House Republicans Think Trump's Wall Is A Good Reason For Shutting Down The Government But Almost No One Else Does

South Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo was defeated last month by a weak Democratic opponent, 119,761 (50.9%) to 115,663 (49.1%). He blames Trump, rather than his own unwillingness to break with Trump over the last two years. Yesterday he tweeted bitterly: "Still with the benefit (or curse) of an inside perspective, I must say that the instability and chaos in our government the past few days has been particularly pronounced — worse than at any point during my service in Congress, and really, my lifetime. Things are not well in the USA." Too late to save himself, Curbelo was one of only 8 Republicans-- Justin Amash, Ken Buck, Carlos Curbelo, Will Hurd, Erik Paulsen, Ileana Kos-Lehtinen, Fred Upton and David Valadao-- voting against Trump's border wall Thursday. Yesterday, Mike Allen, noted at Axios that Trump's Christmas shutdown over the wall is spooking the GOP and that it "has left Republicans with a debacle as their last act in control of the House. And now the party is even more worried about the outlook beginning Jan. 3, when Democrats take over. 'It's a showdown, but one side has already lost,' said one outside adviser in close touch with the West Wing... With his eye on 2020, he's all about the base, with no apparent plans to co-opt the center."

Yesterday hedge fund manager Mark Dow, likely losing his ass because of Trump's stock market meltdown, tweeted, a sentiment that is commonly felt in financial circles:

In a post for America's Voice, Frank Sharry remarked that "If the GOP is so worked up about border security, they should step in and protect the American people from a president at the border of insanity." Short of impeachment, it might be too late. That border wall government shut down turns out to be a real stinker. Sharry:

The Trump/Republican plan to shut down the government over an unpopular, ineffective and insulting border wall is a sad reflection of the state of our politics. The President is increasingly unhinged and, instead of checking him, the GOP Congress is enabling him.

That may help to explain why they are embarking on one of the stupidest political moves in recent history: shuttering the federal government over a rally chant and an impossible promise (“Mexico will pay for the wall!”) just weeks after the nation’s voters soundly rejected the Trump/GOP embrace of racism and xenophobia as the closing argument in the midterm elections.

The consensus view from operatives and analysts right and left is that Trump’s reliance on xenophobia in the midterms backfired, badly:  

• David Drucker of the conservative Washington Examiner noted, “Why are Dems so confident in position on border wall? 1) ‘In reviewing polling/data, GOP strategists discovered Trump’s immigration rhetoric was more damaging to House GOP during final 7-10 days of midterm campaign than they realized at the time.” Drucker also wrote, “2nd reason Dems so confident in oppo to Trump’s wall: Per GOP review of midterms: ‘POTUS’ near-singular focus on caravan/wall repelled Hispanics, indies, soft Rs, turning a race for House control that leaned Dem into a late-breaking GOP bloodbath.”
• Republican pollster David Winston on how Republican immigration fear-mongering in the midterm homestretch backfired: “The people who made their decision over the last few days voted Democratic by a 12-point margin.” Winston’s analysis showed that late-deciding voters were 59 percent less likely to back Republicans after hearing from them on immigration, and 63 percent less likely to vote for Republicans after hearing from the GOP on border security and the migrant caravan.
• In a post-election New York Times op-ed, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg wrote, “Democrats made big gains because Mr. Trump declared war on immigrants-- and on multicultural America-- and lost … Mr. Trump got more than half of Republicans to believe immigrants were a burden, but three quarters of Democrats and a large majority of independents concluded that America gains from immigration.”
• A recent USA Today op-ed by Tyler Moran, managing director of The Immigration Hub and Nick Gourevitch, a Democratic pollster at Global Strategy Group, recapped midterm polling in Pennsylvania and Colorado: “the Trump strategy backfired with some of the exact people he tried to motivate-- women and independents … aligning with Trump on immigration pushed more people away from voting Republican than attracted them-- by 9 points in Pennsylvania and 16 points in Colorado. Among a key bloc of voters who supported Democrat Bob Casey in 2018 and voted for Trump in 2016, just 26 percent said Barletta’s alignment with Trump on immigration was a reason to vote for him, and a plurality believed it was a reason to vote against him. In Colorado, 65 percent of independents said Trump and Republicans are moving away from them on immigration.”
• National Journal political columnist Josh Kraushaar tweeted regarding immigration in the midterms, “Late deciders broke decisively against the GOP. Immigration rhetoric a major factor. You’d think Rs would have learned from Gillespie 2017.” Kraushaar added “forcing a shutdown over border security such a political loser for Trump/GOP,” pointing to post-election analysis by the DCCC and summarizing, “Late deciders identified as Republicans by 16 points, but GOP lost them in the final stretch. All about immigration.”

None of these dynamics have disappeared--the border wall is broadly unpopular and the public overwhelmingly doesn’t want to shut down the government over the wall:

• Ron Brownstein writes for CNN, in a piece entitled Trump is doubling down on his strategy that cost the GOP the House: In 10 Quinnipiac University national polls from April 2017 through August 2018, no more than 40% of Americans ever expressed support for the wall. Consistently, the share of Americans opposing construction of the wall has been much higher, from 57% to 64%. A CNN Poll conducted by SSRS that was released last week found 57% against a wall, compared with 38% in favor. Opposition to the wall is overwhelming among all the groups that moved decisively away from Trump and the GOP in last month’s election. In CNN’s poll, Trump’s border wall faced opposition from 76% of African-Americans, 66% of Latinos, 66% of adults younger than 35, 57% of independents, 66% of college-educated white voters and 56% of people aged 35 to 49.
• According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, “most Americans oppose risking a government shutdown over a wall, but more than two-thirds (69 percent) do not believe building a wall should even be an immediate priority for Congress. That includes half who do not believe it should be a priority at all. More than a quarter (28 percent) believe it should be an immediate priority, including 63 percent of Republicans. Immigration is a cultural touchstone issue that Trump used to fuel his campaign. It’s an issue that has energized his supporters…and helped move independents largely toward Democrats’ positions on the subject.
• A Politico/Morning Consult poll this week finds that voters would blame Trump and Congressional Republicans for a shutdown and that, by a 55-31% margin, reject the idea that a border wall would be worth shutting down the government for.

