On Paper, A Threat To Moneyed Interests, But...

-by Brad Johnson
@ClimateBrad

A thought in response to David Dayen's response to a Pramila Jayapal interview, in which Rep. Jayapal-- the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a top endorser of Bernie Sanders for president-- told Ezra Klein that Democrats "are not getting rolled at all" on the coronavirus stimulus bills.

That is, quite frankly, either delusional or a bald lie, and offensive to the millions of American now in deadly peril from the Great Trump Depression while the 0.0001% has been given literal trillions of dollars.

Dayen is "tiring of what amounts to a bunch of excuses for how progressives have been functionally locked out of policymaking during this crisis," noting that House Speaker "Nancy Pelosi has run the House of Representatives by fiat for close to two months, and there hasn’t been a single word of protest as she locks every other member of the Democratic caucus out of policymaking and hands them take-it-or-leave-it legislation to rubber stamp."

Dayen continues: "[I]nstead of organizing around one thing, progressives supply 100-item wish lists that everyone knows won’t be fulfilled. This has two consequences: the wish lists show progressives are not completely serious about governing, and the leadership can always pick like 2 of the 100 out of the list and give members something to justify voting for a bad bill."

So how is that progressive Democrats in Congress can be so feckless? Here's one thought I had a while ago that may be applicable.

When the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms, I began following the Hill proceedings obsessively, trying to understand the process by which they debated and developed policy on climate change.

I noticed a strange pattern: the Democrats in Congress with effective communications and policy coordination were corruptly aligned with business interests and the principled Democrats were strangely incompetent, seemingly unable to coordinate or align with activists or the news cycle, and poor at the game of politics.

It took me a while to understand that this divide was a natural result of the institutional pressures. There are many competent, progressive Democrats out there. But if they somehow manage to get elected (the first major hurdle), they are under a total barrage. They are a threat to moneyed interests-- as well as to other Democrats, who they make look "bad" (they make it obvious that the corrupt Democrats are corrupt and that the incompetent Democrats are incompetent). Their enemies-- i.e., most of Washington-- will spend whatever it takes to defeat, subvert, or overwhelm them. It's that institutional response which makes many good Democrats one-termers or disappointments or fatalistic back-benchers.

One interesting corollary is that this phenomenon isn't simply true of individuals-- it was issue-specific. That is, many of the Democrats were progressive champions on practically every issue except for the one for which they hold a position of power. I remember, for example, that Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank was far left except on finance and banking-- not coincidentally, he was chair of the House Financial Services committee.

And all of the institutional pressures have gotten radically worse in the past 14 years.

So what is to be done? The situation can be one that leads to despair, but I also think it helps to be understanding of how crushingly difficult it is to be an effective progressive legislator in Congress, and why the only possible answer is for greater engagement in the political process from those of us who support the common good-- and a continued commitment to solidarity, despite the drumbeat of disappointment.

71 Pro-Labor Candidates Just Filed to Run in West Virginia…Together

At the very end of last year, reporting for the American Prospect, David Dayen explained why he thinks the West Virginia gubernatorial election is the most important race in the country, with "implications that endure the farthest into the future." Dayen wrote that the election "just might inaugurate a new kind of people-centered politics in the heart of what’s assumed to be Trump country... Smith’s bet, that building a people’s movement will generate a deeper well of support to take back West Virginia from a corrupt political structure, would be transformational. It would deliver a roadmap for how to organize in rural towns thought to be lost to the right wing forever. It would identify how to bring in infrequent voters who have given up on politics. It would lay out how to break a corrupt establishment and return government to its people, on principles that bring people together rather than driving them apart. If this can work, it opens up an entirely new style of politics, one rooted in something so simple it’s absurd that it seems so novel: respecting the wishes and needs of the electorate. 'My whole life, I’ve been told that voters are the problem, they vote against their own interests,' Smith says. 'We believe the opposite. Voters are the answer to the problem, not the problem themselves. We think the people closest to the problem should solve it.'"

In 2019 we endorsed Stephen Smith for governor of West Virginia and introduced you to the West Virginia Can't Wait movement. That movement has almost morphed into a political party now, replacing the moribund state Democratic Party, which is little more than a political machine for Joe Manchin. "This has never happened before in our nation," Stephen told me a couple of days ago, "let alone in a place like West Virginia. The wealthy Good Old Boys hate it. But there aren’t nearly enough of them to stop us if we join together and demand what West Virginia has never had before: government by and for our people, not just the powerful."

I asked Stephen to expand those sentiments into a guest post. Please read it-- and if you like what he has to say, consider contributing to his campaign by clicking on the 2020 Blue America gubernatorial thermometer above. David Dayen is right about how important this race really could be for the whole country.

Guest Post
-by Stephen Smith

Two years ago, West Virginia educators sparked a nationwide strike movement. Now, the state’s working class is leading the nation again. On Saturday, a coalition called West Virginia Can’t Wait gathered more than 200 supporters outside the state House chambers to announce that 71 candidates.

Candidates include 11 teachers and school service personnel, like Brittney Barlett (an English teacher running for Delegate in Lewis County) and Johnny Nick Hager (a school bus driver running for Mingo County Commission). Tina Russell is a Black social worker who’s running against an incumbent who suggested that if he discovered his children were gay, he would drown them. Rosemary Ketchum is running a vibrant grassroots campaign for Wheeling City Council; when she wins, she will become the first openly transgender person to hold elected office in West Virginia. The vast majority of candidates are running for the first time.

In a state where less than 20 percent of the legislature are women, less than 10 percent are working class, and less than 5 percent are people of color, the West Virginia Can’t Wait candidates represent the state across race, county, gender, and class lines. And every one of them has signed a pledge, which was read on Saturday at the Capitol by Congressional candidate Cathy Kunkel: “I promise not to take corporate cash… I promise never to cross a picket line… I promise never to hide from a debate… I promise never to punch down.”

Dozens of the WV Can’t Wait candidates filed for office at the Capitol, posing for photos with friends and family who never could have imagined being in this spot. “I’ve never been to the Capitol. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. But I knew I needed to fight for a state where my kid could grow up and make a living,” said veteran David Childers, a first-time candidate for the state senate in the rural 14th district.

Candidates also delivered their “People’s State of the State” address, unveiling the WV Can’t Wait policy platform which had been crowd-sourced during 156 Town Halls. 47 “Platform Parties” and more than 11,000 face-to-face conversations with voters. It includes the first state-level Wealth Tax in the nation, a massive shift from corporate tax giveaways to local businesses and entrepreneurship, full cannabis legalization, aggressive caps on drug prices, public financing of elections, and more-- 32 plans in all, which are being rolled out at wvcantwait.com.

