Russian Hacking Is Very Real-- Who's In Charge Of Directing The U.S. Targeting? Kushner?

Rohrabacher-- a poor fool doomed by his own inept allies?

The Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, Scott Wagner, joked that the Russian government will help him beat Tom Wolf in November. Polling indicates that that's basically the only way he would win. It's not actually that funny-- especially when Putin-Gate has spawned Putin-Gate II and that the GRU is now targeting conservatives as well as normal candidates. Microsoft claims to have uncovered broadening threats to Democracy. Microsoft president Brad Smith: "It’s clear that democracies around the world are under attack. Foreign entities are launching cyber strikes to disrupt elections and sow discord. Unfortunately, the internet has become an avenue for some governments to steal and leak information, spread disinformation, and probe and potentially attempt to tamper with voting systems. We saw this during the United States general election in 2016, last May during the French presidential election, and now in a broadening way as Americans are preparing for the November midterm elections."

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, he wrote, is on the case. They're making headway against Fancy Bear (aka- APT28 and Strontium). "We’re concerned," he wrote, "that these and other attempts pose security threats to a broadening array of groups connected with both American political parties in the run-up to the 2018 elections." So what's this all mean?

A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites, including some related to the US Senate, with an aim to hack into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft.

...The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the American 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the US.

APT28 specialises in information warfare or hacking and disinformation operations. "APT" refers to "advanced persistent threat" in cybersecurity circles.

US officials have repeatedly warned that the November vote is a major focus for interference efforts.

Trump and his GOP enablers are purposely leaving the back door open for the Russians, refusing to fund statewide efforts to protect American voting systems and firing top level specialists in cyber-security. A question I've always had-- and will ultimately be answered (or not) by the Mueller investigation-- is who in Trump-world has been helping the Russians with their targeting? I had to laugh when the first reports came out that hackers-- presumably Russians-- interfered in two Orange County Democratic primaries, one to pick a candidate to run in CA-45 against lockstep rubber-stamp Mimi Walters and one to pick a candidate to run against Putin's favorite congressman (and possible Kremlin spy) Dana Rohrabacher in CA-48. Both operations were badly botched.

They were botched because of the targeting. Whomever told the Russians to go after Hans Keirstead in CA-48 and Dave Min in CA-45 were not doing anything to help their Republican opponents. Both Keirstead and Min looked good-- at least inside the Beltway-- on paper. But both turned out-- in real life outside the Beltway-- to be abysmal candidates. Keirstead has a great resume and the DCCC recruited him, but he was a total stiff on the campaign trail and the DCCC abandoned him and leaked opposition research about a sex scandal. Early on, someone clueless inside the Beltway could have easily imagined he would be the strongest candidate against Rohrabacher. As a consequence, they may have blundered into harming Rohrabacher's chances by boosting the much stronger candidate, Harley Rouder, who neat Keirstead narrowly and is likely to beat Rohrabacher in November.

A similar thing happened in CA-45, where a Schumer puppet, Dave Min, may have been perceived in DC (and thereby Moscow) as the stronger Democrat against Walters. But as the campaign unfolded, he turned out to be a miserable politician, way too nasty and vicious to win anything. If the Russian hackers were trying to help Walters, they doomed her by knocking out Min. Instead, Katie Porter, who won the primary, is likely to end Walters' political career in November. Sounds like Kushner-in-law's work. His fingerprints are all over these two collusion operations.


UPDATE: Will Putin Save The GOP From The Voters?

Trump seems to think so. Writing for Yahoo News today, Alexander Nazaryan reported that Trump asked the Senate to block a bill to strengthen the country's defenses against electoral interference. Trump got Roy Blunt (R-MO) to stop the bill in committee yesterday. To me this is way more impeachable than paying off hookers with campaign cash.

The Secure Elections Act, introduced by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) in December 2017, had co-sponsorship from two of the Senate’s most prominent liberals, Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) as well as from conservative stalwart Lindsey Graham (R-S) and consummate centrist Susan Collins (R-ME).

...As it currently stands, the legislation would grant every state’s top election official security clearance to receive threat information. It would also formalize the practice of information-sharing between the federal government-- in particular, the Department of Homeland Security-- and states regarding threats to electoral infrastructure. A technical advisory board would establish best practices related to election cybersecurity. Perhaps most significantly, the law would mandate that every state conduct a statistically significant audit following a federal election. It would also incentivize the purchase of voting machines that leave a paper record of votes cast, as opposed to some all-electronic models that do not. This would signify a marked shift away from all-electronic voting, which was encouraged with the passage of the Help Americans Vote Act in 2002.

“Paper is not antiquated,” Lankford says. “It’s reliable.”

A paper trail is exactly what Putin and Trump-- and apparently, the Republican Party-- don't want. This is treason.

Tuesday The Nation's Eyes Turn To Orange County

The Elizabeth Warren of the West

Tuesday will see 4 crucial open primaries in Orange County. Blue America has endorsed in 3 but can't find a candidate good enough to make an endorsement in one (CA-48). In CA-48, the coastal district that starts up in Seal Beach and heads south through Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach to Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel and Three Arch Bay. It's the district occupied by one of Putin's 2 favorite congressmen, Dana Rohrabacher (the other being Devin Nunes) and Rohrabacher is just so bad that it may be necessarily to just vote for the least evil of some pretty bad Democrats. One, Omar Siddiqui is a truly dreadful carpet-bagger and "ex"-Republican multimillionaire campaigning by calling himself, proudly, "a Reagan Democrat." Probably the least bad of the candidates is another "ex"-Republican, Harley Rouda, who I sense is probably not as bad as Hans Keirstead. The DCCC recruited both and the New Dems endorsed both but in the end the DCCC decided to go with Rouda, primarily because he was willing to write himself a bigger check. I've talked with him at length and I'd take the bet that he probably has the best chance to beat Rohrabacher and is probably the most likely to vote less conservatively in Congress.

But the race I wanted to remind everyone about today is the one east of Rohrabacher's-- CA-45, occupied by another rich carpetterbagger, Trump runner stamp Mimi Walters. The district heads east and south from the Anaheim Hills, Villa Park, Tustin and Irvine to Lake Forest, and Laguna Woods down to Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo and Coto De Caza. This is the one district where there is no danger of the jungle primary giving us 2 Republicans in November. It will be Mimi Walters and either a progressive UC Irvine professor, Katie Porter or a sleazy UC Irvine professor, New Dem Dave Min. Min is one of the worst of the California candidates running this cycle, as bad as it gets. Porter, on the other hand, is as good as it get. She's worked with Elizabeth Warren. He worked for Chuck Schumer... helping Schumer gather Wall Street bribes-- completely disgusting and unfit for office. I want to let Elizabeth Warren speak to why she's so enthusiastic about Katie:

My good friend, Katie Porter, is running to unseat a Republican member of Congress in California who calls Katie “The Elizabeth Warren of the West” and "Warren 2.0."