What a stunning and stupid ploy by Trump and the GOP. Republicans are enabling an unhinged President desperate to please conservative media barkers, all at the expense of the strongly-held majority will of the American people.

Perhaps they noticed that the nation’s voters had a chance to weigh in just weeks ago, and soundly rejected Trump’s xenophobia. Perhaps they have seen the polling that shows strong majorities of the public-- and a third of Republican voters-- are opposed to this shutdown move.

Will Hurd, a conservative Texas Republican, is a former undercover CIA agent who worked in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. He knows a little something about national security and serves on the Intelligence Committee and on the Homeland Security Committee where he is the vice-chair of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee. HIs district has the longest border with Mexico of any district in the country-- by far. Generally considered a Trump suck-up and enabler, Hurd voted against Trump's border wall last week. Perhaps some of his colleagues should ask him why. Hurd explained his position to CNN on Friday:

"Building a 30-foot high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security," Hurd said. "I represent 820 miles of border, more border than any other member of Congress. I spent almost a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA chasing bad guys all over the world. In places along the border, Border Patrol's response time is measured in hours to days. So a wall is actually not a physical barrier.

"We-- if we want to address root causes of illegal immigration we should be doing and working on those root causes in the northern triangle like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. We should be talking about, how do we plus-up the State Department budget and USAID budget? How do we work with Mexico, who just announced $30 billion on doing-- on working on economic opportunities in Central America? There are the things that are going to address root causes of mass migration," Hurd said.

Last year he told CBS News why he opposes Trump's approach:

Now, What Actually DID Happen In Florida?

Donna! Donna! Donna!

Democratic performance was up... but not by enough. There was a little good news. In Miami-Dade, two red seats flipped blue, although both are fairly strong blue districts. FL-27, where Ileana Ros Lehtinen retired, has a PVI of D+5. Hillary beat Trump there by TWENTY points-- 58.5% to 38.9%, so you wouldn't think it would take a wave. A very weak Democrat, Donna Shalala, beat a fairy strong Republican, Maria Salazar 127,144 (51.7%) to 112,638 (45.8%). Next door, Carlos Curbelo tried distancing himself from Trump and fought a tough battle against Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell but the district is too blue (D+6) for a Republican in a year like this with such a xenophobic, anti-Hispanic "president." Hillary beat Trump there 56.8% to 40.5%. Mucarsel-Powell beat Curbelo 116,626 (50.7%) to 113,326 (49.3%). As of the Oct 17 FEC reporting deadline Shalala had outraged Salazar $3,402,023 to $1,542,470. The DCCC kicked in $1,031,865 and Pelosi's PAC put in another $636,302. The NRCC put in $1,493,272 and Ryan's PAC threw in $273,123. All in all each candidate had about $2 million in negative ads thrown against them.

FL-26 was more fiercely contested. Curbelo raised $4,751,998 to Mucarsel-Powell's $3,746,206. The DCCC spent $4,566,411 and Pelosi's PAC put in another $2,608,655. The NRCC spent $2,725,738 and Ryan spent $2,893,997.

The other Florida races where the DCCC had hoped to make headway were all flops, primarily because they had weak candidates... and a weak wave. In the 6th district (DeSantis' seat) Michael Waltz took every county and beat Nancy Soderberg (New Dem) 187,322 (56.3%) to 145,137 (43.7%). PVI is R+7 and Hillary had lost to Trump 56.9% to 39.9%. Soderberg outraised Waltz $2,826,532 to $1,702,312. The DCCC didn't spend in this one but Pelosi put in $499,932 and Bloomberg's PAC put in $1,623,370. Neither the NRCC nor Ryan's PAC spent but a right-wing billionaires PAC, (American Patriots) put in $1,102,500.

One of the only decent candidates the DCCC had in Florida, Kristen Carlson, went up against Ross Spano for Dennis Ross' seat (FL-15) in the Tampa suburbs and exurbs. The PVI is R+6 so even with Carlson outperforming she still lost 149,555 (53.1%) to 131,876 (46.9%). She had outraised Spano, $1,297,512 to $581,690. But while the DCCC spent just $694,360, Ryan's PAC put in $1,744,302 (on top of Club for Growth's $637,403).

In FL-16 Vern Buchanan held onto his seat 195,693 (54.6%) to 162,633 (45.4%) against David Shapiro. Brian Mast beat back a challenge from DCCC recruit Lauren Baer 183,376 (54.4%) to 153,543 (45.6%). Buchanan's district is R+7 and Mast's is R+5. And, a seat the DCCC thought they'd have a chance in, FL-25, was retained by Mario Diaz-Balart against another decent Democratic candidate Mary Barzee Flores, 126,713 (60.6%) to 82,220 (39.4%).

The dual catastrophe of the night was in the two big statewide races, where Rick Scott edged Bill Nelson 4,035,815 (50.4%) to 3,977,352 (49.6%) and, even more shockingly, Ron DeSantis beat Andrew Gillum for the governor's mansion, 4,013,976 (49.9%) to 3,934,962 (48.9%).

