Will A Court Allow Duncan Hunter To Avoid Prison Time In Return For Resigning From Congress? Darrell Issa Is Waiting

Drunkin' Hunter & DJ Trumpanzee

Duncan Hunter and his wife misappropriated at least a quarter million dollars from campaign funds to use for their lavish lifestyle. Hunter has decided his best defense was to blame his wife for stealing the money without his knowledge. The problem with that strategy is that he was using some of the money to pay hookers/lobbyists and carry on affairs with various women. But his lawyers have come up with a way around that damning evidence of malfeasance. They’re asking the court to exclude the evidence that he was using the stolen funds during extramarital affairs because the relationships with at least five women "often served an overtly political purpose."

The lawyers said the evidence would embarrass Hunter since it “reflects poorly on his character” and would prejudice a jury against him. I’ve never heard anything so judicially insane in my life. It’s like saying that evidence of the murder can’t be used because it would prejudice the jury against the defendant and reflect badly on his character and would embarrass him. Hunter is obviously at the end of his rope and is probably negotiating behind the scenes too resign from Congress in return for leniency.

Most of the facts about Hunter were widely know during the 2018 campaign. But Hunter still managed to win in a deep red (PVI is R+11, where Trump beat Hillary 54.6% to 39.6%) San Diego area district. It was a lot closer than anyone thought it would be— 134,362 (51.7%) to 125,448 (48.3%), largely because Hunter ran a smear campaign against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, accusing him of being a Muslim terrorist, even though he is a church-going former Obama administration aide. This false ad was run over and over and over throughout the district, despite being denounced in the national and local media:




Hunter, an untreated alcoholic, is a racist and a rabid Trumpist, who claims he was the first member of Congress to have endorsed Trump. Before being kicked out of the Marine Corps reserves in 2017 Hunter asserted that the American intelligence community was filled with "seditious Obama folks" who "hate Donald Trump" and are trying to undermine the Trump administration. He also described the American government as "Orwellian.” After being indicted on 60 federal charges he was kicked off 3 committees by the House Republican leadership, particularly the Armed Services Committee where his presence was considered a national security risk.

Hunter’s wife has already pleaded guilty and is likely to testify against him if his case ever goes to trial. Meanwhile Campa-Najjar is running for the seat again. But he may never get to take on Hunter. The local and national GOP establishment is encouraging Hunter to resign and there are as many as half a dozen Republicans primarying him, including the mayors of Temecula and El Cajon. Lurking in the background is former congressman Darrell Issa, who was too scared to run last cycle in his own district but would like to get back into Congress to represent a much safer red district. Trump nominated Issa to head the U.S. Trade and Development Agency but he hasn’t been confirmed. Ironically, like Campa-Najjar, Issa is also of Arabic heritage.

Nor does he like in the district

House GOP Throws 2 Crooks And A Nazi Overboard

Recently, J.D. Scholten, who's still considering another run against Steven King in northwest Iowa, told me that "In the last decade, King has missed 82% of the Small Business Committee hearings and nearly 40% of the Agriculture Committee hearings. He continues to abdicate leadership for his own personal agenda as the 4th district continues to fall behind." Now he misses 100% of the meetings on those two key committees, since the Republican leadership kicked him off both and many Republicans are hoping one of the 3 Republicans challenging King in a 2020 primary beats him. McCarthy is well aware that without a seat on the House Agriculture Committee, King is even more useless to his constituents than he usually is. (And he usually is.)

But King isn't the only Republican who finds himself in this predicament. Tuesday Splinter published a really funny piece of reporting by Samantha Grasso, The GOP's Lonely Heartless Club. She wrote that "Duncan Hunter of California, Chris Collins of New York, and Steve King of Iowa have a whole lot of time to do nothing in the House of Representatives, where nobody wants to sit next to them during lunch or play tag with them at recess. The three Republicans were basically excommunicated from the House GOP when they were pulled off their committee assignments, forcing them to watch the 116th Congress from the sidelines."

Hunter, the vaping congressman, and Collins were both stripped of their committee assignments last summer after being federally charged with misusing campaign funds for personal use with his wife and insider trading, respectively. Both pleaded not guilty, ran for reelection in their districts, and (somehow??) still won. However, under a new House GOP conference rule adopted shortly after the elections, any representative under indictment for a felony must be removed from committees and leadership posts “until the legal matter gets resolved,” according to Politico.

Ammar Campa-Najjar nearly beat Hunter last year and is running against him again. Today he asked, "Can someone please tell me why taxpayers have to continue paying Duncan Hunter’s salary? Given that Hunter is now simply watching from the sidelines and unable to perform the basic duties of his job as a Congressman, he should do the right thing and immediately return his entire salary to the taxpayers or donate it to a local charity. It’s one thing to put taxpayers through the embarrassment of watching their Congressman get indicted on 60 charges, but to also make them pay your salary while you sit around and await your criminal trial-- now that’s just adding insult to injury."

Meanwhile, King is spending his time kicking rocks over by the edge of the playground as punishment for defending white nationalism and white supremacy in an interview with the New York Times last month.

Without their committees, Hunter, Collins, and King have been left to twiddle their thumbs or desperately vie for some C-SPAN time with short House floor speeches at odd hours of the day. And while they might have some luck with congressional caucuses, that venue is all but pointless without the help of other representatives. From Politico:

The members could also put more energy into congressional caucuses or lobby their colleagues to move their bills, though there is little guarantee for success. It’s much more difficult for a single lawmaker to wield influence in the House, whereas in the Senate, any lone member can hold up floor proceedings...

