Xenophobe In Chief Wants To Change The Constitution With An Executive Order

For the first time ever, Trump is doing something as so-called "president" that hurts his own business. The Trump family makes huge profits by leasing expensive apartments to wealthy pregnant women from China, Russia and other former Soviet states so that their children are born in the U.S. and become automatic citizens. But as part of his xenophobic scare campaign in the last week of the midterm campaign, he announced Monday that he's signing an executive order to end "birthright citizenship." Since this defies the Constitution, it is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court. The 14th Amendment says "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Axios, for whom Trump made the announcement, calls it "the most dramatic move yet in Trump's hardline immigration campaign, this time targeting 'anchor babies' and 'chain migration.' And it will set off another stand-off with the courts, as Trump’s power to do this through executive action is debatable to say the least... The Supreme Court has already ruled that children born to immigrants who are legal permanent residents have citizenship. But those who claim the 14th Amendment should not apply to everyone point to the fact that there has been no ruling on a case specifically involving undocumented immigrants or those with temporary legal status."

Lying as usual, Señor Trumpanzee said "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits... It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." There are at least 30 other countries, including Canada, that have birthright citizenship as well. No one expects Trump to have any factual basis for his assertions-- even when White House aides brief him. He has gotten away with lying for his entire life and has no plans on stopping now. Polls show that by huge majorities, Americans are aware that Trump is a congenital liar who can never be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

The American Civil Liberties Union slammed Trump's proposal Tuesday morning.

"The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms."

"What makes America great," warned Judiciary Committee member Ted Lieu, "is that we are a nation of laws, not a dictatorship. Trump cannot change the 14th Amendment by fiat. Any such action would be struck down by the courts. Trump's announcement is little more than a political gimmick to distract from the real issues facing many Americans: rising health care costs, wage stagnation and the deep feeling that our nation is on the wrong track."

Trump lapdog Lindsey Graham, still auditioning for Attorney General, says he will introduce a bill in the Senate to end birthright citizenship. I asked around to some of the political leaders who have a better understanding of the Constitution than Trump and the aide who told him to do this, neo-Nazi Stephen Miller. Alan Grayson mentioned that "The only justification for that would be if Trump were illiterate.

ALL PERSONS BORN or naturalized IN THE UNITED STATES and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES and of the State wherein they reside.

"That’s what the Constitution says-- the very same Constitution that Trump took an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend.'"

Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of Congress' most dedicated social justice leaders, went even further than Grayson, telling me this morning that "Trump, who claims to be an originalist, should read history. Lincoln’s Attorney General, whose thinking was the basis of the 14th Amendment wrote: 'I am quite clear in the opinion that children born in the United States of alien parents, who have never been naturalized, are natural born citizens of the United States.'"

Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who I first met when he was Counsel to People for the American Way and Professor of Constitutional Law at American University, is now the House's most progressive member and Vice-Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. One day he is expected to chair that committee. A few hours ago, he told me that "Like dictators and authoritarians all over the world, Donald Trump now proposes to use the revocation of individual citizenship as a political weapon and a tool of racial demagoguery. As usual, his tyrannical instincts run headfirst into the Constitution, which guarantees, in the Fourteenth Amendment, citizenship to all persons born here. Birthright citizenship was a hard-won victory of the Civil War and the Radical Republicans who inscribed it in the Fourteenth Amendment to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which had determined that African-Americans could never be citizens within the meaning of the Constitution and had no rights that ‘the white man was bound to respect.’ Just as Trump’s ambivalent and disoriented response to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville put him on the wrong side of World War II, and just as his continuing collection of payments from foreign states, Princes and Kings puts him on the wrong side of the American Revolution, his new effort to isolate and vilify the immigrant community puts him on the wrong side of the Civil War. In any event, the Fourteenth Amendment means just what it says-- ‘All persons born . . . in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’  The idea that Trump can make their constitutional rights disappear with an Executive Order is preposterous and laughable. Any Republican who climbs on this miserable train surrenders the right to call himself a ‘textualist,’ an ‘originalist’ or a respecter of precedent."

In an e-mail to her supporters this morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), also a member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote that "Trump should take a high school government class before so confidently claiming he can eliminate the 14th Amendment though executive action. Constitutional scholars and even members of his own party agree-- this simply isn’t possible. This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant rhetoric, sow division and distract voters from this administration’s very real infringements against working families. To Senator Lindsey Graham and anyone looking to encroach on basic citizenship rights legislatively: we will fight tooth and nail against any kind of regressive action, in the streets, in Congress and beyond. Our country’s fabric is stronger because of the protections provided in the 14th Amendment. These efforts are nothing more than attempts to harm children who are just as American as any other child born in the United States of America."

Mike Siegel, the progressive Texan running against anti-immigrant fanatic Michael McCaul in TX-10 put this into the perspective Trump is seeing this in. "Trump's announcement," he told me, "is a hateful, cynical ploy alongside the military buildup at the border and his attacks on the 'caravan' of asylum seekers. The President cannot revoke the 14th Amendment by fiat, just as he cannot reinstate slavery or restore the right of European men to take land from indigenous peoples. My sincere hope is that a majority of Americans reject this jingoistic white nationalism and elect a Democratic Congress. Until then, I'll be out here fighting for policies that will actually uplift working people, like Medicare for All and a living wage."

Florida state Senator, Annette Taddeo, an old friend of this blog, is originally from Columbia and now represents the Kendall area in southern Miami-Dade County, told me that "Trump must be confusing his presidency with the dictators he so admires as he attacks the press daily and now suggest changing a right that is protected under the 14th amendment of our constitution. Attempting to end this constitutionally protected right through executive order is un-American and downright ilegal."

Anti-Trump Tsunami Continues To Build-- GOP Wipeouts In New Hampshire And Florida This Week

Annette Taddeo, rising star

Tuesday was a big day, electorally, for Democrats-- and not because Alabama Republicans nominated a psychotic extremist, Roy Moore, in their primary runoff. (Moore will face off against moderate Democrat, Doug Jones, on December 12; every poll shows Moore winning. Count on Alabama to go for the crazy; they're still fighting the Civil War. The latest poll--this week)-- by Google Consumer Surveys shows Moore ahead 58-42%.) No, the good news for Democrats came in New Hampshire and Florida.

Last night everyone was talking about Quinnipiac's new poll finding that 57% of voters disapprove of the way Trump is doing his job and that 56% of voters-- including 57% of independents-- think he is "not fit to serve as president." (60% say he doesn't have good leadership skills; 67% say he's not level headed; and 59% say he's dishonest.) But worse for the Republicans was deeper down in the poll. Question: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job?" Overall 15% approve and 78% disapprove. Worse yet, among independent voters-- who will decide which party controls Congress in 2018-- only 11% approve, while 81% disapprove. 81%!

