Sunday Classics: "Good night, thou false world!" -- (final) exit Papageno?

"Good night, thou false world!"

PAPAGENO: Right, then, that's still how it is!
Since there is nothing holding me back,
good night, thou false world!

-- most of our Magic Flute translations by Robert A. Jordan

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Papageno; Berlin Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded June 1964

Or in English: "Fare thee well, thou world of pain!"

[in English] John Brownlee (b), Papageno; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Live performance, Dec. 26, 1942

by Ken

We were just looking at Mozart's and Beethoven's exceptional use of minor keys for opening movements of symphonies and concertos, and one point I could have made more explicit is how frequently -- among these admittedly infrequent cases -- the "thematic" material that inspires such a plan is more "motivic" than really melodic -- think of Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto (No. 20) or of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies.

But of course the minor mode doesn't preclude great tunes, and I think that's what planted the thought of this great moment from The Magic Flute in my head. It's the moment when Papageno the lowly bird-catcher is driven by his loneliness to the ultimate despair, and I think the Fischer-Dieskau performance in particular makes it clear that Mozart plays this moment "for real." (Not to worry, we're going to hear the complete scene, er, eventually.)

As I suggested in Friday night's "double preview," "Enter the bird-catcher; exit Sir Colin Davis," we're focusing this week on Papageno, though as we often do, we're going to start with the Overture.


OUR THREE PRINCIPAL PAPAGENOS
AND THEIR DISTINGUISHED CONDUCTORS

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Have New Jersey Democrats Finally Found The Right Man To Defeat Bank Shill Extremist Scott Garrett?

As we saw last night, Scott Garrett is a Wall Street shill and one of the most extremist Republicans left in the Northeast. Unlike New Jersey's mainstream conservative Republican delegation to Congress-- Frank LoBiondo, Chris Smith, Jon Runyan, Leonard Lance and Rodney Frelinghuysen-- Garrett is a hard core right-wing ideologue who's voting record is more in tune with radical teabaggers from the Old Confederacy than with anyone from New Jersey. Romney beat Obama in NJ-05-- a district that follows New Jersey's entire northern border from Hackensack and Paramus up through Mahwah, Vernon Township, over to the Delaware Water Gap and down to Washington Township-- 51-49%. Over 70% of the voters live in Bergen County, a New York suburb, and the head of the Democratic Party there, Lou Stellato, has been trying to find a strong opponent for the hated Garrett.

Stellato went to Andrew Maguire, 73, who holds a doctorate from Harvard and is widely considered a foreign policy affairs expert. And... he represented the district in Congress between 1975 and 1981. A highly effective progressive, everything he championed in Congress is anathema to Scott Garrett's reactionary stance. Let me go to the Wikipedia description of what Maguire worked on in Congress:

• Health and mental health policy, including occupational safety and health and expanded health programs for children and youth

• Environmental policy, including the Clean Air Act and control of toxic waste; and authored what became known as the Maguire Amendments to the National Cancer Act

• Energy policy, including supply and pricing of fossil fuels, nuclear, solar and other energy resources; and energy conservation including auto mileage efficiency standards and renewable resources initiatives

• Foreign policy issues including arms control, democracy initiatives, and trade

• Banking and securities laws and regulation

• Congressional ethics reform

• Increasing citizen participation in his congressional district by holding regular issue forums focused on a wide range of public policy concerns

In endorsing him for reelection, Ralph Nader bluntly stated he was "one of the most effective freshmen through hard work, a probing, innovative mind, and a fine sense of public interest. On subjects such as energy, medical devices, and air pollution legislation, he has been a bulwark against special interests. His office has developed a senior citizens information kit and other 'how-to's' for people in dealing with bureaucracies such as the medicare agencies." Several years later, Nader was no less impressed, describing him as "Smart, hard-working, personable, he has a sterling voting record on consumer, environmental, governmental reform, tax justice and energy issues. His office is known for its sensitive constituent service. He spends much time with his district’s economic and health problems."

Ultimately it was Big Oil pumping a fortune into the district that defeated Maguire in 1980. Maguire has filed to run again next year. Can he win? The re-districting has made it more purple than red and if Maguire can run an effective campaign and find the resources to compete with the Wall Street banksters backing Garrett-- a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee-- he has a good shot. In march he spoke at the Sussex County Democratic Committee nominating convention.

"I'm seriously considering doing so again," Maguire told the crowd. "Here in Northern New Jersey, Scott Garrett is the problem."

Maguire said he felt Garrett does not work in a bipartisan way to solve problems, and described him as "invisible and aloof." He said Garrett works against: out of work Americans, equal pay and work for women, education, and environmental stewardship.

"Now is the time to end the pretense, the negativism, that undercuts our families, and our national future," Maguire said.

Among his accolades, Maguire said while in Congress he introduced flood legislation, wrote the Clean Air Act, created amendments to the National Cancer Act, and launched the first congressional ethics investigation.

"I will not be a 'no' congressman like Scott Garrett," said Maguire. "It's much easier to do the work, than say, 'no.' We must say 'no' to Scott Garrett, and 'yes,' to the truth."

Remember, Maguire served while Richard Nolan represented Duluth, Minnesota in Congress. Last year, Nolan, 69, came back with a bang and defeated Republican incumbent Chip Cravaack. Since returning to Congress Nolan has amassed one of the fiercest progressive voting records of any freshman. His ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 91.3, a score bettered only by 6 freshmen-- Mark Pocan (D-WI), Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Tony Cardenas (D-CA) and Joe Kennedy (D-MA). Scott Garrett's score for the same time period (the 113th Congress) is a shocking 4.35, identical to far right crackpots Steve King (IA), Buck McKeon (CA), Pete Sessions (TX), Lynn Westmoreland (GA) and Joe "You Lie" Wilson (SC).

Republicans Move To Repay Wall Street For All Those Nice Big Bribes

"What do you expect? 'Crook' is my middle name"

Last election cycle the Wall Street banksters poured $83,722,946 into campaign contributions for congressional candidates, $55,447,942 for Republicans and $28,077,244 for Democrats. Their #1 agenda item was to get Congress to further water down Dodd Frank. The House did just that yesterday with Scott Garrett's (more on him tomorrow morning) H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act. I should probably mention that, aside from Boehner ($1,415,075) and Cantor ($902,400), Garrett took in more legalistic bribes from the banksters than any other Member of the House ($537,020), including Banking Committee Chairman Paul Ryan ($310,500), House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling ($285,250) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp ($285,050).