This Republican also warns supporters that Katie Porter will be a "solid vote" for progressive ideas and her election "will mean the end of the conservative policies" advanced by a Republican majority and Donald Trump.

That sounds pretty good to me! (And to Katie!)

Our best shot at flipping this very-flippable seat and advancing progressive ideas like Medicare For All and corporate accountability next Congress is for Katie Porter to win this key primary on Tuesday, June 5.

...If you haven’t already heard, Katie was my student. After she graduated, we worked together for years studying why millions of working American families were going broke. Like me, Katie became a bankruptcy law professor, and now she teaches at UC Irvine.

After the 2008 economic crisis, Kamala Harris (then California Attorney General) appointed Katie to a job as California's top consumer watchdog-- fighting to hold the big banks accountable and help families who lost their homes. She took on Wall Street and helped tens of thousands of cheated families get some relief.

Katie is THE fighter we need in Congress-- and she's got a real shot at winning this thing.

California's 45th congressional district went against Trump in 2016 by five points. The Republican who holds this seat has voted with Donald Trump 98.6% of the time-- including votes to repeal health care for millions of Americans, defund Planned Parenthood, and gut the rules on Wall Street.

We can count on Katie to fight for Medicare for All, women's reproductive rights, and strong corporate accountability. Republican politicians know Katie will stand up to powerful interests.

Katie's been a great partner for years-- and I'm happy to have the opportunity to continue working with her in Congress to fight for America's families. Let's show Katie that we have her back.

And as long as we're talking about Tuesday's Orange County primaries, let me remind you that there are two excellent candidates in the two other districts as well-- Doug Applegate in CA-49 and Sam Jammal in CA-39. Doug, Sam and Katie would be a formidable team for strong progressive ideas and values in Orange County. If you have any family or friends in the county, please remind them... Tuesday is the day. THIS Tuesday.

How Many Democratic Senators Joined Wall Street And The GOP To Screw Bank Customers?

Just before Tuesday's vote to further gut Dodd-Frank and open the U.S. up to another bankster greed-driven economic catastrophe, Orange County law professor and congressional candidate Katie Porter wrote to her supporters that "As a consumer protection attorney, I've spent nearly 20 years fighting powerful special interests like Wall Street lobbyists. I've collaborated extensively with Elizabeth Warren on ways to protect the middle class from being scammed by powerful institutions and corporations. Unfortunately, I have to alert you to a new attack on consumers coming later this week. The Senate is days away from voting on a bill called the 'Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act,' though the actual bill will do none of those things. This bill would roll back or eliminate key protections that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act put in place after Wall Street's recklessness caused a global recession. I'm urging the Senate to Vote NO on this legislation."

Porter is running in CA-45 for a seat held by Wall Street shill Mimi Walters. But before she can take on Mimi, she has to get through another Wall Street shill, New Dem, Dave Min, who ran Chuck Schumer's Wall Street operation when Schumer was working hand-in-glove with the banksters to set them loose on consumers. Schumer has taken more in bribes than any other politician in American history who was not a presidential candidate-- and more than some presidential candidates. As of now Schumer the Finance Sector has given Schumer $26,754,908, compared to $12,338,704 to McConnell and $12,165,694 to Paul Ryan... so more than both of them together! Min has been part of Schumer's "success" in that scheme.

Which candidates are being backed by Wall Street this cycle? It's worth noting which non-incumbents they're making their biggest contributions to so far. Of course their biggest bribes in the House went to half a dozen crooked incumbents who are already serving their every interest:

• Speaker Ryan (R-WI)- $2,649,603
• Majority Leader McCarthy (R-CA)- $1,500,400
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- $871,524
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC)- $867,506
• Kevin Brady (R-TX)- $867,225
• Kyrsten Sinema- $792,137

Of course, these 5 men and one woman should all be in prison but these are the crooked politicians who aspire to be just like them and are already taking large bribes as banksters bet on their chances to be able to kick their own constituents to the curb while carrying Wall Street's water. Austin Frerick, the progressive candidate running for the Iowa congressional seat occupied by GOP money grubber David Young, cut right to the chase: "I cannot believe that Democrats can support this bank deregulation bill after what we went through as a country a decade ago. But this is what happens when Democrats take money from corporations and lobbyists. This is also why I refuse that money."

David Gill's primary is coming up in less than two weeks. He's been fighting for the kind of economic fairness Elizabeth Warren is talking about for decades, not just for his campaign. “As is almost always the case on such issues, I stand with Senator Warren here. It amazes me that our elected representatives have so quickly forgotten the financial crisis which brought so much pain to so many ordinary Americans only 10 years ago. I suspect that those representatives never actually felt the pain, given their place in life. The ordinary men and women that make up the majority of IL-13 certainly did feel the pain of that recession, and they are the ones who will be hit hardest by a recurrence of our economic woes. The regulations within Dodd-Frank should be strengthened, not weakened. I look forward to getting to Washington early next year and working to protect Americans from bankers whose greed knows no bounds.”

The half-dozen worst non-incumbent candidates(so far):

• Josh Harder (D-CA-10)- $229,094
• Perry Gershon (D-NY-01)- $222,866
• Dan Koh (D-MA-03)- $199,818
• Mikie Sherrill (New Dem- NJ-11)- $178,578
• Pat Ryan (D-NY-19)- $171,879
• Matt Haggman (D-FL-27)- $158,790

It's essential to stick with progressives like Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on this issue and to support candidates like them-- like Katie Porter, Austin Frerick and David Gill. Mimi Walters (R-CA) has already gobbled up $400,108 from the Finance Sector this year. David Young (R-IA) has taken $124,350 and Rod Davis (R-IL) took $174,652-- just this cycle!

The only other California candidate besides Josh Harder to have taken over a hundred grand from the finance sector is the sleaze bag in CA-49, Mike Levin, who has managed to vacuum up $124,232. Wall Street knows who they can count on. And it isn't Elizabeth Warren. In fact, when Mark Takano was strong-arming California convention delegates to vote for Dave Min, one of his arguments was that no one endorsed by Elizabeth Warren could win in Orange County. Strange thing for a progressive to say. Here's Elizabeth Warren talking about the bill Katie Porter was campaigning against this week:

[H]ere we are-- on the verge of making the same mistake Congress has made so many times before.

