As Israel unveils its final genocide push, and mass death from starvation looms in Gaza, western media and politicians are tentatively starting to speak up.

Who could have imagined 19 months ago that it would take more than a year and a half of Israel slaughtering and starving Gaza’s children for the first cracks to appear in what has been a rock-solid wall of support for Israel from western establishments.

Finally, something looks like it may be about to give.

The British establishment’s financial daily, the Financial Times, was first to break ranks last week to condemn “the West’s shameful silence” in the face of Israel’s murderous assault on the tiny enclave.

In an editorial – effectively the paper’s voice – the FT accused the United States and Europe of being increasingly “complicit” as Israel made Gaza “uninhabitable”, an allusion to genocide, and noted that the goal was to “drive Palestinians from their land”, an allusion to ethnic cleansing.

Of course, both of these grave crimes by Israel have been evidently true not only since Hamas’ violent, single-day breakout from Gaza on 7 October 2023, but for decades.

So parlous is the state of western reporting, from a media no less complicit than the governments berated by the FT, that we need to seize on any small signs of progress.

Next, the Economist chimed in, warning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers were driven by a “dream of emptying Gaza and rebuilding Jewish settlements there”.

At the weekend, the Independent decided the “deafening silence on Gaza” had to end. It was “time for the world to wake up to what is happening and to demand an end to the suffering of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave.”

Actually much of the world woke up many, many months ago. It has been the western press corps and western politicians slumbering through the past 19 months of genocide.

Then on Monday, the supposedly liberal Guardian voiced in its own editorial a fear that Israel is committing “genocide”, though it only dared do so by framing the accusation as a question.

It wrote of Israel: “Now it plans a Gaza without Palestinians. What is this, if not genocidal? When will the US and its allies act to stop the horror, if not now?”

The paper could more properly have asked a different question: Why have Israel’s western allies – as well as media like the Guardian and FT – waited 19 months to speak up against the horror?

And, predictably bringing up the rear, was the BBC. On Wednesday, the BBC Radio’s PM programme chose to give top billing to testimony from Tom Fletcher, the United Nation’s humanitarian affairs chief, to the Security Council. Presenter Evan Davis said the BBC had decided to “do something a little unusual”.

Unusual indeed. It played Fletcher’s speech in full – all 12 and a half minutes of it. That included Fletcher’s comment: “For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now? Will you act – decisively – to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?”

We had gone in less than a week from the word “genocide” being taboo in relation to Gaza to it becoming almost mainstream.

Growing cracks

Cracks are evident in the British parliament too. Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP and life-long Israel supporter, stood up from the back benches to admit he had been wrong about Israel, and condemned it “for what it is doing to the Palestinian people”.

He was one of more than a dozen Tory MPs and peers in the House of Lords, all formerly staunch defenders of Israel, who urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to immediately recognise a Palestinian state.

Their move followed an open letter published by 36 members of the Board of Deputies, a 300-member body that claims to represent British Jews, dissenting from its continuing support for the slaughter. The letter warned: “Israel’s soul is being ripped out.”

Pritchard told fellow MPs it was time to “stand up for humanity, for us being on the right side of history, for having the moral courage to lead.”

Sadly, there is no sign of that yet. Research published last week, based on Israeli tax authority data, showed Starmer’s government has been lying even about the highly limited restrictions on arms sales to Israel it claimed to have imposed last year.

Despite an ostensible ban on shipments of weapons that could be used in Gaza, Britain has covertly exported more than 8,500 separate munitions to Israel since the ban.

This week more details emerged. According to figures published by The National, the current government exported more weapons to Israel in the final three months of last year, after the ban came into effect, than the previous Conservative government did through the whole of 2020 to 2023.

So shameful is the UK’s support for Israel in the midst of what the International Court of Justice – the World Court – has described as a “plausible genocide” that Starmer’s government needs to pretend it is doing something, even as it actually continues to arm that genocide.

More than 40 MPs wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy last week calling for him to respond to allegations that he had misled the public and parliament. “The public deserves to know the full scale of the UK’s complicity in crimes against humanity,” they wrote.

There are growing rumblings elsewhere. This week France’s President Emmanuel Macron called Israel’s complete blockade on aid into Gaza “shameful and unacceptable”. He added: “My job is to do everything I can to make it stop.”

“Everything” seemed to amount to nothing more than mooting possible economic sanctions.

Still, the rhetorical shift was striking. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, similarly denounced the blockade, calling it “unjustifiable”. She added: “I have always recalled the urgency of finding a way to end the hostilities and respect international law and international humanitarian law.”

“International law”? Where has that been for the past 19 months?

There was a similar change of priorities across the Atlantic. Democratic Senator Chris van Hollen, for example, recently dared to call Israel’s actions in Gaza “ethnic cleansing”.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, a bellwether of the Beltway consensus, gave Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Sharren Haskel, an unusually tough grilling. Amanpour all but accused her of lying about Israel starving children.

Meanwhile, Josep Borrell, the recently departed head of European Union foreign policy, broke another taboo last week by directly accusing Israel of preparing a genocide in Gaza.

“Seldom have I heard the leader of a state so clearly outline a plan that fits the legal definition of genocide,” he said, adding: “We’re facing the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”

Borrell, of course, has no influence over EU policy at this point.

A death camp

This is all painfully slow progress, but it does suggest that a tipping point may be near.

If so, there are several reasons. One – the most evident in the mix – is US President Donald Trump.

It was easier for the Guardian, the FT and old-school Tory MPs to watch the extermination of Gaza’s Palestinians in silence when it was kindly Uncle Joe Biden and the US military industrial complex behind it.

Unlike his predecessor, Trump too often forgets the bit where he is supposed to put a gloss on Israeli crimes, or distance the US from them, even as Washington ships the weapons to carry out those crimes.