Delegate Danielle Walker, from the 51st House District, was one of 8 candidates who delivered part of the People’s State of the State.

“We will choose the side of miners, by granting a state Black Lung Pension Fund and a jobs guarantee. We will choose the side of women, and advance the nation’s most ambitious guarantee of child care, health care, education, reproductive rights, and economic opportunity. We will choose the side of Black and Brown people, and pass the nation’s most ambitious plan to end mass incarceration and attack the racial discrimination that persists in education, hiring, and health care. We will choose the side of the LGBTQ+ community, and pass the nation’s strongest EHNDA laws, ban conversion therapy, and recognize the dignity of every human being. We will choose the side of homeless people, fighting for a homes guarantee. We will choose the side of veterans by guaranteeing not only higher education and job opportunities, but also our country’s most ambitious mental health care plan, a veterans nursing home in Beckley, and a tax credit for those who have served. And we will choose the side of people with disabilities, by clearing the IDD/Waiver waiting list, ending discrimination in pay and transportation, implementing the Olmstead Act, and growing a disability jobs program.” (View other detailed plans on small business, wages, the overdose crisis, and more at wvcantwait.com.)

The WV Can’t Wait strategy is having some early successes. In addition to recruiting and training 71 candidates and defining many of the key issues in the race, many of those candidates are getting early traction. In my own race, we have an early lead in the polls and we have outraised every other candidate in the race-- on both sides of the aisle! Our campaign has more than doubled the previous record for small dollar donations in a West Virginia governor’s race.

Movements are not led by candidates… those people get the most credit. But they are not the ones who sacrifice the most or work the hardest. The most crucial leaders in any movement are the people who do the most work for the least recognition. These people come from every walk of life, but they tend to be mostly women, mostly working class, mostly young people. These people sacrifice what’s most precious to them-- money, security, time with their families-- because they believe in something bigger than any one of us. Our movement is no different. This is the first union campaign staff in West Virginia history.

West Virginia’s primary is May 12th. Follow the West Virginia Can’t Wait movement at facebook.com/wvcantwait.

Why It's Important Not To Nominate Someone Without Vision Like Status Quo Joe Or Mayo Pete

On Monday, American Prospect editor David Dayen conjured up his magazine's readers the idea of the next administration using presidential power for good in The Day One Agenda. He pointed out that Obama disappointed a great many progressives by "failing to live up to his lofty rhetoric" and noting that "a strain of liberal thought defended him by insisting that presidents just weren’t that powerful. Political scientist Brendan Nyhan mocked the mindset of the uninitiated by calling it the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency, after the DC Comics hero who possessed a ring that gave him near-total power, bound only by his imagination and will. To Nyhan, partisans hold the misguided notion that a president 'can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.' In reality, he argued, a strong legislature, a Supreme Court that can overturn laws, and the dynamics of a polarized age make policy accomplishments a difficult climb." And he announced that the magazine "has assembled a team of journalists and subject matter experts to identify numerous core areas where executive authority is available and warranted in the hope that this will serve as a guide for how change can happen starting in 2021, regardless of who runs Congress." They also "asked the 2020 presidential candidates whether they would commit to any or all of the 30 executive power actions The Prospect had come up with-- like overhauling the business of Wall Street, cancelling student debt, legalizing marijuana and unleashing the existing anti-monopoly arsenal. Have you noted that none of this has anything at all to do with the current front-runner and virtually all of it comes from Bernie's vision for our country?

Theoretically speaking, this is all correct. A president has a thicket of checks and balances to maneuver through. But America has also been passing laws for over 232 years, and buried in the U.S. Code are the raw materials for fundamental change. It doesn’t take Green Lantern’s ring to unearth these possibilities, just a president willing to use the laws already passed to their fullest potential.

The Prospect has identified 30 meaningful executive actions, all derived from authority in specific statutes, which could be implemented on Day One by a new president. These would not be executive orders, much less abuses of authority, but strategic exercise of legitimate presidential power.

Without signing a single new law, the next president can lower prescription drug prices, cancel student debt, break up the big banks, give everybody who wants one a bank account, counteract the dominance of monopoly power, protect farmers from price discrimination and unfair dealing, force divestment from fossil fuel projects, close a slew of tax loopholes, hold crooked CEOs accountable, mandate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, allow the effective legalization of marijuana, make it easier for 800,000 workers to join a union, and much, much more. We have compiled a series of essays to explain precisely how, and under what authority, the next president can accomplish all this.

The need for a Day One agenda is particularly acute as we head into 2020. I keep sensing an undercurrent of despair when talking to liberal partisans about the election, a sigh that beating Trump is not enough but all that can be done. Yes, Democrats are only an even-money shot, at best, to flip the Senate. And yes, even if they succeed, Mitch “Grim Reaper” McConnell can obstruct the majority with the filibuster, and it would not be up to the next president, but the 50th senator ideologically, someone like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, to agree to change the Senate rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for legislation. (There’s always budget reconciliation, but that limited path goes through the same conservaDems.)

But this reality does not have to inspire progressive anguish. Anyone telling you that a Democratic victory next November would merely signal four years of endless gridlock hasn’t thought about the possibilities laid out in this issue. And if you doubt the opportunity for strong executive action, let me direct your attention to Donald Trump.

...Few of Trump’s ideas have been good policy, from a progressive perspective. Some, like the invocation of emergency powers, are a common tool of despots which never turns out well even when used by small-d democrats, from Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus to Roosevelt’s Japanese internment camps.

...As Trump has repeatedly shown, in entire issue areas like foreign policy and immigration and global trade, the next president would have expansive authority, all granted by a plain reading of the Constitution, specific congressional statute, or the legislative branch’s studied deference. Who the next president chooses for the Federal Reserve Board will define the course of economic policy.

Presidents can make regulatory decisions like who qualifies for overtime pay. They can decide who serves as a worker’s employer, a critical determination for collective bargaining. They can choose whether corporations should still enjoy a “safe harbor” to facilitate stock buybacks that enrich investors at the expense of workers. They can’t bring forth Medicare for All, but they can use Section 1332 waivers from the Affordable Care Act to enable single-payer programs at the state level, and potentially use nearly $1 billion from the ACA’s Prevention and Public Health Fund to defray startup costs.

Once you start thinking about the possibilities, it’s hard to stop. Statutory language is sometimes clear and sometimes muddled, but regulatory discretion is almost always broad. What a president chooses to emphasize, and how much the letter of the law can be bent to their preferences, makes a huge difference.

Executive orders are a poor substitute for the authorities already existing in statutory language. It’s nice that Democratic primary candidates have been talking about executive orders, such as Kamala Harris’s proposed actions to mitigate gun violence, or Beto O’Rourke’s ideas on immigration. Some executive orders will make a huge difference in people’s lives, like Harris’s, Amy Klobuchar’s, and Cory Booker’s plans for clemency boards and mass commutations for low-level federal drug offenders. (Joe Biden’s plan along these lines, predictably, is far narrower.)