Financial Services Committee ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and other Democrats said the bill is just the latest show of opposition to the Dodd-Frank law, which Republicans have held up-- along with ObamaCare-- as a Democratic regulatory overreach.

"Let's be clear: The purpose of this legislative effort is to stop implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act dead in its tracks," Waters said.

Several Democrats noted that Republicans have worked to limit funding to the SEC and other financial regulatory agencies in order to slow the implementation of the law.

During debate, Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) acknowledged a link between the bill and Dodd-Frank. As one example, he cited analysis saying that the SEC's "Volcker rule," which would limit the ability of banks to engage in proprietary trading, could cost more than 1 million jobs.

Hensarling indicated that these sorts of factors need to be weighed more carefully at the SEC. The Volcker rule has been delayed for several years now as the SEC and other agencies wade through thousands of related comments.

Garrett's big wet kiss to Wall Street passed 235-161, every single Republican plus 17 mostly corrupt Democrats voting for it. The bad Democrats yesterday-- for those keeping score:

• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)
• John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Tony Cárdenas (CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)
• Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Nick Rahall (WV)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog/New Dem-OR)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)

Don't freak out about not seeing degenerate seeing bank shills Steny Hoyer, Colleen Hanabusa and Ann Kirkpatrick on the list. They were all playing hooky from Congress yesterday.

TV Watch: "Maron" revisited, following an absolutely terrific Episode 3

Off-the-Marc: Episode 3 (view clip at link)

Look who shows up at Marc's door! Says Marc: "The character in the show is not exactly my father. My dad's name is Barry; the character in the show is Larry. My father is more frightening than Judd Hirsch." However, Marc assures us in "Off-the-Marc: Episode 3" (here's the link again) that all the stories attributed here to "Larry" Maron, such as the incident when he ran over Marc's ankle with his car, can be properly credited to Barry M.

by Ken

I've made the point often enough: I'm suspicious when shows are said to come together only after a couple of episodes. In my experience it has usually turned out that the creators had their act together from the start, but what they were trying to do was sufficiently unexpected that I just missed it for that early while.

In this spirit I definitely plan to rewatch the first two episodes of our old Morning Sedition friend Marc Maron's new IFC half-hour comedy Maron, which I wrote about last week with something less than unalloyed joy. However this rewatch turns out, I think it's important to get on the record that this week's Episode 3, "Jeff Garlin Meets Marc's Dad," struck me as sensational. Where the earlier episodes struck me as pleasantly harmless retreads of fairly well-trod tales of a comic's neurosis and self-loathing, the new one seemed to me trenchant, inspired, and hilarious from start to finish.

As promised last week, in the new episode we were introduced to Marc's father, as played by Judd Hirsch. He turns out to be the kind of dad any of us would recoil from in horror, not least when we recognize traits of him in ourself. "Larry" is a bipolar dreamer 'n schemer, who dreams 'n' schemes in his manic phases, leaving those around him to watch the dreams and self-destruct in his crashed periods.

Suddenly this time out, working with that same premise -- that the TV Marc is a lightly fictionalized version of the real Marc, who seems to see his decades' worth of investment in a career in comedy as a bust -- all Marc's anxieties and frustrations were played out in deeply real, involving character interactions -- involving not just Marc and Larry but also Marc's podcast guest, Jeff Garlin, and Marc's loyal but none too helpful friend comic Andy Kindler.

Anyone who's watched any quantity of comedy on cable knows Andy as the pursuer of the same sort of career in comedy as Marc, and he's quite charming in this episode. Like when he's trying to lure Marc off to the gym with him to work a laundry list of muscle groups -- after which he'll never go back to the gym. Or there's a hilariously painful moment when, as the hubbub in the RV that Larry has parked outside Marc's house starts to draw a crowd on the sidewalk, Andy makes his best stab at crowd control, beginning, "My name is Andy Kindler. You might remember me from Season 7 of Last Comic Standing."

Marc has a funny-sad phone conversation about dear old Dad with his brother Josh in Arizona, which is cut short when Josh has to deal with a domestic situation. "My kids are now beating the shit out of my wife's kids," Josh reports, adding, "Did I screw up my life?"

Marc's sense of hopelessness about his career also came into clearer focus in this episode. True, he did try to sell his profoundly uninterested agent on the proposition that "podcasts are the future of television." But to his podcast audience he confided:

You'll never make a lot of money until you make someone else a lot of money. I mean, you'll make enough to survive, but if you want a vacation home on the cape, or a Sherpa to carry your coffee grinder up Everest, it's not gonna happen -- until you make yourself an exploitable commodity. Not really my thing. But I can tell you this from experience: It's easy to maintain your integrity when no one is offering to buy it out.

Wow! There are heaps of wisdom here, wisdom that I think you'll agree are by no means limited to the comedy business. As I say, I definitely plan to look at Episodes 1 and 2 again, but on the basis of Episode 3, Maron has etched a place on my "must watch" list.

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How Buck McKeon's Mormonism Played Right Into The Military Rape Epidemic Coverup

Last summer the cover-up of the epidemic of military rapes at Lackland-- engineered by House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon-- began to unravel, due, primarily, to the tireless efforts by Protect Our Defenders. POD battled McKeon's determination to cover up the scandal and keep it out of the public view. At all times, he insisted on closed briefings rather than the public hearings this kind of scandal demanded. And who was McKeon's point person on the Committee, with his own peculiar take on rape? Todd Akin, of course. It was two of Congress' most backward, patriarchal and misogynistic Neanderthals that John Boehner put in charge of "protecting" the Pentagon... and leaving the rape victims to twist in the wind. This from last summer:

For one of the most misogynistic members of Congress, Buck McKeon, the decision on whether or not to have an open hearing on rape in the military was easy. No! That’s been the answer given to Protect Our Defenders (POD) and Lt. Paula Coughlin-Puopulo, USN (ret.) who delivered 10,000 signed petitions to McKeon asking for an open investigation into the sexual assaults at Lackland Air Force Base. Some may remember Lt. Coughlin as the whistleblower in the Tailhook Scandal in the early 1990’s where 83 women and 7 men were sexually assaulted in a Las Vegas Hotel. A statement from POD read, “More than 20 years ago, 87 servicewomen were sexually assaulted while serving in the U.S. Navy, in what became known as the “Tailhook scandal.” Paula was one of the 87. The former Naval aviator reported the incident to senior officers, but they did nothing. So she went public. Today, Paula is going public again demanding Rep. McKeon open a congressional hearing about Lackland and then legislate fundamental reforms.”

