Corrupt Republican Buck McKeon Says He'd Vote For Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez If He Still Lived In California

Buck, Loretta and... friend

Just over a week ago, we noted that Orange County Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez is, in effect, the Republican in this year's California Senate race. The dysfunctional jungle primary has, technically, thrown up two Democrats, Kamala Harris, a garden variety "liberal" corporate Dem, and the dull-minded, conservative Sanchez. In the primary last month the unexciting establishment-backed Harris won more votes (2,582,591) than Sanchez (943,002) combined with the 4 top Republican vote-getters (1,027,697). Sanchez's unlikely path to victory is to win over Republicans and galvanize Hispanic voters behind her, quite a task to do simultaneously... especially with the hated Trump as the face of the Republican Party. Today's Washington Post looked at her chances of doing so, pointing out that former L.A. mayor, Richard Riordan, a Republican, has already endorsed her.

Sanchez’s chief strategist, Bill Carrick, told The Post that she will not change her "values or ideology" in an effort to appeal to Republican voters, pointing out that his dumbbell client (too stupid to be trusted to do an L.A. Times interview, is clearly left of center on certain issues such as abortion rights and that "many things about her are progressive... It would be ridiculous for her to all of a sudden start sounding like a Republican," he said. "That’s not going to happen." She doesn't have to change a thing and she's far from progressive. To appeal to Republicans she can just wave her voting record around-- long a moderate Republican or Republican-lite voting record. She's mainstream on most social issues and conservative on fiscal issues. In 1996, when she first beat far right Republican Bob Dornan for the Orange County congressional seat she now holds, it was believed one had to be pretty conservative to be elected and re-elected. She was. But the district, like California, has changed dramatically since then. By 2008 Obama beat McCain 59-39% and 4 years later, he gutted Romney in the formerly red district, 61-36%. The once lily-white is now 67.4% Latino and 11.3% Asian. Only 18% of the population is white. Democrats don't need a conservative porto-republican to win seats like CA-46 anymore.

Carrick, though, attempted to fool the easily fooled Post reporter. "She comes from Orange County, and overall the county is Republican," he twisted and turned. Sanchez isn't from that [rapidly dwindling] part of Orange County. In 2012, Romney was pulverized in northern Orange County but overall he managed to beat Obama county-wide, 541,592 (53%) to 457,077 (45%). But those Republican voters don't embrace Sanchez as one of their own. To them, she's just a Democrat-- and a Hispanic. These are Darrell Issa voters, who won his part of southern Orange County with 66% of the vote, and Dana Rohrabacher voters who won his wealthy coastal enclaves with 61%.

Republicans make up 27 percent of California voters. In a Field Poll survey a week before the primary, Republicans were split when asked which Democrat they would vote for in November-- 26 percent Harris and 25 percent said Sanchez. Thirty percent of GOP voters volunteered that they would vote for neither. The poll showed Harris leading Sanchez 40 percent to 26 percent overall in a general-election contest.

Both women are aiming to make history and are attracting national attention: Harris, who is Asian American and black, could become the only African American female senator. Sanchez, who is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, could be one of the first Latinas in the Senate. (Another Latina, Catherine Cortez Masto, is running for the retiring Harry Reid’s Senate seat in Nevada).

Sanchez, 56, is seen as something of the underdog, fighting to mobilize the state’s Latino population after upsetting then-Rep. Bob Dornan (R-Calif.) in 1996 in a vastly changing district.

She starts the general election with less name recognition and organizational support than her opponent, who has won two statewide contests. Sanchez has the support of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s BOLD PAC and some California labor groups, but she will not have the organizational support of a major political party or the state’s big labor unions. Harris has the backing of the California Democratic Party and labor giants such as the Service Employees International Union.

Sanchez also has struggled to raise money. According to campaign finance reports filed three weeks before the primary, Sanchez had $1.3 million on hand out of $3.5 million raised during the past year. Harris had $4.7 million left over from $11 million raised for the primary.

“Fundraising was a challenge, and we have to double down and work harder and do a better job in California and outside of California raising money,” Carrick said.

...“Loretta knows how to work with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. She is the leader we need in the U.S. Senate,” Riordan said last week in his endorsement statement.

Sanchez might find an opening with independents, who make up 23 percent of registered voters in the Golden State. While the Field Poll showed them favoring Harris 40  to 26 percent in a general election, 28 percent said they were undecided.

...Harris’s pollster, in a conference call with reporters the day after the primary, questioned the strategy of a winning coalition made up of Latinos and Republicans supporting presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“In all my years of doing California politics, I’ve never seen a coalition of Republicans and Latinos come together to support a candidate,” David Binder said. “And given this GOP nominee, with his insults toward Mexican Americans, it’s very difficult to see Latinos support candidates supported by Republicans going into November.”

Luis Alvarado, a Republican strategist who also is Hispanic, said he is not supporting Trump, but he plans to vote for Sanchez in the general election.

“Republicans will find Loretta to be the most conservative of the choices and most open to work with Republican leaders in the state,” Alvarado said this week. “Where AG Kamala Harris is seen to be an extension of the liberal movement in San Francisco, Loretta has proven to be an independent thinker who stands by her policy positions independently.”

Kaitlyn MacGregor, spokeswoman for the California Republican Party, said she had “no comment on Republicans who choose to engage” in the Senate race, adding it was not a priority for the state or the national party. No Republican has been elected to statewide office since 2006.

The campaign office for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not respond to a request for comment on the Senate race.

Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, a Republican who left the House last year after more than 20 years representing parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said he had “a great working relationship” with Sanchez.

McKeon chaired the Armed Services Committee. “I’d watch her during votes, and she’d come over and be working our side on some issues,” he said. “She didn’t just come and sit down-- she’s moving all the time, so I respect that.”

He said that he hasn’t followed the Senate race closely but that “people have told me her opponent is left of Boxer, and that would be enough for me.”

“If I lived in California, I’d be voting for Loretta,” said McKeon, who now resides in Arlington, Va.

McKeon, who was long one of the most crooked conservatives in Congress while he served as the Rep. from the Santa Clarita Valley, is widely despised by California Democrats, who remember him as a racist as well as a self-serving careerist. (He cashed in on his work on the House Armed Services Committee and is now an unscrupulous arms lobbyist.) Loretta will have a tough time keeping that kind of foul stench from Republicans like McKeon from making her toxic to whatever Democratic supporters she may have.