But there’s no substitute for authority from Congress. And in a surprising number of cases, presidents already have it. They don’t have to rummage for a few votes for financial reform; the architecture of existing law allows them to reform already. They don’t have to muster courage from swing-seat representatives to fight big corporations and tax the rich; the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS can get us there.

Public momentum can keep these rules in place, as advances for the American people tend to stick around. For instance, when you cancel publicly held student debt, as the education secretary has the authority to do under the “compromise and settlement” provision of the Higher Education Act, it’s difficult to un-cancel it. When you license out excessively priced prescription drugs to generic competitors, as the government can do under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 or Section 1498 of the federal code, it’ll be difficult to un-license it, and shoot drug prices back up again.

And aggressive executive action can spur legislative action. Congress doesn’t particularly like governing, but they hate being circumvented. Presidents making known their intentions to use existing statutes to solve problems can lead to lawmakers finally getting around to it themselves.

How about the electoral college? Is there any sane reason to keep that? Any reason at all? Can soneone get rid of that on day one?

Biden And His Lobbyist Coterie Will Fight Hard To Deny Americans Medicare-For-All

News from Bernie or from Elizabeth Warren almost always involves policy initiatives. News from the two top-ranked conservatives almost never does. It's either some rote attack on Trump or something about money. Yesterday, CNN ran a typical piece about how Biden gets most of the super-rich Democrats but how McKinsey Pete is the second choice in these circles-- for when Biden self-destructs. Status Quo Joe "drew dozens of Barack Obama's fundraisers to his presidential bid during the April-to-June fundraising quarter, but his rivals-- led by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg-- also are capturing some of those elite bundlers... At least 40 top fundraisers to Obama's 2012 reelection effort donated to Buttigieg's campaign during the three-month period, helping to catapult the once little-known mayor to the top financial tier. Buttigieg raised nearly $25 million during the second quarter, outpacing Biden and all his other competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination. In interviews this week, several Obama bundlers said the 37-year-old Buttigieg has energized a wide range of political donors." Energizing that crowd means saying this-- in private usually-- like what Biden accidentally said in public: "I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money. The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change."

You're not going to hear that from Bernie. That's essential, unadulterated Status Quo Joe Biden. Last week Alex Kotch reported for Sludge that Biden's not going to take up Bernie's challenge to reject bribes from PhRMA and the insurance industry. As Bernie said, "If we are going to break the stranglehold of corporate interests over the health care needs of the American people, we have got to confront a Washington culture that is corrupt-- that puts profits ahead of the needs of the American people."

If Biden were to sign on to Bernie’s pledge, he’d need to turn off the spigot of health industry executive donations that are flowing into his campaign. According to a Sludge review of Biden’s second-quarter campaign finance report, at least 15 top executives of pharmaceutical and health insurance companies made large donations to the campaign.

These include maximum donations of $2,800 from Dan Hilferty, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield (and another $2,800 from his wife, Joan); Donald Giancursio, CEO of insurer UnitedHealth Group’s operations in Idaho, Nevada, and Utah; Daniel Tropeano, CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s Delaware and Pennsylvania branches; and Brant Binder, a director and founder of Psy Therapeutics. Robert Fallon, CEO of Phosplatin Therapeutics, gave the Biden campaign $4,350, which includes $1,550 for the general election if Biden wins the primary.

In his Washington speech, Sanders suggested that presidential candidates who might refuse to return contributions like these should explain why pharma and insurance CEOs think their donations are “good investments.”

Much of Biden's family make their livings as slime-bag lobbyists, trading on his name. And the bribes work. Kotch wrote that in "In January 2018, the Center for Responsive Politics found that the more campaign cash that members of Congress received from drug and health insurance company PACs, the less likely they would be to support single-payer legislation. Pharmaceutical and health insurance companies also make big donations to outside groups such as the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future that spend money to advance the industry’s interests."

Any Democrat who endorses Biden is endorsing a candidate who will sabotage any movement towards Medicare-for-All. Watch that as the establishment starts cracking the whip for him. No one is surprised that one early endorser is healthcare lobbyist, disgraced former Senator Tom Daschle. Among current congress members are conservatives like Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA), who also voted against ObamaCare, Lisa Blunt Rochester (New Dem-DE), Al Lawson (New Dem-FL), Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX), Don McEachin (New Dem-VA)... all anti-Medicare conservatives.

Meanwhile, here's who the Obama bundlers gave to, basically all the conservatives, none to the progressives:

Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are on the top of every chart-- except the one about who the rich people gave their money to. A lot of that is because of Medicare-For-All. Bernie is running because of it and he'll fight for. Biden will fight too-- to stop it. His former chief of staff, now campaign chairman, Steve Ricchetti, is a greasy, crooked lobbyist for the Sickness Industry. It doesn't matter if you look among Republicans or Democrats, you're not going to find anyone more likely to oppose Medicare-for-All than Ricchetti, the advisor Biden depends on most. Last week, writing for the American Prospect, David Dayen reported that "Ricchetti founded and ran his own lobbying firm with his brother. He personally represented drugmakers Novartis, Eli Lilly and Sanofi (the latter two are among the three major insulin manufacturers), as well as health IT company NaviMedix (now NaviNet) and the American Hospital Association. The hospital lobby, as well as pharmaceutical companies, have been primary opponents of Medicare for All. The Ricchetti firm continues to operate, with Ricchetti’s brother actively lobbying for clients, including in the health-care space."

A report in the Philadelphia Inquirer last month highlighted a June 11 lunch reception with Jill Biden, the former vice president’s wife, at the venerable Acorn Club in Center City Philadelphia. Attendees shelled out at least $500 a pop, “with a $5,000 price tag for those interested in a private briefing with Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti,” the Inquirer wrote. The paper sourced this selling of access to an email from Comcast senior executive vice president David L. Cohen, who offered up his home for a high-dollar Biden fundraiser on his first day as a candidate.

...Ricchetti, a Cleveland native, is a quintessential figure in the turn-of-the-century Democratic Party. His private-sector career led to him running the political department for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association from 1987 to 1989. He rotated onto the other side of politics as the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 1990 to 1992, and then joined the Clinton administration.

He was the chief liaison between the White House and the Senate in Clinton’s first term, helping to pass the Clinton budget and the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which facilitated numerous corporate takeovers of Big Media.