But also, there are plenty of indications that Trump – with his constant craving to be seen as the top dog – is increasingly annoyed at being publicly outfoxed by Netanyahu.

This week, as Trump headed to the Middle East, his administration secured the release of Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, the last living US citizen in captivity in Gaza, by bypassing Israel and negotiating directly with Hamas.

In his comments on the release, Trump insisted it was time to “put an end to this very brutal war” – a remark he had very obviously not coordinated with Netanyahu.

Notably, Israel is not on Trump’s Middle East schedule.

Right now seems a relatively safe moment to adopt a more critical stance towards Israel, as presumably the FT and Guardian appreciate.

Then there is the fact that Israel’s genocide is reaching its endpoint. No food, water or medicines have entered Gaza for more than two months. Everyone is malnourished. It is unclear, given Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health system, how many have already died from hunger.

But the pictures of skin-and-bones children emerging from Gaza are uncomfortably reminiscent of 80-year-old images of skeletal Jewish children imprisoned in Nazi camps.

It is a reminder that Gaza – strictly blockaded by Israel for 16 years before Hamas’ 7 October 2023 breakout – has been transformed over the past 19 months from a concentration camp into a death camp.

Parts of the media and political class know mass death in Gaza cannot be obscured for much longer, not even after Israel has barred foreign journalists from the enclave and murdered most of the Palestinian journalists trying to record the genocide.

Cynical political and media actors are trying to get in their excuses before it is too late to show remorse.

The ‘Gaza war’ myth

And finally there is the fact that Israel has declared its readiness to take hands-on responsibility for the extermination in Gaza by, in its words, “capturing” the tiny territory.

The long-anticipated “day after” looks like it is about to arrive.

For 20 years, Israel and western capitals have conspired in the lie that Gaza’s occupation ended in 2005, when Israel’s then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, pulled out a few thousand Jewish settlers and withdrew Israeli soldiers to a highly fortified perimeter encaging the enclave.

In a ruling last year, the World Court gave this claim short shrift, emphasising that Gaza, as well as the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, had never stopped being under Israeli occupation, and that the occupation must end immediately.

The truth is that, even before the 2023 Hamas attacks, Israel had been besieging Gaza by land, sea and air for many, many years. Nothing – people or trade – went in or out without the Israeli military’s say-so.

Israeli officials instituted a secret policy of putting the population there on a strict “diet” – a war crime then as now – one that ensured most of Gaza’s young became progressively more malnourished.

Drones whined constantly overhead, as they do now, watching the population from the skies 24 hours a day and occasionally raining down death. Fishermen were shot and their boats sunk for trying to fish their own waters. Farmers’ crops were destroyed by herbicides sprayed from Israeli planes.

And when the mood took it, Israel sent in fighter jets to bomb the enclave or sent soldiers in on military operations, killing hundreds of civilians at a time.

When Palestinians in Gaza went out week after week to stage protests close to the perimeter fence of their concentration camp, Israeli snipers shot them, killing some 200 and crippling many thousands more.

Yet, despite all this, Israel and western capitals insisted on the story that Hamas “ruled” Gaza, and that it alone was responsible for what went on there.

That fiction was very important to the western powers. It allowed Israel to evade accountability for the crimes against humanity committed in Gaza over the past two decades – and it allowed the West to avoid complicity charges for arming the criminals.

Instead, the political and media class perpetuated the myth that Israel was engaged in a “conflict” with Hamas – as well as intermittent “wars” in Gaza – even as Israel’s own military termed its operations to destroy whole neighbourhoods and kill their residents “mowing the lawn”.

Israel, of course, viewed Gaza as its lawn to mow. And that is precisely because it never stopped occupying the enclave.

Even today western media outlets collude in the fiction that Gaza is free from Israeli occupation by casting the slaughter there – and the starvation of the population – as a “war”.

Loss of cover story

But the “day after” – signalled by Israel’s promised “capture” and “reoccupation” of Gaza – brings a conundrum for Israel and its western sponsors.

Till now Israel’s every atrocity has been justified by Hamas’ violent breakout on 7 October 2023.

Israel and its supporters have insisted that Hamas must return the Israelis it took captive before there can be some undefined “peace”. At the same time, Israel has also maintained that Gaza must be destroyed at all costs to root out Hamas and eliminate it.

These two goals never looked consistent – not least because the more Palestinian civilians Israel killed “rooting out” Hamas, the more young men Hamas recruited seeking vengeance.

The constant stream of genocidal rhetoric from Israeli leaders made clear that they believed there were no civilians in Gaza – no “uninvolved” – and that the enclave should be levelled and the population treated like “human animals”, punished with “no food, water or fuel”.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reiterated that approach last week, vowing that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” and that its people would be ethnically cleansed – or, as he put it, forced to “leave in great numbers to third countries”.

Israeli officials have echoed him, threatening to “flatten” Gaza if the hostages are not released. But in truth, the captives held by Hamas are just a convenient pretext.

Smotrich was more honest in observing that the hostages’ release was “not the most important thing”. His view is apparently shared by the Israeli military, which has reportedly put that aim last in a list of six “war” objectives.

More important to the military are “operational control” of Gaza, “demilitarization of the territory” and “concentration and movement of the population”.

With Israel about to be indisputably, visibly in direct charge of Gaza again – with the cover stories stripped away of a “war”, of the need to eliminate of Hamas, of civilian casualties as “collateral damage” – Israel’s responsibility for the genocide will be incontestable too, as will the West’s active collusion.

That was why more than 250 former officials with Mossad, Israel’s spy agency – including three of its former heads – signed a letter this week decrying Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire in early March and its return to “war”.

The letter called Israel’s official objectives “unattainable”.

Similarly, the Israeli media reports large numbers of Israel’s military reservists are no longer showing up when called for a return to duty in Gaza.

Ethnic cleansing

Israel’s western patrons must now grapple with Israel’s “plan” for the ruined territory. Its outline has been coming more sharply into focus in recent days.

