Congressional Progressive Caucus is tired of being ignored

This is a good sign:

Over the past several months, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has begun formalizing ties to a number of outside groups and organizing internally to bring more pressure to bear on leadership.

“We’ve always been a great group, but in my opinion we’ve not punched above our weight; we’ve punched below,” Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chairman of the CPC, said in an interview last week.

It has seemed at times as though the liberals in the Democratic party were expected to stand in the corner and be quite while the "adults" worked things out. So it's encouraging to see an effort to change this dynamic.

The CPC held its first retreat earlier this year and released a budget proposal in April, which was drafted with the help of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The caucus also recently hired a new executive director, Brad Bauman, whom aides describe as an aggressive and press-savvy strategist. Staff to Members within the caucus also are working together more closely, aides said.

Some dude to challenge Keith Ellison

Because he represents what is easily the safest house district in the entire state Keith Ellison isn't going to attract any top tier Republican challengers. Instead he faces a series of some dudes and wackos who have little hope of winning.

Chris Fields, who announced his campaign last Wednesday, appears to fall into the some dude column. Even if he isn't stark raving mad though, he's still capable of regurgitating the standard GOP talking points, from his website:

Congressman Keith Ellison supports and represents economic policies that have hurt the people of our district and country. We have watched each day as factories close and our jobs are being exported overseas. We are told we aren’t competitive and the price of labor is too high. Policies he has defended have made it more attractive for our businesses to invest elsewhere.

When he says the price of labor is too high, what Chris Fields means is that those of us in the fifth district make too much damn money. If only we would accept lower wages, businesses would want to invest here!

Welcome to the race Chris, your challenge is to get more than 25% of the vote, something no one else has been able to do against Keith Ellison in the 5th district. I'd say good luck, but I wouldn't really mean it so what's the point.

Gretchen Carlson is furious that Keith Ellison supports gender equality

Gretchen Carlson is the clueless co-host of the friendly sounding "Fox and Friends" morning show and she is pissed off. At who? About what? Well, Keith Ellison, of course, for supporting women's rights:

I recently hosted a forum in my district called Women's Rights in the Era of Extremism. And this is an era of extremism. These same people who want to shrink government till you can drown it in a bathtub also want mom to get back in the kitchen and take her shoes off and get pregnant. You understand? They are offended by strong, powerful women. And here's the sad part -- some of them are women themselves. Michele Bachmann being an example. So let's stand up -- let's stand up for women's rights, and brothers don't leave the sisters out there. We gotta be in this thing together.

My quoting of this passage uttered by Congressman Ellison probably just made Gretchen's head explode again like it exploded earlier today:

Let me just say this, as a strong, powerful woman, that is offensive. That is offensive. How dare you say that about any woman? You don't know what she wants. You don't know that she thinks it's OK to be back in the kitchen and pregnant. Are you kidding me? She wouldn't be running for president unless she wasn't a strong, powerful woman. She wouldn't be getting those people out on the sidelines there of all those streets in Iowa and every other state she goes to unless she was a strong, powerful woman. Just because she has a differing point of view from other people does not mean that she's not a strong, powerful woman.

Keith Ellison rejects including Social Security in debt ceiling negotiations

This is good to hear:

Social Security actually is not contributing to the deficit. Social Security loans us money. So at the end of the day, all this discussion about how we’re going to cut Social Security is very distressing to me because Social Security isn’t the problem…This is inequitable and regressive…We’re asking the poorest Americans to sacrifice. When are the wealthiest Americans going to step up and do the patriotic thing, which is to contribute to deal with this budget deficit.

The simple fact is that there is no Social Security crisis. The whole idea of the program being in crisis is manufactured for this very reason, to justify changing a popular and successful program that nonetheless conservatives hate.

Congressional Democrats need to stand firm and not allow Social Security, along with Medicare and Medicaid, to become part of the deficit negotiations. As Nate Silver pointed out yesterday, for any debt ceiling deal to happen, there will almost certainly need to be support from the House Progressive Caucus.

Keith Ellison to be challenged again by racist

Lynne Torgerson has an announcement:

I, Lynne Torgerson, am running for Congress in Minnesota, against radical Islamist Keith Ellison. Keith Ellison fails to oppose banning Islamic Sharia law in the United States. He accuses people of trying to ban it as ‘conspiratorilists.’ Keith Ellison also fails to support that the United States Constitution should be supreme over Islamic Sharia law.

Sharia is taking over America, but Lynne Torgerson will stop it by losing to Keith Ellison by 70 points. Or something.

But that's not all:

Considering herself a "stateswoman" rather than a "politician," Torgerson’s platform has chiefly been comprised of her suspicion of Islam.

She considers herself a stateswoman though, so there's that. There's also this:

Torgerson insists that she is "very tolerant," blaming Muslims for failing "to become tolerant of us." Yet, when the Independent Party explained to her "that a winning campaign would need to incorporate a platform of equality and inclusion," she reportedly replied, to the effect, "Well I don’t support those ideas."

Oh she's a stateswoman alright, if the state you're talking about is the Tea Party Nation.

Here's a link to contribute to Keith.