her time away from working to walk or do anything to lose weight which is why she's now nearing 500 pounds. Guess what? Her kidneys can't keep up with it. She now tries to use dialysis as her excuse not to work. Oh, I'm sorry, did I not note that the free loader free loads off her parents and off us -- the US taxpayer. We cover her health insurance and we cover her lost wages.
In return, the gets fatter and fatter, buys a ton of Miss Kitty crap and frets what happens when her parents die -- one has cancer, the other just had a stroke and don't, for one minute, think that means Princess gets up off her lazy ass and does a damn thing to help her parents.
When they pass, they've explained to her that whatever they have will be split three ways -- they have Linda and two other daughters.
This is your MAGA voter. Fat and lazy.
She could work from home. Before she quit her job, she was working from home. (Medical coder.)
She just takes her parents money and our money and lays in her bed all day watching true crime TV.
There are people with real disabilites and then there are the White MAGA who work the system. Leeches on the people around them and leeches on the American people.
These are also the same people who attack others on assistance and try to paint it as some scheme by Black people. These are the same people from states that pay far less in taxes than my state (California) does. But they leave in those fact-free zones and lie to themselves and others.
So, no, if you thought Chump was going to lower grocery prices, I really don't have sympathy for you because you feel for something that never happens in this country. That's how stupid you were. The odds were not in your favor because it never happened before.
Lastly, those Americans who just couldn't vote for Kamala because of Gaza, how's that working out? and CNN) report:
President Donald Trump indicated Saturday that he had spoken with the king of Jordan about potentially building housing and moving more than 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, a remarkable proposal from a sitting US president.
Trump said he asked Jordan’s Abdullah II, a key US partner in the region, to take in more Palestinians in a Saturday phone call.
“I said to him that I’d love you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
[. . .]
Trump, who noted there have been centuries-long conflicts in the region, said Saturday, “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”
He continued: “I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.”
The president, a former property developer, said the potential housing “could be temporary” or “could be long term.”
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