OK, let's look at Florida first. Annette Taddeo won the special election for a previously Republican-held seat in southwest Miami's 40th state Senate district by a Republican by beating Republican state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, a former contestant on Trump's Apprentice reality show. She will be the first Democratic Latina in the state Senate, beating Diaz 22,649 (50.9%) to 20,985 (47.2%). In 2016 Republican Frank Artiles beat Democrat Dwight Bullard 100,170 (50.62%) to 80,551 (40.70%). Artiles, another Republican racist was caught calling African-American senators "niggers" and hiring hookers on the state payroll-- and was forced to resign. The 40th is a majority Latino district-- almost 70% of the voters-- but the registration numbers are about equal with almost a third of the voters neither Democrat nor Republican. Hillary beat Trump in the district last year. This time the GOP outspent Taddeo $3.5 million to $3 million in the special election. Diaz tried spreading a very typical Republican lie, this one that Taddeo was a communist supporter of Colombia's FARC guerrillas. That didn't get very far when her mother did a radio ad explaining that Annette's dad had been kidnapped by the FARC, which is why the family fled to Florida.

Darcy, Howie, Annette, Hilda

We first got to know her back in 2008 when she was running for Congress against Debbie Wassermann Schultz crony Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R). Problem was, Wassermann Schultz at the time was every bit the fully-formed corrupt sack of garbage who stole the Democratic nomination for Hillary... but on a smaller scale. She was the chair of the DCCC "Red to Blue" program, whose only job was to flip red seats blue. Instead she loudly and publicly announced she would not oppose her pal Ileana-- and even dragged other puppet candidates into her shit. Today, in one of her endless streams of spam, Wasserman Schultz claims her mom, Ann, wrote "I always knew my daughter Debbie was going to do great things. I know every mother thinks that about her children, but Debbie is special." Yes Debbie is special and her indictment is supposedly very close. Her chances of winning in tatters, Annette handled the difficult situation with grace and has gone on to holding several party jobs and now to this stupendous win at a point where Wassermann Schultz is an almost universally despised pariah in the Democratic Party.

As late as Tuesday morning, the Miami New Times was writing doubtfully that "if the Dems somehow snag back a state Senate seat in a Miami special election today, it will be big news for a party hoping against hope it can capitalize on Donald Trump's abysmal polling to swing momentum back their way in the Sunshine State." Marc Caputo reported for Politico that Trump dragged Diaz down.

Headed into Election Day, Republicans held a less than 500-vote lead following early voting. It was closer than the party hoped, but with a history of winning decidedly on Election Day, consultants and GOP cheerleaders alike had an overwhelming sense of confidence.

So, what happened?

“Taddeo got lucky. Part Trump. Part Irma. Part Arrogance,” said one dejected GOP operative... Trump is deeply unpopular in Florida's 40th Senate District, which he lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 16 percentage points in November. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, however, carried the district by about 3 percentage points and the prior state senator, Republican Frank Artiles, won by about 10 points... For Republicans looking forward, Trump's lack of popularity looms large.

Scott, who must leave office due to term limits, is considering a bid against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and, unlike many Republicans, has gone out of his way to embrace Trump and stand by the president. Diaz, however, was more nervous about his association with Trump and deleted a picture he posted on Twitter of Trump and him on Inauguration Day.

"Just ran into the first guy who ever fired me," Diaz said in the now-deleted tweet. "The next president of the United States @realDonaldTrump #Apprentice #POTUS #ElPresidente."

For Democrats, the SD 40 victory was filled with challenges, mainly keeping voters engaged in a campaign that got overshadowed by the massive Hurricane Irma that slammed into the Florida Keys on Sept. 10, a little more than two weeks before the election.

Heading into Election Day, Democrats were nervous. After all, Republicans were winning the number of pre-Election Day ballots cast when compared to Democrats who voted by mail or at in-person early voting sites. And a last-minute request by Democrats to extend poll hours on Tuesda got rejected by Scott.

But internal party polling and Election Day vote tallies offered Democrats encouraging news because they show ed that Taddeo had handily won the coveted No Party Affiliation voters by a strong margin.

To do that, the Florida Democratic Party and affiliated progressive groups and unions say they worked together to knock on what they said were 50,000 doors of voters in the last four days of the election.

Democrats executed a similar strategy last month at the other end of the state in the St. Petersburg mayoral race, where Republican Rick Baker has been vexed by Trump. After a last-minute endorsement by former President Barack Obama, Mayor Rick Kriseman outperformed the polls and took the contest to a run-off that will be decided in November.

"This is a referendum, first with Kriseman coming from down in the polls to a first-place finish. And now Annette Taddeo winning Election Day by 19 points and winning NPAs in every segment of the vote, according to the initial numbers," said Juan Peñalosa, a strategist for the Florida Democratic Party. "Democrats and progressives came together to win this election, we are unified, and we have the momentum going into 2018."

It also represents something Florida Democrats have not seen in a long time: a victory over the Tallahassee special interest machine.

Now let's turn to New Hampshire, which was far more of a shock than the win in the swingy 40th in Miami. Here Democrats were looking at the 4th reddest state House district in New Hampshire, a Rockingham County-- Auburn, Chester and Sandown-- district where Republicans hold a massive 2 to 1 registration edge over Democrats. In the end Democrat Kari Lerner took 901 votes (50.6%) to 862 votes (48.4%) for Republican former state Rep. James Headd. Clinton won New Hampshire but this particular House district was Trump country last November; he won it with a massive 23% margin. (Rockingham County was Bernie territory during the primary. He didn't just beat Hillary 31,080 to 22,829, he also outpolled Trump, who pulled 28,716 votes.)

It was the third time since May that Democrats flipped a House seat in a special election. Edith DesMarais won in heavily Republican Wolfeboro on May 23. Charlie St. Clair won in Laconia-Belmont on Sept. 12.

House Democratic Leader Steve Shurtleff said: "Rep.-elect Lerner deserves enormous credit and congratulations for this great victory tonight. Our Democratic family is growing bigger by the week, and Kari Lerner is another great addition. I know she'll work hard and stand up for Democratic values at the State House on behalf of the people of Auburn, Chester and Sandown."

Also, on July 25, Democrat Kevin Cavanaugh defeated Republican former state Sen. David Boutin in a special state Senate election in heavily Republican District 16.