In January Israel formally outlawed the United Nations refugee agency UNRWA that feeds and cares for the large proportion of the Palestinian population driven off their historic lands by Israel in earlier phases of its decades-long colonisation of historic Palestine.

Gaza is packed with such refugees – the outcome of Israel’s biggest ethnic cleansing programme in 1948, at its creation as a “Jewish state”.

Removing UNRWA had been a long-held ambition, a move by Israel designed to help rid it of the yoke of aid agencies that have been caring for Palestinians – and thereby helping them to resist Israel’s efforts at ethnic cleansing – as well as monitoring Israel’s adherence, or rather lack of it, to international law.

For the ethnic cleansing and genocide programmes in Gaza to be completed, Israel has needed to produce an alternative system to UNRWA’s.

Last week, it approved a scheme in which it intends to use private contractors, not the UN, to deliver small quantities of food and water to Palestinians. Israel will allow in 60 trucks a day – barely a tenth of the absolute minimum required, according to the UN.

There are several catches. To stand any hope of qualifying for this very limited aid, Palestinians will need to collect it from military distribution points located in a small area at the southern tip of the Gaza strip.

In other words, some two million Palestinians will have to crowd into a location that has no chance of accommodating them all, and even then will have only a tenth of the aid they need.

They will have to relocate too without any guarantee from Israel that it won’t continue bombing the “humanitarian zones” they have been herded into.

These military distribution zones just so happen to be right next to Gaza’s sole, short border with Egypt – exactly where Israel has been seeking to drive the Palestinians over the past 19 months in the hope of forcing Egypt to open the border so the people of Gaza can be ethnically cleansed into Sinai.

Under Israel’s scheme, Palestinians will be screened in these military hubs using biometric data before they stand any hope of receiving minimum calorie-controlled handouts of food.

Once inside the hubs, they can be arrested and shipped off to one of Israel’s torture camps.

Just last week Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published testimony from an Israeli soldier turned whistleblower – confirming accounts from doctors and other guards – that torture and abuse are rife against Palestinians, including civilians, at Sde Teiman, the most notorious of the camps.

War on aid

Last Friday, shortly after Israel announced its “aid” plan, it fired a missile into an UNRWA centre in Jabaliya camp, destroying its food distribution centre and warehouse.

Then on Saturday, Israel bombed tents used for preparing food in Khan Younis and Gaza City. It has been targeting charity kitchens and bakeries to close them down, in an echo of its campaign of destruction against Gaza’s hospitals and health system.

In recent days, a third of UN-supported community kitchens – the population’s last life line – have closed because their stores of food are depleted, as is their access to fuel.

According to the UN agency OCHA, that number is rising “by the day”, leading to “widespread” hunger.

The UN reported this week that nearly half a million people in Gaza – a fifth of the population – faced “catastrophic hunger”.

Predictably, Israel and its ghoulish apologists are making light of this sea of immense suffering. Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, argued that critics were unfairly condemning Israel for starving Gaza’s population, and ignoring the health benefits of reducing “obesity” among Palestinians.

In a joint statement last week, 15 UN agencies and more than 200 charities and humanitarian groups denounced Israel’s “aid” plan. The UN children’s fund UNICEF warned that Israel was forcing Palestinians to choose between “displacement and death”.

But worse, Israel is setting up its stall once again to turn reality on its head.

Those Palestinians who refuse to cooperate with its “aid” plan will be blamed for their own starvation. And international agencies who refuse to go along with Israeli criminality will be smeared both as “antisemitic” and as responsible for the mounting toll of starvation on Gaza’s population.

There is a way to stop these crimes degenerating further. But it will require western politicians and journalists to find far more courage than they have dared muster so far. It will need more than rhetorical flourishes. It will need more than public handwringing.

Are they capable of more? Don’t hold your breath.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

We speak with former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer Nina Turner about how the 2024 election has left her and many voters “frustrated” and “exhausted.” While she is not endorsing a candidate, she denounces the white supremacist rhetoric of the Trump campaign, which she notes is “as American as apple pie.” Turner pushes back on comparisons of the Trump movement to the rise of Nazi Germany, which she argues threaten to whitewash the United States’ own anti-democratic history. “The unfulfilled promises of this country, the undealt-with anti-Blackness and other types of racism and bigotry have not been dealt with sufficiently,” she explains. “It is us, and we need to deal with it and not push it off on some other nation.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Prem Thakker.

Voters in Ohio overwhelmingly rejected a Republican attempt to restrict abortion rights on Tuesday. The supermajority of Republicans in the Ohio Legislature had pushed for a ballot initiative that would have made it harder to amend the state constitution ahead of the November election, when voters will decide if the right to an abortion should be enshrined in the Ohio Constitution. A majority of Ohio voters support the right to abortion. “The voters of the state of Ohio did not buy what the Republicans were selling,” says former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, now a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, who notes the victory also prevents Republicans from restricting support for other popular measures that could become ballot initiatives, such as raising the minimum wage.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post Ode to Tina Turner: Is Citizenship Just “a Second-Hand Emotion”? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.