In 1996, the revolving door spun again and Ricchetti served as a corporate lobbyist at Public Strategies Washington. In 1998, Steven and his brother Jeff (who followed in Steve’s footsteps as the top lobbyist for Blue Cross and Blue Shield), opened a lobbying firm that they later sold to the high-powered Podesta Group, then known as podesta.com. At the time, John Podesta was White House chief of staff, and his brother Tony Podesta was a top lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, or PhRMA. Jeff Ricchetti went to work for Tony Podesta; Steve went back to the White House to work for John.

...After the Clintons left the White House, Ricchetti fully cashed out, building Ricchetti Inc. with his brother. Armed with a long rolodex, the brothers grabbed a large slice of corporate America as clients, including AT&T, General Motors, defense contractor United Technologies, the American Council of Life Insurers, and the American Bankers Association. But health care was always a large part of the business, with multiple drug companies, insurance associations, and hospital trade groups signing on.

The Podesta ties also continued; until 2012, Ricchetti was on the board of the Center for American Progress, which John Podesta founded in 2003.

Ricchetti Inc. is still going strong. Jeff Ricchetti has lobbied the Senate this year for clients like pharmaceutical company Eisai, patent-buying firm Intellectual Ventures Inc., and the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting.

Steve Ricchetti worked for Hillary Clinton on the 2008 campaign, bundling donations as a “Hillraiser.” The Obama campaign attacked him for obtaining a special earmark from Clinton when she served the Senate on behalf of General Motors. But Ricchetti reportedly got crosswise with Clintonworld when he brought up the issue of Bill’s extra-marital affairs during an internal meeting. When Clinton lost, Ricchetti tried to find a way in with Obama. He tried to get a job in the White House and then with then-CIA director Leon Panetta before landing with Biden as a counselor to the vice president. In 2013, Ricchetti replaced Bruce Reed as Biden’s chief of staff.

The Obama administration had put in place ethics laws barring lobbyists from joining until they had spent at least two years off K Street. Ricchetti de-registered as a lobbyist at the end of 2008 to get around those rules. But he still “advised clients on public policy, communications strategy and grass-roots efforts,” as Biden’s office acknowledged at the time. This is an old trick, to de-register as a lobbyist while still performing all of the functions of lobbying as an unregistered “adviser.” In 2011, Richetti earned $1.8 million from his lobbying firm, despite not technically being a lobbyist. He listed on a disclosure form working for twenty different corporate clients that year.

Ricchetti was the driving force behind Biden’s potential presidential run in 2016. He ran meetings and hit up donors in advance of that eventually curtailed campaign. When Biden left office, Ricchetti signed on as managing director for the Penn Biden Center, where several expats from Bidenworld landed.

As the 2020 talk ramped up, Ricchetti was at the center of it. He was referenced by the Associated Press in an early deliberation in February about a presidential run. In March, the New York Times reported that Ricchetti, labeled a “strategist,” was calling around to “would-be candidates and their aides to signal that the former vice president is likely to enter the race.” In April, The Intercept noted that Ricchetti was coordinating the presidential campaign.

Biden’s health-care plan would increase Affordable Care Act subsidies and move millions eligible for expanded Medicaid into a government-run public option. In recent days, Biden has made defending Obamacare, from the right and left, the tentpole of his campaign, calling Medicare for All a “totally risky” plan that would unravel hard-fought gains.

Health-care changes that fall short of Medicare for All would benefit the hospital industry in particular, giving them a large share of patients paying private rates. That would benefit the American Hospital Association, one of Ricchetti’s former clients. The AHA is a member of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, the main coalition opposing single payer. Another coalition partner of the anti-single payer lobby is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, whose members include Novartis, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi, all former Ricchetti clients.

Biden has his hands full with Kamala and the who conservatives auditioning for his cabinet, are the ones who have been most vocal about attacking Bernie... ineffectively. Delaney and Frackenlooper-- both polling at under 1%-- have kept up a barrage of attacks against Bernie and his policies, especially Medicare-For-All, Yet Bernie is the most admired candidate running and Frackenlooper and Delaney are among the most disliked. Americans are way ahead of Biden and his crowd on this-- even Republicans:

Cows Don't Fart-- They Belch... And Why Status Quo Joe Isn't a Credible Standard-Bearer For The Democratic Party

Bill McKibben, the country's foremost green energy expert and activist, wrote that Biden "is too stuck in the past to be a credible standard-bearer for the Democratic party." He doesn't understand anything about the climate crisis and thinks the solution is fracking. Like everyone concerned about climate policy, McKibben's internal alarm system went off Friday when Biden's brain trust said they're looking for a "middle ground" on climate. That's identical to what mainstream Republicans say-- and it doesn't exist. Biden likes fracking and nuclear energy and "a return to the all-of-the-above energy strategy that marked the Obama years, and a terrible idea." Biden is now trying to back-peddle and dishonestly blaming the story on a Reuters reporter.

As is now entirely clear, increasing fracking increases the flow of methane to the atmosphere, and since methane is a potent greenhouse gas it drives up the rate of global warming. In the early days of the Obama years, when we knew far less about the chemistry of methane, it was a perhaps-defensible plan; in 2019 it’s embarrassing, the equivalent of idling your muscle car outside the Earth Day picnic. There is no “middle ground” on climate change-- there’s only meeting the demands of physics and chemistry (and justice), or watching the temperature soar.

A few hours after the story, as environmental activists (and primary opponents) tweeted their dismay, the Biden team seemed to blush. Biden’s energy advisor Heather Zichal said that the Reuters reports were wrong, and that instead he planned to “enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way.” But the fact that it was Zichal making the statement essentially confirmed the accuracy of the original story: in the early Obama years, she’d headed up an interagency working group to promote the development of domestic natural gas.

The working group had been formed after pressure from the American Petroleum Institute, the chief fossil-fuel lobbying group, and Zichal, in a talk to an API gathering, said: “It’s hard to overstate how natural gas—and our ability to access more of it than ever—has become a game changer.” Zichal left her White House job in 2013; one year later, she took a gig on the board of Cheniere Energy, a leading exporter of fracked gas, which has earned her over a million dollars.

And Zichal said Biden was also turning for advice to former energy secretary Ernest Moniz, who oversaw the rise of the United States to its position as the biggest oil and gas producer on the planet and continues to recommend natural gas development, and Frank Verrastro, co-author of a report on fracking that found no “unmanageable risk that would require widespread reconsideration of current recommended practices.” In short, he’s relying on people deeply attached to the status quo. [Note: We don't call him Status Quo Joe for nothing.]

The timing of the gaffe couldn’t have been more stunning—it came just 72 hours after the UN released a report pointing out that climate change would help wipe out a million species in the decades ahead. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo later that day lauded the rapid melt of the Arctic, saying it would increase access to gold and diamonds, not to mention make it easier to ship junk from China. You couldn’t have asked for a much better opportunity to draw a contrast, not search for a “middle ground.”