...“There's something happening in this state and all across this country when the deepest red districts in New Hampshire are consistently turning royal blue,” state Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said. “This, our hardest-won victory so far, is the latest proof that voters are showing up when it matters to reject the dangerous and divisive agenda of Donald Trump and Chris Sununu.”

...According to the latest checklist figures provided by the secretary of state’s office, Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 2,600 voters in the district. Undeclared voters make up 42.6 percent of the district, while 39.7 percent of the voters in the district are Republicans and 19.3 percent are Democrats.

No one predicts that even as huge a tsunami against Trump and Ryan as what we saw in New Hampshire Tuesday night will bring the kind of national swing that will decimate the House GOP. But even half that would see the Democrats back in control and the end of arch villains like Paul Ryan (WI), Darrell Issa (CA), Ted Yolo (FL), Fred Upton (MI), Ed Royce (CA), Barbara Comstock (VA), Mark Sanford (SC), Glenn Grothman (WI), Virginia Foxx (NC), Kevin McCarthy (CA), Peter King (NY), Ron DeSantis (FL), Steve Russell (OK), Ted Poe (TX), Pete Sessions (TX), Joe Barton (TX), Lamar Smith (TX), John Culberson (TX), Pete Olson (TX), Mike McCaul (TX)... virtually all the seats DeLay stole he his infamous mid-decade gerrymander.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Announces Her Retirement-- Too Bad She's Not Taking Wasserman Schultz With Her

It was just a matter of when, but sooner or later everyone knew Ileana Ros-Lehtinen-- first elected to Congress in 1989-- would retire and FL-27 would go to the Democrats. The district has long ago left the realm of purple and has been deep blue for some time now. Only the furious on-going efforts of neighboring congresswoman and crooked crony Debbie Wasserman Schultz have kept Ros-Lehtinen safely ensconced in her seat and without serious Democratic challengers. Although the ridiculous and irrelevant clowns at Cook calculate the current PVI at R+2, Obama beat Romney 53.0% to 46.3% in 2012 and Hillary eviscerated Trumpanzee 58.6% to 38.9% last November. FL-27 was Trump's worst performance in any Republican-held congressional district in America.

So today's Miami Herald exclusive by Patricia Mazzei was huge news. With the loss of Wasserman Schultz's power to protect her, it was probably inevitable but, in Mazzei's words, "Ros-Lehtinen, the dean of the Florida legislative delegation and the first Cuban American elected to Congress, is retiring at the end of her term next year, saying it’s time to move on after 38 years in elected office... Her unexpected retirement marks the end of a storied career in which Ros-Lehtinen repeatedly broke political ground as a Cuban-American woman-- and gives Democrats an opportunity to pick up a South Florida congressional seat in 2018."

Ros-Lehtinen, 64, was elected last November to Florida’s redrawn 27th district, a stretch of Southeast Miami-Dade County that leans so Democratic that Hillary Clinton won it over Donald Trump by 20 percentage points.

Ros-Lehtinen defeated Democratic challenger Scott Fuhrman, a first-time candidate, by 10 points. It was her closest reelection race in years and forced her to deplete her $3.4 million campaign account, but she said Sunday she wasn't worried about 2018.

“There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I would not only win in this election, but I would win by a greater percentage,” Ros-Lehtinen said, adding that she would have been able to raise at least $2.5 million and win in a midterm election without a Democratic presidential candidate leading the ballot.

But she said the prospect of another two or four or more years in Congress just didn’t appeal to her anymore.

“There was no epiphany. There was no moment, nothing that has happened that I've said, “I've got to move on,’” Ros-Lehtinen said. “It was just a realization that I could keep getting elected-- but it's not about getting elected.”

She also said she’s not leaving Congress because of her differences with President Trump or with House GOP leadership, though Ros-Lehtinen has been one of the most vocal moderate Republican critics of the White House and the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Ros-Lehtinen, who said she didn’t vote for Trump last year, has disagreed with the president on deportations, transgender rights and budget cuts, and with House Republicans on health care.

“I've served under all kinds of different dynamics in all these years that I've been in office here,” said Ros-Lehtinen, who was first elected to Congress in 1989 after seven years in the Florida Legislature. “Though I don't agree with many, if not most, positions of President Trump.”


Having Republicans control the White House, House and Senate “gives me an opportunity to stand out more and have people realize that I'm a moderate,” she said. “I'm not one of those name-callers that think the Democrats don’t have a single good idea. Too many people think that way, and I think that's to the detriment to civility and of good government.”

But, she insisted, “it's not been part of the calculation of retiring.”

“I would be talking to you even if Hillary Clinton were president,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

There were already 3 Democrats running-- the wealthy Patrick Murphy-like conservaDem who she beat last year, Scott Fuhrman; a pretty weak Miami Beach Commissioner, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez; and Berniecrat Michael Hepburn. Mazzei (and everyone else) predicts that with Ros-Lehtinen out of the picture, "others are likely to become interested now." Annette Taddeo, who was very publicly sabotaged by Wasserman Schultz when "Deadly Debbie" was the chair of the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program in 2008, is a probable candidate who could win a primary and the general election, especially if she follows her own progressive instincts and doesn't run as an EMILY's List milquetoast candidate walking on eggshells.

The Case Against Corrupt Conservative Joe Garcia... In Miami-Dade

CROOK

I first met Miami Democrats Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia at around the same time-- 2008. They were two of the three Democrats running for blue-trending congressional seats in Miami-Dade who were sabotaged by then DCCC Red-to-Blue chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She moved swiftly and effectively to cut off their legs and back her GOP cronies, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers. The DCCC's Red-to-Blue committee only has one job: defeating Republican incumbents and replacing them with Democrats. As chair, Wasserman Schultz made it clear she was on the other side. Eventually Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen felt enough pressure for enraged Democratic donors to fire Wasserman Schultz, although it didn't stop Obama from eventually replacing Tim Kaine with Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC, a grievous error which has helped make the Democratic Party into the failed and corrupt pig-sty it is today.

But back to Garcia and Taddeo. They both campaigned as progressives but were both--largely because of Wasserman Schultz's efforts against them-- defeated. Annette went back to the private sector and was elected chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee in 2012 and then ran for Lt. Governor on Charlie Crist's ticket in 2014. Garcia got a minor position in the Obama Administration's Energy Department and then ran against the scandal-enmeshed Republican David Rivera in 2010 (losing) and again in 2012 (winning). Garcia, unfortunately turned out to be as corrupt as Rivera and was defeated in 2014. Now he and Taddeo are running in a very tight primary against each other to see who the Democratic nominee to face Carlos Curbelo, the lobbyist who beat Garcia in 2014, will be.