A closed briefing was held instead and one general reportedly asked McKeon not “to hobble base commanders” in determining how to handle sexual assault cases.

Military sexual assaults have been put back in the spotlight after 38 female Air Force recruits came forward with complaints of sexual assault or rape by instructors at Lackland AFB. Fifteen instructors have been implicated and two already found guilty. One awaits sentencing and another given only 30 days’ confinement and a reduction in rank-- a punishment criticized by POD asserting the military doesn’t take these crimes seriously.

I'm in the middle of reading Rana Husseini's courageous book on how men brutally enforce their will on women, Murder in the Name of Honor. Much of the book covers her beat as a journalist and activist: so-called "honor" crimes in her native Jordan. But she goes beyond Jordan and talks about the dynamics of these horrific and barbaric crimes against women around the world. Patriarchy is so ingrained that even many women are ready to blame the victims like this 25 year old Jordanian with a Masters degree in economics:

"Women are the source of seduction for men and if all women are chastised then men would become good on their own. We are in a Middle Eastern society and I am for punishing women more than men because men cannot resist the seduction of girls who are dressed improperly... When women are punished, fear of their families will build up among them and they will think twice before committing any immoral mistake."

She was talking about women who are brutally, savagely murdered by their own families because they are raped-- and about the murderers who go unpunished by patriarchal legal systems-- whether sharia courts in Muslim countries or outmoded military chain of command decisions in our own Pentagon.

In an interview with Jordan Member of Parliament Mahmoud Kharabesheh for the Jordan Times Husseini found an attitude that many privileged males feel all over the world: "Women adulterers cause a great threat to our society, because they are the main reason that such acts [of adultery] happen. If men do not find women with whom to commit adultery, then they will become good on their own." Well, if they can't find a woman to rape, some rape children or other men. Others turn to sheep. And when Jordan decided to start allowing women deputies in Parliament, religious conservatives there reacted the same way religious conservatives did here. A deputy from Amman's fourth district, explains Husseini, "strongly opposed the idea. He said that being an MP was a man's job; a woman can jeopardize her honor by going out late at night to take part in related social activities. If his daughter stayed out late at night he would shoot her himself, he added. He told the gathering that a woman's presence in Parliament 'would be damaging, since a woman in the house would distract make deputies and stir trouble when male deputies instinctively look at her breasts.'" Husseini traces these attitudes back to the primitive Bronze Age origins of the three Abrahamic religions:

This has its roots in numerous ancient texts, including the Old Testament, specifically Deuteronomy (22:12- 21), where proof of the bribe's virginity could be presented to both sets of parents in the form of stains on the bedsheets. If an unwed woman was found not to have been a virgin, then she was to be punished by being stoned to death.

This was convenient for men in a patriarchal society who might be paranoid about "his" woman comparing his prowess in the sack with other partners. And, all across the patriarchal world even murdering women who are perceived as not living up to the patriarchal rules, is forgiven because it is judged to be in "accordance with tradition." A Pakistani Senator insisted that "We have fought for human rights and civil liberties all our lives but wonder what sort of human rights are being claimed by these girls in jeans."

In February 2008 an Islamic fundamentalist shot and killed a government minister because of her refusal to wear a Muslim veil. Zilla Huma Usman, the Punjab Provincial Minister for Social Welfare, was shot as she prepared to address a public gathering in the town of Gujranwala. The attacker, Mululvi Ghulam Sarwar, said that he was opposed to the participation of women in politics and the refusal of many professional women in Pakistan to wear the veil.

Speaking to a local TV channel, he said, 'I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah's commandment. Islam will not allow women to hold, positions of leadership. I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path. if I am freed again.'

What about Iraq, where the Bush Regime proclaimed that women's rights would be at the center of the project to make Iraq a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world? In Iraq women's rights have deteriorated dramatically since the start of the U.S.-led coalition's occupation.



And this kind of patriarchal mentality is certainly not unique to the Muslim world.

In Brazil, it is widely believed that a man can legitimately kill allegedly adulterous wife on the grounds of honor and such cases are regularly treated with leniency in the courtroom. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of women killed by their husbands from the 1970s to the late 1990s for leaving or divorcing their husbands, returning home late from work, refusing to sleep with their husband, suspicion of adultery or because they had been caught in an adulterous situation.

So what does this have to do with Buck McKeon's Mormonism and how he orchestrated the cover-up of the military rape epidemic? After all, Mormonism isn't the same as the Muslim faith, even if both were rooted in extreme patriarchy and polygamy... right?

Anyone who has lived among Mormons has observed the sect’s legendarily happy families and tight-knit communities. They are self-satisfied, devout and abstemious; overwhelmingly white and middle to upper class. Hard working, acquisitive, conservative and disciplined. A whopping majority of them consider helping the poor a top priority-- an admirable quality even if their anti-poverty efforts are mostly directed at their own ranks.

...Mormonism is a valid issue of concern not as a religious test for office, but for its most distinctive characteristic — male authoritarianism. The controversial and secretive religion is a multibillion-dollar business empire ruled by a stern patriarchal gerontocracy. Only “worthy males” can ascend to positions of power-- both now and in the afterlife-- and women are relegated to supporting roles. Male dominance is the essence of the faith, as the Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson found when she was excommunicated for her support of the Equal Rights Amendment. In her memoir, From Housewife to Heretic, Johnson describes a patriarchal world in which everyone is taught that "God, being male, values maleness much more than he values femaleness, that God and men are in an Old Boys’ Club together, with God as president.”