As recently as 2016, climate was seen as a losing issue. It was a distant problem, with unclear consequences, that would require huge sacrifices to solve. But then California caught fire, Puerto Rico got ravaged by a hurricane, and people woke up to the fact that this was clear and present danger. The IPCC report hammered home the threat. And with ideas like the Green New Deal gaining prominence, people have understood that solving the problem won’t require sacrifice as much as it will create opportunity. Why would we stay in the “middle of the road” when the left lane promises solutions that will not only help the climate, but also our economy, public health, and national security?

But Biden’s team apparently is fixated on the relatively small number of workers in the building trades unions who want to keep on constructing natural gas pipelines (and perhaps, since he hasn’t signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, on big donors from the hydrocarbon sector). This is old-school thinking at its best: throw young voters, overwhelmingly fixated on climate change, under the dirty diesel bus in an effort to win a narrowing pool of union leaders, who gathered in the Oval Office with Trump to celebrate in the early days of his presidency.

Obviously Biden will be better than Trump on this (and every other) issue; obviously everyone who cares about the earth should support him if he’s the nominee. (That paramount need is why I’ve been running the #DemUnityTwitterProject these past weeks). And he’s got time to turn his policies around—I remember when he gave a wink and a nod support to those fighting the Keystone pipeline, well in advance of Obama’s eventual veto of the project. His credibility with union workers is understandably high, which is why he would be the perfect person to push for large-scale retraining programs for clean energy jobs.

But for now Biden has done precisely the thing you’d think he’d be trying his hardest to avoid: showing that he’s stuck in the dirty energy past. If he’s going to mount a serious challenge to Trump, he’s going to need the huge number of Americans for whom climate change has become the issue. On the biggest issue our civilization’s ever faced, we need him thinking like it’s 2030, not 2010.

Clearly, Biden is better than Trump on... everything, as is every other Democrat running for the nomination. That bar is way too low, way too low. Besides, almost any of them can beat Trump, according to just-released Emerson polling. A few days earlier, Intercept reporter David Dayen, noted that despite Biden's bullshit claim that he doesn't support the Green New Deal because he loves unions-- Joe Biden's Union Schtick Is All Performance. His Pollster Just Signed Up To Lobby Against Labor For Trump's NAFTA 2.0. That would be John Anzalone, the head of the Blue Dog polling firm, Anzalone Liszt. Anzalone, wrote Dayen, "is joining Trade Works for America, an organization co-founded by Marc Short, who is now Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff. Funding for the group, which expects to spend $15 million to $20 million, comes from 'the pharmaceutical industry, oil and gas, the automotive and agricultural sectors, and traditional GOP donors.'"

Trade Works has bipartisan co-chairs: former Republican Governors Association Executive Director Phil Cox, and former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat. Last year, when she was in office, Heitkamp declared NAFTA 2.0, which Trump has termed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "disappointing"... Unions share Heitkamp’s prior assessment. The AFL-CIO formally announced opposition to USMCA in its current form in March. “The NAFTA renegotiation requires strong labor rights provisions and strong enforcement provisions that as of today are not yet in the agreement,” their statement read. The agreement also locks in protections for certain pharmaceuticals, which progressives have loudly opposed.

Biden has sought to position himself as a union stalwart, kicking off his campaign at a Teamsters local and winning the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. But he also had his first fundraiser hosted by a union-busting lawyer, and this week he held another fundraiser in Los Angeles at the home of a board member of Kaiser Permanente, the hospital chain currently mired in a labor dispute with the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Health care workers picketed the Biden fundraiser on Wednesday. Now, his pollster has joined an organization dedicated to passing a trade agreement labor unions are against.

Biden has also set himself up almost entirely in opposition to Trump, while his pollster pushes to get Trump a win on trade policy, a signature issue for the president.

Owen E. Herrnstadt of the International Association of Machinists has laid out labor’s opposition to USMCA: There is no funding for enforcement or monitoring in the agreement. The labor standards are framed as “principles” rather than actual rights, and fields not involving trade or investment don’t have to abide by them. Also, workers cannot get employers who violate the agreement sanctioned on their own. It’s not even clear whether the murder of a trade union activist would qualify as a USMCA violation, since violations must occur “periodically and repeatedly.”

Mexico did pass amendments to its labor law, which unions had said must be completed before any agreement. The amendments give Mexican workers access to secret-ballot union elections for bargaining and contracts, and ban “protection unions” set up before anyone is hired. However, unions still believe it falls short.

Trade Works for America has been talking up the agreement on Capitol Hill, claiming that it will support 14 million jobs. As economist Dean Baker has noted, an analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission estimated that USMCA would add 0.02 percent of gross domestic product to the economy per year, “an increment that would be essentially invisible.” And those increases are only secured through “greater certainty” for business investment, which makes no sense since there is already a trade agreement in place with Canada and Mexico and has been for a quarter-century.

The group has already spent nearly $700,000 on digital advertising and television, mostly targeting Democratic House members in swing districts.

Other politicians turned lobbyists working to pass USMCA include former holder of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s seat Joe Crowley, former Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen, and former Obama administration Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Welcome Home, Peter Daou

David Dayen's piece in Monday's Intercept, Nancy Pelosi's Drug-Pricing Talks With The Trump Administration Are About Mediating Fights Between Corporate Interests, highlights her balancing the bottom lines for campaign donors at Big PhRMA and the hospital industry and leaving consumers to rot. It would be worse if she was a Republican-- but it would be a lot better if she was still a progressive. She hasn't been-- in over a decade. "The situation," wrote Dayen, "reveals a familiar dynamic in Washington, where political parties don’t debate each other on policy as much as they mediate fights between corporate interests. Almost everything on drug pricing coming out of the Trump administration, whose Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was the president of drug company Eli Lilly, attacks pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals to the benefit of drug companies; almost everything coming out of the speaker’s office attacks drug companies to the benefit of pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals."

As Pelosi slips into her dotage and prepares for retirement, maybe she and her pet lobbyists she stop messing with issues like this and leave it to people like Pramila Jayapal and Bernie Sanders, who actually work for the people, not for the special interests. What a novel idea for a congresswoman who's time is up-- her whole team's time is up; they are stale and their expiration dates are long past due. Time to go. Time to say good-bye.