Yet caucuses are hardly a substitute for congressional committees, where lawmakers hone their policymaking skills and climb the party ranks... That means the castaways would likely need the cooperation of their colleagues to be effective-- and there is little appetite, especially among Democrats, to work closely with the trio of lawmakers who are under indictment or condemned for racist remarks...

“Zero” is how Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) described the level of interest among his colleagues in working with Collins, Hunter or King.

Hunter and King, clearly upset that no one wants to come over to their houses after school for Xbox and Totino’s Pizza Rolls, did not return Politico’s requests for comment. But Collins told the site he plans on using his newfound free time to focus on constituent services, attend more district events, get underutilized congressional caucuses running again, and possibly co-sponsoring bills that lost their GOP backers in the midterms.

“I’m disappointed, but I’m making the best of it,” Collins told Politico.

Inspiring!

It's widely believed that the House GOP leadership is encouraging local Republicans to primary Collins so that progressive Democrat Nate McMurray doesn't take the R+11 seat away from them, something he nearly did-- by a fraction of 1%-- in 2018. I spoke to Nate today-- who is almost definitely running for the NY-27 seat again-- and he told me "The people of our region were lied to. They were told their vote was essential, that a vote for the party was more important than a vote for integrity. We can never trust these men or the people who helped them stay in office."

Who Remembers Steve Stockman (R-TX)?

GOP congressional crooks Hunter and Stockman

We were sorry to see our pal Dayna Steele lose her race in TX-36 on Tuesday but proud of how strongly she and her team fought in her R+26 district where few Democrats would even try. She won just over a quarter of the votes there-- 60,486 (27.4%)-- her efforts turning out voters for Beto and other Democrats as well. In 2016 no one had run against Brian Babin at all and Hillary only took 25.2% to Trump's 72.0%. In 2014, the last time a Democrat did run there, Michael Cole got 22.0% of the vote and in 2012, Democrat Max Martin took 26.6%. Martin, though, wasn't running against Babin, but his predecessor, Steve Stockman. Remember Stockman at all? He was first elected to Congress in 1994, beating the dean of the Texas delegation, conservative Democrat Jack Brooks in a district that stretched from Galveston to Beaumont, including much of the southern part of what today is TX-36. He was defeated for re-election in 1996 having distinguished himself as Congress' foremost conspiracy theorist. He had claimed, for example, that the Waco siege had been orchestrated by the Clinton administration in order to prove the need for a ban on "so-called assault weapons."

After he left Congress, he ran for any electoral job he could find-- losing-- and finally got back into Congress again in 2012 in the brand new 36th district. Even though he had been driven into bankruptcy by caring for his father while he had Alzheimer's (and abandoning his father to die in a veteran's home) he still voted against the Affordable Care Act. After the Sandy Hook massacre he introduced a bill to repeal gun-free school zones, a subject so dear to him that he threatened to introduce articles impeachment against Obama over it. You get the picture, right?

Last year, he was arrested for the same old GOP trick that has Duncan Hunter in trouble now-- raising money-- in this case $350,000-- for a charity and then stealing it for himself. A couple of Stockman's staffers pleaded guilty to funneling even more money from from charitable foundations into Stockman's campaigns and personal bank account (at his direction).

On March 28, 2017, a federal grand jury issued an indictment that included 24 counts against Stockman, accusing him of obtaining $1.25 million under false pretenses and using the funds for his political campaigns-- 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of mail and wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to make "conduit contributions" and false statements (conspiracy to conceal the real source of the contributions by false attribution), 2 counts of making false statements to the FEC, one count of making excessive contributions, and one count of willfully filing a false 2013 Federal income tax return by not reporting some of his income. Broke by then, he was assigned a court-appointed attorney for a trial that began last January.

In April, he was convicted on 23 of the 24 felony counts against him, judged to be a flight risk, and remanded into custody pending sentencing, which happened yesterday, the day after the election. Congressman Stockman was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

According to the Department of Justice, Stockman "used a series of sham nonprofit organizations and dozens of bank accounts" to launder the money. The government proved to the jury that Stockman ran his campaign and fraudulent charities to simply enrich himself. U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick of the Southern District of Texas wrote in a press release that "this type of corruption by public officials gives our entire democratic system a black eye."

The day before, Republicans in CA-50 re-elected Duncan Hunter, Jr., a severe untreated alcoholic, indicted for almost the identical crimes Stockman is now in prison for. Hunter, the same kind of right-wing conspiracy theorist crackpot as Stockman, won reelection with 82,379 votes (54.3%), having smeared his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, as a Muslim terrorist-- he is neither a Muslim nor a terrorist-- who was trying to "infiltrate Congress" as part of a terrorist plot. The GOP plan was to keep Campa-Najjar out of the seat and then replace Hunter when he is forced to resign from Congress, with Darrell Issa, another crooked Republican thief. What a party!

Other Than The Blow Voters Are Delivering Trump Today, Will We Defeat Any Of The Worst, Most Vile GOP?

You know who I'm thinking about, not the run-of-the-mill Republican garbage who "just" want to take away peoples' healthcare and see them starving in the streets; I'm mean the real neo-Nazi's inside the pup tent. Many of them are in blood red districts that are infested with brain-washed Fox zombies, like, for example, Matt Gaetz in Florida. But there are a handful up for reelection today who could go down, as long a shot as each case is. The defeat of Chris Collins (NY-27) and Steve King (IA-04) would be immense wins for political decency. So would an abrupt end to the political career of Devin Nunes (CA-22).