Six people were killed and at least two dozen injured when a rooftop gunman armed with a high-powered rifle attacked a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park on Monday morning. The police eventually arrested Robert Crimo III, a 22-year-old white resident of Highland Park and aspiring musician, whose music videos depicted mass murder and school shootings. We speak with Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator and national co-chair of the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, who says mass shootings in the U.S. are partly fueled by racism, sexism and “toxic masculinity” that equates gun ownership with manhood. “We have neglected to deal with a violent past and a violent present in the United States of America,” says Turner.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We look at the Democratic Party’s opposition to progressive challengers such as Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator who earlier this month lost her congressional primary challenge after facing massive spending and attacks by super PACs. Turner says the corporate wing of the Democratic Party seeks to consolidate the existing leadership’s power while shutting down champions of progressive policies like Medicare for All. “The Democratic Party as a whole has to make a decision: Is it the party of the corporatists, or is it the party of the people?” says Turner.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Trump-backed candidate J.D. Vance won the Ohio Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, while former Bernie Sanders presidential campaign co-chair Nina Turner lost the Democratic primary election for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District after massive outside spending and attacks by super PACs. We speak with Andrew Perez of The Lever about what Ohio’s elections mean for the future of the Democratic Party if it actively suppresses candidates like Turner who are critical of the establishment. Given that a majority Democratic Congress and sitting Democratic president have not delivered on campaign promises such as canceling student debt, protecting Roe v. Wade and passing Build Back Better, the party will be in jeopardy in the upcoming elections, says Perez.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Rep. Shontel Brown, an establishment incumbent whose campaign was boosted by torrents of super PAC spending, handily defeated progressive champion Nina Turner on Tuesday in the Democratic primary for Ohio's 11th Congressional District.

Outside organizations spent heavily on Brown's behalf in the U.S. House race, a rematch of a heated special election that drew national attention less than a year ago. Tuesday's contest wasn't nearly as close as last year's: Brown prevailed this time around with just over 66% of the vote.

"This is another hard-fought victory," Brown said in a speech Tuesday night. "I'm going to continue to show up for you."

Turner's campaign, endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), decried the influence of corporate money on the race, one of several contests nationwide in which special interests are spending heavily against progressive contenders.

"The reason special interests are committed to this election is because Shontel Brown relies on their money to stay in power," Kara Turrentine, Turner's campaign manager, said in a statement Tuesday.

Cleveland.com reported that the Democratic Majority for Israel's (DMFI) political action committee—which is bankrolled by an oil and gas heir—"spent more than $1 million to help Brown during this election, on top of [the] $2 million it spent during last year's special election."

Brown's campaign was also bolstered by more than $1 million in spending from Protect Our Future, a super PAC launched this year with the support of cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

Additionally, as The Intercept's Akela Lacy noted late Tuesday, "United Democracy Project, an AIPAC political action committee, spent more than $280,000 on the race last month, including more than $198,800 on ads attacking Turner."

"How pathetic!" Sanders tweeted earlier this week. "AIPAC and their billionaire friends are spending some $10 million to defeat Nina Turner, Summer Lee, Nida Allam, and Jessica Cisneros. Why are they so afraid of strong, progressive women of color fighting for the working class?"

While Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Turner in both the special election and Tuesday's rematch, other high-profile progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups stayed on the sidelines in the latter contest.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, endorsed Turner last year, as did the CPC's campaign arm—but the CPC's PAC supported Brown in the rematch, sparking backlash from progressives. Brown is a member of both the CPC and the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition.

"As a rule, [the CPC PAC] does not back primary challenges to its existing members of the caucus, which at 98 current members, including Brown, makes the body a formidable voting bloc," Politico reported Tuesday. "Jayapal... said there is a review underway for how the group considers endorsements, including a minimum length of service before determining if one is in good standing and signing onto a certain number of bills the group supports."

Justice Democrats, meanwhile, did not get involved in the rematch after endorsing Turner and raising money for her special election campaign last year.

"Nina is a giant in the progressive movement and we're proud to have gone all in for her campaign last year," the group said in a statement to The Intercept. "The reality is our organization has to be strategic about our priorities as we are getting massively outgunned by Republican donors funneling millions to super PACs like AIPAC and DMFI against our existing candidates."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Rep. Shontel Brown, an establishment incumbent whose campaign was boosted by torrents of super PAC spending, handily defeated progressive champion Nina Turner on Tuesday in the Democratic primary for Ohio's 11th Congressional District.

Outside organizations spent heavily on Brown's behalf in the U.S. House race, a rematch of a heated special election that drew national attention less than a year ago. Tuesday's contest wasn't nearly as close as last year's: Brown prevailed this time around with just over 66% of the vote.

"This is another hard-fought victory," Brown said in a speech Tuesday night. "I'm going to continue to show up for you."

Turner's campaign, endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), decried the influence of corporate money on the race, one of several contests nationwide in which special interests are spending heavily against progressive contenders.

"The reason special interests are committed to this election is because Shontel Brown relies on their money to stay in power," Kara Turrentine, Turner's campaign manager, said in a statement Tuesday.

Cleveland.com reported that the Democratic Majority for Israel's (DMFI) political action committee—which is bankrolled by an oil and gas heir—"spent more than $1 million to help Brown during this election, on top of [the] $2 million it spent during last year's special election."

Brown's campaign was also bolstered by more than $1 million in spending from Protect Our Future, a super PAC launched this year with the support of cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

Additionally, as The Intercept's Akela Lacy noted late Tuesday, "United Democracy Project, an AIPAC political action committee, spent more than $280,000 on the race last month, including more than $198,800 on ads attacking Turner."

"How pathetic!" Sanders tweeted earlier this week. "AIPAC and their billionaire friends are spending some $10 million to defeat Nina Turner, Summer Lee, Nida Allam, and Jessica Cisneros. Why are they so afraid of strong, progressive women of color fighting for the working class?"

While Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Turner in both the special election and Tuesday's rematch, other high-profile progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups stayed on the sidelines in the latter contest.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, endorsed Turner last year, as did the CPC's campaign arm—but the CPC's PAC supported Brown in the rematch, sparking backlash from progressives. Brown is a member of both the CPC and the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition.

"As a rule, [the CPC PAC] does not back primary challenges to its existing members of the caucus, which at 98 current members, including Brown, makes the body a formidable voting bloc," Politico reported Tuesday. "Jayapal... said there is a review underway for how the group considers endorsements, including a minimum length of service before determining if one is in good standing and signing onto a certain number of bills the group supports."