Protecting the victims of rape was the last thing on Buck McKeon's mind as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Protecting the old boys' network at the Pentagon was. This week President Obama called the military heads into his office for a chat. He had a very different perspective:

[O]ne of the great honors of my life is serving as Commander-in-Chief to what I consider to be the best military in the history of the world. And I am in awe of the work that the vast majority of our men and women in uniform do.

But the reason we are so good is not because of the fancy equipment. It’s not because of our incredible weapon systems and technology. It’s because of our people. And the capacity for our men and women in uniform to work as a team, a disciplined unit looking out for each other in the most severe of circumstances, is premised, as Ray Odierno said, on trust. It comes down to do people trust each other and do they understand that they’re all part of a single system that has to operate under whatever circumstances effectively.

The issue of sexual assault in our armed forces undermines that trust. So not only is it a crime, not only is it shameful and disgraceful, but it also is going to make and has made the military less effective than it can be. And as such, it is dangerous to our national security  So this is not a sideshow. This is not sort of a second-order problem that we’re experiencing. This goes to the heart and the core of who we are and how effective we’re going to be.

Now, the good news is I am absolutely confident that everybody in this room and our leadership, starting with Chuck Hagel and Marty Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs, as well as our top enlisted men and women, they care about this. And they’re angry about it. And I heard directly from all of them that they’re ashamed by some of what’s happened.

But it’s not fixed yet, and that’s clear. So even though I think there’s a level of concern and interest that is appropriate, we haven’t actually been able to ensure that our men and women in uniform are not experiencing this, and if they do experience it, that there’s serious accountability.

So what I’ve done is I’ve asked Secretary of Defense Hagel and Marty Dempsey to help lead a process to continue to get at this. That starts with accountability, and that means at every level. And that includes accountability not just for enforcing the law, but also training our personnel effectively, putting our best people on this challenge.

I think Secretary of the Army McHugh made a very good point, which is I’m not sure we’ve incentivized some of our top people to understand this is as core to our mission as anything else. And we’ve got to reward them, not think of this as a sideline for anything else that they do, but incentivize ambitious folks in the ranks to make sure that they understand this is important. So that’s part of accountability.

Empowering victims. We’ve got to create an environment in which victims feel that they’re comfortable coming forward and they know people have their backs, and that they will work through this process in a way that keeps the focus on justice and make right what’s been wrong as opposed to suddenly they’re on trial, it may weaken their position, it make compromise their ability to advance.  That’s going to be important. They’ve got to know that they should have no fear of retaliation, no fear of stigma, no damage to their careers, and certainly no protection for criminals.

Third thing is justice for the victims. When victims do come forward, they deserve justice. Perpetrators have to experience consequences. And I’m pleased that Secretary Hagel has proposed reforms that would restrict the ability of commanders to overturn convictions after trial. Those reforms have my full support.

...I want to emphasize-- everybody in this room has heard from me directly. They’ve heard from Secretary Hagel, and they’ve heard from Marty Dempsey. They all understand this is a priority and we will not stop until we’ve seen this scourge, from what is the greatest military in the world, eliminated.

Republicans Led By John Kline (R-MN) Voted Down Elizabeth Warren's Plan To Lower Student Interest Rates

After watching him as a freshman senator, I never believed Obama would be a vehicle for Hope and Change. I voted for him in 2008 anyway. I couldn't force myself to do it again last November. Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, is someone who I have actually bought into right from the start. I donated to her campaign and helped promote her cause. This week, her first proposed legislation has made me-- and thousands of others across the country who backed her-- proud. The Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act would lower student loan interest rates for one year from 3.4% to 0.75% -- the same rate the government loans money to the banks through the Federal Reserve discount window. As Senator Warren reminds us in the video above, student loan interest rates will double to 6.8% on July 1st without action.

John Tierney (D-MA) introduced a sister bill in the House. As Warren and Tierney have told their colleagues in both houses of Congress, "The biggest banks in the country-- the ones that wrecked our economy and cost millions of Americans their jobs-- pay next to nothing on their debt, while students pay nine times as much. The Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act lets students take advantage of the same low interest rates offered to banks through the Federal Reserve discount window:

• Sets Interest Rates for Government Loans to Students at the Same Level as Government Loans to Banks. The Act would provide a one-year fix to the impending interest rate hike by setting the rate for federal subsidized Stafford loans at the primary interest rate offered through the Federal Reserve discount window as of July 1, 2013.

• Funded by the Federal Reserve, Administered by the Department of Education. The Federal Reserve would make funds available to the Department of Education to make these loans. While the Federal Reserve would now provide funding, the Department of Education would continue to administer all other aspects of the federal subsidized Stafford loan program in the same manner as it currently does.

So Cantor and Boehner assigned it to John Kline's Education and Workforce Committee where they knew they could depend on the reactionary Kline to kill the bill. Thursday he called a vote and it died 23-14. Every Republican plus New Dem Jared Polis voted against it:

• John Kline (MN)
• Tom Petri (R-WI)
• Buck McKeon (R-CA)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
• Tom Price (R-GA)
• Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
• Duncan Hunter (R-Betty Ford Clinic)
• Phil Roe (R-TN)
• Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
• Tim Walberg (R-MI)
• Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
• Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
• Scott DesJarlais (R-TN)
• Todd Rokita (R-IN)
• Larry Bucshon (R-IN)
• Joe Heck (R-NV)
• Susan Brooks (R-IN)
• Richard Hudson (R-NC)
• Luke Messer (R-IN)
• Jared Polis (New Dem-CO)

Mike Obermueller is the Minnesota Democrat running for Kline's seat next year. MN-02 is a winnable district for Democrats-- Obama beat Romney, though just barely. Last year Obermueller got no help from the DCCC whatsoever and Kline beat him 54-46%. Kline spent $1,957,356 and Obermueller spent $705,166. This year the DCCC is promising to help. Obermueller was disappointed but not surprised by Kline's reaction to Elizabeth Warren's proposal this week:

"You either want to help students or you don’t. Senator Warren’s bill took a stand in favor of students and Congressman Kline’s decision to kill the bill shows how short sighted his thinking is.

