A Texas Solution For Feeding The Malibu Homeless?--A Tale Oof Two Cities

-by Dorothy Reik
President, Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains

In Dallas it's illegal to feed the homeless. Now it seems that Malibu is following in a smilier path. The Malibu mayor, Skylar Peak, suggested that the local church to end their weekly homeless dinners-- what's good enough for Dallas is good enough for Malibu it seems. "For 17 years, religious groups fed homeless people (in Malibu), and the city and private donors put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for social workers to find them housing and services. But Malibu United Methodist Church-- facing pressure from the city-- in recent weeks took a U-turn, deciding twice-weekly dinners for homeless people would stop after Thanksgiving. The cutoff came after city officials summoned organizers and suggested they were attracting more homeless people and making the problem worse.

In its wisdom the Democratic Party did NOT endorse incumbent Democrat Peak when he ran for re-election on a slate which included Trumpster Rick Mullen and the Trumpeter campaign manager, Chris Garcia, who, in addition to running the slate's campaign, led Latinos Para Trump.



The Malibu Dem Club also did not endorse Peak. The club endorsed the fabulous Jennifer De Nicola whose entire family is the group leading the movement to hire social workers to feed and provide medical services and housing for Malibu's homeless. Over the past year, their work has found permanent housing for over 30 individuals and provided services for at least 150 more.

But not being endorsed by the club you represent, did not stop one of the Malibu Dem Club’s officers from proudly displaying a Peak-Mullen-Wagner yard sign on his lawn. I hope he is happy. In response I (and many others) quit the club which I had helped restart. BTW Rob Reiner and his posse including a woman who calls herself JayFlo strongly supported the Peak-Mullen-Wagner ticket and worked hard and dirty to elect them along with their allies who run the Malibu rag "The Local" which ran a hate campaign against Jennifer who, by the way, also led the fight to to protect the children of Malibu and their teachers to rid the Malibu schools of toxic PCBs. The The Malibu Times has this to say about Jennifer: "Chicago-transplant Jennifer deNicola is proof that you don’t need a uniform or to be in a powerful position to be an advocate or crusader for your community, you just have to care enough to take a stand.

Maybe Rob Reiner  should go on TV and advocate for impeaching Skylar Peak and let others worry about Trump. All politics is local, Rob-- but then you don't really live in Malibu do you? BTW, Peak also thinks beach front homeowners should not have to allow others on "their" beaches! Maybe Rob agrees with that too!

In Dallas homeless advocates had a different answer. They didn't back down. Packing AK-15s they proceeded to feed the homeless while "not complying" with a Dallas law that mandated "jumping through hoops" to get a permit to do so:

Matthew Short, with the aptly named organization, Don’t Comply, and dozens of volunteers from children to adults alike took to the streets of Dallas this week to hand out food, sleeping bags, clothing, and tents to the area’s less fortunate.

As TFTP has reported on numerous occasions, often times, police will swoop in and shut down those who would dare defy the authority of the state and conduct charity without a permit. However, most organizations aren’t like Don’t Comply. As they took to the streets this week, many of the members of the organization open carried their weapons. This was done-- not out of an act of intimidation-- but merely to assert rights as well as protect them.

The resultant heavily armed group of do-gooders effectively staved off any attempts by police to shut down the charitable efforts.

In talking with TFTP, Short tells us that although police drove by fairly often, they never stopped and never attempted to intervene.

Maybe the church in Malibu should stand its ground! Would Skylar Peak send in armed sheriffs to prevent the homeless from being fed? Would Scott Mullen? And where is their is their slate-mate Zuma Jay Wagner? Will he speak up for the homeless? While I am firmly opposed to guns no matter how they are carried the folks in Malibu need to take a gunless stand. They have worked too hard to give up without a fight. Stay tuned.