Justice Democrats, meanwhile, did not get involved in the rematch after endorsing Turner and raising money for her special election campaign last year.

"Nina is a giant in the progressive movement and we're proud to have gone all in for her campaign last year," the group said in a statement to The Intercept. "The reality is our organization has to be strategic about our priorities as we are getting massively outgunned by Republican donors funneling millions to super PACs like AIPAC and DMFI against our existing candidates."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Justice Democrats, the group that has launched several progressive members of Congress, said it’s being “massively outgunned” by Republican donors giving millions to attack progressive candidates in several competitive races. One of those was Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Ohio’s 11th District, which incumbent Rep. Shontel Brown is now poised to win. The defeat of Nina Turner, the former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, deals a repetitive blow to progressives who backed her run — the second Turner waged against Brown in nine months.

“Nina is a giant in the progressive movement and we’re proud to have gone all in for her campaign last year,” Justice Democrats said in a statement. “The reality is our organization has to be strategic about our priorities as we are getting massively outgunned by Republican donors funneling millions to SuperPACs like AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and DMFI [Democratic Majority for Israel] against our existing candidates.”

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Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, is seen in the U.S. Capitol after a group photo with the Congressional Black Caucus on April 6, 2022.

Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday made an 11th-hour endorsement of Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner, calling the former state senator and Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign co-chair a "powerful voice" for working people and progressive policies.

"Nina is exactly the kind of progressive leader we need more of in Congress."

"Nina is exactly the kind of progressive leader we need more of in Congress," Ocasio-Cortez's team wrote in a fundraising email sent on the eve of Tuesday's primary and first reported by The New York Times. "She has spent her entire career advocating for working people—on the Cleveland City Council, in the Ohio state Senate, and on Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns."

"She will be a powerful voice for policies that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people across this country—like Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, and a Green New Deal," the email added. "We need her alongside Alexandria in Congress in the fight for racial, economic, social, and environmental justice."

Turner is running in Ohio's 11th Congressional District Democratic primary for the second straight time. She lost last August to the current incumbent, Rep. Shontel Brown, in a special election to fill the House seat vacated by former Rep. Marcia Fudge's appointment as U.S. secretary of housing and urban development.

Last month, the Congressional Progressive Caucus—which counts both Brown and Ocasio-Cortez among its members—controversially endorsed the incumbent despite her strong support from corporate lobbyists, conservative Democrats, and a pro-Israel super PAC funded by a fossil fuel billionaire.

President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and other centrist and right-wing Democrats have also endorsed Brown.

In an April 26 Washington Post op-ed, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, called Brown "a standard-issue establishment Democrat backed by the corporate-money wing of the Democratic Party that operates through outfits such as the D.C.-based think tank Third Way and various dark-money PACs."

Turner's endorsements include Sanders, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, various progressive organizations including Our Revolution—the Sanders-affiliated political action group she formerly chaired—and the editorial board of Ohio's largest newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Some progressives expressed dismay over the timing of Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement, with political commentator Krystal Ball tweeting, "Better later than never I guess?"

"At least AOC checked the box unlike the others," she added, referring to the conspicuous absence of progressive endorsements for Turner this time around. "But what will an endorsement 12 hours before Election Day voting starts actually accomplish? The abandonment of Nina by 'progressives' is an incredible betrayal."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Last August, on the day of the special election primary between Nina Turner and Shontel Brown, Common Dreams published my article "Nina Turner: A Champion of the People Redeeming Our Frayed Democracy." The piece focused on two things: 1. Why Nina Turner would be a brilliant addition to the US Congress, both as a Representative for the people of Northeast Ohio and for the national progressive movement; and 2. The unique dynamics of Ohio's 11th District. I encourage people to read (or re-read) that article. It remains just as relevant nine months later.

In this article—one the eve of the rematch between Turner and Brown in Ohio—I will focus on three things: why a win by Nina Turner will lift the national progressive movement like no other result in 2022; why it will represent a virtually-unprecedented triumph of honest democracy over the influence of Big Money; and why, contrary to what the Democratic Party establishment will tell you, a Nina Turner victory can reverse the party's fortune and set it on a pathway to unprecedented success this year and beyond. I will close out the article with some observations on Cleveland, the city I am visiting this week, and my sense of Turner's unwavering commitment to the people here.

A victory by Turner on Tuesday will have an outsized impact on the fate of progressive candidates across the entire midterm election cycle. The primary season begins in earnest on Tuesday and given Turner's national celebrity status, a dramatic, comeback win by her will instantly alter the national political narrative. The showdown between progressives and moderates for control of the Democratic Party will take center stage for the next four months.

A win by Nina—the very thing much of the Democratic Party establishment seems dead set against—may be the only thing that can save the party from what seems ever-more likely: a crushing defeat at the midterms.

This will be a tremendous boon to great progressive candidates across the country such as Summer Lee, Jamie McLoud-Skinner, Doyle Canning, Vincent Fort, Jessica Cisneros, Jasmine Crockett, Nida Allam, and Erica Smith—and these eight are just some of the viable progressive champions with primaries this month, there are many more to come. Nothing will improve their chances like a victory by Nina on Tuesday because the vast majority of Democratic Party voters support progressive policies, but most progressive candidates struggle to reach the electorate in comparison to their better funded pro-corporate, "moderate" opponents. A victory by Turner will alert the entire country that something special is happening in the Democratic Party: the rise of the progressives. This will bring local progressive candidates to the attention of their voters; and confidence will grow inside these campaigns.

After all, Nina will have overcome an avalanche of big money dropped into her district by reactionary forces to defeat her. As we all know, this is the favored tactic of the contemporary ruling class to pervert American democracy—for the simple reason that it almost-always works. Just as it did last August when Shontel Brown had no chance whatsoever to compete with Nina Turner until over two million dollars of Super PAC money flooded the airwaves with deceitful hit pieces. An even greater tranche of money is pouring in now.