"Making sure students can afford to go to college means a better-trained workforce that not only attracts more businesses, but ensures our country is competing globally. Making it harder for families to afford college is downright bad for the economy.

"Unfortunately, Kline chairs the committee where good bills go to die."

Distinguished Simi Valley surgeon Lee Rogers, a spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, is deciding whether or not to run against Buck McKeon against next year. He's very enthusiastic about Elizabeth Warren's approach and spent a great deal of time speaking with students at College of the Canyons, Antelope Valley College, Cal Arts, and Cal State Northridge when he ran in 2012. When McKeon chaired the committee he was notorious for taking immense legalistic bribes from the big predatory lending institutions who ripped off students as normal business procedure. Rogers was ahead of his time when he spoke out about the issue last year, telling voters that outstanding student loan debt was over a TRILLION dollars, surpassing credit card debt and McKeon was just delighted to get his cut from the banksters and hustlers. The Republican plan, being pushed by McKeon acolytes, Kline and Foxx, which they call "market-driven," pegs the loans to 10-year Treasury notes, plus 2.5 percentage points. What market is driving that? The market for lobbyists bribing Members of Congress?

Democrats on the committee opposed the bill, saying it puts students and families at risk of paying more in the future.

"Our students and families deserve better than this bait-and-switch scheme we're voting on today," said California Representative George Miller, the senior Democrat on the committee.

"A low-income, four-year borrower enrolling in college next year would pay more interest on her student loans under the Republican proposal than she would if we took no action," he said.

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service estimates that under the Republican plan, a student who borrows the maximum amount of subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans over five years would pay $14,430 in interest. If rates were allowed to double on July 1, a student would pay $12,598, compared with $7,965 if rates don't double.

Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe Is Getting Gay-Married Today

Kolbe and Foley

Former eleven-term Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) has been "living in sin" with his Panamanian lover, Hector Alfonso, for eight years. Today they will legally wed at the Cosmos Club in DC. (It's still illegal for same sex couples to marry in Arizona, although recent polling shows 55% of Arizonans support marriage equality.) Kolbe is the first gay congressman who voted for DOMA in 1996 to get married. Back then, Kolbe was a closeted mainstream conservative-- one of many in the House Republican caucus who, for one reason or another-- felt they had to vote against the interests of the LGBT community. The only "out" Republican-- and the only Republican-- to oppose DOMA was Steve Gunderson (R-MN), who had been publicly outed by raging homophobe "B-1 Bob" Dornan on the floor of the House, in an attempt to humiliate him. And the Republicans weren't the only bigots that day. Nancy Pelosi only managed to muster 66 Democrats to oppose DOMA.

Among the Republican closet cases voting for Bob Barr's so-called Defense of Marriage Act were then-closeted Reps. David Dreier (R-CA), Mark Foley (R-FL), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Dave Camp (R-MI), Jim McCrery (R-LA), Phil English (R-PA), Denny Hastert (R-IL), and Bill Paxon (R-NY). This week, Kolbe told the Washington Blade "Two decades ago, I could not have imagined such an event as this would be possible. A decade ago I could not imagine that I would find someone I could be so compatible with that I would want to spend the rest of my life with that person. So, this is a very joyous day for both of us." Ironically, even though they’ll be legally married, Kolbe will still be unable to sponsor his spouse for residency in the United States because of the DOMA legislation he helped pass.

Yesterday I had a pleasant talk with one of those former closet cases/former congressmen, Mark Foley. Of course, he was genuinely happy for his old friend Kolbe. "Any time people find love," he told me, "they need to celebrate it. And he's not only celebrating it, he's memorializing it with this ceremony." The two used to travel together frequently but have lost touch in recent years. They were members of the moderate Republican Ripon Society and of the House Republicans' Tuesday Group. "We were called the Tuesday Group but we met on Wednesdays. People used to ask if we were hiding from our friends, the rednecks," laughed Foley who regrets that so many of his colleagues from the Tuesday Group have been forced to turn sharply right more recently, for the sake of political expediency (or survival). There were around 40 members then, which, according to the New Republic "provided a private forum for the party’s more moderate members, and, in its own quiet way, it pushed back against the Republican leadership, preventing it from running off increasingly radical rails... While the Tuesday Group occasionally pushed moderate legislation, members freely admit that its greatest impact was behind the scenes. Tuesday’s members worked to squash measures that would inevitably divide the party-- like strict restrictions on abortion and deep cuts to spending on scientific research or education-- 'bills that would never have had any workability and would just further drive the wedge between us,'" explained Nancy Johnson, then a moderate Republican from Connecticut. Foley remembers that he and Kolbe were members, as were Fred Upton, Mike Castle, Sue Kelly, Mark Kirk, Charlie Bass...

Just before the vote for DOMA on July 12, 1996, there was a Democratic Motion to Recommit, an attempt to ameliorate the negative aspects of the bill. It failed 164-249 but most Democrats (134) voted for it, as did 30 Republicans, mostly Tuesday Group members. The only Republican closet cases who voted for DOMA but also took the brave stand of crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats on the Motion to Recommit were Kolbe and Foley-- NOT Dreier, Rohrabacher, Camp, McCrery, English, Hastert or Paxon, each of whom voted NO. Foley's proud he voted for the Motion but he knows he should have opposed DOMA. "It was always," he told me, " a vote I wish I could have undone... It's a vote I've always regretted." He then reminded me that both he and Kolbe also voted in favor of domestic partnerships for DC and that "very clearly, Hillary Clinton has just evolved on this topic last week."

Kolbe's come a long way. Mazel tov! Watch his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month:

Sunday Classics (double) preview: Enter the bird-catcher; exit Sir Colin Davis

Colin Davis (1927-2013) at home

by Ken

As I must have mentioned, one of my core LPs in the early getting-to-know-music stage was a budget Seraphim issue of a disc of Mozart overtures conducted by Colin Davis early in his career. There were fine performances of all these indispensable pieces, and my recollection is that I played that LP a lot.