Although Garcia campaigned as a progressive, his one term in Congress showed him to be a putrid conservative, first joining the New Dems and then establishing a very consistent Republican-lite record, one of the worst in Congress. When I called him in 2013 and asked him why he was voting against the issues he had campaigned on, he said he had to because of the district and that if he was reelected he would be a better progressive and even join the Progressive Caucus. Blue America refused to endorse him in 2014 and this year you can contribute to Annette Taddeo's campaign here.

Patrick Murphy and his network of banksters, corrupt relatives and Saudi corruptionists are, of course, backing Garcia.

Murphy and Garcia were consistently holding hands and skipping across the aisle together to vote with their Republican pals against Wall Street reform. But voting for the GOP's war against the modest reforms in Dodd-Frank were far from the only instances where crooks like Garcia and Murphy saw opportunities to please rich campaign contributors by voting against Democratic priorities and Democratic values. Like Murphy, once Garcia got into Congress, he abandoned any pretense of progressive politics, joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and started voting consistently with the worst, most right-wing elements of the Democratic Party. And like Patrick Murphy, he voted again and again and again for the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked with conservaDems (again, like Murphy) and the GOP to delay and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. He was quickly a total disappointment to his supporters and soon got involved with a series of his own ugly scandals and in 2014, the FL-26 voters dumped him unceremoniously for Curbelo. Garcia and Murphy support warrantless spying on American citizens and opposed the Amash amendment to prevent that. Garcia's horrible voting record and scandals depressed Democratic turnout and although he outspent Curbelo gigantically-- $3,787,930 to $2,347,633-- of his 135,694 voters from 2012, only 78,306 bothered to come vote for him in 2014, allowing Curbelo to beat him 51 to 49% in an even bluer district than it had been 2 years earlier.

He was a thorn in President Obama's side, whining about the thaw in Cuban-American relations and working with Republicans to undercut his agenda. When we named him one of the 10 worst freshmen in 2013-- along with Murphy-- we noted their votes with the GOP to freeze the pay for federal employees, a vote to soften the blow of the sequester for the Pentagon while leaving all the other victims in the lurch, a GOP initiative to prevent the federal government from giving states greater flexibility when complying with a welfare program’s work requirements, a vote against the Senate budget bill, a vote for CISPA, a domestic spying bill, a vote to cut food stamps drastically, and a vote for HR 1613, a bill written by Oil lobbyists that amounted to big giveaways for offshore drilling businesses.

In the last week or so, Taddeo's campaign has been pointing out that Garcia consistently voted with the Republicans against Obama's reforms and initiatives when he was in Congress. She showed him no mercy after Obama's speech at the convention, telling voters in the district "Whether continually voting to weaken the Affordable Care Act, weaken environmental protections, support Big Oil, exempt the financial industry from regulations, or oppose Democratic budgets, Joe Garcia’s record makes clear that he meant it when he proudly declared last week that “I don't go to Washington to represent the president.” Taddeo's campaign made it clear that she "is running for Congress to build on President Obama’s legacy and protect the gains we have made. Joe Garcia has made clear through his actions and words that he can’t be trusted to stand for core Democratic values." That's my own experience as well.

Garcia repeatedly voted for bills that would weaken the Affordable Care Act and were opposed by the Obama Administration, which said Garcia’s votes “would roll back the progress made” on healthcare and “would raise health insurance premiums and increase the number of uninsured Americans.”

In fact, Garcia was even proud of these votes in his 2014 campaign, as the effort to win him re-election ran ads “highlighting [his] efforts in bucking the administration on some aspects of Obamacare.

Garcia voted twice with Republicans to weaken Obamacare and delay the individual mandate. The Obama Administration promised to veto these two bills, and said that Garcia’s votes would “result in higher premiums for those who remain insured, fewer premium tax credits for middle-income families, and increased cost-shifting of uncompensated care to health care providers, workers, and businesses” and “would undermine key elements of the health law, facilitating further efforts to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans stay on their parents' plans until age 26, millions more who are getting free preventive care that catches illness early on, and thousands of children with pre-existing conditions who are now covered.”

Garcia also voted twice with Republicans to undermine Obamacare by allowing health care plans to remain on the market even if they did not satisfy standards set forth by the Affordable Care Act. President Obama pledged to veto these bills as well, with the Administration saying that Garcia’s votes “would allow insurers to deploy practices such as charging businesses more when a worker has a pre-existing condition or when it has more workers who are women than men. The bill would allow insurers to go back to capping the amount of care that enrollees receive or to excluding coverage of proven preventive care.”

Garcia even voted with Republicans for a bill that would have required unprecedented reporting requirements of Healthcare.gov and cost taxpayers millions and that the Administration strongly opposed.

Garcia voted on an additional three other occasions with Republicans to oppose the Affordable Care Act.

Garcia voted multiple times with Republicans to prohibit the EPA and the state of Florida from requiring businesses to obtain permits when using pesticides near our water sources.

Garcia also supported the Keystone Pipeline which President Obama rejected, and voted with Republicans to help protect oil pipeline operators from lawsuits and put them above the influence of local governments and public opinion.

Garcia voted with Republicans to support tax loopholes for corporations, which the Obama Administration strongly opposed and threatened to veto.

Garcia also voted to exempt Wall Street financial advisors from transparency regulations, which the Obama Administration wrote would “undermine advances in investor protection and regulatory oversight implemented” in the Dodd-Frank reforms and called “a step backwards from the progress made to date.”

This week, with a record like that, Garcia had the temerity to issue a statement warning that “Florida is in a water crisis, yet Republicans are taking us backwards.” Garcia should know since his voting record shows that he was often right there voting along with them. Same with Big Oil. Garcia is counting on voters to not know that the very things he's blasting Curbelo for-- basically, being an ally of big oil-- are things Curbelo can show apply equally to Garcia himself. Electing corrupt conservative Democrats-- like Joe Garcia and his ally Patrick Murphy are tantamount to sliding the whole system to the right, as the Republicans become, effectively, an outright fascist party and the Democrats become the old Republican Party. You can contribute to Annette's campaign to beat both Garcia and Curbelo here:

Trump University Isn't The Only For-Profit College Scam Defrauding Students-- Guest Post By Annette Taddeo

Going to college, getting an education, and having a career is part of the American Dream many people strive for. However, today this is becoming less of a reality for so many aspiring students. For-profit colleges have crept into the mainstream of higher education and taken advantage of students. They charge high tuition fees and provide little in return. These “colleges” use a classic bait and switch strategy targeted at unsuspecting students. They lure in students expecting to learn, improve their lives, and get a job but instead of degrees, students receive costly excuses and a string of lies, while investors prosper. Trump University is clearly the most obvious and egregious example of this fraud and exploitation, yet in Florida, we have our own brand of for-profit exploitation.