Another Formerly Red District, CA-25, Flips To A Democratic Registration Advantage. DCCC Blows It Again

The 1st idiot to run the DCCC, James Rood Doolittle, and the current incompetent, Steve Israel

Patty Murray did a legendary job running the DSCC in the 2012 election cycle. She steered the Democrats to victory in races Beltway pundits rated as impossible: North Dakota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Virginia, New Mexico and Montana, while helping Elizabeth Warren defeat popular incumbent Scott Brown and making sure Republicans made no gains in tough reelection campaigns for Democrats in Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan and Florida. She was a superstar. The Obama campaign also ran a spectacular effort. The President carried a majority of states, 332 electoral votes (to Romney's 206) and over five million more votes than Romney. Obama won tough battleground states like Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado. The only battleground state they lost was… North Carolina which went to Romney 2,270,395 (50.39) to 2,178,391 (48.35%). Romney was unable to expand out of the deep red, shrinking Republican universe.

With all that good news nationally and statewide, the Democrats had the perfect opportunity to win back the House. But because Nancy Pelosi has appointed an incompetent and shockingly corrupt conservative to head the DCCC, Blue Dog Steve Israel, the DCCC was a tragic bust, from recruitment to execution. More GOP incumbents-- Ben Quayle (AZ), Cliff Stearns (FL), Sandy Adams (FL), Don Manzullo (IL), Mean Jean Schmidt (OH) and John Sullivan (OK)-- lost because of Tea Party primaries than because of anything Israel managed to do. And in none of those cases was the DCCC prepared to take advantage of GOP disunity. 4 of Israel's Blue Dog allies-- Ben Chandler (KY), Larry Kissell (NC), Mark Crtiz (PA) and Kathy Hochul (NY) on whose behalf Israel wasted millions of dollars-- were defeated. And the handful of wretched Blue Dogs and New Dems who Israel did manage to get into office have been a horrible disappointment, many-- like Patrick Murphy (FL), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Pete Gallego (TX), Brad Schneider (IL), Scott Peters (CA), Ann Kuster (NH), Cheri Bustos (IL), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Joe Garcia (FL)-- consistently voting with the GOP on core, crucial issues.

But for all Israel's missteps and fumbling, just his loss of a newly created D+5 district in California's Inland Empire (CA-31)-- the bluest district now held by any Republican anywhere-- should have sent a signal to Nancy Pelosi she made made a distress error in appointing Israel, an error that needed to be corrected instead of compounded by a reappointment.

In 2012, Israel backed an unsavory and corrupt bank lobbyist and local Republican Party/Chamber of Commerce shill, Pete Aguilar. He was so disliked by Democrats that he didn't even make it out of California's jungle primary. This year, the incumbent wing nut, Gary Miller, is retiring and Aguilar will probably win, although he is still unpopular and the DCCC has had to spend money on bolstering him, $602,100 between them and their ironically-named House Majority PAC, $111,192 going into a desperate ad this week-- in a district that should be a total gimme.

So Pelosi didn't dump Israel and he'll soon probably be trumpeting Aguilar, who has already joined the Wall Street-owned New Dems from Republican wing of the Democratic Party, as a big victory. And just north of the Inland Empire, Israel screwed up again in a similar district, CA-25. This was the Lee Rogers race that Israel refused to get involved with. And the result was just as bad as the 2012 result in CA-31-- two Republicans in the general. Rogers begged the DCCC for GOTV help for the primary. They refused-- 100% refused. So Rogers came in third (on a hinky ballot where his name was on a different page than the other candidates) and CA-25, where Buck McKeon was too scared to face Rogers again and announced his retirement, will be succeeded either by right-wing freak Tony Strickland or by even righter-wing freak Steve Knight. What makes this all the more tragic is that this is a newly-blue district. Yep, Democrats now outnumber Republicans-- for the first time-- in voter registration.

Regardless of which Republican wins the seat in November, he’ll have a tough reelection to look forward to in 2016.

The Secretary of State’s 60-Day Voter Registration report, which was released on Tuesday, shows Democrats have flipped the district’s voter registration. Democrats now hold a slight edge in voter registration of roughly half a percent, or 1,975 raw voters.

That’s a substantial shift from last December, when Republicans held a 3.6 percent advantage in voter registration.

In 2012 Israel sabotaged Rogers' election and, like so many good Democrats who have run into Israel, he won't be running for Congress again. This isn't how you build a party or a majority. Nancy Pelosi's worst political mistake ever was appointing Steve Israel to chair the DCCC. No… that was her second worst mistake. Her worst mistake was reappointing him after his catastrophic first cycle. He's the worst DCCC chair since James Rood Doolittle in 1868, who switched back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans and is best remembered for opposing the 15th Amendment, which granted citizenship to the freed ex-slaves after the Civil War. There was no one as bad as him running the DCCC until Pelosi dug up Israel.

When Tony Strickland Was Running In A Ventura County District, He Was Denigrating Los Angeles… Now He's Trying To Run In An L.A. District

In the 2010 redistricting, some residents of Simi Valley objected when they became part of the newly drawn 25th CD, which is primarily a Los Angeles County district. They wanted to remain as part of Ventura County. Tony Strickland's part of Simi Valley stayed behind with the rest of Ventura, in CA-26 and he ran, unsuccessfully, for the open seat there against Democrat Julia Brownley. She beat him 53-47% and he immediately began his rematch campaign. The ad above was expressed how he felt about the people who live in the Los Angeles part-- the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys-- of CA-25.

Tony Strickland: Ventura County is a world away from Los Angeles. Things are different here. We care about our neighbors. When they need help, we lend a hand. We carpool our kids to sports and to school…

His message was crystal clear: Ventura County people-- the 26th CD, where he was running-- are "better" and have better values than people in neighboring Los Angeles County (the 25th CD, where he wasn't running). Then something happened. Strickland was polling badly in the early stages of his rematch and he couldn't keep up with Brownley's fundraising. So when Buck McKeon offered him a deal that would have Buck retire from Congress to work in the family lobbying firm in return for Strickland hiring a bunch of otherwise unemployable McKeon relatives-- Strickland immediately jumped from the Ventura district to the Los Angeles district, leaving his neighbors he claims so much love for to the tender mercies of Jeff Gorell, a right-wing state Assemblyman.