The subject of my complicated feelings about Sir Colin, who died on April 15 at 85, as a conductor has come up occasionally in these posts, and I'm afraid I'm going to need to rehash it in order to memorialize him properly, though I'm going to want to stress the truly wonderful things he did. The thing is, those truly wonderful things, which were often quite unexpected (who, for example, would have expected a great recording of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde from him?) tended to be a lot less heralded than a lot of stick-waving hackery.

I don't have those fine old EMI Mozart overtures on CD, and so tonight, since I happen to have some consideration of one of the characters of Mozart's Magic Flute in mind, I thought we'd let Sir Colin give us a taste from his 1984 Philips recording of the opera -- not a great performance by any means, but a pretty good one. We hear first Davis's Overture, which we've actually heard before.

MOZART: The Magic Flute, K. 620: Overture

Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1984

Now we hear the bird-catcher Papageno's two ever-familiar, ever-beloved ditty-like songs.

Read more »

Justice Stevens's grandkids may not care, but he has some things to get off his chest

by Ken

Admittedly, as subject categories go, the category "Most Charming Utterance Uttered by the Late New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner" doesn't promise to be especially broad or arresting. That said, the most charming utterance I'm aware of The Boss uttering was in a respone to a question about the cartoonish version of himself incorporated as a Seinfeld recurring caricature during the period when, improbably and often disastrously, George Costanza worked for the Yankees.

The caricature was actually surprisingly gentle, but still, George had ample reason to be resentful. Instead, he declared himself delighted. He had become, he said, a hero to his grandchildren. For that matter, I recall that the actor Lloyd Bridges said much the same thing about the hilarious character he created on Seinfeld. Bridges had a long and distinguished career on both big and small screens behind him, but suddenly he was on his grandchildren's radar.

Add to the list now retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who appeared recently before the Arlington (VA) Committee of 100 and, according to the Fall Church News-Press's "Man in Arlington," Charlie Clark, "brought down the house."

Stevens verified a few legends from the sports world. Yes, he knew Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers executive portrayed in the current film "42" who brought up pioneer Jackie Robinson to integrate baseball. He also interviewed Ty Cobb while researching baseball economics.

Most memorably, he did witness, at age 12, Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield stands during the 1932 World Series in Wrigley Field and placing a home run right where he promised to. Decades later, when the Chicago Cubs invited Stevens to throw out the first pitch, "I was a hero to my grandchildren," he said, "which is more important than these other things."

It occurs to me that this might be a better world if our major players thought occasionally about how their deeds would register with the grandkids. Your average Wall Street or bankster predator, for example. It wouldn't provide any guarantee of superior job performance, but it might give some of those folks pause for at least a second thought before doing their worst.

Not surprisingly, Justice Stevens harked back to a different world.

Memories the justice volunteered included several from his 1975 confirmation hearing after having been named by President Ford. As the first nominee to undergo a new tradition of personal visits with senators, Stevens recalled that Barry Goldwater promised his vote because the two shared enthusiasm for airplanes. Strom Thurmond knew not to ask how Stevens would vote on the death penalty -- "It's not proper to probe candidates' views, one requirement being to keep an open mind until you hear the parties and read their briefs," Stevens said. But Thurmond conveyed his support for capital punishment, and at a later meeting, Ted Kennedy conveyed his opposite view.

The audience participated actively, and here, for the record, are some of the points Justice Stevens made:

• The high court needs more diversity, legislative and military experience and trial lawyers such as Thurgood Marshall.

• The Bush v. Gore case resolving the 2000 election "should have been rethought," as suggested recently by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "It was nonsense to apply an equal protection argument to hanging chads versus dimpled chads when the voter's intention for both was clear."

• The 2010 Citizens United decision on campaign spending was "incorrect," but "don't hold your breath for the court to change it."

• The 2012 decision mostly upholding Obamacare vindicated his confidence in Chief Justice John Roberts' "integrity and independence" in following the law even when it's not his policy choice.

• In the coming twin rulings on same-sex marriage, he guesses the court will dismiss the California challenge for lacking jurisdiction and strike down the Defense of Marriage Act as unfair tax policy.

In addition:

Asked by [VA] state Del. Patrick Hope whether he backs mandatory retirement for judges, Stevens said people 70 and older can still contribute. He would have loved to keep working but realized during Citizens United he was having trouble "articulating."

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Tea Party Crackpots Shouldn't Be Investigated?

I'm not a tax accountable and I'm not an election attorney. But I do run a PAC and we have an accountant and an attorney on retainer to keep us from running afoul of the FEC's and IRS' myriad arcane rules and regulations. A few years ago, a notorious GOP shill complained that we were coordinating our campaign efforts with Nancy Pelosi. We sent in so much paperwork showing that we were working at cross-purposes to Pelosi by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars against Blue Dog Democrats she was helping to defend that the "case" was immediately thrown out. This was while Bush was president but the FEC staffer told me that the complaint came from someone does that all the time.

There was also an instance of an FEC staffer who is a conservative and who was constantly harassing Blue America. We knew she wasn't acting on Bush's orders and that she was just a nasty zealot. But she was just a pest and because of her we had to retain our attorney.

I don't want to get into this whole Republican attempt to smear Obama with this IRS mess. They're on a roll, appealing to their base. But I'm not so certain that these Tea Party groups looking for tax exempt status shouldn't be thoroughly investigated. I'm in the middle of reading investigative journalist Lee Fang's stupendous new book, The Machine: A Field Guide To The Resurgent Right. These two pages make the case very clearly who these people absolutely should be investigated.

Colin Hanna, the silver-haired chairman of the Republican front group Let Freedom Ring, approached the podium and announced that his group had covertly provided training and resources to the Tea Party Patriots throughout the election. Young men working for Hanna handed out pamphlets to the reporters in the room detailing their efforts, which included providing the Tea Party Patriots with a small army of election lawyers, training for over 1,748 Tea Party Patriot “poll watchers,” and state-of-the-art technology from the Republican consulting firm Edge Targeting. Hanna’s group paid for the Tea Party Patriots’ automated phone calls, which reached over 1.6 million households focusing on twenty-three swing congressional districts. Hanna said his Let Freedom Ring group, which had aired a series of million-dollar ads supporting establishment Republican John McCain in 2008, was itself part of the Tea Party revolution.