Nationally, the wave sure wasn't a tsunami, but the Democrats did win the House and a lot of gubernatorial seats and we'll get into the rest of that mañana and the day after mañana. I have to chill. We're going to suspend the DWT schedule for a week or two and just post now and then instead of by set times. Bare with us, ok?

Anti-Red Wave Likely To Sweep Carlos Curbelo Away, Despite Lots Of Advantages, Including A Weak Opponent

Total lesser-of-two evils race (FL-26)

In August GBA Strategies, working for the DCCC, polled FL-26 voters and found incumbent Carlos Curbelo 7 points ahead of Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Yesterday the same firm found leading Mucarsel-Powell leading Curbelo 50-48%.

The district includes all of the southern tip of Florida from the southern part of Miami-Dade, west of Kendall and Monroe County, through Homestead, all of the Everglades National Park and all of the Keys from Biscayne National Park to Key West. It has grown increasingly blue in recent years, having given Obama a 51.5-47.9% win over McCain, a 55.4-43.9% win over Romney and then Hillary an even more significant 56.8-40.5% win over Trump. Conservative Democrats have disappointed the district but the DCCC insists on them-- and loses. The PVI is now D+6 and only the DCCC could lose that kind of a district. Only a wave could save them from themselves.

Mucarsel-Powell is exactly what the DCCC wants, a New Dem from the Republican wing of the party. But if the wave sweeps her in this cycle, she'll lose in 2022.

Curbelo is no slouch and he's putting up a good fight against a mediocre candidate but a wave is a wave and even his fundraising advantage-- $3,708,783 to $1,871,929-- won't save him. The DCCC, which isn't spending money on progressives, has spent $2,526,606 to bolster Mucarsel-Powell so far while the NRCC has kicked in $1,954,114 for Curbelo. Ryan's SuperPAC hasn't jumped into this one yet.

The Miami Herald reported last week that she's outspending Curbelo on TV. Big waste of money, but she's likely to win anyway because of the wave, the wave, the wave.

Mucarsel-Powell and her Democratic allies are spending around $1 million on bilingual television and radio advertising this week, a spending pace that’s been in place since mid-September, according to a source familiar with media buying in the district. Though Mucarsel-Powell hasn’t been able to raise more money than Curbelo, one of the GOP’s best fundraisers, she’s outspending him.

The aggressive pace is shifting momentum in one of the nation’s most watched congressional races, in which Curbelo has seen his chances of reelection improve in the eyes of most prognosticators in recent weeks despite a national environment that favors Democrats. Mucarsel-Powell has peppered the airwaves with a biographical ad and an ad that touts Democrats’ efforts on healthcare in a district where more than 90,000 people are enrolled in the Affordable Care Act.


...Curbelo’s unfavorable ratings have jumped according to the poll, while his favorable ratings have remained the same since July. The poll gives Curbelo a 47 percent favorable rating and a 40 percent unfavorable rating, while Mucarsel-Powell has a 32 percent favorable rating and an 18 percent unfavorable rating, up from 14 percent favorable and 8 percent unfavorable in July. Donald Trump’s approval is also under water in the district, though Curbelo won reelection by 12 percentage points in 2016 while Trump lost the district by more than 14 percentage points.

“Voters like Mucarsel-Powell as they get to know her, and support for her grows,” the polling memo said.

Two other recent polls show the race as a tie.

A poll commissioned last week by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed Mucarsel-Powell with a one-point lead, and a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted at the same time Mucarsel-Powell increased her ad spending showed Curbelo with a slight three-point lead, though both polls were within the margin of error.

But Republicans are trying to portray the still relatively unknown Mucarsel-Powell in a negative light, and they’re also throwing lots of money on TV advertising in one of the country’s most expensive media markets in an environment where other incumbent Republicans are being cut off because their races are seen as unwinnable.



The National Republican Congressional Committee is putting just over $1 million over the next two weeks into a negative ad about Mucarsel-Powell titled “Shady Characters.” The ad seeks to tie her to: a Ukrainian oligarch, who is accused of ordering contract killings, because he partially owned a company that Mucarsel-Powell’s husband, Robert Powell, worked for; the Iranian government, due to Mucarsel-Powell’s support of the Iran nuclear deal; and a Democratic lawmaker accused of sexual assault who chairs a political action committee that contributed to Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign.




Even In The Localest Of Races, It's All About Trumpanzee

There are 3 South Florida districts held by Republicans that are heavily Latino:

• FL-25- Mario Diaz-Balart (70.4% Latino)
• FL-26- Carlos Curbelo (69.5% Latino)
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtien 72.7% Latino)

Trump fared poorly in all three- losing with 38.9% in FL-27 and with 40.5% in FL-26 while narrowly winning in FL-25 with 49.7%. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has prevented Democrats from contesting the seats held by her old pals Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart. Ros-Lehtinen (whose district now has a PVI of D+5 and is the second bluest district in the country held by a Republican) is retiring. FL-26 is the absolute bluest district-- PVI is D+6-- held by a Republican and Curbelo is running scared and can sometimes be a former vote for progressive legislation in Congress than Blue Dogs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Henry Cuellar (TX), Collin Peterson (MN) and fellow Floridian Stephanie Murphy.