He decided he would face another Ventura County resident, one who had embraced his neighbors in the Los Angeles County part of the district, not denigrated them… Lee Rogers. Rogers is a prominent surgeon, the national spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association and an expert of public health policy who is motivated to make the Affordable Care Act more efficient, more effective and more progressive. Strickland, who opposes a government role in making the lives of ordinary working families better, wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act (as well as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Yes, he's one of those.)

But Strickland's problem in CA-25 isn't just Lee Rogers. Local Republicans in Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster were horrified about the deal McKeon made with Strickland, who they view as an unfriendly carpetbagger with a bad attitude. They immediately set about to find a Republican alternative and, after their first, second, third, fourth and fifth choices all declined, they settled on an extremist fringe state Senator from the High Desert, Steve Knight, the most right-wing legislator in the state… but with a famous name in local politics-- because of his father-- that might confuse older voters into voting for him.

As, SantaClarita.com. the go-to website for CA-25 politics, wrote yesterday, Strickland is going to find it difficult to run after talking trash about the people in most of the district. "What's his next spot going to be? Hey voters of LA County, back where I come from, we care about our neighbors. I don't know what you do there, but you probably hate your neighbors. Even though I live a 'world away' I'd just love to be your Congressman. Cheers!"

This Republican civil war between those who back Strickland and those who back Steve Knight, is likely to be costly, bitter and draining. Democrats are united behind Lee Rogers, who already beat McKeon in the fast-growing Antelope Valley third of the district and is poised to turn the last GOP bastion in L.A. County blue-- and to do it without the help of the corrupt party bosses in DC. Beltway hacks like Steve Israel don't appreciate independent thinkers like Rogers and he refused to back his effort in 2012. He hasn't backed him this cycle either, even though polls showed he could beat McKeon handily.

Regardless of Steve Israel, congressmembers in California are eager to see Rogers bring his expertise, energy and independence to Congress. Recently neighboring Rep. Tony Cardenas endorsed him and started campaigning for him. "Lee Rogers is a diligent and hard-working leader on the health care issues facing his patients and our country,” said Cardenas. “He has a detailed knowledge of the economic issues facing Southern California and the solutions he is offering are creative and impressive. I have great faith that he will be an excellent representative for the residents of the 25th District." If you'd like to help Lee Rogers win in CA-25, his campaign is entirely a grassroots effort and you can contribute directly here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

She lost-- miserably

A Victory For Lee Rogers In CA-25, Is A Victory For Progressive Values Across America

If you missed me putting Buck McKeon's resignation from Congress into context for KPFK listeners yesterday, here's a short, abbreviated version above. This morning, Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent, under the eye-catching headline, "A Dem Candidate Who Would Expand O'Care And Social Security," went beyond the Beltway conventional wisdom/claptrap and got to the heart of why the race in the Santa Clarita, Antelope and Simi Valleys (CA-25) is so important for progressives.

Yesterday, GOP Rep. Buck McKeon, a longtime member of Congress and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, announced his retirement. The move could pave the way for an interesting experiment, one that could provide a glimpse into how progressive policies play in a swing district that’s already very difficult for Democrats.

The Democrat vying for the seat is Dr. Lee Rogers, who not only aggressively embraces Obamacare, but wants to expand it to achieve “universal” coverage, and even wants to expand Social Security. In an indication of what this candidacy might look like, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supports Rogers, notes that he champions “Medicare access for all,” and in a PCCC email going out today, Rogers says:

“I’ll fight to allow people to buy into Medicare. I’ll push for Medicare to negotiate drug prices to lower costs. And I promise to help bring us closer to universal healthcare coverage.”

…Make no mistake, this one will be a steep climb for Dems. Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report doesn’t think Rogers has a shot, because a big chunk of the district is made up of Latino voters among whom turnout could drop off in a midterm election. “This district has unique voting patterns that more or less doom his candidacy from the start,” Wasserman says.

However, it could still be an interesting test of progressive messaging at a time when public worries about inequality and declining economic mobility seem to be rising. ”If he gets more than 45 percent than he got in 2012, maybe that’s a sign his message was effective,” Wasserman says.

Whatever his chances, the race is worth watching, partly for the simple reason that Rogers’ support for expanding Social Security is a relative rarity among Dem candidates. The issue is emerging as an increasingly important issue for progressives, one central in the debate over whether the Democratic Party should embrace a truly economically progressive platform. It’ll be interesting to see how expanding Social Security (and Obamacare) play politically, given that many Dems have shied away from such positions-- even as there is strong public support for protecting social insurance and the safety net.

In the past, we've written about DCCC Chairman Steve Israel's "mystery meat" candidates. Israel warns candidates to not take controversial stands on big issues, especially not progressive stands. When I asked one freshman who ran as a progressive and then joined the Wall Street-financed New Dems and started a distinct pattern of voting against the progressive agenda she ran on, she was very frank and told me she had followed the DCCC's instructions to freshmen "100%" and that that was how they told her she could be reelected (in her D+3 district that Obama won with 56 and 54% in 2008 and 2012).

Yesterday, when Israel was crowing about McKeon's resignation in a press release, he didn't even mention Rogers' name, even though Rogers beat McKeon in the Antelope Valley in 2012-- the fastest growing third of the district and an area McKeon had never previously lost, and even though Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the California House delegation, has been Rogers' most vocal and persistent champion. Israel: “Congressman McKeon is getting in a crowded line of Republican moderates who are abandoning John Boehner’s broken Congress so that they don’t have to defend their party’s indefensible priorities to the voters. Congressman McKeon’s retirement puts yet another Republican-held seat into reach for Democrats, as he joins the likes of Tom Latham, Jon Runyan and Frank Wolf and others in rejecting the irresponsible behavior of their party. In this competitive district, Democrats will stand behind a candidate who is dedicated to working across the aisle to solve problems for hardworking California families and who will put a premium on creating jobs and growing the middle class. Meanwhile, Republicans are already facing yet another divisive primary where they will compete in a brutal race to the right.”

