with us ellen minsky, who is the executive director of progressive democrats of america, and one of the initiators of the statements. joining us from los angeles, good to have you with us. thanks for your time. i suppose the most obvious question is why did you initiate the statements, put your name to it and why no, as well. actually, it was something that we were thinking about going forward within the last election cycle. when, as you mentioned, traditionally was not operating. is it a pack a traditional pack in terms of making direct? um, uh, you know, the paying money directly into campaigns to support them or independent expenditure campaigns effectively to support certain candidates and try to defeat others. and that really changed in 2022. and within the democratic party primaries, there was a um, a group called a democratic majority for as well as sort of trail blaze this in a special election 2021. and they also, um they also put up ads against pretty standards in iowa in 2020. so the involvement interactions was growing greater. but what happened in 2022 was completing the ov