This is as serious a betrayal of American democracy as anything perpetrated by Donald Trump and his minions. How so? In our two-party system we simply need one of the parties to be an honest adversary. The Democratic Party presents itself as the protector of democracy against the right-wing. Therefore, when big money directly interferes with, and corrupts the outcome of, Democratic primaries, all promise seems lost.

There's only one way to overcome this. Make the voting public aware of the corruption through an exemplary grassroots campaign that champions progressive policies. A victory by Nina on Tuesday will be a beacon in this regard, illuminating what's at stake in the 2022 primaries. A triumph for the people over the plutocrats.

Paradoxically, a win by Nina—the very thing much of the Democratic Party establishment seems dead set against—may be the only thing that can save the party from what seems ever-more likely: a crushing defeat at the midterms.

To avoid such a fate, the Democrats cannot afford low turnout among any of the major constituencies in the Democratic coalition. Currently, polls show that young voters' enthusiasm for the Democrats is starting to wane—and younger voters, the most progressive group of Democratic voters, overwhelmingly supported the Democrats in 2020. They would have lost in 2020 without them, and they will do so in 2022.

Progressives are among the most passionate Democratic voters. Their enthusiasm is contagious. In contrast, a cynical, alienated base spells doom. Given, the consistent animosity shown to progressives by the Democratic Party establishment—and the general sense that the establishment, at most, gives lip service to the progressive agenda—the only way that progressives would approach the November election with enthusiasm, is if progressive challengers like Turner are on the ballot and, therefore, that the progressive movement can drive theparty's agenda if they maintain majorities in both Houses of Congress.

If Turner and other progressives are not on the ballot in the fall, it will be a self-inflicted compound wound. Resentment for the underhanded treatment of progressives like Nina during the primary season will keep legions of progressives from voting. Youth turnout is fickle in the best of circumstances, but the predictable scenario in the fall of 2022 is catastrophic for Democrats as young political influencers (Brianna Joy Gray, Krystal Ball, et al) are already laying the groundwork for widespread abandonment of the party by progressives and youth.

Given that a GOP victory will predictably lead to continued, unrelenting attacks on very fabric of American democracy, you can see why the people pouring money into attack ads against Turner in Ohio's 11th are indeed Trump and the oligarchs strongest allies.

The simplest, clearest way to avoid this nightmare scenario is for Nina Turner to triumph on Tuesday, which will instantaneously draw the progressives back into the Democratic Party fold.

Of course, none of this is a matter of petty political positioning, it is about the urgent necessity that all progressives feel about addressing the ills of society and the planet. Anyone witnessing Nina Turner campaign in Cleveland will instantly recognize this fact.

The past forty years have been a disaster for Cleveland, which now ranks as the poorest big city in America. The poverty and crime rates are mind boggling. Eastern Cleveland is a food, healthcare, and banking desert. The visible contrast between the inner city and the surrounding suburbs is staggering.

The idea that Cleveland needs another political status quo representative like Congresswoman Brown in 2022 would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic. And yet, faced with the prospect of an unrelenting fighter for poor and working-class families like Nina Turner disrupting the corrupt patronage of the Cleveland political establishment, the entire apparatus of the Democratic Party's national neo-liberal establishment has lined up not just to defeat Nina Turner, but to make an example of her.

Still, Nina wouldn't back down. Why? When you see Nina on the campaign trail you see someone fighting for the people of Cleveland. Someone had to say enough is enough; and that someone is Nina Turner. The people of Eastern Cleveland deserve the best that America can offer just as much as the wealthy in Shaker Heights. Nina knows that without her taking this stand, the unacceptable norm would continue unabated. The people, once again, would be abandoned.

If you think this is hyperbole, you are wrong. If you allow yourself a moment of honest reflection, you'll see that inner city poor communities, just like small town communities across the country, are American sacrifice zones. Similarly, if you believe the establishment political class will wake up and honestly address the climate emergency, I have bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you...

A continuation of status quo Democratic Party establishment neo-liberalism is nothing short of a life sentence of poverty and continued destitution for tens of thousands of families. Nina Turner found herself in a position where she could back down, perhaps do personal damage control in terms of career prospects, but she also knew that she and she alone had a chance to take a stand for the people of Cleveland—and for all poor and working class Americans. And so she did.

All of us who believe in a just, equitable, democratic America—and a renewed Democratic Party that actually serves these ends (which is the only Democratic Party with a hope of victory in 2022 and beyond)—should get up off of our couches, or even take a day off work on Monday or Tuesday—and do whatever we can to send a message to the people of Ohio's 11th district: Elect Nina Turner! Together we will then go forward in the words of Barbara Jordan that Nina is so fond of quoting: and build "an America as great as its promise."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Alan Minsky.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Friday urged voters in Ohio's 11th Congressional District to cast their ballots for progressive firebrand Nina Turner, who is challenging Rep. Shontel Brown in the Democratic primary.

Reich—now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley—said that "we have to elect" Turner "because we need people in Congress who will fight for working people instead of allowing corporations and billionaires to loot the economy."

He also shared a recorded conversation he had with the candidate about how "poverty is a policy choice." In the video, published earlier this week, Reich introduces Turner as "one of my favorite people in America."

Reich's remarks came as early in-person voting is already underway for the May 3 election.

The professor's tweet also came as U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed Brown, describing her as "a true partner in Congress." Brown—who beat Turner in a special election for the seat last year—said she was "thankful" for Biden's support and pledged that she would "continue to be a unifying leader in Congress" while working with the president to deliver for her district.

Journalist Walker Bragman tweeted that the president's move was a "very clear signal from the White House: If you like what Biden is doing and how he's approaching negotiations, vote Shontel Brown. If you think Biden needs to fight harder and do more, vote Nina Turner."

