Where Did YOU First Hear About Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

I first met Democratic activist Bob Lord in 2008 when he ran for Congress in Arizona. He didn't win that race in a deep red district but he gave entrenched incumbent John Shadegg, a far right extremist, a hard enough time that Shadegg announced he wouldn't seek reelection. Bob and I stayed in contact-- he even wrote some guest posts for us-- and he's proven to be an astute observer of Arizona politics, primarily on the popular Blog for Arizona. Yesterday he had some comments on every progressive's least favorite nemesis, Debbie Wasserman Schultz: On Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Down With Tyranny Readers Were the Least Surprised.

I love it when a blogger is the first to figure something out. Especially if the blogger is someone I know.

So, hats off to Down With Tyranny, which had Debbie Wasserman-Schultz figured out EIGHT YEARS ahead of the rest of us. I knew Down With Tyranny had been posting about DWS for some time before this election cycle. So, out of curiosity, I looked into it to see just how far back it went. Here are posts from the 2008 election cycle, when Lil’ Debbie was helping head up the DCCC’s then vaunted “red-to-blue” program.

WHY IS DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ REFUSING TO HELP DEMOCRATS BEAT FAR RIGHT REPUBLICANS IN SOUTH FLORIDA? PART I (March 23, 2008):

The bone I have to pick with [Wasserman-Schultz] involves mostly her behavior as the co-chair of the Red to Blue program and her decision not to support Joe Garcia against her extreme right wing pal Mario Diaz-Balart (as well as the Democrats running against Mario’s almost equally extremist brother, Lincoln, and the clueless Bush Regime rubber stamp Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Wasserman Schultz caused an uproar in the usually complacent Florida Democratic Party when she announced she would be sitting out these three races because of her great relations with the 3 wingnuts who have voted against virtually every single Democratic priority since Lil’ Debbie was first elected to Congress. To try to tamp down the outrage, DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff, who refuses to remove her from her Red to Blue position, hastily penned a meaningless endorsement of Joe Garcia and the 2 other Democrats running against Wasserman Shultz’ friends, Annette Taddeo and Raul Martinez. The endorsement doesn’t come with the cash Red to Blue status Wasserman Shultz is withholding.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz– Corrupt, Bitter, Increasingly Alone And Filled With Venom (August 26, 2008):

This morning DavidNYC at Swing State Project revisited Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ determined campaign to undermine and sabotage the efforts of Miami-Dade Democrats to replace reactionary Republican extremist– and Wasserman Schultz crony-- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, with one of the most outstanding Democratic challengers running in this election cycle, Annette Taddeo, someone the corrupt Wasserman Schultz fears could stand in her way when she seeks higher office.

Is Debbie Wasserman Schultz Even Worse Than A Corporate-Leaning “New Democrat?” (December 3, 2008):

Short answer: you have to fish pretty deep down into the barrel to find anyone as bad as Wasserman Schultz. Even though she mostly rubber stamps what the Democratic leadership wants– unless it comes into direct conflict with her financial backers, like Florida’s loathsome sugar interests– DWS is a self-serving ruthlessly ambitious gut-fighter. Few people outside of Florida had ever even heard of her until she sabotaged three Democratic congressional nominees– Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez and Annette Taddeo– who were running against 3 of her far right Republican allies, the notorious Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Letinen. Although she was entrusted by the Democratic caucus with a chairmanship of the Red to Blue program– the body that is charged with defeating Republicans and electing Democratic challengers– she dealt fatal body blows to the 3 South Florida Democrats and gratuitously insulted another Florida challenger, Doug Tudor, who might have won his race against Adam Putnam if the DCCC had backed him instead of following her negative and vindictive decision to ignore his race.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? I think so, but it’s a lesson anyone reading a post on this site likely has learned: Cast a wide net in your quest for information. The traditional sources leave a ton of stuff out.

I was in the middle of my own campaign when Down With Tyranny first started reporting on DWS, so I missed the early posts, but I picked up on them soon afterwards. So I knew what to expect with DWS at the helm of the DNC.

I did have my own experience with DWS during my campaign, though. At the time, I wrote it off as an absurdity, but in hindsight perhaps it says a lot about the sort of person she is. DWS was a close friend of my now deceased step-sister, who lived in South Florida. She connected me to DWS, who was generally supportive of my campaign and likely supported the DCCC placing me on the red-to-blue list. But she pulled a strange power play connected to her own PAC contribution to me, a total of $7,000 ($5,000 from her PAC and $2,000 from her campaign committee). To nail that down, I had to travel to South Florida for a fundraiser held by my step-sister and her husband. Worse, the event had to be held at a specified hotel, at kind of an exorbitant cost. Still, it made sense to do it, and I wanted to see my step-sister anyhow. Turned out to be my last chance to see her, so it actually was a really good thing.

In hindsight, that little power play I experienced was a window into Lil’ Debbie’s megalomania. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I can see how neatly it fits the persona we’ve all come to know.

It would be nice if we somehow collectively could identify the Lil’ Debbies of the world and remove them from positions of power earlier on. Maybe the place to start is following Down With Tyranny.

Wasserman Schultz has asked a parade of congressmembers and congressional candidates to help her to shut me up and stop writing about her. It used to make me laugh and encourage me to keep going. About a year ago, the nature of her character started to go viral and it happened just as she was about to face the first and only serious political opponent who ever ran against her. Clinton finally kicked her out of her DNC chair last week but it's up to the voters in Broward and Miami-Dade counties to kick her out of Congress August 30 and replace her with Tim Canova. As of the June 30 FEC filing deadline she had raised $3,072,629 to Tim's $2,262,482. According to her sleaziest political operative, Steve Paikowsky, a SuperPAC controlled by the sugar barons who have financed her political rise-- the notorious Trump-like Fanjul brothers-- are promising to run a million dollar smear campaign against Tim on her behalf. The job of driving Wasserman Schultz out of politics is half done but if the job isn't completed-- if the head of the serpent isn't cut off-- she'll be back spreading more of her venom, the same way she did after she was fired by the DCCC, only to be hired as DNC chair by Obama and Rahm Emanuel, where she did even more damage, very predictably so. Please, if you can, consider contributing to Tim Canova's campaign here:

I'd Never Vote For Hillary-- But Some Of My Best Friends Plan To

Hillary is better than these

I want to get something off my chest and I figure late night on a Sunday is as close to yelling at a wall as I'm going to get. Personally, I have no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton ever, obviously not in a primary, but not even against an outright fascist like Cruz or Trump, one of whom is likely to be the GOP nominee. Yes, yes, yes, Hillary is better than either of them and better than any other garbage candidate the GOP is considering or might consider. But when I look at who she is, at who's backing her and at what she's offering, all I can say is that-- as much as I want to see a woman president-- the lesser of two evils is still evil and I'm done with voting for evil. If Democratic primary voters decide to reject the best opportunity in any of their lifetimes for a really extraordinary change-candidate, we'll all be the poorer for it but that isn't going to push me into voting for the system I despise.