People say it would be hard even for the least competent, most badly run DCCC in recent history to lose these 3 seats this cycle. But that's exactly the kind of challenge the DCCC is best at-- losing sure things. They are entirely ignoring Mary Barzee Flores' race against Diaz-Balart. A former judge, she's too progressive for the DCCC. With no help from the DCCC, she's already raised $728,231 up against Diaz-Balart's $1,118,990. She makes sense as a candidate, being a Latina in a heavily Hispanic district. The DCCC doesn't seem to get that when they don't want to. The DCCC candidate in FL-26 is Debbie Mucarel-Powell, an Ecuadorian immigrant running against Curbelo and the 3 top Democratic candidates running in the open FL-27 seat are non-Hisapnic. The GOP will run either Bruno Barreiro or Maria Elvira Salazar. The DCCC hasn't weighed in but the likeliest Democratic candidates are David Richardson, Donna Shalala and Matt Haggman. No Hispanic-- although number 4, is Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who had a Latino husband and is using his name for politics. Shalala seems to be way ahead of the pack for the August 28 primary. Her ethnic heritage is Lebanese. Can she win in a heavily Latino district? I didn't think so, but I may be wrong there.

The Miami Herald reported that on Tuesday Eileen Higgins-- not a Latina-- won a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission, "defeating the better-funded campaign of the former commissioner's wife to scramble the conventional wisdom of who can get elected in a heavily Hispanic district in Miami."

Higgins, a Spanish-speaking Ohio native who adopted the campaign moniker "La Gringa," won by six points over Zoraida Barreiro, the Cuban-born wife of Bruno Barreiro, who resigned to run in a Republican congressional primary [FL-27]. With all 60 precincts reporting, Higgins had 53 percent of the vote, and Barreiro 47 percent.

...With the Democratic Party deploying money, office holders, candidates and volunteers to boost Higgins early on in the special election, an officially nonpartisan contest became a proxy battle with Republicans.


 The GOP used U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Miami, in robo-calls and mailers. Her husband's Republican congressional campaign also became her top donor, with at least $95,000 in contributions.

District 5 straddles parts of Miami and Miami Beach, with a heavy concentration of active voters in Little Havana and other enclaves where older Cuban-American voters are considered vital to win in low-turnout elections.


Turnout was nearly 15 percent, meaning voter interest increased after the four-person primary on May 22, when about 13 percent of the district's voters participated. For the runoff between Barreiro and Higgins, 14,023 ballots were cast, according to results posted after 9 p.m. Higgins took 7,449 and Barreiro 6,494. 
...Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district, and Hillary Clinton carried District 5 by double digits in 2016. But Republicans tend to turn out in low-profile, local elections.

Bruno Barreiro, the only Miami-Dade commissioner to openly support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, held the seat for 20 years. He vacated it in March to run in the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, in Florida's District 27.


...Though running for what would be her first political office, Barreiro enjoyed financial support from Miami-Dade's circuit of lobbyists, developers and vendors who dominate fundraising for incumbents. Tuesday represented the second loss for Barreiro in as many years, after she failed to win a Miami commission seat in 2017.

Higgins drew the underdog title throughout the 10-week sprint to replace Bruno Barreiro. In the May 22 primary, she faced two well-known names in the district: Zoraida Barreiro, along with Alex Diaz de la Portilla, a former state senator who used to represent the area in Tallahassee. Higgins pulled off her first upset when she took a narrow first in that contest with 35 percent of the vote to Barreiro's 33 percent. As the top two finishers, they advanced to the June 19 runoff.

Conventional wisdom had Barreiro the favorite, since she was expected to pick up most of Diaz de la Portilla's voters, a fellow Republican Cuban American. But Diaz de la Portilla didn't endorse in the race, and the Higgins ground game appeared to narrow the traditional advantage Republicans enjoy in mail-in balloting, which accounted for six out of every 10 votes cast in the District 5 runoff. While Republicans led Democrats by three points in mail-in ballots and early voting last week, the margin shrank to just a single point by Sunday.

"This is a transformational election," said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster who supported Higgins. "This is an election where you had an unknown defeat two of the titular Cuban dynasties in local politics. and it wasn't even close."


...She also sided with the liberal wing of the commission on a string of issues, including mandatory workforce housing requirements for new developments, ending the acceptance of detention requests from federal immigration authorities, and opposing the extension of the 836 expressway southwest into Kendall.

The District 5 results are a blow for Bruno Barreiro, who transferred $95,000 from his congressional campaign to his wife's election effort. That made him his wife's top donor.

By her own admission, Barrerio is not a strong public speaker. She turned in a halting performance during the single televised debate with Higgins. Her online campaigning was minimal. While Higgins posted multiple daily updates from the campaign trail on her Twitter account, @eyesonmyworld, the @ZBarreiroFL feed hasn't been updated since last August.

In remarks at her Election Night event, Barreiro linked the loss in part to her husband's congressional campaign, saying Democrats targeted her to derail him.

And by the way, there may have been some voters who were offended by the Barreiros playing fast and loose with Florida election law. You cannot move more than $1,000 freely from a federal campaign-- his-- to a state campaign-- hers-- even if both campaigns are for the same candidate, let alone for another candidate, even if it is a spouse. That may come back to but Mr. Barreiro in the ass in November.

 




FL-26-- Steve Machat Withdraws From The Race To Topple Carlos Curbelo

The DCCC & EMILY's List has their candidate and there is also a progressive running

Steve Machat is a guy I knew from the music business who, in one way or another-- attorney, publisher, manager, etc-- worked with Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector, ELO, Snoop Dogg, New Edition, Bobby Brown, etc. He also wrote Gods, Gangsters and Honour, a book that is basically an insider's guide to the music industry. Until a couple of weeks ago he was seeking the Democratic Party nomination too run for the very blue seat occupied by Republican Carlos Curbelo. The DCCC endorsed conservative New Dem Debbie Mucarel-Powell. He wrote to his supporters to explain why he was withdrawing from the race.