No one likes being lumped into the same category as Steve King, but there is another Republican incumbent-- a substance abuser currently out on bail and kicked off his committee by Paul Ryan as a national security risk-- who has earned the company: suburban and exurban San Diego County's Druncan Hunter (CA-50). And there are still hours and hours of voting left in California. Yesterday The Atlantic allowed McKay Coppins to lay the whole ugly Trump Era mess out: Duncan Hunter Is Running the Most Anti-Muslim Campaign in the Country. Before we start down this road though, it's important to know four facts about his progressive Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar. (Yeah, I know, tough name, but otherwise as all American a kid as anyone you'll ever meet; besides, did you pick your name?)

• Ammar was born and raised a Christian and has been active in his church for his whole life
• Ammar was born 16 years after his grandfather in question had died. (For any Trump fan who might be reading this: that means he never met his grandfather.)
• Ammar worked in the Department of Labor and was thoroughly vetted for the Secret Service, passing a test that Druncan Hunter couldn't pass if his life depended on it
• Ammar, when asked, told me his favorite band is Metallica.

Hunter's problem isn't that his R+11 district has changed, it's that he was indicted of various and sundry corruption charges, arrested by the FBI and is hoping to be reelected despite being out on bail. Coppins is a gentleman and steers clear from some of the tawdry details of Hunter's lifestyle-- the hookers, untreated alcoholism, bribery, etc-- but even the polite stuff is eye-popping enough. He explained that "on August 22, federal prosecutors charged the lawmaker and his wife with stealing $250,000 in campaign funds. In a 47-page indictment littered with galling details, the Hunters were accused of using campaign cash to fund lavish family vacations; to pay for groceries, golf outings, and tequila shots; and even to fly a pet rabbit across the country. To cover their tracks, the indictment alleged, the Hunters often claimed that their purchases were for charitable organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project. The political backlash was swift and severe. Hunter was stripped of his committee assignments in the House. His fund-raising dried up, and Democratic money flooded into the district. When he tried to defend himself on Fox News, he exacerbated the crisis by appearing to pin the blame for the scandal on his wife." You want that for a congressman?

Publicly disgraced, out of money, and facing both jail time and a suddenly surging challenger-- what was an indicted congressman to do?

Eventually, Hunter seemed to arrive at his answer: Try to eke out a win by waging one of the most brazenly anti-Muslim smear campaigns in recent history.

In the final weeks of the election, Hunter has aired ominous ads warning that his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is “working to infiltrate Congress” with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has circulated campaign literature claiming the Democrat is a “national security threat” who might reveal secret U.S. troop movements to enemies abroad if elected. While Hunter himself floats conspiracy theories from the stump about a wave of “radical Muslims” running for office in America, his campaign is working overtime to cast Campa-Najjar as a nefarious figure reared and raised by terrorists.

As multiple fact-checkers in the press have noted, these smears have no basis in reality. Campa-Najjar-- a 29-year-old former Barack Obama aide who is half-Latino, half-Arab-- is a devout Christian who received security clearance when he worked in the White House. His grandfather was involved in the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but he died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born, and the candidate has repeatedly denounced him. (Growing up, Campa-Najjar became estranged from his father, a former Palestinian Authority official, and was raised primarily by his Mexican American mother.)

But facts do not appear to be Hunter’s chief concern. The political strategy here is self-evident: Feed on anti-Muslim prejudice to scare enough conservative voters into pulling the lever for the incumbent-- indictment be damned.

California’s Fiftieth District hasn’t drawn much attention from horse-race obsessives this year. There are other races with tighter polls, other House seats more likely to flip. But what’s unfolding here in the suburbs of San Diego represents an unnerving microcosm of this campaign season: white Republicans frightened by cynical conspiracy-mongers; religious minorities frightened by the fallout; a community poisoned by Trumpian politics-- and a bitter question hovering over the whole ugly affair: Will it ever get better?

Duncan Hunter is not an easy man to find these days. He rarely holds campaign rallies, and doesn’t attend town halls or debates. When I emailed his office asking for an interview, I was politely told my request would be added to the “list”-- and then ignored when I tried to follow up.

...On the whole, Campa-Najjar said he was surprised by how ham-fisted Hunter’s strategy had been. “I thought there would be more finesse to it,” he told me.

Now, though, he was more confident than ever that victory was at hand. With Obama-esque audacity, he began ticking off all the reasons to be optimistic. The district was more diverse than many realized. “McCain Republicans” were repelled by the Muslim-bashing. While his own campaign was infused with idealism and “youth,” Hunter’s was cloaked in the stench of “desperation.”

Very soon, he assured me, the good voters of the California Fiftieth would reject the ugly politics that had permeated their community this year and send him to Congress.

Perhaps detecting my skepticism, Campa-Najjar tried to conjure an alternative happy ending. “And if we fall short,” he tried, “we proved that we exceeded expectations and that...” but then he stopped himself. He couldn’t do it.

“I think we’re going to win.”

3 more hours to vote

Come to think of it, one of the House's most horrible creatures, Marsha Blackburn is running for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. That's a very red state-- PVI is R+14 and Trump beat Hillary there 1,522,925 (60.7%) to 870,695 (34.7%). The results between Blackburn and Bredesen won't look like that tonight. Here's why:

• Early voting in Tennessee is at 95% of the total turnout for 2014.
• Early vote turnout among 18 and 29 year olds is up 317% compared to 2014.
• Early vote turnout among first time voters increased by 973% from 2014 (57,253). New voters represented 8% of the total early vote.
• 566,666 Tennesseans who did not vote in 2014 voted early this year. In other words, 40.81% of this year’s early voters did not vote in 2014.
• 105,487 Tennesseans (8% of the early voting electorate) did not vote in August 2018, 2016, or 2014. Half of these voters are under 50 years old.
• Women 40 years and younger increased their early vote participation by 266% from 2014.
• African American midterm early vote increased by 169% compared to 2014, largely due to increased participation among young African American voters.
• African American women vote increased by 172% compared to 2014.