That said, I entirely respect the contrary position of almost every friend I have. Just about everyone I know is ready to vote for Hillary, every one of them in the general and even one or two in the primary. God Bless! I'm sorry I failed to persuade the ones who are choosing her over Bernie in the primary-- that's scary to me-- but the ones who back Bernie and have already decided to vote for her in the general if she beats him... well, maybe when they get older they'll understand the folly of that kind of thinking. I used to buy into the lesser-of-two evils the Democratic Party establishment always foists on voters too.

That said, I want to share two letters I got today from two Members of Congress who I respect and admire. They were both kind of apologetic about their recent decisions to endorse Hillary. The first came to me as an e-mail entitled "private note about my HRC endorsement" so I don't feel entitled to reveal his name.

Hi, Howie. I meant to send this to you last night, because I knew it would probably land in the newspaper, but forgot. I have endorsed Hillary Clinton over Bernie, whose relentless and important message I do love. I want to win. I want the American people to win, and we have to have a Dem in the White House for them to have a shot. I believe that Hillary has everything in place to do that in this ugly campaign full of Republicans who are betraying our values daily, and I believe that Bernie has pushed her far enough to the left now that she is supporting more progressive policies that help regular people and the poor. (Keystone and the TPP were huge for me.) I didn't do it for votes. I didn't do it for money. I didn't do it to win friends. It might help. It might hurt. I have many progressive friends and supporters on both sides, so I just don't know. It doesn't matter anyway, because I didn't do it for gain.

I just want to win. I am scared to death of those guys who brag about what America would look like under their command. I am scared of their power to appoint Supreme Court Justices. I am going to work very hard for HRC or Bernie, and then I will keep pushing to make sure America works harder for the middle class and the poor. I respect your opinion, and I know we differ on this, but I wanted to let you know my thinking on this.

And I respect his opinion as well, though we differ. I have donated money to his campaign and if I lived in his state, I would be working for his re-election and eagerly vote for him as well. The second letter came from a senator who loves Bernie personally and sees eye-to-eye with him on virtually every position but has endorsed Hillary. Her letter surprised me when I saw it today although I had asked her for a clarification about whether she had endorsed Hillary or not since the local media reports were unclear.

I’ve been spending a significant amount of time trying to get Hillary and her campaign to adopt my Social Security and Medicare platform and also to take our [very aggressive] field program and implement it statewide. They actually have been listening to me, and I’ve been making progress. They asked me to join the Leadership Council. If I didn’t, then they probably would have stopped listening.  So I did. We actually negotiated over this, and I told them that they could call it an endorsement if they wanted to, but that I would continue to say good things about both candidates. Some of the local media tried to blow this up and make Bernie supporters unhappy with me. But if this means that I get Clinton to spend $5 million on a real statewide field program and we score an extra 300,000 Democratic votes from it, then I’ll live with it.

I have no idea how the congressman who wrote me the first note is going to vote in the primary but I'd guess this senator will be voting for Bernie in her state's primary. They will certainly both vote for whichever Democrat is nominated. I'd bet that if Hillary wins, Bernie will endorse her and actively campaign for her too. But I could be wrong about that; we'll see. By the way, if you'd like to contribute to Bernie's campaign, you can do it here at this Blue America page.

Patrick Healy, writing for Saturday's NY Times reported about why one Democratic Party official was not stampeded, intimidated and bribed into endorsing the Democrats' establishment candidate and, in fact, has endorsed Bernie.

John Wittneben simmered as he listened to Hillary Rodham Clinton defend her ties to Wall Street during last weekend’s Democratic debate. He lost 40 percent of his savings in individual retirement accounts during the Great Recession, while Mrs. Clinton has received millions of dollars from the kinds of executives he believes should be in jail.

“People knew what they were doing back then, because of greed, and it caused me harm,” said Mr. Wittneben, the Democratic chairman in Emmet County, Iowa. “We were raised a certain way here. Fairness is a big deal.”

The next day he endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders in the presidential race.

...In the primaries, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers privately concede that she will lose some votes over her Wall Street connections. They declined to share specific findings from internal polls, but predicted the issue could resonate in Democratic contests in Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Michigan, where many have lost homes and businesses to bank foreclosures.

Mr. Sanders zeros in on Wall Street donations to Mrs. Clinton in an aggressive new television commercial that started running in Iowa and New Hampshire on Saturday: “The truth is, you can’t change a corrupt system by taking its money,” he warns.

One of Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent supporters in Ohio, former State Senator Nina Turner, defected to Mr. Sanders this month in part, she said, because she felt he would be tougher on special interests. And some Democratic superdelegates, whose backing is crucial, said Mrs. Clinton’s ties to big banks, and her invocation of 9/11 to defend her ties to Wall Street at the Nov. 14 debate, only made them further question her independence from the financial industry.

...[O]thers said they were more concerned that Mrs. Clinton had not broken with Wall Street in a clear way, noting the lengths she went to at the debate to explain the relationship.

“She was waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to defend herself, which we’re accustomed to seeing with demagogues on the right, and it just didn’t feel quite right,” said Kurt Meyer, a co-chairman of the Mitchell County Democrats in Iowa, who has not endorsed a candidate. “She connected two things, 9/11 and her ties to Wall Street, that I didn’t like her sewing together.”

Ms. Turner, the former Ohio lawmaker, said the blocks of foreclosed homes in Cleveland were a painful reminder that banks prioritize their own corporate interests. Mr. Sanders has been criticizing “the corrupt economy symbolized by Wall Street greed” for decades, she said.

“He shows righteous indignation and speaks for the common woman and man in saying they have a right to be outraged at Wall Street,” Ms. Turner said. “He doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the talk.”

And Mrs. Clinton? “Her ties are her ties,” Ms. Turner said.

There's another letter I want to share tonight. This one was an open letter from a former congressional candidate in Arizona, Bob Lord. He published it under his own name this morning at Blog For Arizona.

Sinema hasn't endorsed Hillary or Bernie... or even Webb

An Open Letter to Kyrsten Sinema

Dear Kyrsten:

Slamming the door on Syrian refugees was the umpteenth cynical, self-serving vote you've cast. After working hard to help you in 2012, the previous such votes were disappointing.

This one was far worse.

As you know, my help included recruiting Syrian American friends to support you. They did so generously.

Is locking their friends and family members out of America your way of thanking them? It sure seems so.

Did you give them any thought when casting your vote? Did you consider asking them for their input? Did you not realize they have loved ones in Syria with shattered futures and lives are in peril, desperately hoping to join them here in America?

And you voted to dash those hopes? Really? For the pathetic reason that you feared the political repercussions of casting a less cowardly vote?

My friends trusted me in 2012 when I asked that they support you.

And now you’ve treated them with unfathomable cruelty and selfishness.

I’m mortified. I’ve apologized and they’ve forgiven me for this, but would they ever trust me again, as they did in 2012? I doubt it.

Your record, in my opinion, just crossed the line from cynical to unconscionable.