These for-profit colleges now account for over 18% of the higher education market share, significantly higher than the national average of 12%. And like Trump University and Corinthian College, they have shut their doors in the middle of the night, leaving students with nothing to show for their attempt to get a good education but large amounts of debt. The obvious questions that come to mind are “where was the oversight”, “where were the state and federal officials?”

Well, as we are now learning through released documents, it’s all about the money. And no surprise, much of these money grabs tie back to Florida. For example, Corinthian College donated over $27,000 to Marco Rubio over the last few years and surprise, surprise, he wrote a letter to the Department of Education asking for “leniency” in maintaining the college’s access to Federal Student loans. As we have seen all over the news, the attorney general of Florida, Pam Bondi, solicited and received a $25,000 donation from Donald Trump for her campaign. And then lo and behold, she drops the planned lawsuit against Trump and Trump University.

Apparently, Florida politicians are quite good at finding their golden goose. Instead of cracking down on fraudulent for-profit colleges, our Representatives in Congress, have chosen to cash in. The now defunct Dade Medical College, which left thousands of displaced students in FL-26 with no recourse, has been stacking the deck in government by buying on both sides of the aisle. In 2012, Dade Medical College donated $16,500 and $17,500 to former South Florida Congress members Joe Garcia and David Rivera, respectively.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. South Florida politicians have collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations from these organizations in just the past few election cycles. Garcia and Rivera, as well as current FL-26 Representative, Carlos Curbelo have collected over $60,000 in for-profit money. It is abhorrent that these are the same people who write our country’s national education policies. But apparently money is more important than protecting constituents.

We had over 813,000 college students enrolled in the state of Florida in 2015. These young minds are future business leaders, academics, health practitioners. They depend on state and the federal government to make sure they have all the tools they need to succeed. Our elected officials, the people we have entrusted with looking out for best interest of the people, haven't done their job.

Higher education ought to be a pathway to a fulfilling career, not a pitfall into crippling debt. I remember being a struggling student, waiting tables to pay for books. I see students everyday, working twice as hard just to make it to class and get by. It’s time we took higher education out of the hands of corporations, investors and fraudsters and put it back into hands of educators. It’s time we fight for students, not for profits.


Editor's note: Annette has been a friend of this blog since her run for Congress in 2008 against Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the campaign that Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- then chair of the DCCC Red to Blue program-- sabotaged and set herself on the path to the calumny in which most Democrats hold her today. This cycle Annette is running with the DCCC's blessing-- one of the only progressives anywhere they are backing-- for the seat held by Carlos Curbelo. If you'd like to contribute to her campaign, you can do it by clicking on the thermometer:

Why Is Patrick Murphy Backing Corrupt Conservative Joe Garcia's Bid To Get Back Into Congress?

In contested primaries, the DCCC almost never gets it right. They pretty much always back the more conservative candidate over the more progressive candidate-- and they don't care what the local Democratic Party wants, as we saw in California and Florida in recent weeks.

But there is one race-- in Miami-- where they stumbled into the best choice. Annette Taddeo is running against Republican incumbent, shady lobbyist Carlos Curbelo, and the DCCC has actually been helpful and supportive and has endorsed her. But now the corrupt conservative who Curbelo beat in 2014, New Dem Joe Garcia, has launched a primary challenge to Annette. Appropriately enough, his kickoff event is at the DC offices of professional event planners, Erickson and Company in DC. Hosts include many of the corrupt conservatives who joined Garcia in opposing much of the progressive agenda Obama tried to pass while Garcia was in Congress, primarily sleazy New Dems like Ami Bera (CA), Scott Peters (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Jim Costa (CA), and, of course, a couple of the so-called "former" Republican New Dems, Filemon Vela (TX) and, worst of all, Wall Street errand boy Patrick Murphy (FL).

Murphy and Garcia were consistently holding hands and skipping across the aisle together to vote with their Republican pals against Wall Street reform. But voting for the GOP's war against the modest reforms in Dodd-Frank were far from the only instances where crooks like Garcia and Murphy saw opportunities to please rich campaign contributors by voting against Democratic priorities and Democratic values. Like Murphy, once Garcia got into Congress, he abandoned any pretense of progressive politics, joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and started voting consistently with the worst, most right-wing elements of the Democratic Party. And like Patrick Murphy, he voted again and again and again for the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked with conservaDems (again, like Murphy) and the GOP to delay and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. He was quickly a total disappointment to his supporters and soon got involved with a series of his own ugly scandals and in 2014, the FL-26 voters dumped him unceremoniously for Curbelo. Garcia and Murphy support warrantless spying on American citizens and opposed the Amash amendment to prevent that. Garcia's horrible voting record and scandals depressed Democratic turnout and although he outspent Curbelo gigantically-- $3,787,930 to $2,347,633-- of his 135,694 voters from 2012, only 78,306 bothered to come vote for him in 2014, allowing Curbelo to beat him 51 to 49% in an even bluer district than it had been 2 years earlier.

He was a thorn in President Obama's side, whining about the thaw in Cuban-American relations and working with Republicans to undercut his agenda. When we named him one of the 10 worst freshmen in 2013-- along with Murphy-- we noted their votes with the GOP to freeze the pay for federal employees, a vote to soften the blow of the sequester for the Pentagon while leaving all the other victims in the lurch, a GOP initiative to prevent the federal government from giving states greater flexibility when complying with a welfare program’s work requirements, a vote against the Senate budget bill, a vote for CISPA, a domestic spying bill, a vote to cut food stamps drastically, and a vote for HR 1613 , a bill written by Oil lobbyists that amounted to big giveaways for offshore drilling businesses.

Does that explain the legislative love affair between two of Congress' worst fake-Democrats? Today Garcia is not in Congress, so he was unable to join Murphy is betraying Democrats again last week when he ignored public health groups and stood by insane House Republicans Friday in voting for the sardonically-named Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, which passed with votes from 33 Democrats and all but one Republican. Murphy's opponent in the Florida Senate primary, Alan Grayson joined First Lady Michelle Obama in opposing this corporate conservative-led effort to weaken menu-labeling rules designed to promote healthy eating habits, help fight obesity, and ultimately, contain medical costs. Grayson: "Busy families eat out more than ever, yet Patrick Murphy just made it harder for all of us to make informed choices about the food our families put in their bodies. As your Senator, I would never ignore public health experts just to cynically curry favor with the special interests that pushed this Know-Nothing bill."