Compared to all other states, Tennessee is now:

• #1 in overall increase of early votes cast compared to 2014
• #1 in the increase of 18-29 year olds voting

Still... it is Tennessee, so don't get your hopes up too high.

Meanwhile, NBC News reported this morning that top Republicans are shitting a brick over Trump's racist, xenophobic closing message. He's costing them independents and he's costing them the suburbs. Most of them believe "that his campaign rhetoric has gone too far and will cost some GOP candidates their races and jobs. Trump has spent the final stretch of this election season in some of the most conservative areas in the country, rallying his base of supporters by warning that Democrats will usher in an age of 'socialism' and 'open borders' if voters put them in charge of either chamber of Congress... [A]s voters head to the polls, some Republicans worry that message could backfire and cost some of the most vulnerable GOP House incumbents and candidates in suburban districts or in districts with larger minority populations." Because the fools looking for red meat and cheap entertainment who come to his rallies cheer all his lies, Trump has lost the ability to understand that 65% of the country doesn't believe a thing he says.

One Republican strategist said that Rep. John Culberson, who is in a tough re-election bid in a solidly Republican district in the Houston area, was polling four points ahead of his opponent, Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, in the days after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

After Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric and visited Houston, internal polling showed Culberson down three points.

In some races, including Culberson's, “the certain tone and the certain issues he’s chosen to focus on is not helpful” the Republican strategist said.

...Other vulnerable Republicans are trying to counter Trump by focusing their campaign on local issues. Rep. Jeff Denham, who represents an agriculture district with a large Hispanic population in central California, has ignored Trump's national messaging on immigration and instead focused largely on water, a crucial issue there.

But if Republicans lose a large number of seats, someone will be blamed. And some Republicans are already pointing the finger at Trump.

Food fight coming tomorrow!

Gambling And Prostitution Czar Sheldon Adelson Is Underwriting The Republican Party's Overtly Racist Advertising

Macau/Vegas Mob-affiliated right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson continues to fund McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund and Ryan's Congressional Leadership Fund to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. He is, by far, the biggest contributor to right-wing politics in America, around $60 million so far this year... with plenty more coming. Among House races, the biggest Adelson cash dump has been in Wisconsin, against Randy Bryce, where hundreds of hours of vicious smear attacks have seriously changed the complexion of the race. An old friend of mine in Kenosha told me, "You can't escape the barrage of really ugly ads against Randy. Ryan is really doing a job on this guy. If there's a TV ad next week saying the Randy looked over someone's should in the 3rd grade to get a test answer, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. They don't want to talk about issues; they just want to attack, attack, attack on all this made-up personal crap... I hope it backfires on that little slimeball Ryan is pushing."

On Wednesday, one of the right-wing slime-buckets, Republican Nancy Douglass, who's been slanting the news on WLKG, her Lake Geneva radio station against Bryce for months, was forced to resign as chair of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. She appeared in an ad sponsored by Ryan's PAC, referring to Bryce as a deadbeat. Remember, Bryce is union iron worker who's been slaving away his whole life supporting a family. Brian Steil, a shady corporate attorney, has been busy working for a firm that specializes in sending Wisconsin jobs to low-wage hell-holes overseas.

Widely considered one of the most vicious broadcasters in the Midwest, Douglass is a frequent contributor to the Republican Party of Walworth County and has spent lavishly to support Paul Ryan and other right-wingers in southeast Wisconsin. An anti-union zealot and repulsive racist, Douglass represents everything that's wrong with the Trumpist party today. The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association is fortunate to be rid of her and her unAmerican propaganda.

Bryce may be getting the largest amount of Adelson sewer money thrown at him, but he's hardly the only one. Republican Party racism is on display big time as the party and its affiliated SuperPACS descend into a frenzy of white nationalism around the country. Jamiles Lartey has been watching for The Guardian as the GOP takes aim at non-white congressional candidates. Trumpism has given racism a seal of approval. He wrote that "as the 2018 midterm election campaign pulls into its homestretch, Republican attacks in two congressional races happening 3,000 miles apart have triggered alarm bells for targeting non-white candidates in an apparent effort to highlight their 'otherness.' The first comes from California’s 50th district, where Ammar Campa-Najjar is running as a Democrat for a seat currently occupied by the Republican Duncan Hunter. NBC’s Chuck Todd, a veteran political reporter and commentator called the spot 'maybe the most shocking and outrageous political ad I’ve ever seen,' in a Meet The Press Daily segment."

The ad zeroes in on Campa-Najjar’s heritage-- his mother is Mexican American and his father is Palestinian-- calling him a “Palestinian, Mexican, millennial Democrat” who is “working to infiltrate Congress” and a “security risk.”

“At best it’s desperate. That’s putting it mildly,” said Campa-Najjar, who also called the effort “blatantly ignorant” and “unhinged from reality.”

Last Wednesday a bipartisan group of dozens of national security veterans decried the spot as a “racist and bigoted” attack. “The baseless allegation that he is somehow a ‘security threat’ is an affront to our professionalism as national security experts, our American values, and our collective national dignity,” the group said in an open letter.

The ad accuses Campa-Najjar of being supported by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood with no evidence, and despite the fact that Campa-Najjar is a Christian. “It’s just so interesting that we live in a world where Islamophobia even extends to non-Muslims,” Campa-Najjar told The Guardian.