Your constituent,

Bob Lord

Last night a friend of mine went to a Nancy Pelosi DCCC event in Brentwood. She ran into corrupt conservative New Dem Pete Aguilar and asked why he voted against the Syrian refugees last week. He didn't say anything about policy considerations but explained, somewhat apologetically, that the people he represents in San Bernardino are too dumb to understand the issue. So, he reasoned, because of that his vote shouldn't be held against him. Besides, he said, if there is a vote on overriding a presidential veto, he'll switch. Pete Aguilar... not an actual Democrat-- a drugged-up, bankster-financed Steve Israel Democrat. And, of course Aguilar, like Steve Israel, endorsed Hillary; no worries there. One other thing about that DCCC event-- when pressed, Pelosi said her plan to regain the House majority back from the Republicans was-- Steve Israel and his messaging. Like I've been saying, the Democrats won't win back the House-- not this year, not next year, not in a decade-- as long as corrupt conservatives are running the show and being enabled by an increasingly enfeebled party leader.

Wanted: A Primary Opponent For Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)-- And Voters Sweep Away North Carolina Republicans

I've had a lot of feedback-- most of it great-- after Michelangelo Signorile's post last week in HuffPo about how propounding disappointing LGBT freshmen Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ) and Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY) have been. I've been blogging about these two clowns here at DWT all year. No one in New York seems to have noticed that Maloney has the single worst (i.e., most Republican) voting record of any Democratic freshman. But Sinema's constituents are far more alert and are making life very difficult for her inner transition from a self-proclaimed progressive to a deceitful conservative. Carl is a Massachusetts transplant, but he's been living in Arizona for 18 years and he explains Sinema's political perfidy as typical triangulation. And he lumps her in with fellow New Dem, Ron Barber, who has an even worse voting record.

In the last week or so, during the federal government shutdown crisis manufactured the Republicans in the US House of Representatives, we've seen a couple of the Democratic members of AZ's Congressional delegation go down this path in the most brazen way possible.

Reps. Kyrsten Sinema (D-CD9) and Ron Barber (D-CD2) have tried to look "reasonable" by siding with the tea party types in Congress by voting to weaken the Affordable Care Act. They have also supported a number of bills that are intended to cloak the Rs in an aura of "puppy dogs and fluffy white clouds" (funding PR-friendly agencies and operations like cancer research, etc.).

I'm not psychic, and I'm not exactly the first person they call for advice (shocking, I know), so I can't speak from direct knowledge. However, most informed speculation on the subject is that Barber and Sinema have been voting the way that they have been in a move to gain Republican votes in their competitive districts.

By doing so, they've aligned themselves with, and given political cover to, the people who have crippled the government because they object to the idea that Americans now have access to affordable health insurance coverage. People who, during the shutdown, have:

• Said that shutting down government and putting hundreds of thousands of workers out of work was their idea of "fun" (AZ's own David Schweikert)

• Berated an unpaid park ranger at a WWII memorial in DC for shutting down access to the memorial, one of the many closed by the federal government shutdown created by Republicans (TX's Randy Neugebauer)

•Stated that they still deserve their paychecks because, unlike furloughed workers, they are still on the job.

…It is a game plan that isn't likely to gain them the Republican votes that they covet-- it's been said before that people who lean Republican will vote for the "real" thing when presented with a choice between a real Republican candidate and a Republican-lite one.

And the plan probably won't directly cost them Democratic votes because while many D voters may decide that Sinema and Barber aren't "good" candidates, they are the "less bad" option on the ballot.

Where it will hurt them is in the enthusiasm department.  Candidates, especially those in competitive districts and races, need the support of believers who are willing to walk precincts and make calls for their candidate in exchange for, at most, a pat on the back and some snacks.

The ranks of their true believers are being thinned by this mess.

...I don't know Congressman Barber, having never met him, but I did meet Congresswoman Sinema while she was a member of the Arizona legislature. In addition, I live in CD9 and met her again during the 2012 campaign.

She is smart, hard-working, accomplished, and ambitious.

Generally speaking, each of those qualities, even "ambitious", is a good thing in electeds, especially young ones.

However, "ambitious" can also be a problem for young electeds if rather than ruling their ambitions, their ambitions rule them.

The jury is still out on Sinema in this regard, but there are growing indications that her ambitiousness is compromising her political judgement. With the debt ceiling fight coming up and quickly, more insight into Sinema (and Barber, as well), will soon be available.

Former Democratic House candidate, Bob Lord was a Sinema supporter. It doesn't sound like he is any longer. "This is what happens," he writes, "when your efforts to appear 'centrist' are over the top. He then quotes Steve Muratore at Arizona Eagletarian:

A government shutdown is an abandonment of Congress' basic duty, and that’s shameful. Arizonans are angry and I don't blame them. I am angry. Time has run out and both parties are responsible. Every single effort by the House and Senate must be a step towards finding common sense and middle ground.

Both parties? Really

? If both parties are responsible in this instance, is it even possible for one party to behave so extremely and unreasonably that it alone is at fault?

If the House Republicans sought to repeal Social Security, would the Senate be duty bound to take steps towards "finding common sense and middle ground"?

Here's the glaring logical flaw in Kyrsten's statement: You don't "find common sense." Your position either is based on common sense, or it is not. If both parties' positions are based on common sense, there is a middle ground that also is based on common sense.

In order to "find middle ground" the beginning positions of both sides have to be based on common sense. Otherwise, there is no basis for "finding middle ground." How can one party that is grounded with common sense find middle ground with a party lacking commons sense?

  Quite simply, the position of the House Republicans is lacking in common sense. If you pretend it does not, you've just validated the tactic of threatening to shut down the government unless the other side caves in to your demands.

Here's the test you can run to see if a party's negotiating position is based on common sense: Would the party still take that position if the concessions it is seeking were made without condition? If the answer is no, common sense is lacking. In this case, if the Senate gave in to all the House Republicans' demands, the House Republicans would not be opposing the Continuing Resolution. So, it makes no sense that they are opposing it now.

Here's another way to look at it: The clean continuing resolution represents the common ground. Neither side is in favor of shutting down the government. So, the Democrats already occupy what should be the common ground.

Bottom line: When your efforts to be a "centrist" are over the top, there's a good chance you'll engage in crazy talk.

And while Sinema's strategy of me-too conservatism is what she plans to run for reelection on, voters in far more right-wing areas than AZ-09, have already started voting against Republicans who back the Tea Party insanity. There was excellent news out of North Carolina today, where the far right of the GOP was dealt a stunning blow across the snout by angry voters.

• The Republican majority on the Wake County school board is no more, pending only the result of a likely runoff election in District 3. But Board Chair Ron Margiotta, the Republican leader, was ousted by challenger Susan Evans, a registered Democrat, in District 8 (Southwest Wake), which is generally viewed as THE most Republican of the nine school board districts. Evans won by a solid 52-48 percent margin in what can only be viewed as a stunning repudiation of Margiotta's and the Republican school board's extremism.

