Operation Hope Begins!

Operation Hope Rebel HQ
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Hi everybody, it’s Cenk. I’m in DC now. I’ll be back in the studio by Monday and I’ll explain what we’re doing with Operation Hope better then when I’m on-air. But for now, what I wanted to tell you is that we are going to build a community here and together we are going to solve how to get positive change in the world.

We are going to come up with ideas together and we are going to do those ideas in the real world (and often times in the online world) - together! So, the first idea I had was to try to get paid family leave passed from the outside, not the inside. We do need some partners on the inside and today I interviewed Rep. Ro Khanna - and already, he promised to help introduce it as a stand alone bill in the House. And he’s going to try to get a Republican colleague to co-sponsor it with him. We’re on Day One and we already have progress!

But all of us together are going to come up with different ideas on how we can push from the outside to get Congress to do what we want. I picked paid family leave because it polls at 84% with all Americans and 74% with Republicans! If you can’t get that passed, that means you don’t live in a democracy.

Yes, it’s our job at TYT to deliver the news in an honest way. So, yes, the state of the world is often depressing, including the dark times we’re in now. But that’s why we need hope more than ever. So, I want you to join me in this audacious effort. How are you going to do that? First step is going to be to reply to this post by coming up with ideas on how to pressure the politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) to introduce it, vote for it and fight for it. And ideas on how to pressure media to cover it, so it gets the spotlight it needs to create pressure to vote on it.

I think watching this interview with Rep. Ro Khanna will be very helpful to all of you in understanding the process (when you get the chance):

Then, let the ideas flow. Remember, we can’t do everyone’s ideas. So, you’re not allowed to get hurt if we don’t do yours. If it makes you feel any better, we reject tons of my ideas at TYT. That’s how collaboration works. We have to think and plan together, but not get hurt if we’re not at the front of the line all the time. The team needs everyone to function well. And we have to respect one another, even when we don’t get our way.

Now, let me whisper of a dream. What if it worked? What if you did it? That you were part of the team that somehow got this passed and improved the lives of millions of Americans? How great would that feel? Well, let’s find out!

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how about everyone sending a letter to their local senator and one to Schumer himself. Mail dump! COme up with a standard letter we can print off, then we each sign our name and mail them in.

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I would like to see people tell stories of times they had to skip their children events due to the lack of money or child care.

I would like to see children talk about their parent’s that missed big events due to economic pressure.

National Children’s Museum is a good spot to launch a campaign in DC. I would call it #bethereandcare my friend helped me with the name full disclosure.

Khanna Uygur, Uygur Khanna 2024?

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These are already a couple of good ideas. If people started sending emails or letters or tweets to both us and their representatives, that could be powerful. But I like the idea of the letters being about specific hardships they had to go through because they didn’t have paid family or medical leave. But don’t send them yet. First, let’s figure out how to send them that would be most effective - where they are most likely to see it and so is the public.

If it goes just to the reps, they can ignore it easier. If they get routed through us, it’ll be too slow. We don’t have enough manpower to read through and prioritize those letters. So, how do you guys think we make these personal stories public, but in a way that is easily consumable by the legislators and the public?

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Fair points, we need to employ a staging area to coordinate efforts in time with political pressure.

I think we need to target and focus attention. For instance if McCarthy was holding out some way it may be wise if we all targeted his office for disruption. This should be done in a manor that is timed with inaction or stubbornness.

The key here is celebrities. Any type of Hollywood participation would be great actors are still on strike. Maybe John Stewart or Kevin Smith? Cameo is a website where actors record a video for a fee. Maybe some would make a video as outlined above for the #bethereandcare idea.

What we need is stage craft. Bret Ulrich seems like he would be great at this sort of thing. We have celebrities’ in the progressive movement. If you AOC, Nina, Ro, and Bernie were to endorse this during a protest action. This could be coordinated with TYT Army support. This combination should get some coverage, I reckon. They want to cover you Cenk, you just have it to make it to enticing to resist.

I watched your interview this morning with Ro Khanna. I would like to purpose a 2nd / 3rd item to the list of demands. A voting holiday, and a expansion / increase of the childcare vouchers.

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In rochester NY we have a childrens museum of play. Maybe people can gather at these places local to them to gain an audience and media to grab attention to the subject.

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I too watched and it was very informative. Itoo have add on’s "if Corporations do the paid family leave and offer childcare discounts or actual care at buisness, they get a tax break…They are so worried about those maybe that is a way to give and take…

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I’m eager to contribute my 30 years of experience in Information Technology to streamline and enhance the effectiveness of operation HOPE.

During the early stages of the pandemic, I made an effort to contact TYT to offer my assistance in developing a customized, user-friendly open source single-point access online system for your daily shows. However, I encountered challenges in establishing that connection. I hope I can make that connection now.

I’ve invested a significant amount of time in the past in attempting to reach out to the individuals overseeing different campaigns by volunteering. I began by volunteering with Bernie’s campaign, followed by Cenk’s campaign, and then Justice Democrats. I observed many places where improvements could’ve been made to save volunteers time and make them more effective, plus reduce errors that waste time.

I did make contact at Justice Democrats, but it took over a year to have a conversation with someone at Justice Democrats to talk about what I had to offer but became frustrated with the outcome.

Contact me at [email protected] or 607–216-5589.
P.S.
Just got a notice that justice is coming to my house signed by Cenk! Let’s bring justice to the rest of the country, too!
The interview with Ro Khanna was enlightening and invigorating to understand the possibilities presented.