Isn't It Time To Say Goodbye To Republican And Conservative Representation In Miami-Dade?

Perhaps you've seen a slew of endorsements for Miami-Dade Democrat Annette Taddeo in the past few days. Today it was J-Street. Yesterday it was theSEIU in the morning and Hector Caraballo, president of the Miami-Dade Cuban American Democrats in the afternoon. The day before it was Maurice Ferré, the first Hispanic mayor of Miami and Raul Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah. The Teamsters Union before that and all sorts of politicians-- the good, the bad and the really, really, really ugly (Steve Israel). All the activity is certainly meant to ward off a primary challenge by former Congressman Joe Garcia, a colleague-turned-bad, especially now that rich kid Andres Korge-- I guess he can go back to calling himself Andrew now-- has decided not to run.

Garcia was elected to Congress, against corrupt Republican Rubio-buddy David Rivera in 2012. FL-26 at the time was emerging as a blue district. In 2008 Obama had won there narrowly, 133,875 (50%) to 131,630 (49%) but 4 years later Obama beat Romney 141,776 (53%) to 123,313 (46%), a very significant swing that helped Garcia displace the scandal-ridden Rivera. He took the district 135,694 (54%) to 108,820 (43%), running as an avowed progressive. Blue America endorsed him.

But once Garcia got into Congress, he abandoned any pretense of progressive politics, joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems and started voting consistently with the worst, most right-wing elements of the Democratic Party. Like fellow corrupt New Dem Patrick Murphy, he voted again and again and again for the Keystone XL Pipeline and worked with conservaDems like Murphy and the GOP to delay and sabotage the Affordable Care Act. He was quickly a total disappointment to his supporters and soon got involved with his own series of his own ugly scandals. In 2014, the FL-26 voters dumped him unceremoniously for Republican Carlos Curbelo. He also supports warrantless spying on American citizens and opposed the Amash amendment to prevent that. Garcia's horrible voting record and scandals depressed Democratic turnout and although he outspent Curbelo gigantically-- $3,787,930 to $2,347,633-- of his 135,694 voters from 2012, only 78,306 bothered to come vote for him in 2014, allowing Curbelo to beat him 51 to 49% in an even bluer district than it had been 2 years earlier.

He has been a thorn in President Obama's side, whining about the thaw in Cuban-American relations and working with Republicans to undercut his agenda. When we named him one of the 10 worst freshmen in 2013, we noted his vote with the GOP to freeze the pay for federal employees, a vote to soften the blow of the sequester for the Pentagon while leaving all the other victims in the lurch, a GOP initiative to prevent the federal government from giving states greater flexibility when complying with a welfare program’s work requirements, a vote against the Senate budget bill, a vote for CISPA, a domestic spying bill, a vote to cut food stamps drastically, and votes for HR 1613 and HR 2231, two bills written by Oil lobbyists that amounted to big giveaways for offshore drilling businesses.

No one wants to see him back in Congress. Let's hope all those endorsements Annette is racking up make him change his mind about running.


UPDATE: Joe Garcia Is Running

Corrupt New Dem Joe Garcia, defeated in 2014 and rejected by his congressional colleagues, has decided to run again. What a mess! Curbelo must be dancing in the streets.

Conservatives In Congress Vote To Deny Climate Change

Earlier we mentioned that the House voted to authorize unconstitutional domestic spying on American citizens yesterday. The day didn't get any better. Next up was the crackpot Republican bill to overturn the EPA's climate change regulations for power plants. It passed 242-180 while the President was in Paris for an International Climate Change conference, something that earned him the disdain of two particularly vile Climate Change deniers, Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee. The latter was on the former's silly show claiming "America needs a commander-in-chief, not a weather-obsessed meteorologist-in-chief." How pathetic is that. Maybe Huckabee should watch the short speech Ted Lieu (D-CA) made on the floor of Congress-- above-- on exactly why it is imperative and urgent for the president and Congress to act on this... and it's not about the weather. Speaking before the vote yesterday, Lieu said, "This is just another example of the Republican majority denying the urgency and severity of carbon pollution. At a time when the entire world is meeting in Paris to address carbon pollution, the Republican majority is doing exactly the opposite. History books will one day say that America led the way in addressing climate change and saving our planet-- or there will be no history books."

Purposefully ignorant climate change denier Mike Huckabee

The Republican bill, which, obviously, the President will veto if it gets through the Senate-- also unlikely-- tries to permanently block the whole premise of fighting Climate Change. Four of the House's most corrupt right-wing "Democrats"-- Blue Dogs, some of whom only exist as congressmen because the DCCC underwrites their reelections-- crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans, as they almost always do: Collin Peterson (MN), Sanford Bishop (GA), Brad Ashford (NE) and Henry Cuellar (TX).

Just as the House was voting Bernie Sanders was saying that "The pope was right when he said the problems are getting worse and that unless we act ‘we are at the limits of suicide.' The evidence is overwhelming. When the final calculations are made, 2015 will replace 2014 as the warmest year on record. Draughts, floods and severe storms already are impacting the planet and the situation will only become worse in years to come. I find it unacceptable that many of my Republican colleagues are more worried about campaign contributions they’re getting from the Koch brothers and others in the fossil fuel industry than they are about preserving the planet for our children and grandchildren."

Brooklyn Congressman Yvette Clarke explained, very clearly, why she voted against the two horrible resolutions: "Pollution from power plants, particularly plants that burn coal, has terrible consequences for our health, contributing to asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and resulting in global climate change that has already increased the severity of storms and threatens to displace many people around the world as temperatures increase and the level of the ocean rises. Existing regulations under the Clean Air Act have-- despite false claims from fossil fuel producers-- dramatically improved the air quality we enjoy and have expanded our economy. Many older American remember a time when smog alerts were a regular occurrence in our cities-- a problem with which young Americans are entirely (and fortunately) unfamiliar. Now, we have the opportunity, with the  Clean Power Plan developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, to continue that effort to protect the health of Americans, create jobs, and reduce our contributions to global climate change."

It's especially shocking to see Florida's coastal Republicans in districts which are already being impacted by rising oceans, stick their heads in the sand and march lock-step with their party over the cliff. Particularly cowardly are Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Miami and Coral Gables), David Jolly (Pinellas Co.) Carlos Curbelo (the Florida Keys), Gus Bilirakis (Tarpon Springs and Palm Harbor), Vern Buchanan (Sarasota, Bradenton), Tom Rooney (Port Charlotte) and Curt Clawson (Cape Coral, Ft. Meyers, Naples), the communities already being affected in brackets. A very similar companion bill voted on within minutes of the first one was too much denial even for Ros-Lehtinen and Curbelo, who crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats, but the rest of the Florida Republicans were only too happy to smile and sign their constituents' death warrants. Although Wasserman-Schultz has made sure that Ros-Lehtinen will never have an opponent in her blue district, Curbelo is facing fierce opposition to his reelection bid. Annette Taddeo was mortified-- though not expecting anything more from him-- that Curbelo thought he could please his wealthy donors by voting against one bill and placate his constituents by voting for the other one. "I'm not surprised my chameleon opponent tried to have it both ways, but when the literal future of our district is on the line he chose to side with his party yet again."