The banks don't want you to know what's in this bill-- because if you did, they know you'd fight back. It was written by Senators in back rooms and jammed through the Banking Committee, where its authors voted down every single amendment, every single idea, to make the bill even one smidge better or protect consumers just one tiny bit more. They voted against every amendment, even if they agreed with it, because Republicans and Democrats had locked arms to do the bidding of the big banks.

There's a lot of dangerous stuff in this bill. Today I want to focus on the harm it will do to America's consumers.

But I'll start with what's not in the bill because what's not in this bill should make Congress ashamed. Strong consumer protections. Banks get their wish list, but consumers get next to nothing. This bill is called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, but in all 148 pages, there's only a few watered down provisions that help consumers.

Equifax loses data for nearly half of all adults in America, lies about it, and this Congress-these Senators-still can't manage to pass a bill with some teeth to hold the company accountable. That says it all-this is a bill written by big banks to help big banks, not a bill to help American families who are still getting cheated by the companies that make huge profits off them.

So what's actually in this bill? Start with the first part of the bill-- Section 101, "Improving Consumer Access to Mortgage Credit."

When you get a mortgage, your lender usually spends some time combing through your financial records to make sure you can repay the loan. That's good-- American families don't want to take out loans they can't afford and banks don't want to make loans that won't get repaid.

Bailout Caucus

Before the financial crisis, that whole process went haywire. Lenders were making crazy loans with ballooning payments and exotic features that consumers didn't understand. Lenders didn't care if customers could repay-they got their fees up front, then sold the loans to distant investors and the original lender was long gone before the homeowners got in trouble. But the families were stuck. Eventually, the payments skyrocketed, and homeowners who couldn't keep up defaulted, losing those homes.  After the crisis, Congress changed the rules. They told lenders that they had to start underwriting their loans again to protect consumers and the economy. But since this takes time and money, Congress told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to write a rule that says that there's no need for the lender to investigate if this is a super-safe, boring, plain-vanilla loan.

That's reasonable.

But Section 101 of this bill is not reasonable. It takes the CFPB rule and stretches it in all directions, tearing open big, dangerous loopholes. This bill says banks, have some fun. Bring back the greatest hits of financial crisis housing scams. Scoop up the profits on the front end, and leave families holding the bag on the back end.

I understand breaks for banks that make straightforward loans, but these loans are too risky. And they come at a bad time. Rising interest rates mean that exotic products like adjustable rate mortgages are making a comeback. Bank lobbyists are dragging us back to the bad old days when banks had free reign to scam consumers.

Here's another section: Section 104 makes it harder to enforce anti-discrimination laws by telling loads of institutions that they don't have to comply with a law called the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, or "HMDA." HMDA requires most financial institutions to tell the public and the CFPB who they're lending to and at what rates and terms. Regulators and law enforcement use the data to make sure that American families don't have a harder time getting a loan because of who they are or where they come from.

This bill takes a sledgehammer to HMDA by exempting 85 percent of institutions from reporting HMDA data. If this bill passes, there will be entire communities where there will be no data whatsoever-- which means there will be no ability to monitor whether people are getting cheated because of their race or their gender.

Again, this couldn't come at worse time. Lending discrimination is real. A new comprehensive report that looked at housing markets all over the country just came out from the Center for Investigative Reporting and Reveal, and its findings should make us all sick to our stomachs.

In 2015 and 2016, nearly two-thirds of mortgage lenders denied loans to people of color at higher rates than for white people. According to Reveal, in the Washington metro area. "In 2016, Native American applicants were 2.3 times as likely to be denied a conventional home mortgage as white applicants. For black applicants, it was 2.2 times as likely. For Latino applicants, it was 1.9 times as likely. For Asian applicants, it was 1.6 times as likely." The Reveal report showed that this problem happens in giant banks, but also in small banks.

Here's the thing. None of that analysis would have been possible without HMDA data from big institutions and small ones. Without the data, we'd all be sitting here in the dark, maybe wondering if some mortgage lenders discriminated against African Americans or women or Native Americans, but we wouldn't have any way to know-and no way to change it if they were. Gutting HMDA allows us-- actually forces us-- to look the other way when discrimination happens. And that's disgraceful.

...Only a bunch of bank lobbyists-- and their friends in Washington-- would call this a consumer protection bill.

American families weren't in the back room when this bill was written. They don't have millions of dollars in campaign cash to get senators' attention. They don't keep an army of lobbyists on their payroll. No, American families are busy going to work, helping the kids with homework and trying to catch up on a thousands things. They are trying to pay off student loans or maybe to save a little for their kids to go to college. Some are trying to put aside a few bucks for a mortgage.

They trust us to stand up for them and make sure they have a fair shot at homeownership-- at the American dream. And they trust us to make sure that we're not turning over the keys to our economy to the same people who crashed it ten years ago and ran over a bunch of American families on the way.

I know we're outnumbered, but this fight isn't over. Make no mistake, I'm going to do whatever I can to convince enough other senators that this is a bad deal for American families, and a dangerous one. I'll push and tug and talk to anyone who will listen about how this bill will hurt the people we were sent here to represent. And maybe, just maybe, maybe for once the Senate will start listening to voters instead of donors.

Why Using Identity Politics As A Filter Is A Road To Nowhere

Last cycle, the two biggest self-funders looking to buy House seats were David Trone in Maryland, who spent a phenomenal $13,414,225 of his own and took 35,400 votes (27.1%) in his primary, and Randy Perkins in Florida who spent $10,127,029 of his own and then lost to a Republican, by over 10 points 53.6% to 43.1%. The only million dollar Democratic self-funder who won in 2016 was Vicente Gonzalez, a real sleaze from south Texas, who spent $1,850,000 of his own dough. Although he's a real conservative piece of crap who joined the Blue Dogs as soon as he got into Congress, he knew which lever to pull to get an endorsement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. You can't trust anyone in DC these days.

And the CPC did it again this week, although there's no indication any money changed hands on this one. Just some shitty identity politics. Two Orange County candidates were up for endorsement-- strong progressive Katie Porter and shifty New Dem Dave Min. Porter was strongly backed by Elizabeth Warren, who sent out a letter just before the CPC vote Thursday:

Progressive ideas are good for working people across this country AND progressive ideas win!