Let Freedom Ring was not the only group propping up the Tea Party Patriots. Staffers from FreedomWorks, the front group led by Dick Armey, had managed the Tea Party Patriots’ listserv. Corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute provided many of the talking points and speakers used by the Tea Party Patriots Free training seminars and online tutorials for grassroots organizing were provided to the Tea Party and its affiliates.

Patriots by the Leadership Institute, which is funded by the billionaire Koch family as well as by other corporate interests, including Amway. Even the Tea Party Patriots’ website was sponsored by a who’s who of Republican front groups, including Regular Folks United, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Tax Reform. A mysterious donor granted Tea Party Patriots an additional $1 million for increased electionseason outreach.

Shortly before the election, a memo from the Tea Party Patriots leaked. The Tea Party Patriots had attended a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of conservative donors, and presented a wish list with dollar amounts attached. The Tea Party Patriots asked the donors to underwrite their campaign efforts. To fund the Tea Party Patriots’ “traditional” get-out-the-vote walk and phone lists, they asked for $150,000, as well as $250,000 for “GPSenabled smart-phone walk lists and technology,” $125,000 for help setting up house parties, and finally $250,000 for “collateral material.” It didn’t end there. For efforts after the election, the memo demanded $110,000 for help protesting possible legislation during the lame-duck session of Congress, $175,000 for a summit to entertain newly elected Tea Party politicians, $300,000 for “Younger Generation Outreach,” at least $500,000 for a renewed advertising budget, $200,000 for help organizing tax-day Tea Parties in 2011, and a litany of other high-priced requests.

Aside from their somewhat casual attire, Mark Meckler, Jenny Beth Martin, and the Tea Party Patriots leadership were indistinguishable from any ordinary Republican consultants with high-priced demands and orthodox supplysider beliefs. With donors from the Reagan-era Council for National Policy and allies like Koch Industries and Let Freedom Ring, the Tea Party Patriots were like any other Republican group. However, to the media and to millions of Americans, they were still rag tag protesters fighting against the grain of the establishment.

Corrupt House Agriculture Committee Slashes Food Stamps Unmercifully-- With Help From Ann Kuster

Last year, the Blue Dogs only managed to elect one mangy freshman, homophobic conservative Texas state Rep. Pete Gallego. Obama beat McCain in his district (TX-23) 50-49% in 2008 and Romney beat Obama this last time, 51-48%. Gallego managed to edge weak GOP freshman Francisco "Quico" Canseco 96,477 (50%) to 87,255 (46%), after beating Ciro Rodriguez in a primary runoff in this heavily Hispanic district that hugs the Rio Grande border with Mexico from just north of Laredo to just south of El Paso.

Thursday morning I wasn't surprised to see Gallego tweeting away how on Wednesday night he had voted in the House Agriculture Committee-- long, one of the bastions of Blue Dog corporate corruption-- for a $940 billion bipartisan new Farm Bill. I rolled my eyes and wondered how bad it would be. It was bad and cuts nearly two million poor people off food stamps, a top GOP priority that Blue Dogs tend to support.

The bill would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) by almost $21 billion over the next decade, eliminating food assistance to nearly 2 million low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens.  The bill as a whole would reduce total farm bill spending by an estimated $39.7 billion over ten years, so more than half of its cuts come from SNAP.  The SNAP cuts are more than $4 billion larger than those included in last year’s House Agriculture Committee bill.

The bill’s SNAP cuts would come on top of an across-the-board reduction in benefits that every SNAP recipient will experience starting November 1, 2013.  On that date, the increase in SNAP benefits established by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) will end, resulting in a loss of approximately $25 in monthly SNAP benefits for a family of four.  Placing the SNAP cuts in this farm bill on top of the benefit cuts that will take effect in November is likely to put substantial numbers of poor families at risk of food insecurity.

The majority of the bill’s SNAP cuts come from eliminating a state option known as “categorical eligibility.”  Congress created this option in the 1996 welfare law, allowing states to provide food assistance to households-- primarily low-income working families and seniors-- that have gross incomes or assets modestly above federal SNAP limits but disposable incomes in most cases below the poverty line.  The bill also would eliminate SNAP incentive payments to states that have improved payment accuracy and service delivery, would cut nutrition education funding, and would curtail a state option that reduces paperwork for many households with utility expenses and also lowers state administrative costs...

The proposed cuts would cause significant hardship to several million low-income households.

Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced an amendment to protect the food stamps funding but it was defeated 27-17, after Juan Vargas (D-CA), embarrassed Republican hypocrites by quoting the Book of Matthew in opposing them: "When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink." Watch the an especially telling part of the debate from delusional right-wing psychopath Steve King (R-IA):



The two highest ranking Democrats on the Committee, Blue Dog scum Collin Peterson (MN) and Mike McIntyre (NC) plus millionaire New Dem Sean Patrick Maloney (NY)-- each of whom are on Steve Israel's Frontline list to receive millions of dollars from the DCCC next year-- voted with the GOP, not just for the overall bill, but against McGovern's amendment. The Agriculture Committee is a stinking cesspool of corruption and an institutional organ of shillery for corporate agribusiness. That they passed a wretched bill doesn't surprise me in the least. With just a precious few exceptions who try to protect family farms and consumers-- basically Marcia Fudge, Jim McGovern, Joe Courtney, Richard Nolan and John Garamendi, the committee is all about crooks who want to line their pockets. “In this Congress," Garamendi told his California constituents, "when push comes to shove, it’s the voiceless that get shoved the most. We’re seeing that in the sequester with the immediate harm befalling Head Start, Meals-on-Wheels, and housing assistance, and we’re now seeing it with steep cuts to SNAP in the Farm Bill. SNAP puts food on the table for homebound seniors, for kids who would otherwise go to bed hungry, and for hardworking Americans barely making it. I wish it were a little more kind to the people who need help the most and I will work with my colleagues on the Committee to find a way to ensure the final bill does just that. In a country where 16 million children don’t have enough food to eat, we can and must do better.”