Buck McKeon, a "moderate?" Only in a topsy turvey Beltway universe where "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel could be head of the DCCC. McKeon is a radical right ideologue whose political positions are very extreme across the board. He was the financial go-to person in the Mormon jihad against LGBT equality in California. He has consistently and unwaveringly voted against women's rights, against unions, against economic security for working people, against basic human rights, against environmental sanity… here's the startling voting record of what Steve Israel thinks is a "moderate." It helps explain why he's been recruiting such shockingly conservative candidates-- like Jennifer Garrison, "the Sarah Palin of Ohio," to run for House seats.

Sargent's point is well-taken. What would happen if grassroots Democrats like Rogers-- and like the rest of the Blue America endorsed candidates-- who espouse the actual values and principles of the Democratic Party, were the ones who were financed by the DCCC, instead of the conservatives Israel has dug up? For one thing, voters would have a real choice on election day, something conservative Democrats like Israel fear to the core of their being.

Down the road from CA-25, another major electoral battle is brewing, this time in a solid blue (D+5) district that Israel managed to hand to the GOP in 2012 by backing one of his conservative mystery meat candidates, Pete Aguilar. Aguilar, who is incapable of connecting with Democratic voters, was beaten by two Republicans in the state's jungle primary. Radical right Republican Gary Miller represents an Inland Empire district (CA-31) that Obama won with 57% in 2012 and 2008. So, naturally, Israel is again backing Aguilar, despite the fact that the progressive grassroots Democrat in the race, Eloise Reyes, is out-raising him-- and just posted an over $300,000 quarter. After Aguilar championed cutting back on Social Security benefits via Chained CPI in a newspaper interview, the DCCC ordered him to stop showing his cards. Reyes never stops showing hers-- and they are cards that are all about equality of opportunity for working families. That's not what Steve Israel's DCCC is looking for, not in CA-312, not in CA-25, not anywhere.

Buck McKeon Finally Retiring-- Good Riddance!

Although Politico leaked the story yesterday, this morning, Buck McKeon officially-- finally-- announced he wouldn't be running for office again. If you're even a semi-regular DWT reader, you've known that for months. Buck's family has started a war industries lobbying firm and he'll be moving over there. The extremely corrupt 75 year old bigot recognized he had no chance to win against Lee Rogers again in November and decided to save himself the embarrassment of an electoral loss. Late last year he persuaded one of his most unscrupulous cronies, Tony Strickland, to abandon his second futile try at challenging Julia Brownley to come run in CA-25-- in return for putting several worthless McKeon relatives on his payroll. Revulsion among Santa Clarita, Antelope and Simi Valley Republicans led to them quickly recruiting the most right-wing member of the California legislature, deranged sociopath Steve Knight, to run against Strickland. The CA-25 GOP is in an active civil war.

One time failed haberdasher finally admitted he's done

Rogers, long a Blue America candidate, was endorsed by the PCCC this week. His campaign released a feisty press release yesterday entitled McKeon To Bow Out Rather Than Face Lee Rogers In 2014 Race For CA-25. “For years, McKeon’s support within the district has been crumbling. His fundraising has dwindled and even supporters have become frustrated with his lack of leadership on issues important to the district,” said Rogers. “Rather than face a tough and expensive battle he would seriously risk losing, McKeon wisely decided to walk away.”

Rogers sees the McKeon departure as the beginning of a new era for residents of the Santa Clarita, Simi, and Antelope Valleys who will, should they elect him, finally have a Congressman to represent their concerns. Rogers wants to fix the Affordable Care Act, strengthen our economy, and solve some serious local issues that have been plaguing the district.

  “Congress is broken. The 25th Congressional District needs to send a problem solver to Washington, not another career politician,” said Rogers.

Because Rogers is a prominent physician-- he was the national spokesperson for the Americans Diabetes Association before announcing his candidacy-- he is usually expected to talk about Obamacare-- and it has been a big issue for him all along. A single-payer, Medicare -for-all advocate, he was had mixed feelings about Obamacare and has expressed them publicly or the last 3 years.

There are certainly good parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Those beneficial parts include preventing insurers from disqualifying you for a pre-existing illness, or cancelling your policy if you become sick, eliminating caps on what the insurer will pay, and allowing adult children to stay on their parents insurance until age 26. Because of the ACA, millions more Americans will be insured and have access to the healthcare they need. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do! But, health reform isn’t about just one law. It’s a process to make sure the law is working for you. And if it’s not working, it needs to be fixed. This year, some Americans, including me, lost their insurance as a result of the ACA. Some Americans are paying more for insurance, and there is no guarantee you can keep your doctor if you choose to enroll in a plan from the exchange.  I say 'Fix it, don’t repeal it.'

The only other issue that rises to as much prominence in his campaign is jobs-related, what he called "Grow YOUR economy."

The economy is better now than it’s been in 5 years. The stock market is at record highs. But just because Wall Street is making money, doesn’t mean that your personal finances have improved. American wages have actually been on a decline, relatively, since the 1970’s. They haven’t kept up with the cost of living increases. Retirement accounts haven’t grown as much as expected and Americans are relying more upon Social Security and Medicare and their family for support. Instead of concentrating on the financial health of big business, I will focus my efforts on economic values of what families need most. Families need good paying jobs, low inflation, access to loans with reasonable interest rates, affordable healthcare, and opportunities for education.

I support an increasing the federal minimum wage to a livable wage. Since 1990 the minimum wage increased by only 20%, but the cost of living increased by over 60%. Raising the minimum wage would provide an economic stimulus without costing the treasury anything. Americans who live at the minimum wage recirculate everything back into the economy.

…Infrastructure is the backbone of America and business. We need infrastructure to get to work or school, receive utilities, to travel, and to conduct business. Our infrastructure supports the American lifestyle. But, we have an aging electric grid, crumbling bridges, and our highways are congested. Knowing how important it is, I am committed to rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. I support increased federal investment and establishing national infrastructure bank so local governments can borrow money from the federal government at low or no interest to complete needed projects. This will spark a needed boom in the construction industries.