That's why Democrats need to nominate candidates who believe in policies like Medicare For All, expanding Social Security benefits, debt-free college, higher wages for workers, and strong consumer protections.

Katie Porter is one of the boldest and most progressive candidates for Congress in 2018. I've known Katie and worked with her for years, and I'll tell you this: she's tough as nails. When she gets into a fight to help out families who have been cheated, she doesn't give up.

Katie is running for Congress in Orange County, California in one of the most flippable districts in the nation... A new poll shows Katie defeating Republican incumbent Mimi Walters if the general election were held today. In fact, the numbers aren't even close.

That's because Katie is fighting for working families, and she is running a grassroots campaign. And while Republicans in Congress are doing their darnedest to rig our economy and our political system even more for folks at the top, people get that they're the ones paying the price.

During the recent tax fight, Katie's Republican opponent voted for more than a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to giant corporations. But here's what really is a show-stopper: she also voted to eliminate a provision of the tax code that would help her own constituents who were hit by recent wildfires. When people say the system has been bought by big donors, this is what they are talking about.

After she was my student almost 20 years ago, Katie became an expert in the complex law of bankruptcy.

We worked together for years studying why millions of American families were in so much financial trouble. She became a law professor herself out in California. And in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris appointed her to be California's top consumer watchdog-- fighting to hold the big banks accountable and help Californians who lost their homes.

About a year ago, I had breakfast with Katie. We were all still reeling from the election. After talking about her kids, Katie said, "This is terrible. The banks, they're gonna let them go at it again. They'll roll back the regulations on pollution, poison our children." And then she said, "Elizabeth, I'm thinking about running for office." And I said exactly one thing in return, "If you run, I will be there every step of the way."

I've seen Katie's commitment and grit up close and personal. Sending Katie to Congress in this winnable district would put us one seat closer to taking back the House in 2018 and give us another incredible strong ally.

Sounds good, right? So where does the problem come in? In the House, Mark Takano is a progressive voter. But, as with too many people, identity politics is more important to him than progressive, values-based politics. He knew his New Dem Dave Min could never be endorsed but he organized around race to keep the vote from Porter, potentially jeopardizing the ability of the Democrats winning the seat. One of the congressmembers he organized-- one I respect too much to name-- claimed that when she sees two candidates vying for endorsement, who are both progressive, she always goes with the person of color. That's her right. She could have just as easily said that when she sees two candidates who are both progressive, she always goes with the woman. But the fact of the matter is that in this particular case, one candidate is a real progressive and the other is a corporate New Dem who is as forthright and honest as... Donald Trump. He'll say whatever it takes to persuade whoever is listening to him. The worst of the worst. And he succeeded-- in great part because of Takano-- in blocking Katie Porter from getting the CPC endorsement. That has help prompt us to move Katie Porter from just our California Act Blue page to a full fledged endorsement on our congressional page (which you can see by tapping of the thermometer on the right.) Please help us send the DC Dems a little message by contributing to Katie's campaign today.

This week the political director of a group I admire very much was trying to get me to endorse a candidate in Texas. I said the candidate hadn't persuaded me she will be a progressive if she wins the seat. "But she's a lesbian," was the response. That's horrifying. Indentifying as a lesbian doesn't say anything to me about how someone will prioritize Climate Change, banning assault weapons, holding Wall Street banksters accountable or dealing with economic inequity. Look at Krysten Sinema (AZ). She's the single most right-wing Democrat in the House-- and head of the Blue Dogs to boot-- and she identifies as a lesbian. Or look at Sean Patrick Maloney-- a happily married gay man with a wonderful family-- but the most right-wing New Dem in Congress, completely in Wall Street's pocket. (Obviously, another married gay man, Mark Pocan from Wisconsin, is what the political director would have liked me to see when I considered the quality of the Texas candidate. Mark has the best voting record in Congress. He should be the model for every Democrat, regardless of sexual identity, race, religion, gender, country of origin or whatever identity group anyone wants to look use as a filter.)

Clearing The Congressional Field... In California

America needs REAL Dems to push us forward, not more corrupt New Dems

One of the ways the Democratic establishment-- usually led by the DCCC-- advantages its corrupt conservative candidates is by clearing the field. A week or so ago we looked at how one of the big players in this game-- the execrable corporate whore Steny Hoyer-- is trying to do it for Jason Crow in Colorado. It's interesting that this year, when you look at the list of garbage candidates the DCCC is pushing-- mostly New Dems and Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, there's no one from California. Why's that? The DCCC lists 10 districts in California on their 2018 target list. I'm guessing that the reason the DCCC isn't playing dirty in California, the way they are in every other part of the country, is because the Democrats in Congress elected Ted Lieu DCCC regional vice-chair for the West Coast and he believes the DCCC should be neutral in primaries. So the DCCC seems to be pretty neutral in this state, something the party establishment doesn't seem that happy about.

The corruptionists, led by vicious anti-Bernie Sanders fanatic Zoe Lofgren in the House and by local machine bosses and paid political hitmen from the New Dem campaigns, are trying to undo Lieu's policy of primary neutrality with their clearing the field stratagems. I'll come back to this in a second but allow me a brief tangent first. The world of political operatives is hardly a church choir but it is generally recognized in that sleazy industry that the bottom of the barrel is a firm called BergmannZwerdling Direct. They're as low as it gets, a veritable poison factory, working hand-in-glove with the very worst of the DCCC staffers, Kyle Layman, an overt woman-hater who the DCCC has working in California and doing an especially terrible job. In past elections Bergmann and Zwerdling were the slime bags responsible for most of the lies circulating online about Alan Grayson on behalf of their fake-Democrat New Dem client Patrick Murphy. That's what they specialize in-- scraping the bottom of the toilet for Republicans pretending to be Democrats. This cycle their clients include 6 of the worst Democraticish candidates in California: "ex"-Republican lottery winner Gil Cisneros (CA-39); New Dem and former Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer aide Dave Min; Josh Harder, the anti-progressive careerist, fucking up the race against Jeff Denham in CA-10; Brian Caforio, Zoe Lofgren's candidate to stop progressive Katie Hill from being able to beat Steve Knight; self-entitled Hans 'it's all about me, me, me' Keirstead in CA-48; and, the funniest of all, the Qualcomm heiress and Clinton volunteer who parachuted into CA-49 from Brooklyn expecting to be crowned princess/congresswoman, Sarah Jacobs.