Jeb And Trumpy Debated The Efficacy Of Political Bribery-- Though Not The Morality Or Criminality

Although I loved the Rand Paul/Trumpy junior high exchange and Rand Paul's line that "there will always be a Bush or a Clinton for you if you want to go back to Iraq," probably the most memorable bits from CNN's long, mostly boring debate Wednesday night were when Jeb defended the honor of his brother's failed presidency by making the absurd statement that "he kept us safe," forgetting, apparently, the worst disaster to have happened on American soil in over a century; Carly Fiorina's endless cascade of deceitful bromides; and climate-change denier Marco Rubio's opening joke about California's drought.

But far more significant was a debate moment almost no one mentioned afterwards. Florida journalist Marc Caputo, writing for Politico, dug a little deeper into the exchange between Trumpy and Jeb on the attempt by Trump to bribe Florida politicians to legalize casino gambling. We all know how Trump is always bragging how he pays off corrupt politicians so they will do his bidding. That's what he does. And that's what they do. Jeb decided to go after him on it this time. (Watch the sad, sad video up top.) But Caputo was there-- and he remembers:

"The one guy that had some special interests that I know of that tried to get me to change my views on something-- that was generous and gave me money-- was Donald Trump," Bush said. "He wanted casino gambling in Florida."

That’s when Trump cut him off-- and failed to tell the truth.

“I didn't,” Trump said.

But for more than 21 years, Trump did. He and his company have repeatedly been on record trying to get casino deals in one form or another in Florida.

From hiring lobbyists to taking a former business partner to court, Trump’s interest in getting a piece of Florida’s gaming industry has been documented in news articles from Tallahassee to Miami. Trump’s involvement in expanding Florida gaming-- an effort that regularly fails in the state Capitol due to the influence of conservative lawmakers-- is well-known among state capital reporters, politicians and lobbyists alike.

“Donald Trump has tried almost every year to have a casino, even before Jeb was governor,” said Danny Adkins, president of Mardi Gras Casino in Hallandale Beach. “It’s not even a secret.”

The gaming industry is so cutthroat in Florida that lobbyists from different companies have almost come to blows protecting their turf and trying to get an edge in Tallahassee. But when Trump said during the debate that he didn’t want gambling, Adkins said the old foes started texting each other in disbelief.

“Trust me: everyone is an agreement about this,” Adkins told Politico Wednesday night, laughing. “And we don’t really agree on anything else.”

Trump didn’t just stop with his one false denial. He doubled down. Immediately after Trump said “I didn’t” want casinos in Florida, Bush corrected him: “Yes you did.”

Trump: “Totally false.”

Bush: “You wanted it and you didn't get it because I was opposed to…”

Trump, cutting him off: “I would have gotten it… I promise I would have gotten it.”

Wrong again.

As early as 1994, just before Florida voters rejected expanded gambling, Trump told the Miami Herald: “As somebody who lives in Palm Beach, I'd prefer not to see casinos in Florida. But as someone in the gaming business, I'm going to be the first one to open up if Floridians vote for them.”

A decade later, Florida approved Las Vegas-style casinos in a limited way. Today, Florida has 15 of them. None is owned by Trump. But he tried after he bought the Doral Golf Resort & Spa near Miami and joined the failed fight to have lawmakers approve new, large “destination-resort” casinos.

“If Miami doesn't do casinos, that would be a terrible mistake,” Trump told the Miami Herald in 2013. "Taxes would be able to be reduced substantially and Miami is the only place that Las Vegas is really concerned about-- in the United States.”

But Trump didn’t get what he wanted. And his comments about not wanting casino gambling put his lobbyist, Brian Ballard, in an awkward spot. Ballard is a Bush backer. And he was in the debate audience on Wednesday night.

“It was uncomfortable. No doubt,” Ballard told Politico.

Trump’s biggest shot at getting at getting a casino deal was in 1998, when Bush was mounting his first successful campaign for governor and the developer was in talks with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which wanted Las Vegas-style casinos.

But they weren’t legal at the time, and then-Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles was opposed to expanding gambling. Meanwhile, Bush’s close ally, incoming Florida House Speaker John Thrasher, was courting Trump and met with the developer and twice discussed his arrangement with the Seminoles, according to news reports at the time. And on May 7, 1998, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts cut its largest check to the Republican Party of Florida: $50,000.

Bush’s opponent, Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay, charged that Bush and the GOP were selling the state out to gaming interests. "A guy whose only interest in Florida is casinos-- there's got to be a motivation," MacKay’s campaign manager, Robin Rorapaugh, said at the time.

Bush denied anything to do with the money-- in contrast with his statement Wednesday night when he said Trump “gave me money.” However, Bush has remained consistently anti-gambling. And by late fall of that year, it was clear he was going to win. And he made clear that he wasn’t going to approve a gambling deal.

Around this time, Trump appeared to pull out of his deal with the Seminoles. Trump’s on-again-off-again consultant, Roger Stone, told Politico on Wednesday night that Trump technically withdrew from his deal with the Seminoles before Bush became governor. But Trump’s withdrawal corresponded with Bush’s likely victory and his intransigence over gambling expansion.

After Bush became governor, in 1999, news reports showed that Trump was again interested in a deal with the Seminoles. And the Seminoles kept pushing for more gambling. But Bush and the GOP Legislature wouldn’t approve.

Trump later sued a former business partner, claiming he swindled him by striking a separate arrangement to build the Seminole Hard Rock & Casino near Fort Lauderdale.

On Wednesday, Trump denied it all, saying for emphasis that “I promise if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.”

Bush: “No way. Believe me.”

Trump had another chance to get it right a few moments later when Bush pressed the issue. “He asked Florida to have casino gambling, we said no,” Bush said.

Trump: “Wrong.”

Bush: “We said no. And that's the simple fact. The simple fact is…”

Trump: “Don't make things up. Jeb, don't make things up. Come on.”

But the record clearly shows that, when it comes to Trump’s position on gambling, the casino developer was the one onstage who was dealing from the bottom of the deck.