Earlier this month I was a guest speaker in Israel, addressing equality, creation and how to perpetuate culture. From there, I went on to Jordan, meeting with King Abdullah’s Ministers.

Both these experiences allowed a lot of soul searching on my part.

I feel that the electoral system in the US is possibly irretrievably broken, with Blue Dog Democrats voting with Trump and Corporate Democrats voting with the special interests that fund them.

Our two party system is owned and controlled by a network of corporate interest, which funds and selects politicians on our behalf, places them in government, and then the government runs us. This is totally contrary to what our Founding Fathers intended. They intended a government of the people, by the people, for the people. They did not intend a government of corporations, by corporate-funded politicians, for the benefit of corporations.

It’s not enough just to elect Democrats, we have to elect truly progressive Democrats.

In the uneven minefield that is American politics today, there is no room for two independent-minded Democrats to oppose each other in District 26. The good news is that my platform and that of Commander Demetries Grimes are very similar. We both believe in campaign finance reform, universal healthcare, banning assault weapons, meaningful gun reform, tuition-free college, and the decriminalization of marijuana-- to name but a few policy areas. We both have the same objective-- to elect an independent public servant as our next Congressperson in District 26. It is for this reason that I have decided to withdraw from the race today to give Commander Grimes a clear run to beat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the Primary, and Carlos Curbelo in the General Election. My team and I will give Demetries and his team as much support as he wishes to win the battles ahead.

I thank those who have supported me. I also thank everyone who had the courage to engage in making dialogue with me against my views. Debate is heathy. It makes us great. The subjugation of critical thinking is one of the tools used by the corporations and the super-wealthy to take over our political system. We need to revitalize critical thinking and help give back to our youth the belief that they can fulfill their dreams.

In order to do that, I am going to concentrate on my entertainment career. I am now part of the team creating a new independent major network called Gran, dedicated to new creations of music, TV, films and webisodes. In addition, I continue to work with our friend in Cuba on a festival celebrating, arts, music and culture.

I realize that I can help shape our young people’s minds to believe in dreams again; to learn that for a dream to come true you must build; and to build successfully you need to work as a team.

I pledge to do whatever I can to continue to help America build the team for a 21st century life. A life where everyone is equal. A life where it is the duty of the government to provide healthcare for all, education for all, safety for our communities, a guaranteed income with jobs for all, a community that protects Mother Earth and an energy solution based on renewable resources. A life that works to ensure that our future is better than our present. A life that provides a future for our children and a security for our seniors.

Please make sure you are registered to vote here. Information on Commander Demetries Grimes can be found here. Please join us.

For Congressional Republicans Trump Created The Ultimate Rock And A Hard Place

Yesterday, a prominent Democratic campaign manager read the post about the Democratic win in Missouri Tuesday and said, relieved, "so I guess there's a wave coming after all." Only people in a state of delusion, I told him, think otherwise. That state legislative seat that flipped from red to blue, was a district that Trump won by around 28 points. A 27 year old Democrat won it by 4 points. That's quite a swing. Few Republicans would survive swings like that in their districts. Not Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy-- only Scalise from the leadership. But no more Republicans in Iowa, New England, the West Coast, New York, New Jersey...

Roll Call's analysis yesterday about how Trumpanzee is the GOP Catch-22, emphasizes that Republicans in Congress are in "a no-win situation" because of him. And then they propose everyone get out their tiny violins and play Samuel Barber's "Adagio for String."

Even if you think Republican leaders in Congress have shown no spine in responding to President Donald Trump’s more outrageous and inappropriate comments, you ought to be willing to acknowledge that GOP legislators are caught in a no-win situation.

It’s always tempting to tell incumbents of an unpopular president’s party to criticize their own party leader as a way to survive a midterm wave. But that strategy rarely works in competitive congressional districts when the political environment is as bad as it is for Republicans today.

Repeatedly criticizing your own party’s president undermines him, makes his party look divided and ineffective, and risks alienating the party’s grass roots, many of whom still support him.

At the same time, appearing to be an apologist for an unpopular president, particularly one as unhinged as Trump, also isn’t a winning strategy for most vulnerable Republicans.

...Since the birth of the party system, congressional leaders and White Houses have cajoled, promised, threatened and even punished members of Congress who failed to toe the party line.

But Trump has gone well beyond that in publicly humiliating critics, especially those from his own party.

Given all of that, and the GOP base’s continued strong support for the president, it’s easy to understand why many Republican members of Congress would rather not talk about Trump’s daily controversies, even if it means running away from reporters. But that tactic doesn’t change their electoral equations.

Most congressional Republicans in tough districts won’t be able to survive merely by laying low. At least not if and when an electoral wave hits.

Some, like Reps. Lee Zeldin and John J. Faso of New York and Leonard Lance of New Jersey, surely hope their votes against the GOP tax bill will inoculate them. After all, they can demonstrate they sided with their constituents and against the president in opposing the legislation, which punishes voters from high-tax states.

But voters may have a different perspective. They may realize those “no” votes by Zeldin, Faso and Lance did not stop the tax bill from passing and the only way to stop future Republican mistakes would be to turn the chamber over to the Democrats. And the only way to achieve that is to vote against House Republicans. So here is the GOP’s Catch-22.

Had Zeldin, Faso and Lance made a bigger stink about the bill and Trump’s overall behavior, they would have risked alienating base GOP voters. But since they didn’t raise a ruckus about Trump’s overall performance, they will be viewed by Trump’s critics as defenders of the president.