So while Lofgren, the Bernie-hater, is demanding the DCCC clear the field (of progressives), Achim Bergmann has his detestable whispering campaigns zipping around the Democratic caucus in DC and Sacramento as the California Democratic Party prepares for pre-convention endorsement meetings. In Orange County's CA-45, for example, they are desperate to knock out Katie Porter, the progressive candidate endorsed by Elizabeth Warren, in favor of Schumer's pointless corporate shill, New Dem Dave Min. Why desperate? New polling from Global Strategy Group shows that Min isn't exactly resonating with likely primary voters. From the Global Strategy Group memo: "Katie Porter’s profile and message not only make her the best-positioned Democrat to emerge from the CA-45 jungle primary, but also the one most likely to defeat Mimi Walters in the general election. In a largely unknown field of Democratic challengers, Porter starts out ahead of the other Democrats. More important, the poll reveals Porter’s profile to be especially resonant in this competitive Clinton-won district, driving her to a large advantage over the other Democrats in a simulated race and demonstrating her ability to not only consolidate Democratic support but appeal to NPP voters and moderate Republicans as well." Their findings are NOT what BergmannZwerdling and the New Dems want to see:

Meanwhile, Achim Bergmann is just making up ridiculous crap to persuade California Democratic Party pre-convention delegates that only conservatives like Min can win against Walters, the old truism that conservative Democrats have used since Rahm Emanuel popularized it in 2006 and has led the Democrats into near political oblivion. There's one thing you can be sure of-- if a candidate is a client of BergmannZwerdling the chances that they represent Democratic values and principles is almost nonexistent. On the other hand, there are no New Dems, no Blue Dogs, no clients of BergmannZwerdling on the list of California progressive candidates you'll find by clicking on the ActBlue congressional candidates thermometer on the right. And if you want to keep more careerist creeps from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party from sneaking into Congress, please consider supporting any of the candidates you find on that list. Take a look.

This doesn't look like a field that will be easily cleared by a corrupt old DC politician and a couple of sleazy campaign operatives

Healthcare-- From Otto Von Bismarck To Orange County

Yesterday Bernie released his Medicare-For-All plan. The idea of this kind of coverage goes back a long way. When Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was unifying Germany in the 1800s, his government came up with a plan for non-profit insurance companies to cover all German citizens. His model was widely discussed in the U.S. and, more or less the one in use not just in Germany but in France, Belgium, Holland, Japan and Switzerland. In the 1930s, New Dealers want dot include universal health care here in the U.S. but conservatives and special interests were too strong and Democrats could never get what they wanted. John Conyers' House bill, which pactically outlaws private health insurance (for anything other than nose jobs and braces, is more radical than Bernie's. This is the statement the Congressional Progressive Caucus released yesterday:

Today, seventeen Senators will join the 117 House Members who have publicly committed to pursuing a bold vision for achieving universal health care by expanding and improving Medicare to cover all Americans. As with the Fight for 15 and the demand for debt-free and tuition-free college, progressives in Congress are responding to the demand for bold action from millions of working Americans, who are fed up with a rigged economy where working hard and playing by the rules isn’t enough to get by or get ahead.

We applaud our colleagues in the Senate who have joined with more than 60 percent of the Democratic members of the House to endorse a commonsense vision: health care must be a human right, grounded in justice, access, and dignity-- not profit. Medicare for All means never having to worry about going bankrupt because of a severe illness. It means never watching a parent or grandparent cut their pills in half because they can’t afford their medications. It means never letting a health insurance executive get between you and your doctor. And it means that a health insurance corporation will never profit by denying you or a loved one necessary care.

These are the goals and values that have united Democrats since President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a universal system of public health insurance as a part of Social Security. Medicare for All is just the latest chapter in the important path towards ensuring health care is a right for all Americans not just the privileged few.

We take the opportunity on today’s milestone to encourage all of our colleagues in the Senate to cosponsor Senator Sanders’ bill, and those in the House to cosponsor Rep. Conyers’ H.R. 676. The time for small ideas and half-measures is over. The American people demand action and that is why the time is now to support Medicare for All

I decided to see how this is playing out away from Washington. CA-45 is the center of inland Orange County, from Villa Park, Tustin and Irvine through Lake Forest and Rancho Santa Margarita down to Laguna Hills and Mission Viejo. The DCCC has never competed in the district before but their backward-looking 2018 strategy is to put all their (rotten) eggs into the districts Hillary won in 2016. Solidly Republican-- Obama lost both times, first 51-47% and then 55-43%-- Hillary beat Trump, albeit narrowly, 49.8% to 44.4%. Last cycle the PVI was a daunting R+7 and this year it has changed precipitously to R+3, a far more flippable district. The incumbent, Mimi Walters, a multimillionaire who lives on the beach in a neighboring district, is a complete rubber stamp for Trump and Ryan. Her Trump adhesion score is the highest of any congressmember from California-- 97.7%.

The contest for the Democratic nomination is fierce. There are at least half a dozen Democrats running (although one, Brian Forde, is a Republican pretending to be a Democrat). We reached the 3 top candidates and asked them what they thought about Bernie's announcement yesterday. Ready?

• Katie Porter: "I've seen far too often during my work as a consumer advocate how a major illness like cancer, a sick child or an accident can literally bankrupt a family that was on sound financial footing just months before. I'm proud to endorse Senator Sanders’ Medicare-For-All plan-- it's the right thing to do for our families."

• Dave Min: "It’s wonderful to see Congress proposing health care reform that would increase health care coverage, rather than eliminate it for millions of working families. As I’ve consistently stated, I believe health care is a human right and universal affordable coverage should be the principal goal of any health care reform efforts. To help reach this goal, I’ve called for expanding Medicare down to the age of 55, expanding children’s health insurance coverage, empowering Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, and allowing the public to buy into Medicare. I’m excited to see that Senator Sanders’s bill also calls for these same policy steps.

"I’m glad Democrats are having this long-needed and critically important conversation about how to increase health care coverage, so that nobody is denied health care or forced into bankruptcy because of a pre-existing condition or a lack of insurance. I wish that Republicans like Mimi Walters would also focus their health care reform efforts on trying to improve our health care system, rather than to rip away coverage from millions of Americans to pay for tax cuts for their billionaire benefactors. When I’m elected to Congress, I promise to defend the gains we’ve made with the Affordable Care Act, and to work to expand health care coverage to all Americans."