A scientist by vocation and by nature, Rogers looks forward to being appointed to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which he feels isn't just a good fit for him, but a good fit for a district with a rapidly growing high tech industrial base. "Science," he wrote, "is present everywhere, making our lives better. Computers, cell phones, communications networks, batteries, food preservatives, microwaves, footwear, medicines, weather prediction, air travel, and countless other amenities we use on a daily basis are due to investments in science. I’m committed to renewing our investment in scientific research, including medical research and space exploration. We should prioritize our medical research on finding cures for terrible diseases like cancer or chronic expensive diseases like diabetes. Everyone of us knows someone who’s life was cut short by cancer or who’s lost a leg to diabetes. We should be making the commitment to developing cures. Our district is home to many industries that would benefit from an increasing interest in space research and travel. The United States must not cede leadership in space to Russia or China."

In contrast to McKeon, Strickland and Knight, Rogers is an across the board progressive who believes the role of a public servant is to make the lives of his constituents better. 

The first time Blue America got involved with exposing McKeon's corruption was when the candidate was Robert Rodriguez in 2006. Robert went from that race to working for the Department of the Treasury and we spoke with him early this morning about McKeon's announcement. "I’m relieved to hear of Buck's retirement," he told us. "Watching him defend Tom Delay's corrupt record during our 2006 Congressional debate really showed his true colors. It was clear on that day who Buck McKeon represents and it is even clearer today that the hard-working people of the 25th district deserve better. They deserve a Congressman who will represent their interests, rather than those of high powered Washington lobbyists. I can't wait to get back home and help the Antelope and Santa Clarita Valleys get the representation they deserve (by electing Lee Rogers to Congress)."

Today would be a great day to think about contributing to Rogers' campaign. You can do it here at the Blue America ActBlue page. Remember this from Rickie Lee Jones and the Squirrel Nut Zippers?



UPDATE

And later that day... Howie had some fun with KPFK radio host David Feldman:

Happy Near Year's-- Your Tax Dollars Are Still Paying For Predator Drones That Slaughter Innocent Civilians

We've written about Buck McKeon's Drone Caucus-- they call it the Unmanned Systems Caucus-- before. It's little more than a way of exchanging bribes from drones makers for voters from some of Congresses sleaziest and most contemptible members. And, of course, like most Beltway bribery schemes, it's bipartisan. McKeon's co-chairman is George Bush's favorite Democrat, Blue Dog Henry Cuellar. Other Democrats on the take in this particular scheme are Hawaii's most corrupt politician, Colleen Hanabusa (New Dem), Bob Brady (the Philadelphia Machine boss), André Carson (New Dem-IN), Joe Courtney (New Dem-CT), Gene Green (TX), Gerald Connolly (New Dem-VA), William Keating (MA), and, of course, Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog/New Dem-CA). So 8 crooked Democrats and 37 warmongers from the GOP, from notorious criminals like Darrell Issa (R-CA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Don Young (R-AK) to low level vote sellers like Joe Wilson (R-SC), Steve Pearce (R-NM), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Tom Rooney (R-FL), Joe Heck (R-NV), Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Tom Cole (R-OK) and Trent Franks (R-AZ).

Over the weekend, Heather Linebaugh, a former employee of the U.S. drone program, penned an article for The Guardian which makes the point that not only is the public in the dark, but so are most of our elected officials. Remember when you read this, though, that corrupt careerists like McKeon, Forbes, Hanabusa and Cuellar don't give a rat's ass about any of this as long as the Military Industrial Complex continues to finance their disgraceful careers and helps enrich their families.

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them some questions. I'd start with: "How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?" And: "How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?" Or even more pointedly: "How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?"

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from mosque.

The US and British militaries insist that this is such an expert program, but it's curious that they feel the need to deliver faulty information, few or no statistics about civilian deaths and twisted technology reports on the capabilities of our UAVs. These specific incidents are not isolated, and the civilian casualty rate has not changed, despite what our defense representatives might like to tell us.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is a far cry from clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited clouds and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: "The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon?" I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian's life all because of a bad image or angle.

It's also important for the public to grasp that there are human beings operating and analysing intelligence these UAVs. I know because I was one of them, and nothing can prepare you for an almost daily routine of flying combat aerial surveillance missions over a war zone. UAV proponents claim that troops who do this kind of work are not affected by observing this combat because they are never directly in danger physically.

But here's the thing: I may not have been on the ground in Afghanistan, but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a screen for days on end. I know the feeling you experience when you see someone die. Horrifying barely covers it. And when you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience. UAV troops are victim to not only the haunting memories of this work that they carry with them, but also the guilt of always being a little unsure of how accurate their confirmations of weapons or identification of hostile individuals were.

Of course, we are trained to not experience these feelings, and we fight it, and become bitter. Some troops seek help in mental health clinics provided by the military, but we are limited on who we can talk to and where, because of the secrecy of our missions. I find it interesting that the suicide statistics in this career field aren't reported, nor are the data on how many troops working in UAV positions are heavily medicated for depression, sleep disorders and anxiety.

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain's secretary of state for defence Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within one year leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

The UAV's in the Middle East are used as a weapon, not as protection, and as long as our public remains ignorant to this, this serious threat to the sanctity of human life-- at home and abroad-- will continue.

It's tricky defunding this by refusing to pay your taxes. But refusing to contribute the politicians who push this program is a much better idea. Good way to start: help Senator Brian Schatz defeat a right-wing primary challenge from corrupt, drone-crazed Colleen Hanabusa in the Democratic primary in Hawaii.

For Profit Lobbying Should Be Illegal But Until Then, Congressmen Who Become Lobbyists Should Lose Their Pensions

Mac Thornberry and Buck McKeon, shameless tools of the Military Industrial Complex

Last Friday, we looked at some of the speculation on which Members of the House are most likely to announce retirements over the next few months. The big giveaway for Buck McKeon, for example, was when his family started an armaments-oriented lobbying firm and bought his favorite chair that no one is allowed to sit in for the plush empty corner office. Most of the vaguely sentient retirees-- so scratch Howard Coble and, if he finally goes for it, Ralph Hall-- will become lobbyists. Lobbyists is, literally, the only occupation in America rated as more untrustworthy than serving in Congress! Just right for crooks like McKeon-- and he's far from the only one. Last week, Kevin Bogardus took a look for The Hill at which Members are looking towards K Street-- and which ones K Street is cruising back.