GOP insiders believe that some Republicans from competitive districts-- Reps. David Valadao of California and John Katko of New York, for example-- are doing enough to swim against the wave. But for others, the challenge will be too great.

While voters bemoan partisanship, most members of Congress have spent their entire lives in one party and see American politics through a partisan lens.

They are comfortable with that perspective, and with the personal relationships built with colleagues over the years.

This helps explain why members of Congress prefer to stick with their party-- and their president.

None of this is meant to excuse the deafening silence coming from most House and Senate Republicans at the all-too-frequent lunacy emanating from the White House and from the president’s allies.

Nor does it alter the political reality that the fine line that some GOP members are trying to walk this midterm year is so narrow and tricky that it is essentially unwalkable.

Take the tyrant's $17.2 million Napoleon-like military parade. Should Republicans in Congress vote no-- especially if Pelosi brings up a resolution to spend the money on the V.A. instead? If they vote "no," people who watch to Fox or listen to Alex Jones or Limbaugh are going to hate them. If they vote "yes," more independent voters, who already are disgusted with Trump, will turn on them. Two Republicans, Lee Zelden (Suffolk County, Long Island) and Justin Amash (Grand Rapids) have already come out against it. These are the 2 dozen Republican incumbents-- who haven't already announced their retirements-- who will be most negatively impacted by being seen as blindly sticking with Señor T:

• Carlos Curbelo (FL)
• Steve Knight (CA)
• John Katko (NY)
• Will Hurd (TX)
• David Valadao (CA)
• Brain Fitzpatrick (PA)
• Erik Paulsen (MN)
• Ryan Costello (PA)
• John Faso (NY)
• Bruce Poliquin (ME)
• David Young (IA)
• Mimi Walters (CA)
• Peter King (NY)
• Tom MacArthur (NJ)
• Jeff Denham (CA)
• Rod Blum- (IA)
• Mike Coffman (CO)
• Peter Roskam (IL)
• John Culberson (TX)
• Pete Sessions (TX)
• Don Bacon (NE)
• Kevin Yoder (KS)
• Rodney Davis (IL)
• Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)

Meanwhile, when Pence's own corporately-financed PAC contributed to 30 threatened House Republicans this week, he left out the single most vulnerable incumbent in the country, Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), who is so underwater that Beltway Republicans have just entirely written him off as a lost cause: a GOP deadman walking.

Chuck Hagel: "I'm Surprised That Our Midwestern Republican Leaders Have Not Been More Vocal"

Hagel won 2 Purple Hearts as an infantryman while Señor T was pretending he had a boo-boo

Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo is representing a very blue Miami area district. Obama beat McCain 50-49% and then beat Romney 53-46% there  In 2016 Hillary absolutely pulverized Trump 56.8% to 40.5%, driving the district's PVI from R+1 to its current D+6. Even the virulent incompetence from the DCCC that Republicans in blue districts have learned to count on won't save Curbelo in a cycle with the kind of anti-Trump/anti-GOP tsunami that's forming now. (And, yes, the DCCC has managed to find one of their typical lesser-of-two evils candidates to back). Curbelo recognizes he's got to go further left than the Democrats to have any chance at reelection this year. So, while Pelosi's utterly dysfunctional caucus dickers and bickers about how to deal with Trump's rotten DACA sabotage, Curbelo says he will not vote to keep the government open unless Trump agrees to the bipartisan DACA fix most members of Congress-- and most Americans-- want.

Meanwhile, this weekend everyone has been chitter-chattering about Arizona lame duck Jeff Flake making a Senate floor speech comparing Señor Trumpanzee to Stalin. I'd rather Flake use his vote to stop just one-- any one-- of Trump's legislative priorities... but we all know that's never going to happen.

Chuck Hagel isn't in Congress any more. He was a mainstream conservative from Nebraska, a senator from 1997 til 2009 and then Obama's Secretary of Defense (a nomination filibustered by his old colleagues from the GOP, the first time a Secretary of Defense nominee was ever fillibustered). Interesting sidenote that seems to have been lost to history: Hagel was CEO of American Information Systems, later known as Election Systems & Software, a computerized voting machine manufacturer, which seems to have played a pivotal role in an election that made Hagel the first Republican in twenty-four years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. In 2008, both Obama and McCain talked about putting Hagel on their tickets.

Over the weekend, Hagel was back in the headlines, talking about the pickle Señor Trumpanzee has placed the GOP in. He wrote that Señor T "is doing great damage to our country internationally. He's an embarrassment... intentionally dividing the country and the world."

Hagel, who served two terms in the Senate, said his fellow Republicans may face a moment of truth later this year with the investigation of Russian influence and interference in the 2016 presidential election already probing inside the doors of the Republican White House.

"We take an oath of office not to a president, not to a party, not to a philosophy, but to the Constitution of the United States," he said.

"I was philosophically a Republican with a conservative voting record," Hagel said, "but that did not mean I would always go along with the party.

"In the end, you need to make a decision based on the right thing for the country," he said.

Hagel, who was wounded twice in combat in Vietnam, parted company with Republican President George W. Bush on the Iraq war and was widely criticized within the GOP for his action with Vice President Dick Cheney often acting as one of Hagel's sharpest critics.

As secretary of defense, Hagel said, he saw Russian cyber activity in all areas of the U.S. economy, with attempts to penetrate commercial and financial networks as well as the Department of Defense.

"The Russians were up to a lot of mischief," he said. "They were probing and they do have the capability of getting better and stronger. We can't discount that."

Hagel left the Pentagon in 2015, a year before the presidential election.

Now, Hagel said, the country has "a president who minimizes his own intelligence community and that is quite astounding."