• Democratic candidates won or led by wide margins in the other four school board district races. Keith Sutton buried Republican Venita Peyton in District 4 (Southeast Raleigh). Jim Martin was an easy winner over Republican Cynthia Matson in District 5 (West Raleigh and Southwest Wake). Ditto Christine Kushner over Republican Donna Williams and two other candidates in District 6 (Central Raleigh).

• In District 3, incumbent Kevin Hill, a former school principal and a registered Democrat, led Republican activist Heather Losurdo by about 10 percent, but with two other candidates in the race, Hill apparently fell about 40 votes shy of an outright majority. Losurdo reportedly plans to call for a runoff in November.

In the school board races overall, turnout was about 21 percent of registered voters, which doesn't sound like a lot but is twice the turnout of the 2009 elections, in which the Republicans seized their 5-4 board majority.

In '09, Republican candidates won all four seats on the ballot, with John Tedesco winning his District 2 (Southeast Wake) seat in a runoff. Tedesco, Chris Malone, Debra Goldman and Deborah Prickett remain on the board for two more years, but without Margiotta, first elected to the District 8 board seat in 2003, they'll find themselves in a 5-4 minority unless Losurdo somehow is able to unseat Hill in a runoff.

Given Losurdo's nosedive late in the campaign when voters learned more about her, Hill seems in a commanding position going into a runoff. A Public Policy Polling survey of District 3 voters a week ago gave Hill a 16-point edge over Losurdo in a head-to-head contest.

Similarly, in the Raleigh city elections the Republicans lost across the board to Democrats and progressive-minded independents.

The latter term describes City Councilor Nancy McFarlane, who won the mayor's race by trouncing Republicans Billie Redmond and Dr. Randall Williams. McFarlane won 61 percent of the vote in the three-way contest.

In the at-large City Council race, Democratic incumbents held their seats against a lone Republican challenger. Mary-Ann Baldwin and Russ Stephenson were re-elected with twice as many votes as Republican Paul Fitts.

…For a Republican Party bent on holding its school board majority and taking the Raleigh mayor's post after 10 years of Democrat Charles Meeker in charge, Tuesday's results were nothing short of a colossal collapse. Democratic voters, who were asleep at the switch two years ago when the GOP won the school board elections, rose up in big numbers this time to push them out.

After the GOP wins in Wake County in '09 and statewide in North Carolina (and nationally) in '10, do the '11 results in North Carolina's Capital City and County mark the beginning of a Democratic resurgence?

Downtown in Raleigh tonight, it was hard to find anyone who didn't think the answer to that question is yes.

NOTE

The North Carolina elections weren't today. They were a couple years ago. Sorry for the frothy excitement. I misread the dates.

Intellectual Dishonesty Bi-Partisan Style

Patrick Murphy has managed to recruit Steve Stockman for his bipartisan coalition  of morons, the far right extremist who is suspected to have been in cahoots with the domestic terrorists who blew up the OK City Federal Building

-by Bob Lord

If you're sick and tired of partisan bickering in Congress, you may want to reconsider.

You see, one month ago, the "freshman bi-partisan caucus," or "United Solutions" gang, as they're calling themselves, led by 29 year-old Democrat Patrick Murphy of Florida, issued their manifesto, in the form of a statement to President Obama and House leaders in both parties, outlining their supposed bi-partisan solutions. You can find the entire letter here. According to this bi-partisan caucus, which by my count numbers 36 including 13 Democrats, their statement outlines areas of "common ground." My own assessment is that the supposedly common ground bullet points in the statement either are taken straight from the Republican playbook or are proposals with which nobody could conceivably take issue, like "aggressively pursuing Medicare fraud." Wow, that's thinking outside the box.

But the real gem in the United Solutions manifesto is the second bullet point, which reads in full:

Promote economic growth to generate revenue-- Of critical importance is a fair and broad tax plan including eliminating excessive corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and other subsidies to provide lower rates, that will encourage a pro-growth economy, providing added revenue for the federal budget.  We must also encourage innovation with less stringent regulation to help small businesses grow, which will lower unemployment.

How clever! A bi-partisan pander to the top 1% and corporate America. In order to reduce deficits at a time when tax rates on those at the top are near 75-year lows, their "United Solution" is to lower rates.

Of course, if you read the bullet point without keeping its heading in mind, you easily could get the feeling that our bi-partisan friends want to close loopholes and eliminate subsidies as a means of raising revenue. Something tells me this misimpression is what the Democrats in the caucus were hoping for. But you need to read closely. The "fair and broad tax plan" is not intended to close loopholes and eliminate subsidies for the purpose of raising revenue, at least not directly (more on that later). Instead, the loophole closing / subsidy elimination is to be done in order "to provide lower rates."

And, reading carefully, our bi-partisan friends do not wish to eliminate all corporate subsidies, but only the "excessive" corporate subsidies and "other subsidies." Unless there is intellectual dishonesty afoot here (now there's a loophole you can drive a truck through), this means the United Solutions caucus intends to identify for us which corporate subsidies that flow to the members of their collective donor base are "excessive" and must be eliminated, and which corporate subsidies are just sort of, you know, modest, run of the mill subsidies. And supposedly, the "other subsidies" must not refer to any corporate subsidies. Otherwise, there'd be no need to single out the "excessive" corporate subsidies. The net-net: the United Solutions gang is going to eliminate all subsidies except those corporate subsidies they do not deem excessive. So, if you're a non-corporate subsidy recipient, buh-bye, but if you're a corporate subsidy recipient, well, what's not to love? They're going to have a friendly discussion about excessiveness with you. And, of course, your lobbyist is most welcome. Oh, and bring your checkbook.

How about the revenue raising? This will be done through a variant of supply side economics in which you deem one segment of the supply side to be more prolific at revving up the economy than another. Under traditional supply side economic theory, you reduce taxes on all those capable of making investments that will spur economic growth. Our bi-partisan friends have refined that strategy. They're going to reduce taxes on some, but not all, of their friends and increase taxes on others by the same amount. In other words, they're going to "redistribute" wealth. Logically, the increased tax on those who have their loopholes closed or "excessive" subsidies eliminated would reduce growth. But because our bi-partisan friends have ascertained that the folks whose taxes will be reduced are the more prolific of the "job creator" class, the gains will outweigh the losses, and we'll be awash in new revenue. It's really quite simple.

And interesting, too. Under W. Bush, we learned that redistributing wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top would spur the economy and generate revenue. Now, we're learning that if we redistribute that wealth from some of those at the top to others at the top, we'll spur growth and generate revenue. The overall result is that we'll have redistributed wealth from the bottom and the middle to a portion of the top. I'm looking forward to see how this works out. I guess if the economy contracts, we could try going the other way-- that is, reverse the United Solutions plan, then raise rates further while creating more "excessive" corporate subsidies. Heck, maybe we'll just cut GE a big check each year. Oh wait, we already do.