K Street prefers conservatives with records for corruption, so they're especially excited about Blue Dog Jim Matheson and low grade GOP crooks Tom Latham and Frank Wolf, all three of whom have recently announced they were done. (All 3 were looking at very difficult reelection prospects.) Not every firm is ready to hire just any garden variety corrupt congressman these days, though.

“Just having a congressman doesn't get you much in the world. But if you got a name with the right connections, they can work for magic for you,” said Larry Latourette, a principal at Lateral Link… Retiring lawmakers who accrued seniority and a bipartisan record are the top prizes for K Street.

“The keys for this for any of these people are if they have any seniority, if they can transition to the private sector and if they are bipartisan,” said Nels Olson, vice chairman at Korn/Ferry International. “If you don't, it's going to be a tougher road. It's a supply-demand issue.”

Olson said the financial services, healthcare and tax are the areas of expertise “most in demand.” Lawmakers that are well-versed in those fields could make a soft landing on K Street.

Headhunters said that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would have been a top target for many law and lobby firms. But Obama nominated Baucus for U.S. ambassador to China, taking him out of the job pool.

“Baucus, given his track record and bipartisan reputation, would have demanded top dollar,” Olson said.

“Max Baucus would have been the big dog if he had gone to the lobbying and government relations sector out of this class of lawmakers. Now that he has taken the road to China, others who are retiring will have to step up their game,” Jones said.

Other former members are considered good candidates for K Street. Matheson is one of the remaining Blue Dog Democrats, a popular breed among lobby shops for their business support in the House.

“Jim Matheson is a blue dog Democrat and has been helpful to the business community, so that's appealing to K Street,” said a Republican lobbyist.

Further, Latham is considered close to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), which could help if he chooses a lobbying career.

“I think Boehner will stick around, and you cannot get a better guy [Latham]. He's certainly at the top of everyone's list,” said the lobbyist.

Other prospects include retiring Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.). Chambliss will have almost two decades of service in the House and the Senate when he retires, while Johanns is also a former Agriculture Secretary during the George W. Bush administration.

“I see Chambliss or Johanns fitting in extremely well with a law firm that lobbies in Washington. They would fit in like a glove,” said Ivan Adler, a principal at the McCormick Group.

A career in influence can be lucrative for a former lawmaker.

Ex-House members can draw anywhere between $250,000 and $500,000 in annual salary, with the pay scale rising further depending on seniority, according to headhunters’ estimates. Former senators fare better, taking home between $500,000 to $1 million in a year.

That is a big step up from congressional pay, which is $174,000 per year for a House member or senator.

Major trade associations often pay even more. Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, earned more than $2.4 million in compensation for 2011, according to the Hollywood lobby’s tax form for that year.

Yep, sometimes handing out the bribes is more lucrative than taking the bribes. Especially when the retiring congressmember can game the system before he leaves. McKeon ingratiated himself to the War Industry by getting Congress to end sequestration for them. He also stuck a knife in the back of one would-be successor to his chair at Armed Services, Randy Forbes, on behalf of a more pliant sap, Mac Thornberry, who is the favorite candidate of the weapons industry and war contractors.

Battle Over Health Care Reform Rages On In California-- And Today Is The Deadline For CoveredCa Sign Ups

Over the weekend, Lee Rogers, a nationally known surgeon and the former spokesperson for the National Diabetes Association, sent out a notice to his Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, Antelope Valley neighbors that today (Monday) is the deadline to enroll in Covered California for insurance in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act. "As a doctor," he wrote "I have a strong interest in making sure everyone gets affordable health insurance. I recently spoke at a Covered California symposium where I answered questions and concerns. I also put to rest some of the rumors that have been going around about the website not working or being too complicated. Please note that the California heath care exchange is not the same as the national Healthcare.gov website, which has been in the news lately for underperformance. My campaign staffers are insured through Covered California and I want to assure you that our experiences with www.CoveredCA.com have all been positive."

CA-25 has been trending blue and last year Rogers gave anti-healthcare fanatic Buck McKeon such a close call, that he's decided to retire next year. Two Republican cronies of McKeon's, even further right and more opposed to healthcare, Steve Knight and Tony Strickland, are battling it out to succeed him. Both have abysmal records and Rogers is poised to win this seat next year. A strong supporter of universal healthcare and a Medicare-for-all approach, Rogers told us today that "California should be applauded for a near seamless implementation of the statewide insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Covered California has been a success where the national exchange is sorely lacking. But all the press about website malfunctions ignores the real premise of the ACA-- that about 20 million more Americans will have health insurance and insurance companies are no longer all powerful. Don't get me wrong, they still have too much power and the ACA doesn't really slow the rate of spending on healthcare. So there is much about the ACA that needs work. But who better to send to Washington to improve Obamacare than a doctor?"

That's part of why Blue America has endorsed him and why we feel good about asking DWT readers to contribute to Lee's campaign here.

Meanwhile, the White House put out a study last week about how repealing Obamacare would effect Californians. Keep in mind that although McKeon has voted to repeal all or parts of the Affordable Care Act 46 times, both Steve Knight and Tony Strickland have bragged that they would have done the exact same thing and plan to work towards repealing Obamacare and shredding the social safety net. "Helping ordinary Americans and businesses take advantage of the benefits of the health care law is a top priority for the President and Democrats in Congress," explained the White House release.

In California, the benefits of the health care law are real, and the repeal plan pushed by Republicans in Congress would undermine or eliminate them across the board, reversing critical consumer protections and driving up costs for millions of Americans. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, in California:

• 8,061,000 individuals on private insurance have gained coverage for at least one free preventive health care 
service such as a mammogram, birth control, or an immunization in 2011 and 2012. In the first eleven months of 2013 alone, an additional 2,115,600 people with Medicare have received at least one preventive service at no out of pocket cost.

• The up to 16,133,000 individuals with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, cancer, or diabetes-- including up to 2,236,000 children-- will no longer have to worry about being denied coverage or charged higher prices because of their health status or history.

• Approximately 7,559,000 Californians have gained expanded mental health and substance use disorder benefits and/or federal parity protections.