Congressman Alan Grayson, currently running for the Senate seat Rubio is abandoning, watched the exchange between Trump and Bush aghast and said, "That's what an oligarchy looks like... Welcome to the New America.

I also contacted Annette Taddeo to get her take on the Trump-Bush dust-up, since she has the best memory of anyone I know for what goes down politically in Miami-Dade. She's running for the FL-26 seat currently held by corporate darling Carlos Curbelo.

Taddeo's campaign manager, Shaun Daniels, pointed out that Curbelo had a similar gambling agenda to Trump. "Carlos Curbelo has been intimately involved in the same casino-related big-money influence for which Jeb Bush denounced Donald Trump. Curbelo was part of a vast network of lobbyists working for the gambling conglomerate, Genting."

And special interests helped Curbelo win his seat. In 2014, more than $2 million was spent by Super PACS and other shadowy organizations on behalf of Carlos Curbelo to win by a razor-thin margin. In fact, in FL-26 the candidates were the minority spenders in that race, and sadly probably will be again.

Annette Taddeo recognizes the influence peddling and pointed out she's been on the front lines, saying:

When the interests are big enough, there is no partisan bias to big money influence. At the local level especially, a single big company can try to buy both sides. I’ve fought what I consider tax-payer funded corporate welfare at the local level and while we had some success, the everyday citizens that form a grassroots uprising simply cannot put that much effort into fighting every special-interest project. That’s why I support campaign finance reform.

Taddeo also reiterated her resolve to combat special-interest money at the federal level:

I hope people realize that while both sides may take Super PAC money to compete, only one Party is out front calling for an end to Citizens United and actively trying to remove the influence of big-money. The other side is actively courting billionaires to fund their candidate-specific Super PACS. The Republicans’ new billionaire-primary, where they scramble to win favor with the Koch Brothers and others, is appalling. We should not accept this system as the new normal. We should fight it, and that is what I will do in Congress.

Wasserman Schultz Still Has Her Knives Out For Annette Taddeo (And All Progressives)

Who remembers when Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then just the lowly head of the DCCC's Red to Blue program, moved in to torpedo the candidacy of progressive Democrat Annette Taddeo (and two other Democrats) on behalf of her Republican pals, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the notoriously corrupt Diaz-Balart brothers (who, like Debbie, are subsidiaries of the Fanjul sugar empire)? She's a much bigger shot now; Obama appointed her head of the DNC... and Pelosi allowed her to jump over dozens of more worthy Democrats for a clear path to the speakership in a few years. (Her dream, like her mentor Rahm's: First Jewish Speaker-- and she'll kill for it... literally.) And she's up to her nasty old tricks again.

There's a big battle brewing between the Old Guard and the New Guard for the top leadership position of Florida's Democratic Party. Several South Florida Hispanic Democrats are voicing their displeasure with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's move to support Tallahasee's Allison Tant in next month's election for the party's state chair.

They feel the Democratic National Committee chairwoman is trying to block Annette Taddeo-Goldstein, a Colombian-American who was recently elected Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee chairwoman, from winning the same position at the state level.

"People are upset," says Alfredo Duran, a Miami lawyer who was state chairman for the Democratic Party in the 1970s. "They think Debbie should remain neutral. Annette was a very effective spokeswoman for the Obama campaign. The 2014 election is very critical for the Democratic Party and its ability to get Hispanics involved. There is no one better than Annette to accomplish that."

...According to a close ally of Taddeo-Goldstein's, who requested anonymity, she was offered a seat on the Democratic National Committee and a seat on the state Democratic committee if she stepped aside to make room for Tant, a close friend of Schultz whose husband Barry Richard was one of the lawyers who represented George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election recount. Sen. Bill Nelson is also backing Tant.

The source also claims that in order to make sure Tant had a seat on the Leon County Democratic committee, Schultz and her surrogates asked committee woman Alma Gonzalez, another Tallahassee Democrat, to step down. Gonzalez was also offered a seat on the Democratic National Committee. Gonzalez did not return a phone call seeking comment.

But Schultz abandoned that strategy. Instead Jon Ausman, a popular North Florida Democrat, gave up his bid to become chairman of the Leon Democratic committee so that Tant could run for that seat unopposed, the source claims. Under party rules, a candidate for the state committee must sit on a county committee to qualify.

If Tant wins the state chair seat, it will mark the fourth consecutive time the party's state leader will hail from north of Orlando at a time when the most growth in the Democratic Party is occurring in the I-4 territory of Hillsbourgh and Osceola counties, as well as south Florida, primarily because of Hispanic voters.

...Sam Feldman, a Venezuelan American who chairs the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus, says party members are upset with Schultz occasionally making wrong choices, such as her decision in 2008 to not support the three Democrats who ran for Congress -- Taddeo-Goldstein, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez.

"Hispanics in Dade are disturbed that she is supporting a North Florida Democrat over a South Florida Hispanic woman who worked very hard for Obama and has tremendous fundraising abilities," Feldman says. "It is about time South Florida gets recognized and it is about time a Hispanic gets the opportunity."

Wasserman Schultz, who takes funding from the private prison industry and any shady group who will write her a check, is widely considered the most corrupt Democrat in Florida politics these days-- and those are mighty big shoes to wear. She isn't commenting to the press now-- just using all her poison to force Annette Taddeo to drop out of the race. I shouldn't say "all her poison." Plenty of it has been reserved for turning the House Democratic caucus into a virulently anti-progressive vehicle for her allies among the corrupt conservatives who call themselves the "New Dems." Those are her people-- Blue Dogs minus the KKK sheets and hoods. She claims she is all about recruiting Hispanics for the party-- as long as they're lapdogs and do what they're told. When it comes to real Hispanics, Debbie... is more Blue Dog than New Dem. Tant, by the way, is a Republican contributor-- so of course Debbie loves her! And Debbie's calling and brow-beating every Florida committeeman for each county-- and insisting on meeting with them if they don't give in to her "charms" and blandishments.

She's also working nonstop to clear the field of real Democrats so Charlie Crist can have a clear shot-- no primary-- when he runs for governor. The mantra is "we have to defeat Rick Scott," which sounds pretty good-- as long as you don't think about what she insists we replace him with. And although the party apparachiks and financiers are lining up neatly behind her, there's still a problem-- grassroots Democrats, the bane of Debbie's existence. The Political Hurricane explains why:

To many of the rank in file, Crist appears to be a combination of an opportunist and a sore loser. Whether this is a fair assessment of Crist is up for debate. But no question exists that the former Governor must show a significant change even from his 2010 positions as an Independent US Senate candidate to win a Democratic Primary.