Earlier this month, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus controversially backed Brown, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) formally endorsed Turner—who supported his 2016 presidential run and served as a national co-chair for his 2020 campaign.

In response to Biden's decision Friday, Andrew Perez, a senior editor and reporter at The Lever, said that "for the Democratic Party establishment, there's nothing more unforgivable than supporting Bernie Sanders."

Others noted Friday that in July 2020—a few months after Sanders suspended his campaign—Turner made clear that she was not enthusiastic about voting for Biden, telling The Atlantic: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)—who has endorsed Brown and is expected to stump for her in Ohio this weekend—referenced Turner's 2020 position on Friday.

"Shontel made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden supporter," Clyburn told The Hill. "And her opponent made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden opponent."

Biden's endorsement of Brown is notably only the second of this cycle.

David Dayen wrote Wednesday for The American Prospect that "Biden raised eyebrows over the weekend with his first endorsement of the 2022 election cycle, backing Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a corporate-friendly moderate who has opposed much of the White House's agenda, and who is facing a primary challenger running on the very administration priorities he has shunned."

Dayen noted that "Democrats in the district argue that Biden's endorsement of Schrader over his opponent, attorney and 2018 congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, fits a pattern of the incumbent's support coming largely from the corporate and political establishment outside the state, rather than from voters and officials on the ground."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Friday urged voters in Ohio's 11th Congressional District to cast their ballots for progressive firebrand Nina Turner, who is challenging Rep. Shontel Brown in the Democratic primary.

Reich—now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley—said that "we have to elect" Turner "because we need people in Congress who will fight for working people instead of allowing corporations and billionaires to loot the economy."

He also shared a recorded conversation he had with the candidate about how "poverty is a policy choice." In the video, published earlier this week, Reich introduces Turner as "one of my favorite people in America."

Reich's remarks came as early in-person voting is already underway for the May 3 election.

The professor's tweet also came as U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed Brown, describing her as "a true partner in Congress." Brown—who beat Turner in a special election for the seat last year—said she was "thankful" for Biden's support and pledged that she would "continue to be a unifying leader in Congress" while working with the president to deliver for her district.

Journalist Walker Bragman tweeted that the president's move was a "very clear signal from the White House: If you like what Biden is doing and how he's approaching negotiations, vote Shontel Brown. If you think Biden needs to fight harder and do more, vote Nina Turner."

Earlier this month, as the Congressional Progressive Caucus controversially backed Brown, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) formally endorsed Turner—who supported his 2016 presidential run and served as a national co-chair for his 2020 campaign.

In response to Biden's decision Friday, Andrew Perez, a senior editor and reporter at The Lever, said that "for the Democratic Party establishment, there's nothing more unforgivable than supporting Bernie Sanders."

Others noted Friday that in July 2020—a few months after Sanders suspended his campaign—Turner made clear that she was not enthusiastic about voting for Biden, telling The Atlantic: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)—who has endorsed Brown and is expected to stump for her in Ohio this weekend—referenced Turner's 2020 position on Friday.

"Shontel made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden supporter," Clyburn told The Hill. "And her opponent made it very clear that she was a Joe Biden opponent."

Biden's endorsement of Brown is notably only the second of this cycle.

David Dayen wrote Wednesday for The American Prospect that "Biden raised eyebrows over the weekend with his first endorsement of the 2022 election cycle, backing Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), a corporate-friendly moderate who has opposed much of the White House's agenda, and who is facing a primary challenger running on the very administration priorities he has shunned."

Dayen noted that "Democrats in the district argue that Biden's endorsement of Schrader over his opponent, attorney and 2018 congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, fits a pattern of the incumbent's support coming largely from the corporate and political establishment outside the state, rather than from voters and officials on the ground."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

"We need more people who will lose their minds if they're missing pieces."

I've had these words stuck in my head since I first heard them on an episode of The Breakfast Club. On that podcast, the progressive Democrat Nina Turner, a lifelong advocate for Cleveland and current candidate for Congress in Ohio’s 11th District, recounted a story about spending time-solving jigsaw puzzles with her grandchildren.

"Everything that I need to know about politics and life I'm learning from a toddler," she explained. Just as a puzzle is incomplete until every piece is filled in, we need to find the missing piece to solve the injustices that plague our country.

Let me be frank: Nina Turner is our missing piece. She's the kind of person who won't be able to rest while others struggle—not many people are like that. People, especially young people, are disaffected with politics, and reasonably so. We see the struggles that people face every day, even on campus for students like me. Cleveland is one of the poorest big cities in the entire country. That's an issue that will not and cannot be solved without a real champion for working people on our side.

Some politicians like to say that they aren't in it for the sound-bites or the headlines—that they just care about the policy. But when Turner says it, you know it's true. She recognizes that nearly 90 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured; that's why she's a fierce proponent of Medicare for All. She recognizes that climate change poses an existential threat to humanity; that's why she supports the Green New Deal. She recognizes that students and families are struggling to even just survive; that's why she wants to cancel student loan debt and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to earn a real living wage.

Some politicians will say that they support certain things but do nothing about them even when they have the chance. The only reason that Turner isn't an original co-sponsor of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal is that she hasn't gotten to Congress—not yet anyway. Even so, she's been fighting for these policies since day one, using every ounce of her fight for good.

This past weekend, "Empowering Youth; Exploring Justice" hosted a town hall with Nina Turner and the incumbent, Congresswoman Shontel Brown. Rep. Brown spoke first, answering questions with carefully curated answers (her typed answers fell off the podium twice).  When she received an audience question about how many words she wrote in the recently-passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, she said plainly: "Zero, it's not my job to write the laws."  The only noise outside of Rep. Brown's speaking was the microphone feedback.

In stark comparison, the moment that Turner walked into the building, the atmosphere changed. Every word she spoke was electric. She arrived with a blank notebook, and carefully wrote down the questions from each student. She had no prepared answers written by consultants, yet spoke eloquently and thoughtfully to actually address the problems that we face.