• Kia Hamadanchy: "I am thrilled that Senator Sanders has introduced a Medicare-for-all bill in the Senate and I strongly endorse it. Healthcare is a universal right and every single man, woman, and child in America deserves access to quality and affordable healthcare. No one in this country should ever go bankrupt or face financial ruin because they got sick. That is why I was the first candidate in California’s 45th Democratic Primary to come out in support of a single-payer or Medicare for all system of healthcare. It represents the best and most efficient way of meeting the healthcare needs of each and every American. This is the system that Americans need and deserve.

Bernie in his NY Times OpEd yesterday: "Even though 28 million Americans remain uninsured and even more are underinsured, we spend far more per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation. In 2015, the United States spent almost $10,000 per person for health care; the Canadians, Germans, French and British spent less than half of that, while guaranteeing health care to everyone. Further, these countries have higher life expectancy rates and lower infant mortality rates than we do.

"The reason that our health care system is so outrageously expensive is that it is not designed to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way, but to provide huge profits to the medical-industrial complex. Layers of bureaucracy associated with the administration of hundreds of individual and complicated insurance plans is stunningly wasteful, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars a year. As the only major country not to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, we spend tens of billions more than we should.

"The solution to this crisis is not hard to understand. A half-century ago, the United States established Medicare. Guaranteeing comprehensive health benefits to Americans over 65 has proved to be enormously successful, cost-effective and popular. Now is the time to expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans.

"This is not a radical idea. I live 50 miles south of the Canadian border. For decades, every man, woman and child in Canada has been guaranteed health care through a single-payer, publicly funded health care program. This system has not only improved the lives of the Canadian people but has also saved families and businesses an immense amount of money.

"...The transition to the Medicare for All program would take place over four years. In the first year, benefits to older people would be expanded to include dental care, vision coverage and hearing aids, and the eligibility age for Medicare would be lowered to 55. All children under the age of 18 would also be covered. In the second year, the eligibility age would be lowered to 45 and in the third year to 35. By the fourth year, every man, woman and child in the country would be covered by Medicare for All.

"Needless to say, there will be huge opposition to this legislation from the powerful special interests that profit from the current wasteful system. The insurance companies, the drug companies and Wall Street will undoubtedly devote a lot of money to lobbying, campaign contributions and television ads to defeat this proposal. But they are on the wrong side of history.

"Guaranteeing health care as a right is important to the American people not just from a moral and financial perspective; it also happens to be what the majority of the American people want. According to an April poll by The Economist/YouGov, 60 percent of the American people want to “expand Medicare to provide health insurance to every American,” including 75 percent of Democrats, 58 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans.

"Now is the time for Congress to stand with the American people and take on the special interests that dominate health care in the United States. Now is the time to extend Medicare to everyone."

Bernie has expanded his bill to incorporate Alan Grayson's proposal from 2 years ago to include vision, dental and hearing-- as well as prescription drugs.

Medicare-For-All? Not All Democratic Candidates In Orange County Back It

The jumpy video above is from a CA-45 (Orange County) Democratic Forum hosted by the Laguna Woods Democratic Club. Notice Brian Forde, an "ex"-Republican using Republican talking points about "access." Access means anyone can buy health insurance-- if you're rich enough to afford it. Forde may have switched his party affiliation a few weeks or hours or months ago and may be trying to appeal to low-info Democrats but... he's still just a Republican. Right after he spoke, Kia Hamadanchy, a former staffer for Sherrod Brown, talked. He gave the answer all Democrats should give to the question about Medicare-For-All. Notice he was interrupted with applause when he stated unequivocably that he's for single-payer-- no, ifs, ands or buts.

Next up was Dave Min, a former Chuck Schumer staffer, and he knows how to frame his arguments well without committing for Medicare-For-All. He was followed by Katie Porter, the person who worked on banking issues with Elizabeth Warren. Like Min, she knows how to talk about healthcare to Democratic audiencess without just coming out and saying "I am for Medicare-For-All," although she confirmed to us in writing today that she does back Medicare-For-All. 

When we did reach out to Porter and she got back to us with this definitive 2-sentence statement: "Mimi Walters’ whole-hearted support for Donald Trump’s plan to rip health care away from 24 million people is unconscionable, and defending health care is one of the top reasons I’m running for Congress. I believe health care is a fundamental right, and I support Medicare-for-All."

Min had a longer explanation in an e-mail to us:

I've talked with over 10,000 people in my district, and I can tell you that almost everyone-- Democrats, Republicans, Independents-- all agree on the basic policy outcomes we want.  We all want universal coverage at affordable prices-- and by that I mean true coverage, including preexisting conditions, and true affordability, including prescription drug prices and copayments.

But there's not clear consensus on how we get to this goal. Obviously many countries have had great success with single payer, and that may ultimately be where we should go. What I'm proposing in the near term (assuming we can first stop the Republican attacks on Medicaid and Medicare) is three steps that will bring us close to our goal of universal and affordable coverage: 1) open up Medicare as a public option for everyone to help address some of the problems with ACA (sometimes referred to as the "Medicare for all public option"); 2) expand Medicare down to those 55 and older; and 3) expand the Children's Health Insurance Program to help more children of working poor households. These measures are ones I believe we can implement immediately with a Democratic Congress, and they also create a strong bridge to a potential single payer system, if that's where we want to go.

On H.R. 676 specifically, I am not opposed but I'd like to see more details and independent analysis, including to make sure that transition to the single payer system envisioned under HR676 does not dilute existing Medicare-funded health care.

And Kia Hamadanchy was the most plain-spoken of all. No one can read what he said and walk away without a very clear idea of his support for Medicare-For-All. This is what he told us today: "Healthcare is a universal right.  We have a responsibility as a society to make sure that there is not a man, woman, or child in America that lacks access to healthcare and that no person in this country ever goes bankrupt just because they get sick. There is a simple way of doing this and it is single payer. That is why I unequivocally support Medicare-For-All and why I won't stop just just at cosponsoring the bill.  What I'll do is go to Washington DC and fight to get the job done and to do it the right way. Because we spend more then any other country in the world on our healthcare system and get terrible value for all that spending. Its time we put an end to that, enact single payer, and guarantee healthcare for every single American."

Martin Wisckol is covering all the Orange County races this cycle and he did a story for the Orange County Register yesterday on the candidates' stands on healthcare, not just CA-45, but all the Republican held districts in the county. He started with CA-39, Ed Royce's district-- and the one Hillary won with the biggest margin.