Of course, last but not least, the United Solutions gang proposes we "encourage innovation with less stringent regulation." At first I thought that was a sop to the porn industry, but they must intend something else. I'm a bit at a loss here because everytime I try to think of an industry other than the porn industry where regulation gets in the way of innovation I think of the finance industry (you know, derivatives, credit default swaps, high-speed trading, etc.). Certainly, 36 freshmen would not be that cynical, would they?

I must say, after this tiny taste of bi-partisanship, partisan bickering doesn't seem quite so bad anymore.

And I hope that after Nancy Pelosi read this, she had a nice, motherly conversation with her 13 young pups and explained to them that they need to be more careful with their lunch money.

Phil Mickelson Got Very Rich Playing Golf... So He Doesn't Think He Should Have To Pay Taxes

What could be more fitting? Mickelson & the tainted HSBC cup

I met Bob Lord when he ran for Congress against freaky Arizona Republican sex maniac John Shadegg (since driven out of politics, thank God). Bob, an attorney and still a progressive force inside the Arizona Democratic Party, blogs on a variety of DWT-type topic for BlogForArizona and Monday he said it would be OK for us to republish the post he ran about... Phil Mickelson. When you read it, imagine that golf is an actual sport rather than a hobby for rich white men.

Pity Poor Phil Mickelson
-by Bob Lord

It's irritating enough when we hear a plutocrat whine about his tax burden, but when a guy who has become fantastically wealthy playing golf does so, he ought to be facing jail time.

  I love the game of golf. I've been playing since I was 11, and introduced my sons to the game when they were 6. But I don't care all that much for golfers (except the ones I drink with after I play. I have a soft spot in my cold liberal heart for them). Golfers utterly fail to appreciate how fortunate they are to be playing golf on a regular basis. I especially don't care for pro golfers-- not the ones who work in golf shops, but the ones you see on TV. They're insanely fortunate to accumulate unbelievable wealth doing something inherently frivolous, yet most come to see themselves as really important figures.

And they're rabidly conservative as a group. I read a golf digest article in 2004, where a poll of professional male golfers came out 64-0 in favor of Bush over Kerry. When a group's views are that uniform, something is wrong.

Enter Phil Mickelson.

He's one of the most successful golfers of all time. Including endorsements, he's made hundreds of millions playing golf. He's never spent a day in a regular job. He hasn't had it easy in every respect, with more than his fair share of family health issues. But financially, he's been insanely lucky.  And here he is, in the NY Times Sports Section, whining about his increased tax burden. 

“I’m not going to jump the gun and do it right away,” he said after carding a six-under-par 66 to finish in a 10-way tie for 37th, “but there are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state. And, you know, it doesn’t work for me right now. So I’m going to have to make some changes.”

... Last year, he was ranked by Forbes magazine as the seventh highest-paid athlete, with $47.8 million in earnings, including $43 million in endorsements.

“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”

To start out with, he's clueless about his marginal tax rate. If you factor in the rate at which his federal tax burden is reduced by his state tax payments, his total marginal rate, including the new medicare tax, is between 52 and 53 percent. And, in all likelihood, he's avoiding the medicare tax on a good bit of his income outside his tour winnings. And he likely has capital gains income not reflected in the $47.8 million, which would be taxed at a much lower rate.

  At a minimum, if he does as well this year as he did in 2012, poor Phil will net more than $23 million after tax. I'd love to be the reporter at his next tour stop. "So, Phil, which social safetly net programs do you propose be slashed so you can have more than $23 million per year to spend?" "Phil, which poor people should pay more in tax so you can pay less in tax and spend more on jet fuel?" "Phil, how long did it take you to become the consummate elitist prick?" "Phil, do you think perhaps you should stick to golf?"

I would be less offended hearing these remarks from a professional basketball or football player. They have short careers. The money they make in a decade or so has to last them their entire lives. But golfers don't have that disadvantage and Phil Mickelson certainly doesn't. He's in his 21st year as a pro, still at the top of his game. And, when he retires from the PGA tour, he'll be able to play the Senior's tour, where he will be able to pocket more than a quarter mil for three days of toiling on the golf course. And even when that door closes, he'll still have endorsement deals, speaking opportunities, and course design work.

Why is it exactly that we lionize these assholes? Isn't there a lesson to be learned from the Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno fiascos? This is not meant as a categorical put-down of professinal sports. Sports have a place in our society. But that place has become too large, in my opinion. The relative amounts by which we celebrate those who do great things with their bodies compared to those who do great things with their minds is horribly out of balance. How do I know that? Because we've arrived at the point where the New York Times pays attention when Phil Mikelson whines about his heavy tax burden.

DREAM Act Day

Today Harry Reid is calling a cloture vote against the Republican filibuster aimed at blocking the Defense budget because of rightwing antipathy towards Latinos and their opposition to abolishing Don't Ask Don't Tell. This is more pre-election Republican Party politics of divisiveness, another play to turn ordinary American people against each other for the benefit of the 5% of wealthiest Americans who actually benefit from GOP policies and their agenda of reactionary anti-working family policies. In the past a dozen Republican senators have voted for the DREAM Act, which is supported by Colin Powell and virtually all of the country's military brass:

Bob Bennett (UT)
Sam Brownback (KS)
Norm Coleman (MN)
Susan Collins (ME)
Larry Craig (ID)
Chuck Hagel (NE)
Orrin Hatch (UT)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Trent Lott (MS)
Richard Lugar (IN)
Mel Martinez (FL)
Olympia Snowe (ME)

The best source of updates on the DREAM Act I've found is at America's Voice; they've got everything you need to know, including ringing endosements from papers across the ideological spectrum, from the NY Daily News and L.A. Times to the Salt Lake Tribune and Frank Sharry's powerful nonpartisan endorsement at yesterday Hill:

Passing the DREAM Act should be a no-brainer. It’s a Mom-and-apple-pie measure that enables high-achieving young immigrants to go to college, join our military and earn citizenship.

It enjoys bipartisan support, and is backed by leaders in education, the military, and business, as well as by religious communities such as the Evangelical movement, the Jewish community and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

So, why is the measure controversial?

For one, these young people are in the U.S. illegally, and issues related to illegal immigration tend to generate more heat than light. But let’s be clear: these kids came with their parents and can hardly be held responsible for decisions made when they were still in diapers. They then proceeded to grow up in America and do all that was asked of them-- learn English, finish high school with good grades, and aspire to great things. Do we really want to pursue the alternative to the DREAM Act, which is to deport these valedictorians and ROTC members to countries they don’t even remember?

Evidently, some do. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) took to the Senate floor this week to strongly oppose the bill. He started up the right-wing sound-bite machine, claiming that DREAM was an “amnesty measure” that would “reward bad behavior.” But Vitter, who knows something about bad behavior (and should know even more about glass houses), has the DREAM Act all wrong.

The bill details a rigorous process by which those eligible have to meet stringent age, character, and educational and military service requirements to earn legal status. This isn’t about amnesty, it’s about accountability. The bill sets out a well-designed obstacle course that will produce fine young citizens out of those who make it through.