Although there are two candidates in this race, in my mind there's really only one clear choice. Senator Turner is the fighter we need in Congress—she's that missing piece. She doesn't take any money from big corporations because she knows that your donors say a lot about who you are. She's running a people-powered campaign because the people are who she's going to represent. On the contrary, Rep. Brown takes campaign contributions from super PACs with ties to the fossil fuel industry, Republicans, and countless other sources of Dark Money.

Until Nina Turner wins and becomes Congresswoman Turner, I promise you that I'm still going to be losing my mind to locate all the missing pieces. Election day is on May 3rd, but you can vote early now.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Noah Stein.

Congressional candidate Nina Turner declared Friday that she is "not for sale" and suggested her primary opponent, Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown, is after federal filings revealed that a billionaire-funded super PAC has spent more than $1 million in support of the incumbent in Ohio's 11th District.

"Let's be clear, those corporate interests don't make donations, they make investments."

"See, there is a clear difference in this race. One of the candidates in this primary is for sale," Turner, a former Ohio state senator, wrote on Twitter. "I am not for sale. Cleveland is not for sale."

Turner, who has pledged to reject campaign cash from lobbyists and corporate PACs, was responding to reporting from The Intercept spotlighting the financial support Brown has received from Protect Our Future, a super PAC launched this year with the backing of cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures show that Protect Our Future—which reportedly plans to pour $10 million into Democratic primaries this cycle—has spent more than $1 million over just the past week on ads in support of Brown's campaign.

In a statement on Thursday, Turner's campaign accused Brown of failing to "bring a single penny home" to Cleveland—part of Ohio's 11th Congressional District and the poorest big city in the U.S.—but managing to "flag down dark money that will be used to attack Nina Turner."

"All over the country, the flood of corporate money into electoral politics is corrupting our democracy," said Kara Turrentine, Turner's campaign manager. "Sadly, right here in Ohio 11, those same corrupt interests are pumping money into campaigns and super PACs because they know Nina Turner and progressives like her aren't going to Washington to be a partner with them."

"Let's be clear, those corporate interests don't make donations, they make investments," Turrentine added. "And they expect a return on those investments."

The May 3 Democratic primary in Ohio's 11th Congressional District is a rematch of a heated special election that took place less than a year ago. Brown, backed by a torrent of corporate cash and prominent members of the Democratic establishment, defeated Turner by around 6%.

At the time of the 2021 race, the largest donor to Democratic Majority for Israel—a super PAC that spent big against Turner—was an oil and gas executive.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) PAC stirred outrage by endorsing Brown, a member of both the CPC and the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the CPC, endorsed Turner over Brown in last year's special election.

The CPC PAC's endorsement of Brown came just a day after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the lone Senate member of the CPC—formally endorsed Turner, praising her as "a real leader who fights for higher wages, Medicare for All, and affordable prescription drugs."

"With Nina, we know that she will not be afraid to take on the corporate interests that are driving up the price of gas, food, and just about everything else," Sanders said in a statement. "Nina knows the job is more than just voting the right way. It's about leadership."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Progressive congressional candidates are waking up to a new variable that is upending the electoral calculus of races across the country: cryptocurrency. Some candidates are finding it advantageous to take crypto-sympathetic positions, while others are facing an onslaught of crypto spending that is reshaping their primaries.

In a 2021 special election, former state Sen. Nina Turner faced more than $2 million in outside spending by the super PAC Democratic Majority for Israel, swinging the race for Shontel Brown in the closing weeks. In her rematch, Turner faces a new obstacle. A super PAC bankrolled by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, Protect Our Future, has already spent more than $1 million backing Brown, according to Federal Election Commission reports. And this week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC endorsed Brown after having backed Turner last year.

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday endorsed progressive firebrand Nina Turner's campaign for the U.S. House seat in Ohio's 11th Congressional District, calling her a "real leader who fights for higher wages, Medicare for All, and affordable prescription drugs."

"Nina knows the job is more than just voting the right way. It's about leadership."

"I know Nina and I know her heart," Sanders (I-Vt.) said of Turner, who co-chaired his 2020 presidential campaign. "With Nina, we know that she will not be afraid to take on the corporate interests that are driving up the price of gas, food, and just about everything else."

"Nina knows the job is more than just voting the right way," the Vermont senator added. "It's about leadership."

Sanders' endorsement comes less than a month out from the May 3 Democratic primary in Ohio's 11th, where Turner is rematching Rep. Shontel Brown less than a year after the two faced off in a heated race for the House seat vacated by Marcia Fudge, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Turner, a former Ohio state senator, has argued that the circumstances are different this time around, noting that the 2021 contest was an off-year special election—a likely contributor to lower voter turnout.

Turner has also pointed to the torrent of corporate money that poured into last year's race in an attempt to undermine her campaign and bolster her opponent, who was backed by such establishment figures as House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"There was an anybody-but-Nina campaign ran in 2021," Turner told NBC News earlier this year. "Some of those forces may still decide to get into this race, but what they will not be able to do is totally concentrate [on the Ohio 11th District] because this will not be the only race."

Welcoming Sanders' endorsement, Turner wrote in a series of tweets late Tuesday that the Vermont senator has "sparked a movement in this country that is stronger than ever."

"This movement continues to fight against the special interests who are blocking the president's agenda and holding back progress for the poor, the working poor, and the barely middle class," Turner continued. "In order for this administration and our party to succeed, we need the everyday people of this country to succeed. And that requires a leader who won't hesitate because they take corporate money but instead a change-maker and a fighter."

"I'm running for Congress to be part of a bigger fight," she added. "A fight against the powerful interests holding up important legislation like a $15 minimum wage, permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit, Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, the PRO Act, expanded Social Security, and paid family leave."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.