...In a email statement to The Guardian, Hunter’s spokesman, Michael Harrison, declined to provide a source for the claims about the Muslim Brotherhood or the quote from Campa-Najjar’s father, but insisted that “the facts … raise national security concerns.”

Ironically, when Drunken Hunter was arrested and arraigned on a wide range of corruption, fraud and theft charges recently, Paul Ryan kicked him off the House Armed Services Committee since he really is a security threat. (And to make it worse, one of the groups he stole from was Wounded Warriors.) Hunter, a far right extrenmist, is a well-known philanderer and substance-abuser, who stole money to buy drugs and companionship from sex workers. First the San Diego area saw Duke Cunningham get thrown in prison-- a close "associate" of Duncan Hunter, Sr.-- and now it looks like Duncan Hunter will be the next San Diego member of Congress headed there.

“The fact is, there’s me, who was cleared by the FBI to work at White House, and there’s Hunter who was indicted by the FBI,” said Campa-Najjar. “So the law’s on my side and not his side as of late.”

David Schweidel, a professor of marketing at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University said ads like this may increasingly be more en vogue in the post-2016 election climate largely because Trump’s well-documented reliance on personal attacks proved effective enough to win the White House.

“We saw pundit after pundit kind of commenting on the fact that these personal attacks weren’t coming across as presidential and how ‘it’s the wrong temperament.’ Well, guess what, people responded to it,” Schweidel said.

He added that spots like Hunter’s are generally not intended to sway undecided voters, but to inspire the base to show up at the polls. As US politics continues its long slog towards ever-increased partisanship, elections become more about turning out the base and less about converting undecideds: which could mean negative and personal attacks only become more prevalent.

On the other side of the country, attack ads on a black congressional candidate’s former career as a rapper have taken on racist undertones in a district that, like California’s 50th, is predominantly white. Antonio Delgado, a Harvard Law graduate and Rhodes Scholar is running as a Democrat for a seat in New York’s 19th district currently held by Republican John Faso.

As a young man, Delgado released a socially conscious and political hip-hop album under the name AD the Voice in 2006.

Since the album came to light, a number of Republican groups have seized on it to paint Delgado’s flirtation with hip-hop as out of step with the values of the district. The Congressional Leadership Fund released an advert spot referring to Delgado as a “New York City liberal” and “[Nancy] Pelosi’s candidate” before clipping a handful of Delgado’s song lyrics, overlaying dramatically loud “bleep” sounds over words like “fuck,” “sex” and “porno.”

The ad also accused Delgado of “lacing his raps with extremist attacks on American values”, playing a clip where Delgado states, factually, that more civilian lives were lost during the Iraq war than the 9/11 attacks.

Faso didn’t place the ads, but has not condemned them either, saying in a statement this summer that “Mr Delgado’s lyrics paint an ugly and false picture of America.”

The subtext of the ads was seemingly illuminated in a New York Times article from July when Gerald Benjamin, a friend of Faso’s and director of the Benjamin Center at State University of New York at New Paltz, posed the question: “Is a guy who makes a rap album the kind of guy who lives here in rural New York and reflects our lifestyle and values?”

He continued: “People like us, people in rural New York, we are not people who respond to this part of American culture,” eventually sparking protests from students at his home campus in New Paltz. Benjamin later apologized for his remarks.

Delgado has said the ads are an effort to “otherize” him in the eyes of the white voters he needs to win.

“It’s insulting to people in the district that Faso believes they will buy into this sort of deception and dishonesty,” said Delgado’s campaign manager, Allyson Marcus, noting that a similarly themed Super Pac radio ad was even pulled by the local radio station WDST, which called the ad “highly offensive” and “factually distorted” in a statement.

“The truth is Antonio grew up in a working-class family in Schenectady, right here in upstate New York, where he learned the values of hard work and accountability. The real question is, why won’t Faso condemn these divisive and deceptive ads,” Marcus asked.

Faso did not respond to a request for comment.

Two Long-shot House Races Worth Betting On

Nate and Ammar are running against 2 indicted crooks

The DCCC still refuses to back progressive Democrats Nate McMurry and Ammar Campa-Najjar despite the fact that both their opponents, extreme Trumpists Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, have been indicted on multiple counts of fraud and related financial crimes. The DCCC claims the districts are too red for them to compete in. Yet, polls for both Nate and Ammar show the two races locked in dead heat ties.

Yesterday, McMurray's campaign revealed results of internal polling showing that the NY-27 is tied, 42-42%, despite the fact that Collins has been spending heavily on a smear campaign to discourage voters and McMurry hasn't aired a single TV ad yet.

"This proves what we’ve been seeing on the ground for months: We. Can. Win," said McMurray. "Voters are tired of corruption and care about protecting healthcare, fighting for farms and supporting small businesses. Voters feel taken advantage of by a wealthy man who used his power to enrich himself instead of representing people like us. They are angry that he’s running for re-election because his defense attorneys told him to. They are sick of politics as usual that puts the desires of the powerful above the needs of working people. They know that we are better than this in Western New York, and they’re right."

The poll also shows that nine in ten voters (90%) report that they have heard, read, or seen information about Collins’ indictment, with a majority (57%) stating they have heard "a lot" about the indictment. Collins and his son were arrested in Collins' swanky NYC penthouse-- where he lives, far from the district, by FBI agents on multiple charges including insider trading. He said he wouldn't run for another term but changed his mind after his lawyers told him being a member of Congress is an ace bargaining chip to use to get a reduced sentence (in return for resigning).

McMurray's campaign does not accept any corporate PAC money but has raised close to half a million dollars in the third quarter. The influx money is helping him compete in the final leg of the campaign and will guarantee that Collins can no longer outspend him ten to one, as he had been doing.