• 5,560,000 uninsured Californians will have new health insurance options through Medicaid or private health plans in the Marketplace.

• As a result of new policies that make sure premium dollars work for the consumer, not just the insurer, in the past year insurance companies have sent rebates averaging $71 per family to approximately 1,433,800 consumers.

• In the first ten months of 2013, 282,900 seniors and people with disabilities have saved on average $900 on prescription medications as the health care law closes Medicare’s so-called “donut hole.”

• 435,000 young adults have gained health insurance because they can now stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26.

• Individuals no longer have to worry about having their health benefits cut off after they reach a lifetime limit on benefits, and starting in January, 12,092,000 Californians will no longer have to worry about annual limits, either.

• Health centers have received $647,300,000 to provide primary care, establish new sites, and renovate existing centers to expand access to quality health care. California has approximately 1,200 health center sites, which served about 3,262,000 individuals in 2012.


Moving forward, the President and Democrats in Congress are committed to improving the health care law and fixing it when the need arises. Every day more uninsured Americans are signing up for plans as the website gets faster and more people with insurance are benefiting from the law.


Yet instead of working to fix the law, Republicans in Congress have tried and failed to repeal it more than 40 times. Repealing the law completely would raise premiums, allow discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, force women to pay for preventive services like mammograms, and eliminate discounts seniors get on prescription drugs.


It’s time for Republicans in Congress to stop refighting old political battles over health care, because the real cost of repeal will hit home for many hardworking families in California.

McKeon Has Found The One Career That Normal People View As Even Less Ethical Than Congressmembers

Buck McKeon, Boehner's uber-corrupt head of the House Armed Services Committee, is getting ready for his next career as a lobbyist. A bunch of relatives have already started the firm and McKeon is busy lining up clients by making sure the Military-Industrial Complex gravy train is not interrupted by any sequestration. He has been busy tanking the chances of Randy Forbes to succeed him as Chair because he isn't as much a shill to arms makers and war contractors as McKeon's handpicked choice, corrupt Texas congressman Mac Thornberry.

The revolving door between Congress and K Street is usually discussed in terms of staffers, but, there are scores of congressmen and senators who cuddle up to industry and then take jobs as lobbyists themselves. Normal people see this is criminal corruption. The transpartisan Beltway Establishment sees nothing amiss… it's just business as usual. And, of course, it isn't just Buck McKeon. Between 1998 and 2004, 58% of departing senators (including 66.7% of Republicans) became lobbyists. In those same years, 42% of departing House members (including about half the Republicans who left) took the same highway to hell.

This week, Gallup found that Americans view only one career as less ethical than Members of Congress: lobbyists. "By any measure, Americans' views of Congress are as poor as they have ever been, and Congress now ties lobbyists as the most disparaged profession Gallup has ever tested."

Public Citizen, which tracks the revolving door carefully made some recommendations to slow it down with these reforms:

• Extend the former members’ cooling-off period to two years before they can begin lobbying. This would effectively mean that former members would have to wait until the next term of Congress convenes before they could begin to personally lobby members and staff.

• Include a prohibition on supervising lobbyists during the cooling-off period. Existing rules only prohibit former members from directly contacting their former colleagues, posing no restrictions on supervisory activities or arm’s length lobbying conducted by staff (often the former members’ relocated congressional staffs). These liberties erode the value of the cooling-off period as a deterrent to overly cozy relationships between current and former members of Congress.

• Revoke the special privileges that are afforded to former members of Congress. These privileges, which include access to the House and Senate floor and to members-- only gymnasiums and restaurants, should be revoked for any former member who becomes a registered lobbyist. This is the only way to ensure that a member turned lobbyist will not unfairly use these privileges for his clients’ benefit.

• Require members of Congress to disclose their employment negotiations. While federal law prohibits employees of the executive branch from seeking future employment and simultaneously working on issues of interest to their potential employers, ethics rules on negotiating future employment are more lax for senators and their staff, and looser still for House members and staff. While both the Senate and House codes of ethics prohibit members and staff from receiving compensation in exchange for any favoritism in official actions, the rules effectively leave members to serve as their own arbiters of proper conduct.

• Prohibit registered lobbyists from making, soliciting or arranging campaign contributions to those whom they lobby. In the absence of a more specific disclosure system than currently exists, this ban should extend to all members of the houses of Congress lobbied. For example, if a person lobbies the Senate, that lobbyist should be banned from making contributions to all senators.

Santa Clarita Hypocrite Buck McKeon Wants To Take An Axe To Military Pensions

Although he hasn't announced it yet-- maybe because his spokesperson has other issues to deal with-- it's an open secret in Santa Clarita that Buck McKeon is retiring from congress to become a lobbyist for arms manufacturers. The biggest GOP recipient of legalistic bribes from war contractors and arms maker in Congress-- $1,515,700 and counting-- McKeon has always been an advocate for the military. Military men and women, though… not so much.

But it wasn't until he had made up his mind to try to make a fortune as a lobbyist that he started speaking out publicly against veterans and veterans benefits. Now he says we have to cut military pensions to save a budget that enriches his campaign donors and future employers. Or as Lee Rogers put it, "Gut military pensions to save the Pentagon budget? Instead of cutting wasteful spending on weapons the Generals don't want or need? Doesn't make sense unless you're a congressman that benefits from all that wasteful spending."

Rogers is the Democrat who nearly beat McKeon last year and has been working towards completing the job next year… this Democrat:

McKeon, godfather of the costly U.S. drone program and still hanging on as the disgraced Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee: "Forty-four cents of every dollar we spend goes to military personnel. You look at Detroit, you look at General Motors, you look at what happens when you build up these costs, but we aren’t doing anything about it in our [defense] bill this year.”

McKeon, of course, has been part of the Republican Party jihad that depletes the budget by granting rich people and corporations tax loopholes worth billions of dollars annually and by cutting the amount the wealthy pay in taxes. So now he wants to cut pensions for the men and women who have fought and sacrificed for this country. He would have never said it aloud before-- nor would most of his GOP colleagues-- but it's long been part of the Republican Party policy agenda.

After a decade of war, the promises made to those who served in the armed forces seemed sacrosanct. But this statement from a power broker like McKeon shows that military personnel may not be spared as Republicans in Congress seek to maintain the size of the military while also shrinking the deficit.