Carlos Curbelo Gets A Challenger: Meet Steven Machat

Like me, Steven Machat comes out of the music business. His time at Warner Bros Records, though, predated my own and it was years later that I learned who he is-- a lawyer, an accountant and a visionary who became famous working with artists at every level of their careers. He’s a a team builder-- called the “dreamers dreamer” by those who know him best. He’s always been someone who makes things happen in the entertainment business. And now-- still involved in the music business, bringing Cuban music to America-- he’s also involved with politics, though that’s hardly a new endeavor for him either.

He graduated from Law School at Vanderbilt in 1977 (a classmate of Al Gore’s), where he had spent two years working as a Nashville public defender in court rooms protecting the rights of minorities and the poor who could not afford a lawyer. He grew to like defending the underdog. During his time in Nashville, Steven met his father’s client Phil Walden, the man who created Capricorn Records. Walden got Steven heavily involved in the election of Jimmy Carter and Steven grew to love politics-- putting together teams so dreams could come true.

Steven has played almost every role imaginable in the entertainment business. Mostly on making artist dreams come true. Be it Jet Records with ELO or Ozzie Osborne or Genesis' Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins; Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector New Edition, Bobby Brown, Suge Knight, Soft Cell… many, many others. Steven helped make their dreams a reality.



Steven helped create the Music Festival WOMAD, a festival dedicated to sharing cultures from all over the world. Steven has traveled the world as a business man and has a very unique perspective in what binds people to work together and create. He has lived all over the world representing artists. Be it Manu Dibango from Cameroon. Rita Lee and Gilberto Gil from Brazil. Cerrone and Space from France. Angélique Kidjo from Benin or Franco Battiata from Italy, Steven knows and understands people.

Steven has produced movies and theatre and written four books in which he has endeavor to share his truths and visions. He believes in a dream. He believes we can create the America we all dream about. The one our Declaration of Independence speaks about-- a land where we all work together as a team to build a land, based on the American dream.

Steven ran for the Senate in 2016 as an independent in Florida. He lost to Marco Rubio. Today he’s running for Congress in Florida's 26th district as a Democrat, a blue-trending swing district, occupied by Republican Carlos Curbelo. Hillary beat Trump in FL-26 handily-- 56.7% to 40.6%. Unless the DCCC interferes to put a conservative establishment shill in as a candidate, the district will be blue in 2018. I’m pleased to introduce Steven to DWT readers. He’s truly a Renaissance man. As he says, people first… and let's make our dreams reality


Guest Post
-by Steven Machat

Thank you, Howie. And I am so pleased to announce with you my decision to run for Congress in the 26th Florida district as a Democrat.

I run to serve the people. I look forward to helping do what I can to rebuild the Democratic Party on the inside. As well as help create the awareness and attract the public to vote in Democrats in as we recreate the people's party. The party that gave America the New Deal.

My goal is to get into Congress here in Florida. Florida's 26th District to be exact. My dream is to help finish what one of my personal heroes, FDR, started. We need a second bill of rights-- an Economic Bill of Rights. We have the first bill of rights but it is political, created when most of our nation were farmers. There was no big cities. Everyone could grow their own food. Today that is not true. We need a safety net for all and even the wealthy will be happier.

During FDR's time our nation industrialized. We started trading our wares and ideas with the world on a really big scale. Instead of sharing cultures we tried to control trade, from manufacture to distribution, to whole sale and retail. We have since built an economy on war and industry. We created capitalism with banks in control of our economy and our government. The Fed comes first. And we the people allow this to continue. Our nation was built on visionaries and team work. Building communities and making life better for the living as well as their future. The only asset mankind has in truth is Our children.

We have lost our way as a community of equals. People live to pay interest. We do not own our central bank, AKA the Federal Reserve, as a nation. We let independent bankers get paid before our government gets its taxes. Between Bush the second and Obama we have socialized the losses of these bankers but privatized their wins. We today are a nation of interest slaves.

We say we understand climate change and will fix it. But the Paris accord was a basement not a ceiling. We still take fossils the earth has buried and burn the fuels to run the industries which need to be retired. Our future is renewable energy which will create jobs that can't be exported. Florida is the sunshine state, it should lead our nation in renewable energy.

We need to put people first. Not paper profits. We need to educate our people of all ages so they can help our nation grow. We do not need to create a scam where we loan people money to go to school, in reality to create profits for the banks on debts our young can not escape like the bankers did.

We need to take care of our old. The senior citizens of our land. They have so much to give to us all. We need to insure they live out their lives with dignity, health and welfare.

We need to give everyone health care in a single payeer system. This is the coach ticket to health. You want business or first class pay for it. I have lived in London. Their system works.

The second bill of rights by FDR, as I hereby modify for our time, proposed just before he died must be the following:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in private business or working with the local, state, regional or national community.
2. The right to a living wage not a minimum. Where everyone has a roof over their head, food to eat. Plus clothes to wear and money to discover and share culture.
3. The right of every businessman, large or small, as FDR said, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.
4. The right to adequate medical care. The ability to achieve and enjoy good health.
5. The right to publicly financed education. This includes early education, technical training, and college.

In addition to people economics I run to protect the Environment. We must put earth first. I will protect the Everglades. I will stop Big Sugar from polluting our water. I will do what I can to stop fracking. I believe we need to create a Gross National Quality of life index so we can judge how we are living. Not just a Gross National Product that measures only what we make. We need to effectively measure what the real costs are, of what we do.

On international affairs I will help create an understanding that the whole world does not need to be just like us. We must respect diversity and different cultures. We must stop getting involved in civil wars and nation building. We must be strong and ready to defend-- but not invade so the military industrial complex can profit. We must create a world to share and build cultures.