Collins has been a complete Trump enabler and rubber-stamp, one of the worst anywhere in the country, as you can see on the 538 graphic above. The one below is for the record Duncan Hunter has accrued-- when he wasn't busy accruing money from his campaign fund and the booze and sex-workers he used it for:

Hunter and Collins were the first two members of Congress to endorse Trump. So you can imagine that both are enthusiastic and dedicated Trump puppets. Collins is so bad he almost makes Hunter look better-- almost. Hunter does what Trump wants 94.5% of the time. Both these dreadful, corrupt congressmen should be replaced and McMurray and Campa-Najjar will both make outstanding congressman. Please consider clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional calendar of progressives who have won their primaries but who the DCCC refuses to assist. The DCCC always prefers to help Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican Wing of the Democratic Party. McMurray and Campa-Najjar are both from the FDR wing of the party and both supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. Both can really use some help for this final sprint to election day, less than a month away. These are the kind of long shot races in anti-red wave cycles that always shock pundits, journalists and the DCCC on election day. Nate Silver foolishly gives Nate a 1 in 20 chance to win and gives Ammar a 1 in 8 chance. Help prove him-- and the imbeciles at the DCCC-- wrong again.

The Midterm Field Has Expanded In California-- Thank Ted Lieu

L.A. Times this morning: "Republicans are at risk of a wipeout in California’s six most hotly contested congressional races, a new poll shows-- a result that could radically reshape the state’s political map, with major consequences nationally... The Democratic tide threatens to swamp congressional districts in Southern California’s suburbs that Republicans have controlled for decades. That would significantly boost Democrats’ chances of gaining the additional 23 seats they need to win a majority in the House."

The story behind the story, a story beyond the ken of the mass media. After years of abject DCCC failure, the members of the Democratic caucus in the House demanded reforms from Pelosi before agreeing to give her another term as leader. That was in 2016. Reluctantly, Pelosi agreed to giving up the right to pick the DCCC chair and she agreed to allow the election of six DCCC regional vice chairs.

Big victory for reformers, right? Bullshit! When it came time to vote, the only candidate running for DCCC chair was Pelosi's handpicked, bumbling incompetent, Ben Ray Luján. So he was elected. There were no contested battles for the DCCC vice chairmen jobs either. And that has turned out to be a complete disaster. More than half the candidates outside of the West Coast have told me they didn't know their region even had a regional vice chair. One vice chair told me he didn't know why he ran or what the job was and asked me to help him figure out what he was supposed to do. Two years on and he hasn't done a thing. Another resigned a couple of months after being elected and, despite promises from Luján and Pelosi that he would be replaced, there is still no regional vice chair for the Rocky Mountain states and Texas (one of the crucial battlegrounds of 2018, where the unsupervised DCCC staff has fucked up race after race). In the end, two regional vice chairs get a passing grade, Joe Kennedy (B) and Ted Lieu (A+). The rest have been abject, embarrassing failures.

And that brings us back to this morning's L.A. Times story. "With the Nov. 6 midterm election less than five weeks away," wrote David Lauter, "none of the Republicans in the state’s six most competitive races have a lead. The Democrats lead strongly in one race and narrowly in three others, and two are dead heats, the Berkeley IGS Poll shows. Reaction to President Trump appears to drive the results more than any specific issue and, in most cases, more than the individual candidates. 'Trump appears to be the main motivator for voters in these districts,' said Mark DiCamillo, the veteran pollster who directs the Berkeley IGS Poll. 'He’s the central figure.'" Yes, he has that right. Recall, Ted Lieu's comments here at DWT yesterday: "The 2018 midterm elections are primarily about one thing: Donald Trump. November will be a referendum on the job the President and his party are doing.  Americans express their support or displeasure with the governing party. During a time of relatively low unemployment it is unheard of for the party in power to be so despised. But this is where we are-- Trump’s numbers are under water in purple districts across the country. This tells me that Americans are anxious about other things besides the economy. They are concerned about Trump’s temperament and lack of basic decency, the instability he creates around the globe, and his assault on our democratic norms and institutions. Voters are smart. They know that Trump inherited a pretty darn good economy from Barack Obama; and yet what did he do with it? Did he increase workers wages with a big infrastructure package? Did he tackle the student debt crisis? Make healthcare more affordable? Pay down the national debt? Nope. He and his Republican enablers in Congress passed a hugely unpopular tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and continue to undermine the Affordable Care Act. So on top of issues with Trump’s character and temperament, these policies are also very unpopular (and don’t even get me started on Russia)."

Even if he was hampered by the usual DC-directed DCCC staffer-clowns stepping clumsily and ineptly all over recruitment efforts, Lieu has demonstrated how the DCCC could turn into an organization that actually helps elect Democrats-- instead of existing as a pocket-lining disaster that benefits only the Republican Party. Unlike his co-vice chairs, he has raised millions of dollars for his region's candidates, helped the West Coast candidates find their footings for their races and helped create the environment that journalists and pundits marvel over as they write about the West Coast races.

Trump is unpopular across most of the targeted districts-- four covering parts of Orange and San Diego counties, one in Los Angeles County and one centered on Modesto in the Central Valley. That’s especially true among college-educated white voters, whose alienation from the president has turned suburban districts across the country into risky territory for the GOP, and among Latinos and women.

The share of voters who approve of Trump serves as a ceiling for Republican candidates, with none able to surpass Trump’s level by more than a few percentage points. That’s a significant problem for Republicans; in five of the six districts, a majority of likely voters disapprove of the president’s performance in office.

In several districts, the president’s opponents appear more motivated to vote than his supporters, with self-identified liberals and registered Democrats more likely to say that they view this year’s election as more important than previous contests.