…Military pensions require no contribution from personnel, which make it the sort of “unfunded” liability the right-wing despises for workers, despite supporting a completely unfunded prescription-drug benefit to Medicare during the Bush administration.

If Steve Israel Had Had My Job, Depeche Mode Would Have Never Broken In The U.S.

Tomorrow, Monday, is the last day of Blue America's fundraiser for Keith Ellison and Mike Obermueller, two Minnesota progressive champions. You still have time to click this link, watch a little "Policy of Truth," see a photo of the prize-- a rare and collectible RIAA-certified double platinum award for the Mode's Violator-- and help us make sure Keith and Mike win next year. Let me take a minute to say thanks to the staffers from both campaigns who helped make the fundraiser a success and to Alan Grayson, Rob Zerban and Raul Grijalva for their pure-hearted generosity in helping with the effort. We didn't have to ask any of them twice.

So where does Steve Israel come into this and what does he have to do with Depeche Mode? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Thank God. Israel is a bumbling careerist who's been gorging himself at the public trough for his entire miserable career. He's the epitome of a corrupt Beltway careerist who stands for nothing but his own self-interest. He's not only a dismal failure as chairman of the DCCC, insuring that the Republicans maintain control of that body-- but he's been a failure in everything he's touched. Two wives kicked him out and divorced him for adultery, his personal finances are so shot full of failure that his home was foreclosed on and he would have had to file for bankruptcy if not for some of his Wall Street buddies forgiving and forgetting in was that normal Long Islanders never get forgiven and forgotten when they can't pat their mortgages for half the time Israel didn't pay his. He even stiffed his synagogue and then got a campaign donor to make a "charitable" (untaxed) "donation" to the synagogue to make the problem go away. This is illegal in so many ways that anyone else with less political clout would be sitting in prison now.

And although I grew up in Nassau County and went to college in Suffolk County-- the heart of Israel's district-- is this any of my business now? And why should I care if the Princesses: Long Island keep getting drunk on Manischewitz and reelecting this crook? Glad you asked.

Because Israel never ran a successful business or had to make a budget work and a company thrive, he doesn't have a clue that running the DCCC isn't the same as running a hippie bake-sale. While many of his staffers work primarily to feather their own nests, he's fumbling around incoherently to be anointed Rahm Emanuel Jr. He may be as odious as Rahm, but-- despite Pelosi admiring his reptilian tendencies, as she put it-- he'll never be as smart as Rahm.

So here's where Depeche Mode comes in: marketing and how to break a new artist. Coming from the music business, I'm always awestruck with the similarities between new artists and new candidates. After Daniel Miller and Seymour Stein signed Depeche Mode, it soon fell to me to break them. It was a long hard slog that paid off handsomely… but it was far from easy. When we stopped working the debut release, it had sold 10,000 copies in the U.S. That's a pitiful failure. But it didn't take away from the band's talent or potential. Seymour and I and several of our staffers were even more determined to break them. Album after album came out and they were slowly-- oh, so slowly-- building a base of support. But after 3 or 4 records, we had to defend keeping them and spending money on them. "Drop them," we would constantly hear from corporate headquarters in New York.

The financial guys didn't have opinions about how good a band was or what their potential was. They only cared about one thing: the gigantic financial bonuses they would get at the end of the quarter if the stock price was up. Wall Street awarded stock prices based on several things but primarily on how many albums we had on the sales charts. Depeche Mode's anemic sales were not making them happy. Artist development-- especially long term artist development-- was like a curse word to these guys. Long story, short-- after 5 albums Depeche Mode broke. And they didn't only break, they broke big… they broke gigantic. Violator-- the one we're giving away the award plaque for-- sold 15 million copies. Wall Street likes that.

But there was something even better that Wall Street and the small minds of the world like Steve Israel never gilt. Remember when I mentioned that the first Depeche Mode album only sold 10,000 copies and that we had 5 non-sellers before they broke? Well-- keeping in mind that in those days it cost over $2.00 per record sold in marketing and promotion costs but only one cent per record sold for back catalogue-- all 5 of those old Depeche Mode albums started getting gobbled up by the band's new fans. Each one sold over a million copies. The profit on that-- totally discounted and ignored by Wall Street-- is enough to make a company's year a success, regardless if some one-hit-wonder winds up in the charts.

Israel-- and Rahm before him-- never understood business and only understand the immediate cycle. Developing a strategy to beat a Republican over two or three cycles-- which is how most challengers eventually win-- is not part of the DCCC's vocabulary.

When Lee Rogers went up against Buck McKeon in 2012, Steve Israel deemed the race unwinnable and not only refused to help Rogers, he went out of his way to call donors and tell them to not "waste" their money. It may have been too early for Rogers to win in 2012 but his name recognition is almost as high as McKeon's now and he's the first Democrat to have ever beaten McKeon in the Antelope Valley (a third of the district) and is poised to knock him off again. He still hasn't been endorsed by Israel and the DCCC, of course-- which is too busy trying to elect Jennifer Garrison, Jerry Cannon, John Lewis, and Jay Paterno in deep red, unwinnable districts. But McKeon is a lot more savvy about which way the wind is blowing in CA-25 and he's about to announce he's retiring from Congress and backing some far right sociopath, Tony Strickland, instead.

Here in California, recent polls show there are several Republicans who can be beaten, aside from McKeon and the three blue-district cases Israel screwed up last year (Gary Miller, Jeff Denham, David Valadao),there are also very senior committee chairs Darrell Issa and Ed Royce. Look at these reelect numbers for these 3 senior Republicans that Israel refused to engage in 2012. Has he done so, all three would be on the chopping block this year. Because he didn't, only Rogers, an intrepid independent-minded progressive, is poised for a pick-up-- while Israel is, once again, ignoring all 3 seats.

Action items: Pelosi should fire Israel by noon tomorrow (ET) and replace him with someone who can get the job done, like Keith Ellison, Jared Polis or Alan Grayson. And we should all help Lee Rogers beat whichever extremist the Republicans run in CA-25 instead of McKeon. We can do that right here. And Israel… maybe he can get a job consulting Bravo!