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Check out this morning’s timely article by Chris Hedges titled “Why Our Popular Mass Movements Fail.” You can read it on Substack at the Chris Hedges Report.

Additionally, if you haven’t read the book “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It,” It reviews essential concepts we should possibly embrace to accomplish what we need. You can find it on Amazon.

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There is no need of that much manpower for this. For digital data (tweets, emails) there is no challenge: a) tweets with specific hashtag and b) mail copy to a the TYT email designated for this effort, in the case of emails. The challenge is in the case of letters (mail address is the info provided on congress website) and there may be many of these. But if they are printed, AI can be used to digitalize.

For reading and classifying, NLP (Natural Learning Processing) and RegEx (Regular Expressions) algorithms can be used to filter and classify these. All the above can be done by one person.
I also have another idea (that can –or not– be combined with this one) on how to exert external pressure for legislation. Not only Paid Family Leave, but for any legislation… as it should be in a democracy. I’ll expand on this by replying to your main post of this discussion board.

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As to make these easily consumable, we can do a meta-analysis on them and compare these with the stats available for these types of social-economic issues, make a video clip with these infographics and start the conversation/pressure. Infographics (quality standard: so understandable, that any end user has no other choice than to get the right insights from the charts) included on all platforms (video clips, TYT website on specific webpage, and add-on on the TYT App), email blast. But not just these (I will expand on these on subsequent replies).

I am a data-scientist and statistician, web and app developer and can bring my technical skills, creativity, political savviness, and ability to smell the cheese. But all these are dwarfed by my passion and commitment to this. Please DM me at x(formerly Twitter) @4th_Wall_Dragon or my email: [email protected]. These have been created for the sole purpose of communicating for these endeavors (before Operation Hope but something like this was bound to happen as being Impactful and productive is in the blueprint of TYT).

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Operation Hope has a greater goal of

and I have a set of ideas for that (Thanks TYT for the inspiration). In this thread, however, I will be referring only to Cenk’s first idea, that is

and will expand in the general goal on a separate reply.

Now, the proposal: Jackson White (and some more people) has brought to existence an app that is a significant portion of what I am going to propose (we can start from scratch, but I am being pragmatic here). Jackson’s consumes congress’s API and outputs to the end-user the legislation in congress and some associated information (status, proposed by, sponsors).

What this is lacking is at least two components (I say this because, there would be a third if the letter idea can be combined with this, since this could be the app used as middleman for the letters/tweets/mail):

  1. Voting records.

  2. An extra layer for Analysis of these info from which we can obtain, and easily show to the end user, insights that include (but not limited to) the following:

I. We can make a segmentation of pro-Corporation Vs pro-People legislation, calculate and show how prompt and effective are members of congress when it relates to any of these types of legislations. We can combine these with the voting records and also cross-reference with campaign funding via Open-Secrets API.

If we can show with such detail what goes on in congress paired with context, we can have an electorate more knowledgeable and more prone to exert pressure via this app/add-on to the TYT website.

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You have some cool ideas. I think we need a dashboard that has an omnidimensional quality.

Data driven draft legislation is a pretty solid idea but it only really works if the data has integrity. Legislative intent is only part of the puzzle. I think we also need to study impact and enforcement more closely. Data collected must be broad and hold integrity to be useful. This is very difficult when dealing with courts due to the bias entanglements.

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Thanks for the feedback. Data is powerful. This can be done on that stage too.

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I think some form of peaceful protest outside repersentives offices we have to not only be herd by mail email and social media, but we need to be seen in numbers! also work with other leftist independent media and youtubers together we have a lot of reach!!! Even if we have disagrements we all agree on this!! The American ppl deserve a life with out hunger or not having decent cloths to the point ppl make fun of them!!

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I know this will be a long shot, but it is needed if we are ever going to reach some semblance of economic equality. The hourly wage needs to be abolished for w-2 wage employees. Each hour of work a person is scheduled should receive an hourly based salary. If an employee works 15 hours each week, they should know that they can depend on 15 consistent hours every week, along with a consistent paycheck. The legislation would include three levels of employment, (limited 0-15hrs, part-time15-25/30hrs, full-time25/30-40hrs) and any overtime would be negotiated as a w-9 contracted employee. The contracted employee can also be utilized for small business that may not be able to afford salaried employees so that an hourly wage could be negotiated. Obviously we need to reign in the corporate rule as first, otherwise they’ll just artificial inflate the things we purchase as they always do.

#cenk2024

Read my book!
bottlerocketpress dot com

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Instead of writing letters to feckless politicians, let’s barage ALL the mainstream media with letters. Let’s have the letters be crafted (ah marketing) to be a “poll” message regarding the “bipartisan” “PEOPLE” want Paid Family Leave with a demand (ok request) for honest reporting and excellent journalism on the topic. The BARAGE of letters must happen within a small window time frame so it has a massive impact (and multiple set dates to do the baraging on either repeat topic or the next one on our list.)

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What about the masses of us responding to an X Twitter post of say, Trump, or some other person with a large following, all of us, one by one with the same message on a specific date to a specific post so that it CAN’T BE MISSED BY THE MASSES. Might be an interesting way to get big media coverage and social media coverage, a twofer! The coordinating of the “When to Barrage” would be key. We could all find 3 minutes at the same time for Operation Barrage.

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I don’t know what would be required, but why doesn’t a People’s PAC exist? Why can’t we use the dirty tricks of our rivals against them? We definitely couldn’t outspend every monied interest, but if we focus on one policy at a time, surely we could raise the funds to outbribe the competition.

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