Strategies that the Republicans had hoped would bolster their campaigns and make up for the undertow from the president appear to have had limited effect, at best.

A ballot measure to repeal the recent increase in the state’s gas tax, which Republican operatives had hoped would spur turnout on their side, trails in each of the six highly competitive districts. Money for the repeal campaign has largely dried up as Republicans have diverted funds elsewhere.

A national effort by Republicans to portray untested Democratic candidates as unacceptably liberal appears also to have come up short in these California districts. Several Democratic newcomers have maintained favorable images with voters, the poll showed.

As a result of those factors, Republicans lag behind in two of the four congressional districts that cover most of Orange County, long the heartland of California conservatism. The other two contests are dead heats.

A longtime Republican incumbent, Rep. Steve Knight of Palmdale, is narrowly trailing in the only remaining L.A.-centered district the GOP holds.

Farther north, Republican Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock, who has survived previous attempts by Democrats to oust him, is behind by a slim margin in his Central Valley race.

The poll’s findings in those districts are generally similar to other recent nonpartisan, publicly released surveys.

In addition to those six districts, the poll also surveyed the races in two Republican-held seats that have not been top Democratic targets but have attracted considerable attention.

Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has a 53%-45% lead in his race against Andrew Janz, a county prosecutor. Nunes’ role as a defender of Trump has opened a gusher of money for Janz, despite the district’s heavily Republican tilt.

But in another heavily Republican district, Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine has only a 49%-47% lead over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, a result well within the poll’s margin of error.

Let me butt in here for a moment. According to Janz, the DCCC has been unhelpful and even hostile to his efforts to replace Nunes. Lieu has gone out of his way to help Janz even though Luján and Pelosi have refused to even add him to their Red to Blue list. With Lieu's help he has raised more money than any of the DCCC-favored candidates. And Lieu includes him in all his joint candidate events and fund-raising efforts. The DCCC has also ignored-- and viciously undermined-- Ammar Campa-Najjar. Lieu? He's helping him raise money and, in fact, is hosting a major fundraising event for him (and Randy Bryce) in two weeks.

49th District

Democrats have their strongest shot in the 49th District, covering northern San Diego County and the southern Orange County coast up through Dana Point. Mike Levin, the Democrat, has a 55%-41% lead over Republican Diane Harkey, the poll shows. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa decided not to run for reelection in a district that Hillary Clinton carried by just more than 7 points in the 2016 presidential election.

White voters with college degrees make up 45% of the likely voters in this mostly affluent, suburban district, and they back Levin 60% to 35%. Latinos, who make up about 1 in 8 likely voters here, back him by about a 3-1 majority. While men are divided almost evenly between the two, women favor Levin 60% to 34%.

Perhaps most important, likely voters disapprove of how Trump is doing as president 61% to 39%, with more than half, 55%, saying they strongly disapprove. Democrats and liberals were significantly more likely than Republicans and conservatives to say that it was “very important” for them to cast a vote to show their position on Trump.

48th District

Next door to the north, the 48th District, which spans the rest of the Orange County coast from Laguna Niguel to Seal Beach and inland to Westminster and Fountain Valley, is a couple of clicks more conservative. Clinton carried the district by less than 2 percentage points.

There, longtime Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and his Democratic challenger, Harley Rouda, are in a dead heat, each with 48%. Voters also split almost evenly on whether they approve of Trump.

As in the 49th District, college-educated white voters and Latinos back the Democrat, but they make up a slightly smaller share of the electorate: 39% of likely voters in the 48th District are whites with college degrees, and about 1 in 10 are Latino, the poll found.

Rohrabacher also benefits from significant support among Asian Americans, who make up about 1 in 8 of the likely voters. Elsewhere in California, Asian Americans lean heavily toward the Democrats, but this district includes a large, conservative Vietnamese population. Asian American voters overall divide almost equally between Rohrabacher and Rouda, the poll found.

Among whites without a college degree-- the heart of Trump’s voting base-- Rohrabacher leads by nearly 20 points, 58% to 39%, almost twice the size of the Republican’s margin with that group in the 49th District. Women support the Democrat, but men back the Republican by an almost equal margin.

The more Trump-oriented conservatism of the 48th District also surfaces when voters said what issues they care about most. Among Republicans in the 49th District, taxes were the top issue; in the 48th, it was “securing the nation’s borders.”

As the two sides vie to break the Rohrabacher-Rouda tie, the poll found a couple of weak spots.

Latino voters in the district were slightly less likely than others to say they viewed this election as more important than usual. That could hold down the Democratic vote.

Rohrabacher, however, has been dogged by controversy over his friendliness to people connected with Russia’s government. Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming share of Democrats said his contacts with Russian officials made them less likely to vote for Rohrabacher. So did 10% of registered Republicans. Among the small number of undecided voters, 45% said the Russia issue made them less likely to vote for him.

45th District

The 45th District, which covers a swath of Orange County from Irvine east through most of the foothill communities, resembles the 49th in its affluent, college-educated demographics. Clinton carried the district by 5 percentage points.

The Republican incumbent, Rep. Mimi Walters of Laguna Beach, had confidently predicted she could ride out the national tide flowing against her party, but the poll shows her Democratic challenger, UC Irvine law professor Katie Porter, leading 52% to 45%.

This race illustrates the failure so far of GOP strategies. Walters put money into helping get the gas tax repeal measure on the ballot, hoping it would spur GOP turnout. But the poll shows the measure getting only about a third of the vote in the district.