Peter Daou had a successful career in the music business before he became a prominent Democratic blogger and then Democratic strategist. I always liked the guy and felt sad when he seemed to buy into the corporate Democratic insanity hook, line and sinker. I didn't understand; I looked away. All that Hillary nonsense-- he was always too smart for that. Yesterday he penned a confessional for The Nation, I Was Bernie’s Biggest Critic in 2016-- I’ve Changed My Mind. Today, he writes, Bernie can beat SeñorTrumpanzee "and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to try and hobble his campaign"... which is precisely what some of his old allies are trying to do. "If you had told me in the spring of 2016 that three years later I’d be touting the merits of the Bernie Sanders campaign-- taking flak from Hillary Clinton supporters for not being loyal enough to her-- I would have laughed and asked what alternate reality you lived in. But life and politics have a way of taking unexpected turns, and here I am writing about the considerable strengths Sanders brings to the 2020 election."

Bernie Sanders is unquestionably in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic nomination, and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to plunge into an internecine conflict over his candidacy at a time when they need to marshal every asset to defeat Trump and his GOP cronies. I am calling on Democrats, progressives, and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements, no matter how intense, as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country.

...My political and personal evolution since 2016 has caught some people off guard. I’m often asked how a staunch Hillary Clinton advocate and former Sanders critic could reverse course. The answer is simpler than it appears. I spent fifteen years before the 2016 election as a progressive activist, a critic of the Democratic Party’s meekness in the face of GOP extremism, and a supporter of the policies Bernie Sanders promotes.

After months of self-reflection about my own role in the 2016 primary, I realized I was among the far too many Clinton and Sanders supporters who got caught up in an ugly family dispute that spiraled out of control. We’ve all experienced those explosive fights. In the heat of the moment, we see each other as enemies rather than human beings who largely share the same goals. So I began to reach out to repair what had been broken. On Twitter, I unblocked Sanders supporters who I had argued with. I tried to see things from their perspective and I asked them to do the same. There’s still some residual anger and skepticism, but the healing process has given me invaluable perspective, and I can now look at the 2020 primary through a clear lens.

...Virtually every state and national poll shows Sanders at or near the top of the Democratic field. Polls are fluid at this stage, but Sanders is a known quantity and his base of support is solid. His proven appeal to young voters and independents is a powerful asset, and his ability to deliver a well-crafted and unapologetic progressive message to Americans across the political spectrum is crucial if Democrats hope to take on an increasingly extremist GOP.

...Sanders has played a central role in advocating enlightened, compassionate, forward-looking policies like Medicare for all, free public college, a living wage, and more. In the heat of the 2016 primary, I was reluctant to give Sanders credit for moving the national debate to the left. But it is impossible to deny the important role he has played, and continues to play, in countering the far right’s extremist ideas.

During the most ferocious debates of the Clinton-Sanders contest, I repeatedly implored Sanders supporters who disliked Clinton to focus on the ultimate prize: defeating the authoritarian right. I argued that her positions were immeasurably superior to Trump’s and that tearing her down was a grave mistake when we faced the prospect of white nationalist rule. The same holds true today for Sanders. Trying to hobble his campaign is a reckless mission.

...Alarmingly, the ferocity of the GOP’s attack on our norms and values is met with timidity from the Democratic Party leadership. Even after grassroots activists and voters generated a 2018 blue wave that swept Democrats back into power in the House, the party leadership has proven incapable (or unwilling) to rise to the historic challenge of facing down encroaching fascism. There are no saviors coming to rescue us. We must become our own leaders. To defeat Trump and to reverse the rising tide of white nationalism that threatens the foundations of our democracy, we must have the courage to set aside old grievances for the greater good. Bernie Sanders is not the only candidate who can defeat Trump, but he’s certainly one of them. And he should not be treated as the enemy.

Congress Has A Lot More To Do Than Just Investigate Trump

David Cicilline (D-RI) is now the chair of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law. There's not doubt we can count on him doing a much better-- and very different-- job than the one former chair Tom Marino was doing. In fact, with nightmare Republican extremist like Matt Gaetz (FL), Ken Buck (CO), Darrell Issa (CA), John Ratcliffe (TX) and Doug Collins (GA), nothing worthwhile has come out of that subcommittee for a long longtime. Welcome to a new day. This week, Barry Lynn, head of the Open Markets Institute wrote that "over the last year, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons has been strongly criticized for his failure to enforce the agency's 2011 consent decree on Facebook but has largely skirted scrutiny of his unwillingness to address the ongoing merger frenzy in any meaningful way. Department of Justice Antitrust Division chief Makan Delrahim, meanwhile, has largely escaped the public spotlight, with the notable exception of his agency’s poorly thought-out case to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. The new Democratic majority in Congress means this is now likely to change." 

The new Chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee is likely to be Congressman David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat and member of the Democratic House leadership. Cicilline is an aggressive anti-monopolist and has a track record of skepticism towards tech platforms. He has written legislation allowing newspapers to bargain collectively over advertising revenues with large online ad companies and has pledged to author new legislation expanding antitrust authority against dominant platforms.

Cicilline is also willing to act. Last month, he questioned Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the search giant’s plans to launch a Chinese product. He said Facebook executives “will always put their massive profits ahead of the interests of their customers” and noted that “it is long past time for us to take action.” In 2017, ;Cicilline ;called for hearings on the Amazon-Whole Foods merger. With his new authority, Cicilline can now bring pressure on both agencies to actually do the jobs they were hired to do. Delrahim’s failure to take on corporate concentration has been especially striking. Early on, Delrahim pledged to be a strong enforcer, portraying himself as a traditional pro-competition conservative. Delrahim attacked the idea f complex deals designed to let mergers go in exchange for conditions that require the agency to monitor a corporation’s post-deal behavior. Instead, ;he advocated preventing mergers outright, and took an especially strong stance against vertical integration, like in the tie-up between AT&T and Time Warner. Delrahim even called for jail time for employers engaging in wage-fixing against employees.

But in recent months, the Antitrust Division seems to have closed up shop even before the government shutdown took effect. Delrahim’s team conditionally cleared the drug store giant CVS to acquire insurancance company Aetna, despite innumerable conflicts of interest such a vertical deal creates, incurring the wrath of a generally pro-monopoly Judge Richard Leon. The DOJ also intervened in favor of Apple in the Supreme Court case Apple v. Pepper, which asks whether iPhone users can sue Apple for abusing its monopoly over the sale of apps. Delrahim has also not followed through on pledges to file criminal charges against wage-fixers. Perhaps most disturbingly, the DOJ has moved to restrict the rights of state enforcers and private plaintiffs to bring cases against instances of monopolization.

The libertarian anti-enforcement bent of the DOJ’s political team was made clear in recent comments by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Andrew Finch, who argued in a December speech at a Capitol Forum conference that “consumers often benefit from concentration” and that antitrust laws “are concerned with competition, not concentration.” He called suggestions to break up or regulate tech platforms “drastic” and warned that any such actions would reduce entrepreneurial activity.