The second reason the Senate vote has become controversial is that the DREAM Act will be considered as an amendment to the defense bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called the DREAM amendment “extraneous” and said it has “nothing to do” with the military. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who up until this Congress was a longstanding co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, argued that DREAM was “totally unrelated to national defense.”

Wrong again. The FY2010-12 Strategic Plan for the Department of Defense’s Office of the Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness recommends passage of the DREAM Act, in order to help the military “shape and maintain a mission-ready All Volunteer Force.” According to Louis Caldera, former Secretary of the Army, “The DREAM Act will materially expand the pool of individuals qualified, ready and willing to serve their country in uniform… I have no doubt many of these enlistees will be among the best soldiers in our Army.“

According to Margaret Stock, (Ret.) Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve, “Passage of the DREAM Act would directly benefit American national defense by enlarging the pool of highly qualified, US-educated ‘green card’ recruits for the US Armed Forces.”

In fact, the DREAM Act has traditionally been a bipartisan effort. Its lead sponsors in the Senate are Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), and the House bill was authored by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL). In the 108th Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-3 in favor of the DREAM Act with support from current Republican Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) (who helped draft the legislation), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and John Cornyn (R-TX). The DREAM Act was also included in comprehensive immigration reform legislation in 2006, as an amendment from Senator Graham in the Judiciary Committee, and ultimately 23 Republican Senators voted for that bill.

But this is Washington, and these days the pursuit of power trumps common sense and good policy. Republicans in the Senate are under continuing and intense pressure to block any and all progress on any and all fronts. And so members who in the past have supported the DREAM Act are road-testing excuses. It’s about procedures. It’s about timing. It’s about the vehicle. It’s about politics. But what it really seems to be about is getting to “no” for cynical political reasons.

Okay, so let’s talk politics, and bluntly. Republicans, this may be your last chance with Latino voters for some time. If you can’t find a way to support this limited measure to help young immigrant children attend college and serve in our military, most of whom are Latino, you will be telling Latino immigrants to go to hell. You will make it nearly impossible for your 2012 Presidential nominee to win the 40 percent of Latino votes he or she will need to win back the White House. And you will accelerate your “success” at turning socially conservative Latinos into lifelong Democrats.

Wouldn’t it be better to make the dreams of 800,000 young people come true?

Everyone I know thinks so... except one person. Bob Lord is a friend in Phoenix ran for Congress in 2008 against John Shadegg, one of the most despicable Republicans in the entire House. In a very red district, Bob ran as a progressive, rejecting the DLC/Blue Dog Republican light approach. Although he ultimately fell short, Bob gave Shadegg quite a scare, pulling ahead in the polls three weeks prior to the election. He forced the Republicans to spend over three million dollars defending what was assumed to be a safe seat. Bob think's its a bad idea:

So far, I’m the only progressive I know who thinks the DREAM Act will prove to be an unmitigated disaster. No, I didn’t wake up this morning as a xenophobic Republican. My concern with the DREAM Act has nothing to do with whether the kids who would be eligible for legal status are deserving of it. Of course they are. In fact, they should be granted legal status right away, without having to jump through any hoops.

My concern actually goes back to my campaign. I was asked with surprising frequency my position on the DREAM Act. The first time, I’m embarrassed to say, I needed to be told what the DREAM Act was. My immediate reaction was that I supported the goal of the legislation, but I thought it needed to be broadened. To me, if college and the military were the only options available for immigrant kids to achieve legal status, it would meant that any kid who wasn’t college material would practically be forced into military service. So, I thought that there should be other options, like service in AmeriCorps, or on federal road building projects, or whatever else could be created. The idea of coercing hundreds of thousands of kids to serve in the military just didn’t sit right with me.

The current push for passage of the DREAM Act takes my concern to a new level. Watching Rep. Luis Gutierrez (for whom I have a lot of respect) on one of the MSNBC shows talking about how great this will be for our military, with over one million immigrants being incented to serve, was chilling. Our military adventurism is already way out of control. We waste precious resources on senseless wars, and young, mostly poor or lower middle class, men and women are sent to slaughter. The DREAM Act is virtually guaranteed to take this sick situation and make it unthinkably worse, for two reasons.

First, and foremost, there is a huge disconnect between those who decide to go to war and those who bear the burden of the sacrifice. Right now we have a system where a bunch of rich guys decide whether to send the poor and lower middle class kids to war. Those rich guys can send the troops to war with little worry that their kids, nieces, or nephews, or even the kids, nieces or nephews of any of their friends will share in the sacrifice. And the parents of the poor and middle class kids don’t make
campaign contributions, so their lives mean little to the decision makers. Now, consider what happens to this dynamic if the DREAM Act passes. Instead of rich guys deciding to send poor and middle class kids to war, we’ll have rich guys deciding to send immigrant kids to war. Immigrant kids whose parents largely are non-citizens. Their parents don’t vote. Their parents are too afraid to come out of the shadows to protest. Heck, in the eyes of elitists like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or Arizona’s Jon Kyl, the highest and best use of these kids would be sacrificing their lives for the benefit of “real Americans.”

Second, our all volunteer military is limited in terms of the scope of military adventurism it can handle. Recall that at the height of the Iraq war, the military was stretched perilously thin. Prior to the recession, we had severe difficulty maintaining the desired troop levels and had to resort to unsustainable tactics (lowered recruiting standards, the back-door draft, excessive use of reserves) in order to avoid a collapse of the current system. So, a Vietnam type adventure would not be possible. Not without the DREAM Act of course. I’m concerned that those million immigrant recruits Rep. Gutierrez speaks of with such enthusiasm represent the cannon fodder the next George Bush will use when he invades Iran, or Pakistan, or the entire Muslim world for that matter. The DREAM Act may be the thing that makes another debacle on the scale of Vietnam possible. Just think how profitable that will be for the defense industry.

I came of political age during the Vietnam War. My first political work was stuffing envelopes for George McGovern. So I tend to look at things through that lens. In that regard, the resistance to the Vietnam War actually started with the African American community. Because most of the white kids were getting college deferments early on, the burden of sacrifice was falling on the black kids. But they and their families at least were citizens, so they could go to the streets and protest, which they happened to be doing already for other good reasons. How worse would Vietnam have been if the great majority of kids losing their lives were immigrants, whose family members are all non-citizens, possibly no longer living in the country, but in any case afraid to come out of the shadows? If those kids were being used as cannon fodder, there wouldn’t be anyone to stand up for them, and the rich, mostly white, guys making the decision to put them in the line of fire would have no compunction against doing so. There would be no political price for them to pay.

If you don’t think another Vietnam or larger scale war is possible, take a look at World Net Daily, which John Shadegg, Trent Franks, and other Republican wack jobs read on a regular basis. During my campaign, Shadegg was encouraging anyone who would listen to read anti-Muslim screeds like Knowing the Enemy and America Alone. We have Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin whipping their followers into a frenzy over plans to build a Muslim community center. All while the rumblings about stopping Iran from making a bomb continue and the economy sputters. Fact is, the combination of the DREAM Act, a right wing President and Congress, and continued economic malaise has huge potential to result in a major war fought on the backs of immigrants. And how unfortunate would that be if it were progressives that made it all possible by pushing for passage of the DREAM Act.