Buena Park’s Julio Castaneda, a longtime Democrat, went all-in for Bernie Sanders last year, working as a “super volunteer” in central Orange County. When Hillary Clinton prevailed in the primary, the 33-year-old defected to the Green Party and ended up voting for that party’s nominee, Jill Stein.

But he became disillusioned with the Greens too, concluding that they were not a viable option and changing his registration to independent, officially known in California these days as “No Party Preference.”

Then, on May 4, he launched his own longshot challenge of Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton.

“We need a real message,” said Castaneda, a business systems analyst working toward a degree in business administration at Fullerton College. “The Democrats’ message is only ‘Russia’ and ‘anti-Donald Trump.’ I want to have a very progressive message.”

When Castaneda got in the race, there was just one other challenger to Royce-- businessman and former chemistry professor Phil Janowicz, a Democrat who also supported Sanders. The field has since ballooned to seven, with millions of dollars already being bankrolled. Royce himself has $3.1 million in his campaign account. Democratic businessman Andy Thorburn has put $2 million of his own money behind his bid. Two other Democrats have raised a combined $400,000 and another, who won a $266 million lottery prize in 2010, displayed his willingness to spend money on campaigns in 2016 when he and his wife gave $150,000 to Hillary Clinton PACs.

Castaneda, meanwhile, has yet to meet the $5,000 fundraising threshold that triggers the federal financial filing requirement. He has largely adopted Sanders’ platform, emphasizing the need for single-payer “Medicare for all” healthcare, free public college tuition, a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, more incentives for renewable energy and stronger programs to address homelessness. He said he’s organizing a network of Sanders volunteers to work on his race.

“I know my odds of winning are astronomical. But I’m very motivated because I know the progressive movement needs a real voice for what the people want,” Castaneda said.

Voters look like they’ll have a broad range of alternatives to Royce, who remains favored to be reelected but is considered vulnerable because Republicans have less than a 2-percentage point advantage in the district, which reaches from Fullerton into Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, and because Clinton outpaced Donald Trump there last November.

Castaneda and Janowicz aren’t the only ones who backed Sanders. Navy vet Gil Cisneros, the lottery winner [and an "ex"-Republican and compulsive liar on a Trumpian level], says he did too, though he is listed by the Federal Elections Commission as giving $50,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund in the primary and none to Sanders. Another $100,000 went to Clinton PACs for the general election cycle.

Cisneros’ campaign says the primary money actually was spent by Cisneros’ wife, Jacki, although she doesn’t show up on the FEC site as a donor.

“It came from a joint bank account and perhaps the committee listed Gilbert Cisneros because of past political donations from them to other campaigns being generally listed under his name,” said campaign spokesman Andrew Childs. “Jacki supported Hillary Clinton in the primary. Gil had not made a decision on which candidate to support at that point, and he later decided to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary.”

"Ex"-Republican lottery winner is exactly what Pelosi's DCCC is all about

...Castaneda is hardly the only candidate in that race to support Medicare for all. Janowicz, Cisneros, Jammal and Thorburn back that approach, although all note that it will take time to make such a transition.

The only Royce challenger who doesn’t stake out unambiguous support is also the only medical doctor in the race, Tran.

“We need someone representing this district that will find the best ways to expand coverage, whether it’s Medicare for all or another solution,” she said in an email that went on to condemn Royce’s vote to repeal and replace Obamacare.

All of Orange County’s GOP House members voted for the replacement, which then died in the Senate. All oppose a Medicare-for-all plan, as do the two non-Democrats running against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa-- Libertarian Brandon Reiser and Republican Stelian Onufrei.

Of Rohrabacher’s seven Democratic challengers, Boyd Roberts, Harley Rouda, Laura Oatman, Tony Zarkades and Omar Siddiqui back a move to Medicare for all. Hans Keirstead, a pioneering stem-cell researcher, and Nestle executive Michael Kotick didn’t take firm positions on Medicare for all, instead emphasizing a more immediate need to improve Obamacare.

In the race against Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Beach, three of the six Democrats emailed unambiguous support for single-payer, Medicare for all: Kia Hamdanchy, Ron Varasteh and Eric Rywalski. Katie Porter initially emailed that she supported “the idea of making Medicare available to every American whether that’s through a public option or Medicare-for-all.” Asked to clarify whether that was support for “a single-payer, ‘Medicare for all’ type healthcare system,” the campaign responded, “Yes.”

Dave Min favors expanding Medicare to those 55 or older, and  allowing everyone to “have the option to buy into Medicare or some other public option at an affordable price,” according to campaign manager Paige Hutchinson. Min believes his position and Porter’s are similar, while Porter’s campaign says she’s more supportive of Medicare-for-all. If that’s left you scratching your head, try Brian Forde‘s statement:

“I believe health care is a human right and every American deserves equal access to high quality, affordable health care and I support the interests of those who advocate for ‘single-payer,'” emailed the technology entrepreneur.

All three Democrats challenging Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, favor Medicare for all.

We asked Sam Jammal to expand on Wisckol's assertion that he supports Medicare-For-All. He told us that "Medicare for All is the way forward. For starters, find me a senior who doesn't want or like their Medicare. That person does not exist. In business, you invest in what works and then scale it. Republicans like to say we should run government like a business, so why not actually act like someone in business would-- invest in what works and scale it.  his is what I learned as an executive. Somehow that gets lost when it comes to health care. As Democrats, we are the party of bold ideas and moving the country forward. We shouldn't shy away from solutions that work. It may take time to build towards Medicare for All, but we must be unequivocal about investing in what works and fight today to guarantee universal health care."

Does Expecting Candidates To Back Medicare-For-All Make You A "Purist?"

Kamala Harris-- just like Obama... but without any substance

Saturday afternoon we noted the new book coming out by Phillip Anderson, The Case Against Andrew Cuomo, with a post entitled Anybody But Cuomo? Well Almost Anybody. Certainly as silly a prospect as Cuomo is a very mediocre, former California Attorney General, careerist freshman senator, Kamala Harris. There's literally nothing-- unless gender and identity politics bullshit are all that matters-- that would recommend her for president. In a more politically competitive state than California she would never even have been elected to the Senate. Don't get me wrong, her voting record in the Senate is excellent (98.81), nearly as good as Elizabeth Warren's and Jeff Merkley's-- identical with other smart, ambitious corporatists like Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand as well as with Schumer's. It's even fractionally "better" than Bernie's (98.78)! But in terms of leadership and accomplishments... we have a ways to go, to put it very, very mildly.