The 8 Democrats who voted NO on the final bill were David Scott (GA), Marcia Fudge (OH), Jim McGovern (MA), Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA), Filemon Vela (TX), Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM), Juan Vargas (CA) and Joe Courtney (CT). I was disappointed, though hardly surprised, to see Ann Kuster (NH), once again on the Dark Side, selling out the progressives who helped win her her seat. Kuster's callous and disgusting attitude went out in a cheery press release about how great she is yesterday:

“Last night’s vote was an important step forward for farmers, consumers, and rural communities in New Hampshire and across our country. For too long, Congress has kicked the can down the road and failed to provide long-term authorization for vital agricultural, nutrition, and conservation programs. Our government’s failure to pass a Farm Bill last year added uncertainty to our economy, inhibiting investments in job creation, research, and rural infrastructure.

“Republicans and Democrats owe it to the American people to break the gridlock and find common ground, which is why I supported this bill-- despite its deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. I am gravely disappointed that this legislation undermines assistance for hungry families, and I fought hard to protect this essential program. At the same time, this Farm Bill contains many important reforms: it eliminates wasteful direct payment subsidies, streamlines more than 100 duplicative programs, and includes both an amendment I sponsored to support rural colleges and an amendment I cosponsored to expand access to local, healthy food.

I sure hope someone primaries her.

Boehnercare Passes The House

Thursday there were 3 votes leading up to Boehner's 37th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and allow the big insurance companies to pick the pockets of every American who needs a doctor once again. This time Boehner gave the dubious honor of introducing the waste-of-time bill to Tea Party queen Michele Bachmann, who also has the dubious honor of being the first Republican incumbent so certain she's going to lose her reelection that she's already started running TV ads in her district. Pelosi was still disparagingly calling the bill Boehnercare.

There were 3 votes leading up to Bachmann's repeal rollcall. First was for ordering the question to agree to bring it up for consideration. It passed 228-193 every Republican + reactionary Blue Dog Jim Matheson of Utah voting YES and every Democrats except reactionary Blue Dog Jim Matheson of Utah voting NO. I should mention at this point that when you see a million e-mails from the DCCC castigating the Republicans for this repeal circus, Matheson is not just on their Frontline list of priority incumbents to be protected, he's been promised between two and three million dollars for his campaign. Matheson has the worst voting record of any Democrat in Congress. His crucial vote score as tracked by ProgressivePunch is 21.74 for the 113th Congress, identical with Georgia sociopath Phil Gingrey. There are a dozen Republicans that vote more frequently for progressive positions this year than Matheon (but Steve Israel isn't spending $2 million to help any of them win reelection).

The second vote, 10 minutes later, was another procedural one to basically just agree to the first one. This one passed 226-192, the change being another DCCC top priority Frontline reactionary Democrat, this time Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, voting with the GOP and Matheson. McIntyre has amassed as nearly a far-right voting record as Matheson. His ProgressivePunch crucial vote score this session is a putrid 40.91, right between Republican Mafioso figure Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY) of Staten Island (42.11) and craven and cowardly Arizona New Dem Ron Barber (39.13). Last November enough discouraged Democrats stayed away from the polls in Matheson's and McIntyre's districts so that they both these mangy Blue Dogs came closer to losing than any other Members of Congress. McIntyre's margin was 654 votes and Mathson's was 768.

Next up was a Motion to Recommit by Lois Capps (D-CA), which would have at least preserved benefits of the Affordable Care Act for women and children by excluding from repeal: (1) elimination of cost sharing for preventive health services, including breast cancer screening, screening for gestational diabetes, and screening for domestic abuse; (2) access to health care coverage for those with preexisting conditions (children and adults); (3) medical loss ratio requirements that ensure consumers receive good value for their premiums; (4) elimination of lifetime and annual limits on benefits; and (5) dependent coverage of adult children until age 26. It failed 190-230. McIntyre hid in the toilet while the vote was taking place, but Matheson was joined by right-wing Democrats Collin Peterson (MN), Dan Lipinski (IL) and Nick Rahall (WV) on the Republican side of the aisle. McIntyre flushed-- though unfortunately not himself-- and came back in time for the final vote on the bill, which passed with all 229 Republicans (+ Matheson and McIntyre) voting YES and 195 Democrats voting NO.

A few minutes after the vote, I spoke with three Democratic challengers running against high-profile Republican backers of the bill. Ohio steel worker Andy Hounshell is taking on Boehner himself-- with no help from the DCCC, of course, who needs all that money to prop up Matheson and McIntyre-- and like many of us, he would like to see the Affordable Care Act improved, not destroyed. "At a time when our country needs good leadership," he told me, "we are stuck with a Speaker of the House who's idea of moving our country forward is having the House vote to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act for the 37th time. While I don't agree with the entire Act, it provides health care coverage for millions of Americans who otherwise would not have it. Instead of trying 37 times to repeal or defund it, imagine if the House would have tried 37 times to improve it. This blatant disregard for the millions of uninsured Americans who have picked up coverage under the act highlights the differences between our beliefs. This is not the leadership we need in Congress. We need job creation in this country and that is what our Representatives should be doing, not voting, once again, to repeal the Affordable Care Act."

John Mica, the Orlando-area Boehner puppet is being taken on by progressive Democrat Nick Ruiz, who agrees with Hounshell that Obamacare has a lot of room for improvement. He's a Medicare for all, single-payer advocate. And he's eager to take the battle to the voters. "It's time to replace John Mica. He voted to kill overtime. He voted against minimum wage. He voted to cut Social Security. Mica just introduced a measure Tuesday to stymie the federal Environmental Protection Agency as it relates to the Clean Water Act permitting process; what is he thinking-- that coal pollution helps American families? The measure, called the 'Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2013,' would place limits on the EPA’s ability to reject bad mining practices. And his position on universal healthcare is that America should not have it. We'll all be better off without John Mica in Congress-- and that's why I'm running against him in 2014." The DCCC isn't helping him either.

Although they undercut his race in 2012, the DCCC has come around on one candidate we spoke with, Jim Graves, the Minnesota Democrat taking on Bachmann again. And, of course, he sees right through her tired circus act. "Once again, Bachmann is using tax payers' money to put on a show. Her actions exemplify the wasteful government spending which she claims to decry. It is worse than Einstein’s definition of "insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"-- it is dereliction of duty and an insult to the public."