Simons and Delrahim came into their offices with strong words for would-be monopolists. In 2019, Simons and Delrahim can expect at least one congressional committee chairman to demand answers on why this has not happened.

And it isn't just Cicilline's subcommittee where this kind of important work is going to be done. There are high expectations now that Maxine Waters has replaced Jeb Hensarling as head of the House Financial Services Committee. The committee that is charged with congressional oversight of, among other things, Wall Street has been captured by Wall Street. Every Republican and all the New Dems and Blue Dogs on the committee are there specifically to set themselves up as bribe-taking machines. Wall Street pumps immense amounts of money into the members of one of Congress' most popular committees and have gotten to write their own legislation in return. Nice deal. Of the members still on the committee, these are the criminal who have taken $2 million or more from the Finance Sector:

• Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)- $6,327,421
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)- $6,279,357
• Steve Stivers (R-OH)- $5,598,776
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC)- $5,586,542
• Ed Perlmutter (New Dem-CO)- $4,111,253
• Brad Sherman (D-CA)- $3,823,403
• Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)- $3,772,203
• ean Duffy (R-WI)- $3,679,647
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)- $3,661,288
• Andy Barr (R-KY)- $3,568,176
• David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)- $3,260,344
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- $3,165,972
• Peter King (R-NY)- $3,092,721
• Ann Wagner (R-MO)- $3,041,599
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- $2,967,427
• Bill Huizenga (R-MI)- $2,801,450
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)- $2,780,919
• Frank Lucas (R-OK)- $2,483,427
• Roger Williams (R-TX)- $2,408,711
• French Hill (R-AR)- $2,386,049
• Nydia Velázquez (D-NY)- $2,380,936
• Gwen Moore (D-WI)- $2,184,850
• Lee Zeldin (R-NY)- $2,152,130
• Stephen Lynch (D-MA)- $2,084,356

Yesterday in a post about committees at The Intercept by David Dayen, Ryan Grim and Aida Chávez, an assertion was made that "Democrats have struggled to find many members to serve on Financial Services, leading to speculation that the party would actually shrink the size of the committee. Alternatively, that quandary could result in progressives being added as a last resort." That would be a drastic change over past years, when members would practically murder each other to get onto the biggest honeypot committee in Congress.

Dayen and his team further reported that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Katie Porter (D-CA) are being assigned to the committee, and that Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) may be as well. "The imminent Financial Services Committee announcement," they wrote, "would take some sting out of several disappointments for the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s high-profile rising stars, who on Wednesday were largely shut out of new assignments to three critical committees where they sought expanded representation."

The Progressive Caucus had cut a deal with Pelosi for increased representation on the so-called money committees that handle most domestic legislation. They sought membership on the Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, Appropriations, and Financial Services committees equal to their roughly 40 percent membership in the Democratic caucus.

...The Progressive Caucus’s demand for 40 percent representation was stymied by the composition of the caucus itself. There are no real barriers to membership and the caucus rarely whips its members for votes, meaning that members who want to wear a progressive badge without altering their legislative record can do so. Some members of the Progressive Caucus are even also affiliated with its centrist counterpoint, the New Democrat Coalition

Pelosi and House leadership made skillful use of those progressive/New Dem hybrids in making the committee assignments, which may be cynical from a leadership perspective, but was only possible as a result of the Progressive Caucus’s less-than-stringent membership rules-- rules that are within their own control.

And adding CPC members who are not genuine progressives to positions of power on committees could actually be a net loss, argued some operatives. Indeed, it sets up a dynamic in which weak legislation could earn the imprimatur of an influential CPC member, which makes it more difficult for the CPC itself to oppose.

...Instead of pushing for proportional representation for a disorganized, amorphous caucus, the CPC should have first organized itself, then pursued power, argued Waleed Shahid, spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which backed Ocasio-Cortez and other freshmen whose bids for the committees were rebuffed. “Numbers won’t mean much if being progressive means nothing. If everyone has their own definition and now has increased personal power through a seat on an executive committee, accountability to the progressive movement will be more difficult,” Shahid told The Intercept.

The move by Pelosi, to tap CPC members who are also in the New Dems, should have been anticipated, he argued. “Pelosi played by the CPC’s rules and appointed some of the least committed progressives to executive committees, including five CPC members who are also members of the centrist, corporate-friendly New Democratic caucus. Nearly all of the CPC members appointed to executive committees still receive corporate PAC donations,” he said.

“Instead of racing for numbers, the CPC should consider demanding stricter membership criteria-- such as rejecting corporate PAC money, co-sponsoring priority legislation, and willingness to engage in bloc voting-- otherwise progressive ideas risk being significantly watered down,” he said.

Zachery Warmbrodt also mentioned Ocasio-Cortez's likely assignment to House Financial Services and also referred to it as "a victory for progressives fighting to curb Wall Street's clout in Washington and inside the Democratic Party itself." I'm, a little wary that Pelosi is going to put that kind of power into the hands of genuine-- rather than Pocan-manufactured-- progressives. Something doesn't smell right here. Warmbrodt wrote that the assignment "would pit the 29-year-old New Yorker not only against banks that make up a major local industry but also potentially against business-friendly [outside the Beltway, that means stinking of corruption and in need of a long prison sentence, but "business-friendly" sounds more genteel] Democrats who have backed financial deregulation. Some moderate [again-- corrupt conservatives are described as "moderate" in Politico] Democrats have privately raised concerns that they’ll be targeted by the former bartender-turned-progressive icon, whose willingness to challenge her party’s establishment propelled her to Congress and the national spotlight... Ocasio-Cortez, who identifies as a democratic socialist, has criticized Democrats for supporting deregulation. She has also shunned corporate campaign donations-- traditionally a big draw for lawmakers to join the Financial Services Committee. 'This is why I am running for Congress," Ocasio-Cortez said after the House passed a sweeping set of banking rollbacks in June 2017. 'Because we cannot stand idly as big banks gut every last protection working families have left.'" The corrupt sack of runny shit who she defeated, Joe Crowley, was a big-time bankster-buddy who served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was happy to be the proud recipient of $7,446,114 in bribes from the Finance Sector, $1,276,890 last year alone.

With a single tweet, Ocasio-Cortez could frustrate efforts by moderate Democrats to cut deregulatory deals with Republicans, said Jeff Hauser, who tracks corporate influence as executive director of the Revolving Door Project.

"When industry lobbyists or their shills in Congress throw shade at a new member, it probably reflects a genuine fear that the newcomers will become a force for fixing a broken system," said Porter McConnell, campaign director of the Take On Wall Street coalition.

Lobbyists privately expressed mixed views on the prospect of her joining the committee. Some see her as a potential threat when it comes to Democrats working out legislation with Republicans. But others say she will be one among dozens on the committee and that it will be difficult for a low-ranking member to make noise.