We need term limits on all branches of our government. That is how you achieve progress and limit the establishment's corruption. Remember when our nation was created people lived to maybe forty as an average.

We must control election spending and election debates. I sued to get on the air to debate Rubio. I qualified to run but did not qualify for the debate because I did not have money for big TV adds. It is nothing but a game of political payola. We need people to run who wish to serve man. Not who wish to serve corporate powers.

I will be the people's candidate and Congressman. People are my constituency and it is to people I will communicate. I also pledge to hold town hall meetings and never run from debates where you the people can become wise about who and what is what.

Please help me to help you. Go to my website Machat4Congress.com and learn more about what I’m trying to accomplish and how you can join in what I’m doing and help the cause.

Congressional Republicans Are Starting To Brace For The 2018 Anti-Trump Wave

Remember how well Trump's coattails worked out for Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire?

We still have a year and a half before the 2018 midterm election day and I feel confident we'll be seeing a LOT more stories like the one Politico's Jake Sherman wrote to start this week off: GOP growing worried they’ll lose House.

Republicans are growing increasingly worried that they will lose the House of Representatives. The pervasive pessimism comes as there continues to be a dearth of legislative victories, and a toxic political environment that appears to be worsening. Of course, the midterm elections are nearly a year and a half away. But more than a dozen Republicans we’ve spoken to in the last few weeks say the prospect for political and legislative wins big and small is dimming. And as much as President Donald Trump has worked to woo over fellow Republicans with dinners at the White House and regular meetings with GOP leadership, it hasn’t had much of an impact on the overall state of play.

The rank and file has been frustrated with the House committees, which have not produced a drumbeat of legislation to tout as victories. And the party is deeply split on health-care reform, a tax overhaul and infrastructure spending. Passing a budget to set the groundwork for tax reform is still seen as far off. And the congressional schedule doesn’t leave a lot of time to kick things into high gear. The House is in session for 13 more days and the Senate is in session for 14 more days before the July 4 recess. Not to mention, there’s serious concern in the GOP that there could be more revelations about President Donald Trump, and Robert Mueller’s investigation still remains the wild card. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifying Tuesday before the Senate Intel Committee is expected to just add more drama to distract from the GOP agenda into the mix.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN? Republicans will be less willing to take risks as they shift into political survival mode.

Different Republicans in vulnerable seats are navigating these treacherous waters in different ways. Carlos Curbelo, for example, in a South Florida swing district Hillary won handily, 56.7-40.6%, is doing whatever he can to separate himself from Trump in ways that will appeal to his constituents-- like on Climate Change, which is already manifesting itself in his district with rising oceans and regular street flooding.

New Jersey plutocrat Tom MacArthur is taking the opposite tact. He's in a swingy South Jersey district that voted 51.8-47.2% for Obama in 2012 but flipped to Trump last year 51.4% to 45.2%. MacArthur joined the mainstream conservative grouping, the Tuesday Group, but stabbed them in the back, making a deal with Mark Meadows of the hard right Freedom Caucus to wreck Medicaid and pass TrumpCare in the House. He was kicked out of the Tuesday Group and has attached himself to Trump. On Sunday afternoon Trump headlined a fat cat fundraiser for MacArthur at his sleazy Bedminster Golf Course (in Leonard Lance's 7th district; Lance, who voted for TrumpCare in committee, felt the pressure in the district and then flip-flopped on the final vote, infuriating Trump, was not invited to the event). Chris Christie was there but the press wasn't allowed to hear Trump and MacArthur address a crowd of about 100 wealthy right-wing check writers. The invitation said that the event-- Trump's first for a member of Congress since Putin installed him in the White House-- was sponsored by MacArthur Victory, the NRCC, TMAC PAC, and the New Jersey Republican State Committee. MacArthur is a notorious self-funder, buying his first race (2014) with a 5 million dollar check but taking so much in special interest bribes-- nearly $2 million-- as a freshman that he only had to write himself a $200,000 check for his 2016 campaign.

Anyway, all across the country Republican incumbents in swing districts are going to have to do the calculus and decide if they're going to run from Trump or embrace him. So far many have warily tried to stick with him despite all the scandal and controversy. California congressmembers on shaky political ground-- like Darrell Issa, Mimi Walters, Dana Rohrabacher, Steve Knight, Devin Nunes and Duncan Hunter-- have made the bet the the DCCC is too lame to field effective campaigns against them and they have tied their political futures to Trump. Zombie-like they seem to expect him to suddenly change his ways and turn the disastrous approval numbers-- not just for himself, but for that party-- around.

Katie Hill is the Santa Clarita Valley progressive who we're hoping replaces Trump rubber stamp Steve Knight in CA-25. This morning, in a wide ranging discussion of the issues facing her neighbors in L.A. and Ventura counties she mentioned that "Government health care spending is vital to the well being our community and it’s also a jobs issue. Steve Knight’s yes vote on Trumpcare was an irreverent vote to our very purple, working class district. Instead of stripping 77,000 of our neighbors of their health care, we need to be bringing more people into the health care system by strengthening the ACA and eventually moving towards a single payer system. That way people can get the care they need and those working in health related professions, like my mom who is a nurse, can make a decent living working in a compassionate profession. If we look at Knight’s voting record, he's voting 100% in favor of Trump’s legislative agenda... To me, this is a massive failure of the representative government we’ve been promised. We have to put the concerns of our neighbors before scoring political points with party leaders. Most importantly, we need representatives willing to buck partisan party politics when it compromises the well being of our community."