Republicans have also put millions into ads attacking Porter as too far to the left. That effort has had limited impact. By 50% to 38%, likely voters have a favorable opinion of Porter; self-identified moderates view her favorably 52% to 37%. By contrast, 50% of the district’s voters have a negative view of Walters, compared with 45% who see her positively.

39th District

Only a very, very strong wave could drag Cisneros into Congress

The GOP may have had more success with negative ads in the 39th District, which covers much of northern Orange County as well as parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Gil Cisneros has battled accusations that he sexually harassed a former Democratic state Assembly candidate, Melissa Fazli. A Republican super PAC allied with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-WI) has run advertisements in the district about the charge.

Fazli withdrew the accusation this week after a meeting with Cisneros, saying it was based on a “misunderstanding.” The super PAC said it would stop running the ads.

The poll can’t directly measure the impact of that issue, but 45% of likely voters have a negative view of Cisneros. That includes 10% of registered Democrats. Just 41% of likely voters view him positively.

Cisneros and Republican Young Kim are locked in a dead heat, the poll showed, with the Democrat holding a nominal 49%-48% edge.

25th District

The demographic picture looks somewhat different in northern Los Angeles County, where Republican Rep. Steve Knight hopes to hold off a challenge from Katie Hill, the 31-year-old former executive director of PATH, a nonprofit organization that provides services to homeless people.

Hill has a slight edge, 50% to 46%, within the poll’s margin of error.

The district, which covers Simi Valley, Santa Clarita and the Palmdale area, has fewer college-educated white voters than the wealthy Orange County suburbs. But it has a higher share of minority voters.

Latinos make up a bit more than 1 in 5 of the district’s likely voters and support Hill by nearly 2 to 1, the poll found. Hill also benefits from a significant gender gap, with women backing her 53% to 44% over Knight, while men split almost evenly. Just over half of the voters have a strongly negative view of Trump

10th District

Similar factors have put Republican Rep. Jeff Denham’s career at risk as he seeks a fifth term in a district centered on Modesto in the Central Valley, where Latinos make up more than 40% of the district's population, but about a quarter of the likely voters.

Denham’s Democratic opponent, Josh Harder, has the support of roughly two-thirds of Latinos, the poll found.

White voters split 52% for Denham, 43% for Harder. Together, that’s enough to give the Democrat a 50%-45% edge in a district that Clinton narrowly carried in 2016 and where 57% of voters say they disapprove of Trump.

Here on the right is the Blue America "California-- Not Blue Enough" thermometer for 2018. To win Congress, Democratic voters are stuck with whichever candidates the primaries advanced to the general election. There are some really good candidates and some really bad candidates-- and mostly candidates in between. The DCCC put its finger on the scales in many districts to make sure New Dems and "ex"-Republicans from the Republican wing of the party would be the general election candidates. To stop Trump, we are now stuck with a situation where we have to vote for them too. But that isn't what Blue America is about. We're raising money only for the progressive candidates. Sure, vote for the Democrap candidates to help put Trump in check, but only contribute money to the progressives who will actually help solve America's problems when they get into Congress. Isn't that what this is ultimately all about? So, who, precisely, are they? Tap on the thermometer and you'll see.

Duncan Hunter Went Right For The Obvious Racist Smear-- The DCCC Is Far More Subtle About It

In its fulsome endorsement of Ammar Campa-Najjar last week, the San Diego Union Tribune emphasized the contrast between him and the indicted (60 counts) incumbent Drunken Hunter. They pointed out that Ammar "meets the test of being a credible candidate" and that "he is far superior to the troubled incumbent. This fact is underlined by the despicable ad that Hunter has begun to air in recent days suggesting that his “Palestinian Mexican millennial” opponent was linked to terrorist groups and was 'working to infiltrate Congress.'" One of Ammar's grandfathers was a Muslim terrorist. He died 16 years before Ammar, a Christian, was born. When Ammar worked at the White House, he was "given a security clearance by the Secret Service after a thorough background check." The Union Tribune concluded their endorsement by noting that "With this smear, Hunter continues to demolish his own reputation." Here's the repulsive, bigoted ad that has been berated everywhere:



Ammar is trying to infiltrate Congress? President Obama endorsed him yesterday. As the Washington Post noted yesterday "Campa-Najjar said in an interview that he never knew his grandfather, who died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born. He condemned the Munich attacks. 'I denounce those actions,' he said."

He was in a 7-person top 2 primary and beat the other 2 Democrats handily. He took 25,799 votes compared to the ex-Republican the DCCC was pushing, Josh Butner, who got 18,944. The Islamophobic ad strongly insinuates Ammar is Muslim, which he isn't. He's a practicing Catholic. You can help that all-American Catholic guy "infiltrate Congress" by clicking on the 2018 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right.

The funny thing is that Drunken Hunter would never be able to get the kind of security clearance from the Secret Service that Ammar got. Hunter is charged with defrauding the Wounded Warriors, using money that was supposed to go to them for luxury items for himself. He'll do or so anything to get the voters' focus off that and off the fact that Ryan kicked him off theHouse Armed Services Committee because of the seriousness of the 43-page indictment. This creep is going to prison and wants to be able to use his congressional seat as a bargaining chip to get his sentence reduced. So who's actually trying to infiltrate Congress?

So what did I mean about the DCCC being more subtle? I was told by a very reliable source inside the DCCC that the reason they haven't put Ammar on their Red-to-Blue List, despite all the endorsements from members of Congress and even from Obama-- and the reason why they refuse to defend him from Drunken Hunter's vicious, vile attack ad-- is because there's a racist piggy with the power to block it. Think about that next time they ask for a contribution. (And, of course, as soon as I get a confirmation of his name, I'll blurt it right out.)