If you’re still reading, thanks for doing so. And if by chance I’m no longer still the only progressive opposed to the DREAM Act, please, please speak up. It’s not uncommon that well intended legislation has unintended consequences. I really believe that is the case here. But the consequences, while unintended, are totally foreseeable. It would be nice if we could avoid this disaster.

Bob introduced me to another friend in Arizona, Doug Kahn, who writes regularly-- albeit not regularly enough-- on this blog. Doug is helping to finance the defense of several DREAM Act supporters who were arrested in Washington. He doesn't agree with Bob's perspective... not at all. He sent me this last night:

There it is, right in headline Bob Lord wrote for his piece on the Dream Act. It’s what’s known as the Ignoratio Elenchi, the irrelevant conclusion, a logical fallacy commonly used in rational argumentation. Commonly, it’s a red herring, typically used to confuse, to lead away from what is really at stake. We’re not having a debate over “Good Progressive” legislation; we’re talking about whether we should support making it legal, finally, for hundreds of thousands of young people to plan out how they’re going to scrape up money to buy their next meal, and a roof over their heads.

I had lunch with Bob last week, and among other political talk I told him what I was up to, most of which had to do with the Blue America effort to elect progressives as well as our upcoming campaign to get rid of an Arizona Blue Dog, Gabrielle Giffords.

I’ve also been helping Dream Students in their effort to get the DREAM Act brought up in the U.S. Senate. They can’t legally hold a job, so when I was asked to help pay for an Arizona group to travel to Washington DC in July, I pitched in. You might have read that Erika Andiola was arrested after lobbying at Senator Reid’s office, then refusing to leave, and Dulce Matuz did the same at Senator McCain’s office. Dreamers have also staged a sit-in at McCain’s office in Arizona. And as of yesterday, several of them were still camped outside his office in Phoenix, protesting their inability to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces.

I’m having a difficult time understanding what Bob wrote. Not his opinions, but why now? He surely wasn’t thinking about it before we had lunch, and I’m not aware that he’s written anything opposing SB1070 or the other racist crapola going on here in Arizona this year. That really, really bugs me, because Bob isn’t like the other spineless Democrats in this state, the ones who prattle on about the border and drug lords and kidnappings and crime, trying to prove they’re as stupid as the Republicans who run the place.

Yes, I support the Dreamers. They don’t need help planning their next move, and they don’t need gratuitous advice from me or any other documented U.S. citizen. What they need is the right to apply for a job. The ones who have already been jailed, and are in the middle of the deportation process, they need their freedom. (Homeland Security refuses to tell us who they’ve got locked up, and who and how many young people they’re leaning on to sign voluntary deportation agreements.) The families of high school kids need assurance that at least the kids will be able to become citizens someday.

This entire campaign has been theirs from beginning to end. For a long time most immigration reform advocates fought them, saying they had to wait, that the Dream Act was popular so it had to be held back to “sweeten” Comprehensive Immigration Reform. (This should be considered as shameful abuse of innocent young people.) The Dream Act is on the agenda in the Senate for only one reason: these people risked their freedom, risked deportation by taking direct action. They networked, campaigned, and this summer, went and invaded the personal space of John McCain and Harry Reid and the U.S. Senate. This wasn’t on the Democratic agenda in Washington; in fact, until last Monday the House Hispanic Caucus was still refusing to endorse a stand-alone Dream Act.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had people tell me (a lot of this happened at Netroots Nation) that the Dream Students are naive, they don’t understand politics, the overall progressive agenda is the most important thing, and so forth and so on. Just keep that shit to yourselves, if you don’t mind. They’re not naive, they’re desperate. They’ve understood something about life’s priorities that I, at least, needed reminding of; when something is very important, you have to act, not just talk.

Anyway, I’m traveling with Erika and Dulce to Washington next week, because they go on trial October 1st. My assumption is that their charges weren’t dropped because they refused to sign a statement promising to stay away from Capitol Hill. I don’t know what their strategy is, and I don’t need to know. What they’ve been doing so far has worked, and they deserve my support, whatever they decide to do.

UPDATE: DREAM Act and Ending Of DADT Go Down To A Lockstep GOP Filibuster

Every single Republican voted to continue Miss McConnell's ironic filibuster of a Defense Budget that would have enacted the "bipartisan" DREAM Act and ended DADT. It's ironic because Miss McConnell himself was bounced out of the army after just 10 days when he was caught fondling a private's privates. Two putative Democrats, soon-to-be lobbyist Blanche Lincoln and Mark "2-digit-IQ" Pryor, both of Arkansas, voted with the Republicans.

Gee, I Hope John Shadegg Isn't Planning On Suing Me After He Loses His Congressional Seat In 2 Weeks!

There's a report in today's Politico about John Shadegg that has me a little worried:

Rep. John Shadegg has shelled out $19,698.03  in legal and research fees to a white-shoe Washington law firm to pursue an unspecified libel and slander case, according to a spokesperson for the seven-term conservative Republican from Phoenix.

The white shoe firm is Sidley Austin on K Street. A Shadegg spokesperson would only say "The congressman is considering taking legal action against a party. It has to do with libel and slander." Earlier this year DWT reproduced a page from John L. Jackley's book Below The Beltway. Sidley Austin was all over me, threatening to sue if I didn't take it down. Eventually and very reluctantly-- and after friends of mine at the ACLU and People For the American Way said I had to-- I did.

Page 102 of the book is about how straight arrow Christian Coalition Republican Jon Christensen of Nebraska caught Shadegg, a raging hypocrite, boinking his wife in their marital bed. Ms. Christensen had a reputation in DC for being kind of loose. Fist fights and recriminations followed, according to the book, which can still be purchased. But Sidley Austin contends that they obtained affidavits from Christensen, from Jackley and from right-wing vanity press publisher, Regnery. I laughed and asked them to get me in touch with Mrs. Christensen but they basically said that if I didn't take the post down, they would drag me into court. I never could find Mrs. Christensen, long divorced from the ex-congressman, but rumors abound that she refuses to contradict the story.

I don't know if the story is true or false, I do know that Shadegg has a powerful law firm that jumps on anyone and everyone who writes about the incident. I've gone over the affidavits and they look legitimate from a legalistic point of view. Personally, I don't believe any of them.



A thorough discussion of Shadegg's myriad ethics problems is what is called for-- something he has always been able to head off at the pass.

28 Dangerous Extremists Who Hate Americans Spotted On Capitol Hill Friday

Anyone see John Shadegg? Where's Michele Bachmann hiding?