A couple of months ago, Evan Halper was covering her for the L.A. Times and she was barking about "progressive purists." Harris is a total light-weight and, tragically for California, destined to be a pointless backbencher. I'm sure she'll continue voting well most of the time and that she'll mouth the "right" talking points on most policy issues, although I'd watch her down the road when her donors' interests clash with her constituents' interests. Meanwhile, last week, Jimmy Carter came out forcefully for single payer healthcare. As John Nichols noted for The Nation, he was certainly not a progressive president but this month came to the conclusion that Medicare-for-All is the path forward for the Democratic Party and for America.

Democrats remain divided on the question of whether to go all-in for “Medicare for All”-- as Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines attempted to highlight this week by proposing an insincere amendment backing a version of single payer. Daines, a right-wing provocateur, is not a supporter of real reform; he simply wanted to get progressive Democrats and their more moderate colleagues wrangling with one another over health-care reform. His move was foiled by supporters of single payer, led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who refused to play Daines’s game. “The Democratic caucus will not participate in the Republicans’ sham process. No amendment will get a vote until we see the final legislation and know what bill we are amending,” explained a text from Sanders aide Josh Miller-Lewis. “Once Republicans show us their final bill, Sen. Sanders looks forward to getting a vote on his amendment that makes clear the Senate believes that the United States must join every major country and guarantee health care as a right, not a privilege.”

While they are united in rejecting Republican chicanery, however, Democrats have yet to get on the same page with regard to single payer-- a fact frequently noted by RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of the 175,000-member National Nurses United union, and others who have grown frustrated with the party’s failure to embrace the “Medicare for All” option.

Democrats should listen to Carter, as they should to the great mass of Americans who have made it clear that they want to maintain the access to health care that came with the Affordable Care Act and extend that access with an absolute guarantees of health care as a human right. That old argument for single payer, in combination for the new realities of scorching income inequality and an increasingly unstable gig economy, has made Carter and others recognize that the reform that was once morally necessary is now becoming an economic and social inevitability.

...The June Kaiser Health Tracking poll found that a majority of Americans (53 percent) now favor a single-payer health plan, while just 43 percent oppose such a plan. What’s especially notable is that not just progressive Democrats but independents are turning toward a “Medicare for All” system. “Not surprisingly,” note the Kaiser analysts,

There are partisan divisions in how the public feels about single-payer health care, with a majority of Democrats (64 percent) and just over half independents (55 percent) in favor and a majority of Republicans (67 percent) opposed. However, the recent increase in support for single-payer has largely been driven by an increase among independents. Among this group, on average in 2008-2009, 42 percent said they would favor a single-payer plan, a share that has increased to a majority (55 percent) in the most recent tracking poll.

The Pew Research Center notes that support for the argument that government has a responsibility to provide health-care coverage is especially pronounced among young people under the age of 20-- precisely the potential voters that Democrats will need to motivate in 2018 and in 2020.

...Democrats need to make their support for expansion clear. Yes, they must fight now to stop the Republican assault on the Affordable Care Act. But just saying “no” to Donald Trump and Paul Ryan is an insufficient response to the challenges that now exist and to the challenges that will take shape in the future. As Congressman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who has sponsored H.R. 676, the Expanded And Improved Medicare for All Act, says:

Establishing a non-profit universal single-payer health care system would be the best way to effectively contain health care costs and provide quality care for all Americans. It is time for Members of Congress, health policy scholars, economists, and the medical community to begin a serious discussion of the merits of a universal single-payer health care system.

In other words: It is time to listen to Jimmy Carter’s wise counsel.

Instead, the DCCC is doing exactly the opposite. As we mentioned over the weekend, although most of the Democrats in Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of John Conyers' Medicare-For-All bill, nearly the entire leadership of Pelosi's DCCC refuses to do so. And what's worse-- much worse-- is that they are recruiting and favoring, sometimes overtly, sometimes more subtly, candidates who oppose, or at least refuse to support, Medicare-For-All.

Take CA-39 for example. The DCCC has recruited a so-called "ex"-Republican lottery winner, Gil Cisneros, with nothing going for him aside from the eagerness to spend a fortune on buying the seat and purchasing endorsements from incumbents. At a candidates forum at Fullerton College last Wednesday (July 26), he and the progressive in the race, Sam Jammal-- who you can contribute to here-- were asked if they support Medicare-For-All. The lottery winner appeared to not understand the issue and refused to take a position, which is what the DCCC and their consultants urge their candidates to do. Sam has pledged to work for Medicare-For-All and to sign on as a co-sponsor as soon as he gets into Congress, just the way Jimmy Gomez did last week after he got sworn in after running against a centrist "ex"-Republican. Medicare-For-All is one of the top issues motivating Sam's entire run for office. He knows the issue inside and out, which was clear to the voters in Fullerton who were so shocked by Cisneros' inability to articulate a cohesive message on something that important to voters.

Min and mentor

In another Orange County district, CA-45, there are several Democrats forcefully backing Medicare-for-All, like Kia Hamadanchy. Yesterday he told us that "Healthcare is a universal right and no American should ever go bankrupt because they lack health insurance. Single payer is the best way of ensuring that every single person in this country has the access to healthcare that they deserve. And that means Medicare for All is something I'm going fight fiercely for when I get to Congress." That's the attitude voters want to hear. But a former Schumer staffer, Dave Min, is running-- awkwardly-- as a centrist who thinks, inexplicably, he's entitled to progressive support. He's not as thick as the lottery winner and he's likely to mouth some pablum somewhere along the line that can be interpreted, in a stretch, as support for single-payer but he hasn't felt the pressure to do so yet and if he does say it, he'll be as sincere about it as the nervous Blue Dog and New Dem incumbents who can read the writing on the wall and are starting to sign on as co-sponsors now.

Virtually the entire top echelon of the DCCC is at the core of right-of-center Democrats refusing to back Medicare-for-All... and they're working furiously to recruit and support more candidates like themselves. The worst of the worst, aside from Pelosi and Hoyer who enable this:

• DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján (NM)
• Recruitment chair Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)
• Frontline chair Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Finance Co-chair Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Finance Co-chair Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
• Heartland Engagement Chair Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
• Partners and Allies Council Co-chair Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)
• Partners and Allies Council Co-chair Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
• Partners and Allies Council Co-chair Joaquin Castro (New Dem-TX)
• Women Lead co-chair Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
• Women Lead co-chair Lois Frankel (FL)