For Waters, who is touting a committee agenda focused on consumer protection and housing, having an outspoken Democrat to her left could be a new kind of test, in addition to the tensions she has faced with more centrist members who have been more willing to work with Republicans. ["Centrist" at Politico means right-of-center but not fascist.]

But Waters has praised the fighting spirit of incoming lawmakers, and her own agenda could be bolstered by recruiting like-minded members. In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, the committee is expected to take on other new progressive members including possibly Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), a protégé of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

"You're going to see a new kind of approach in the hearings that we have," Waters said in a recent MSNBC interview. "They're going to come right out with it. They won't be ashamed. They won't be afraid. They really believe in what they're doing. I think that's good for the institution."

..."Who knows," said [Rep. Lacy Clay, a real sleaze bag on the committee]. "She may deal with some issues over this first term and her supporters may start referring to her as a sellout."

Apparently he thinks everyone is just like he is. AOC isn't-- and neither is Katie Porter.

Today: The Big Pay-Go Show Down In The House

Yesterday I spent hours on the phone talking with members of Congress about Pelosi's Rules Package vote today. That's because her damned Pay-Go provision is part of it. Many of the members I spoke with DID NOT KNOW THERE IS A VOTE AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT PAY-GO IS. By noon I was so depressed I wanted to drown myself. They're just going to do whatever Hoyer and Clyburn tell them to do-- which will absoluetly kill any chance of a progressive agenda in this Congress. Kim Schrier, a physician, is a freshman from Washington's 8th district and is busy being sworn in today. Last night she got back to me with a statement about Pay-Go that threw me for a loop. "Pay Go," she wrote, "brings back fiscally responsible governance and ends the draconian practice of forcing cuts to vital programs to pay for others. It allows new funding sources to keep government working for the American People." I suspect that's what Hoyer and the leadership team are telling members of Congress, especially freshmen, what Pay-Go is. Am I getting ahead of myself here? I'll come back in a minute. Let me turn to my amigo, David Dayen at The Intercept, for a brief explanation-- yesterday-- about this controversy.

He wrote that progressives are pressuring against it-- I haven;'t found any other than Alexandria Ocasio and Ro Khanna-- "the House rules package for the 116th Congress will include a pay-as-you-go provision, requiring all new spending to be offset with either budget cuts or tax increases, a conservative policy aimed at tying the hands of government... Pelosi ran into resistance from progressives, who believe that the rule would make it more difficult for Democrats to pass a host of liberal agenda items, from 'Medicare for All' to a Green New Deal to tuition-free public college. Critics also argue that pay-go creates an unlevel playing field, where Republicans get to blow giant holes in the tax code, as they did with the 2017 tax cuts, while Democrats must pay fealty to the deficit.

The new rule establishes a point of order against any bill that increases the deficit within a ten-year budget window, based on figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The House could attach an “emergency” designation to legislation to get around the paygo rule: Congress did this in 2009 to pass the economic stimulus package under President Obama. The point of order could be waived by a majority vote of the House. But this gives the Democratic leadership another lever of control on what legislation can advance, as their assent would be critical to exempting bills from the paygo rule. And members of Congress tend to resist voting to waive the rule, as they worry it creates ready-made attack ads.

There is also a Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act, passed in 2010 under pressure from Blue Dog Democrats, which allows the president to enforce across-the-board cuts if Congress violates pay-go. But the prospect of a president implementing such an unpopular policy is remote. So the House rule looms large by constraining new spending at its source.

Liberals, of course, have plenty of ideas for how to raise revenue. The Trump tax cuts alone offer nearly $3 trillion in potential offsets simply by restoring corporate tax rates, “pass-through” rules on individuals, and inheritance taxes. But the pay-go rule forces Democrats to propose tax increases that Republicans gleefully broadcast. Meanwhile, Republicans, unconcerned with deficits, get to play Santa Claus, freed from having to match tax cuts with anything unappealing.

...At least one Congressional power broker wants progressive Democrats to fight the rules package. “In order for #PayGo to go into effect, it needs to pass the House,” wrote Bernie Sanders advisor Warren Gunnels on Twitter Tuesday night. “If some 18 Dems vote no, it fails. The vote will take place on Thursday. Will enough progressives have the courage to vote no on the first roadblock to #MedicareForAll, #GreenNewDeal & #CollegeForAll? Let’s see.”

The co-chairs of the CPC, Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal, look to be trying to tamp down the concern over Pelosi's attempt to ramrod Pay-Go through. They used a statement yesterday, which isn't that different from what I've been hearing from other liberals: "We have been concerned about PAYGO for months, and have had numerous conversations with Rules Chairman Jim McGovern and House leadership about these concerns. We all agree that the real problem with PAYGO exists in the statute that requires it. That is why we will reintroducing legislation in the 116th Congress to end PAYGO. In the meantime Chairman McGovern and House Leadership have committed to us that PAYGO will not be an impediment to advancing key progressive priorities in the 116th Congress. With the assurances that PAYGO can be waived, we do plan to vote for the House rules package and proceed with the legislation to fix the statute." I have tremendous trust in Pramila Jayapal's truthfulness and political instincts. But... Hoyer, Clyburn and Pelosi? Don't make me laugh. Besides, how is a satisfactory PAYGO legislative fix going to get through a wall of Republicans, Blue Dogs and New Dems? And then make it through McConnell's Senate and be signed by the always cooperative Señor Trumpanzee? NO WAY! Voting for a bad rule with the idea of "fixing" it down the road under these political realities, is... well, I won't characterize what I think it is. But, of late, there have been too many New Dems admitted to the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and incoming chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), told us that he'll "continue to state that pay-go is an unnecessary and misguided policy because it can stifle smart investments that are needed to better our nation and help families. With trillions in tax giveaways to the wealthy and corporations, Republicans are the ones who ushered in a new era of fiscal recklessness-- not Democrats. With the Trump Administration pushing dangerous policies, it is important not to tie our hands while governing. I’m confident our leadership understands these issues and will work toward ensuring pay-go does not impede progress on the policy solutions Americans have demanded." I'd interpret that to mean that today he'll be holding his nose and voting for it.

Tim Ryan (D-OH), often an unabashed Pelosi critic, told the Morning Joe crew yesterday that overall, he's backing Pelosi's efforts. "I don’t think anyone at any point questioned her ability to negotiate, for her to be in rooms like the one she’s going to be in today, like the one she was in last week, and be as effective as anybody else in our caucus or in our party." But that didn't stop him from announcing he's opposing PayGo. "Critical investments in education, infrastructure, and health care should not be held hostage to budgetary constraints that Republicans have never respected."

Saikat is Alexandria Ocasio's chief of staff