Taking On Pete Sessions-- The Clinton Wing Of The Party Makes Its Move... Kind Of

Ed and Hill

Last year the DCCC didn't bother recruiting a candidate in TX-32, Pete Sessions district in the suburbs north of Dallas, including Highland Park, University Park, Richardson, Garland and east to Lake Ray Hubbard and Lavon Lake. The DCCC hasn't paid any attention to Sessions and his district since he beat powerful Democratic incumbent Martin Frost there in 2004. This year, though, there are already 9 Democratic candidates who have declared, including former football star and Obama HUD official Colin Allred (no issues page on his website), Danielle Pellett (sounds liker a Benriecrat), Darrell Rodriguez (sounds liker a Benriecrat), former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer Ed Meier (no issues page on his website), George Rodriguez (no website), Ron Marshall (no issues page on website), Steve Love (website sounds like we're dealing with someone who isn't mentally competent), Todd Maternowski (no issues page on his website) and Awbrey Tyler Hughlett (website indicates a possible crazy person). How does anyone navigate a huge field like this?

Well, David Dayen, helped us figure out something about at least one of these candidates: the Hillary Clinton guy, Ed Meier. The commencement speaker at Medgar Evers College yesterday, Hillary took a swipe at Trump: "I’ve had a few setbacks in my own life... and losing an election is pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to." Yes, and don't forget what your loss did to the rest of us. Some of her old team are meeting in DC today at a cocktail party to raise money for one of themselves, Meier, for his congressional run. Meier will never get to Pete Sessions unless he can beat Colin Allred in the primary first. The fundraiser is being hosted by Robby Mook, Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, Tom Nides, Lona Valmoro and Dan Feldman, all Clinton campaign alums.

The high-powered D.C. fundraiser with a mix of political and business leaders may seem discordant, at a time when Democrats are coalescing around a more strident liberal politics. And it suggests that the faction that has maintained an iron grip on Democratic politics for decades does not plan to go away quietly.

...Nides, a Clinton bundler and top executive at Fannie Mae and Morgan Stanley, slid into government service when Clinton served at the State Department. Nides went right back to Morgan Stanley after Clinton left State, but was rumored to be a top candidate for White House chief of staff or another top position in a Clinton White House. Nides helped Bill Clinton sell NAFTA to Congress in the 1990s, and later helped Morgan Stanley fend off more aggressive financial reform in the Dodd-Frank Act.

When Elizabeth Warren, anticipating a Clinton victory, said in a speech last September that the Democratic nominee’s hypothetical White House’s personnel shouldn’t include “Citigroup or Morgan Stanley or BlackRock getting to choose who runs the economy in this country so they can capture our government,” it was widely assumed the Morgan Stanley inclusion was a reference to Tom Nides.

Similarly, it was assumed that Warren’s name-check of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, was a reference to Mills, a major Clinton confidant who will also co-host Friday’s Meier fundraiser. Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff at the State Department,  has served on BlackRock’s board of directors since October 2013. Observers immediately intuited this as a ploy by Larry Fink, the BlackRock CEO, to insinuate himself into Clinton’s inner circle as part of a bid to become Treasury Secretary. With Trump winning the presidency, Fink took the consolation prize: a seat on the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a panel of CEOs who advise the administration on the economy.

In addition to the BlackRock board, Mills now runs her own hedge fund, BlackIvy, which endeavors to build commercial businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. During the campaign, Clinton’s Wall Street reform policies very closely mirrored the preferences of BlackRock and its CEO.

Dan Feldman, one of the other Clinton veterans hosting the Meier fundraiser, is now a partner at the white shoe Washington law firm Akin Gump, where according to the press release announcing his hire he advises “multinational corporations, U.S. trade associations and foreign governments on international business and policy issues.”

These are not exactly abnormal credentials for a D.C. fundraiser. But seeing so many ex-Clinton officials team up on behalf of a congressional candidate, particularly those with deep ties to the financial industry, raises questions about Meier’s views on that critical domestic policy subject.

Meier currently serves as the interim executive director of an non-profit education company called Big Thought, which provides after-school and summer learning programs in the Dallas area. He was a senior advisor to Clinton at the State Department before serving as a policy advisor on the campaign. As co-executive director of the Clinton transition, Meier spent the final months before Election Day focused on staffing a potential Clinton White House.

Bleccchhhh... if that's the kind of crap that all the Resistance energy goes into-- what a damned waste!