142 Republicans joined every single Democrat on Friday to pass HR 6867, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008. Even far right lunatic fringe Republicans like Steve Pearce (R-NM), Virgil Goode (R-VA), David Dreier (D-CA), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), and Adam Putnam (R-FL) didn't have the guts to vote against this and reversed themselves on a bill that extends unemployment compensation for an increasing number of working families in dire straits. And, as this morning's NY Times points out more and more economically distressed members of the middle class are starting to understand who the enemy really is.

Here in a swing state of severe economic hurt — a leader in foreclosures where empty offices now litter strip malls — there are signs that Mr. Obama is gaining ground. In interviews and surveys, voters across Florida said the debate in Washington over how to fix the credit crisis had fueled frustration with the Bush administration and pushed them away from the Republican ticket.

The four most recent polls from late September put Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. McCain by three to eight percentage points, a sharp swing from the previous six weeks, when Mr. McCain led by as much as 10 points.

So who would oppose a bill to extend unemployment benefits? 28 far right Republican extremists, the worst of the worst-- and on a day when the newpapers announced gigantic layoffs, overwhelmingly caused by GOP trade and financial policies! Most of the 28 maniacs who voted NO are in safe districts where their constituents are as filled with hatred, fear and ignorance as they are and it is hopeeless to even try to oppose them. But not all. A few are in genuinely moderate districts and can be defeated in November, particularly:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Bill Sali (R-ID)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Shadegg's vote was particularly callous since he had just voted 90 minutes earlier for the $700,000,000,000 Wall Street bailout. His campaign contributors will be well-taken care of. Regular American families thrown out of work through no fault of their own just got the middle finger (once again) from John Shadegg. He has a great opponent this year too-- Bob Lord. If you'd like to give Bob a hand, he's on the DWT ActBlue page.

McCAIN AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS DESPERATELY TRYING TO SAVE THEMSELVES FROM WHAT LOOKS INEVITABLE

The fighters: if they can't fight Iranians or Koreans, they'll fight each other

Instead of appealing to mainstream American voters, McCain is still trying to convince the extreme right wing of the GOP that he's an acceptable replacement for their hero, George W. Bush. Yesterday he was in Ohio begging religious fanatics with bizarre views for their votes, and ignoring the independent and moderate voters who will decide the 2008 election. He's paying attention to extremists like Grover Norquist-- who referred to Senator Obama as "John Kerry with a tan," and to the snake-handlers and warmongers that make up the rest of what's left of Ronald Reagan's frayed and disintegrating GOP coalition.

“He needs to find his voice a little better in Ohio,” said Mike Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, one of several leaders who met with McCain for more than an hour. “He pledged to us we’d hear a lot more from him and that he’d be speaking his voice on these issues.”

The officials said they walked away impressed with McCain’s positions, and said they believed the “ship is turning” in conservative support for the Republican presidential candidate.

The group spoke about McCain’s pro-life voting record, as well as his support for state amendments banning gay marriage (though he did not support a federal one). They urged him to highlight these stances, especially in events in their swing state.

The problem for McCain, of course, is that if the ship is turning on the fringes of GOP extremism, the ship is all but sunk for the three-quarters of Americans who have had enough of the kind of divisive and hate-filled politics that excites these kooks. And if it's bad for McCain, it's even worse for the rubber stamps who have posed as members of Congress for the past few years. Karen Hanretty is the communications director for the panic-stricken NRCC and the message she communicated to Republican House incumbents isn't the message anyone was looking for: "This is a challenging environment. Any Republican running for office has to run basically on an independent platform, localize the race and not take anything for granted. There are no safe Republican seats in this election." That probably accounts for why they haven't been able to recruit any top tier candidates, not even in traditionally Republican districts. Instead they're stuck with a gaggle of clueless self-funding millionaires who can't relate to ordinary Americans.

This would also account for why Boehner and Blunt have lost control of the Republican congressional caucus. Members have been deserting them and their hated and destructive policies in greater and greater numbers. Every day more Republicans are crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats, leaving Boehner, Blunt and Doody isolated with a shrinking band of far right extremists and Bush dead-enders. Yesterday's Hill:

House Republican leaders' embarrassing failure to hold the line against a Medicare-related bill this week raised new questions about whether the rank and file will adopt an every-man-for-himself strategy as the election draws near.

The 355-59 drubbing came despite a personal plea from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to rally his caucus against Democratic attempts to shove the so-called Medicare "doc fix" down the GOP's throat.

While some argue that the bill was a special case, the vote also symbolized a potential turning point in the GOP leadership's ability to hold its troops in line, even on politically difficult votes.

It remains to be seen what it could mean for votes on children's health care legislation and other measures, with Democrats looking to pad the remainder of the House legislative calendar with issues that could reverberate at the polls.

Boehner made an aggressive push to persuade Members to oppose the doc fix bill during Tuesday morning's weekly GOP Conference meeting-- including telling one Member to vote no on the bill if he wanted a choice committee assignment. While aides said later that the comment was made in jest, not everyone in the room took it that way.

Boehner also employed the term "dead asses" in making his pitch, a phrase he used previously when imploring Members to step up their fundraising for the party.

But hours later, 129 Republicans joined with all 226 Democrats present to pass the bill, which would prevent cuts in physician fees under Medicare. Many Republicans switched their vote to yes after it became clear the bill was going to pass overwhelmingly. By that point, Republicans had given up efforts to whip the bill and accepted that they weren't able to hold their troops in line.

One Republican Congressman, Wayne Gilchrist of Maryland says the vote was just more evidence that Republican members of Congress are putting their own diminishing chances of re-election ahead of party discipline. "The ship is sinking and somebody yelled 'every man for himself,'" explained the veteran legislator.

The fear and smear tactics and the reactionary policies helped Republicans lose 3 recent special elections in deeply red districts. The internal Republican memo circulating around Washington says its going to get much, much worse. The review says the coming catastrophe for Republicans is a combination of hatred for Bush's policies, which they have all rubber stamped, and out-of-touch extremist candidates running bad campaigns. A vicious war between Tom Cole of the NRCC and Minority Leader John Boehner is exacerbating the Republicans' dismal outlook. What you hear over and over in GOP circles these days is about the "negative brand" the Republican Party has become.

And for those wondering just who the last of the Bush Cheney dead-enders are still left rubber stamping and obstructing progress in the House are... well the full vote is here but I would like to highlight some names of the worst of the worst I don't think there will be any surprises here:

Michelle Bachmann R-MN)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Charles Boustany (R-LA)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Steny Hoyer-supported Kay Granger (R-TX)
Steve King (R-IA)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Since, as usual, John Shadegg was at the bottom of the barrel, we called his progressive Democratic opponent, Bob Lord for a comment. He told us that this week "John Shadegg said that he thinks all Americans have health care. When 9 million children and 47 million Americans don't have health care coverage, it is hard to imagine a more careless and uninformed statement coming from a member of the House Subcommittee on Health. Unfortunately for Arizona, this is a continuing pattern for Shadegg. He voted against SCHIP 3 times and even wants to do away with Head Start and the Department of Education. He is a Washington extremist and Arizona's families deserve better."