Guest Post From Oregon By Senator Jeff Merkley

I was on David Feldman's radio show the other day and he was very distraught because of the sudden death of his close friend Michael Brooks. Feldman seemed ready to, alternatively, explode with rage and break down sobbing. We're all a little stressed out-- between the pandemic and Trump. Anyway, he and I got to talking about Trump's recent lurch towards fascism and his threat to democracy itself. Feldman challenged me to name a Democratic senator who would stand up and look the Republicans in the eye and put it all on the line. I don't think I hesitated for a nano-second: "Jeff Merkley," I said. There are others-- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie, Brian Schatz, Mazie Hirono, Tammy Baldwin... But Merkley's name was the first that came to mind. He's a working class guy who never forgot whose interests he represents.

Blue America is joining forces with Senator Merkley and others to demand that Trump stop sending secret police forces to patrol our cities. And we're calling on Congress to prohibit these secret police tactics. Will you join us?


We face a grave threat to our democracy
-by Jeff Merkley

Sen. Jeff Merkley here from Oregon. Over the last several nights, the people of Portland have watched unmarked paramilitary forces invade our streets, attack protesters, and grab people off the streets into unmarked vans.

This is a grave threat to our democracy.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is using secret police to patrol the streets of my hometown and now he’s threatening to do it in other cities across America.

Congress must prohibit these police state tactics. They are a direct threat to our Constitution and our Democratic Republic. I have introduced legislation-- including an amendment to the defense authorization bill-- to stop these secret police tactics. No president should be sending secret police to patrol streets in America, especially when local authorities have asked them to stand down.

I will stand up and make sure that my colleagues in Congress know what’s at stake and how many Americans are standing with us. This is the stuff of anti-democratic nightmares. We must fight back. I hope you’ll join me.

---------------


I asked some of the candidates who have been endorsed by Blue America to take a look at the petition and sign it if they liked what Merkley is trying to accomplish. They did and they do.

Few candidates running for Congress anywhere know about abuse of the judicial system as thoroughly and as up close as Nashville's Keeda Haynes, who was unjustly imprisoned for 6 years right out of college. Now she's a public defender and after signing Merkley's petition, told me that "What is happening in Oregon is an obscene abuse of power. Protestors exercising their constitutional rights are being kidnapped by unidentifiable agents sent by unchecked members of Trump’s administration. This is just another stepping stone to fascism and something must be done about it."

Eva Putzova, the former Flagstaff city council member and progressive candidate for Congress in Arizona stated flatly that "Every American, especially members of Congress, should support Senator Merkley's petition demanding that unidentified, unaccountable  federal agents cease from operating in American cities without being invited by local authorities. Trump's fascist legions have no place under our constitution and the rule of law.”

Kathy Ellis is in a long shot bid to replace Trump enabler Jason Smith in southeast Missouri. She also signed Merkley's petition and told me that "The totalitarian regime of Donald Trump is moving into full force. By sending his ‘federal’ defense force into Portland and threatening to move others into other cities, he is preparing for complete control. Tell your Senators and Representatives To stand up to this threat and to demand the removal of Trump’s personal militia."

Julie Oliver is running for a congressional seat held by Roger Williams, one of the pig who accosted AOC on the steps of Congress Tuesday. After signing Merkley's petition, she told me that "In Texas, we're all too familiar with how unaccountable DHS has become. We need dismantle ICE, re-assign ICE's interior enforcement operations to other departments, and conduct a thorough investigation of ICE, CBP & DHS in the role not just into the disappearing of peaceful protesters in American cities, but also into the role they have played in the disastrous and harmful family separation policies carried out by the Trump administration in Texas. The result of Congress' abdication in its duty to oppose unconstitutional, suspicionless surveillance programs that violate Americans' privacy and re-enforce discrimination without keeping us safe is a CBP and DHS that abuses its authority with no accountability. We have to hold DHS accountable.

Cathy Kunkel, another candidate who embraced the petition, is running in West Virginia for a House seat held by Trump handmaiden Alex Mooney. "Unidentified federal officers snatching people off the street into unmarked vans," she said, "sounds more like a military dictatorship than American democracy. We should all be alarmed by this threat to our civil liberties and right to peaceful protest."

Liam O'Mara is a history professor and a congressional candidate in Riverside County, California. "This is a call to action for all Americans," he said... "or it should be. That so many people are justifying gestapo tactics simply due to political difference infuriates me. The First Amendment does not apply only to people with whom you agree. And there are severe Constitutional issues here, with unidentified federal agents snatching people off the street without the go-ahead from state and local authorities. The agency used for this action should have had no authority to do it, but technical arguments get us no-where. We need instead to push back hard, because bad precedent is how we got to this imperial presidency in the first place. If we tolerate this action, one more piece of our democracy dies, permanently. If they can round people up in Portland, they can do it anywhere, and to anyone. And that's not the America for which our Founders fought and died.

Bob Lynch isn't running for Congress; he's running for the state legislature in Miami-Date County, for a seat held be a knee-jerk Trumpist. Bob signed and told me that "Many of the people in my district fled their Home countries because of unmarked paramilitary death squads kidnapping their family members off of the streets.  While it may often feel like a third world country down here in Miami because of the brazen corruption and sheer incompetence of our Republican government, this is still the United States of America.  A federal judge, who was investigating child sex trafficking by the President’s friends, who he just wished well on public tv, just had her son and husband shot. If they wanted to shoot her too, they would have. But they didn’t, because they wanted to send a message that wasn’t received. So we will send one back. The Republican Party has already chosen to abdicate all sense of patriotism to sell out our country to the lowest foreign bidders. This is no longer a joke or a game.  Luckily myself, Nikki Fried, Janelle Christensen, Dr Ferguson Reid Junior, Matt Rogers, Margie Stein, Peter Hoffman, and over 40 fearless candidates we helped recruit and fund to run here in Florida know exactly what the stakes are and we will conduct ourselves accordingly. Everyone else should too."

Moscow Mitch Referred To Himself As The Grim Reaper-- And Now The Whole GOP Is A Party Of Death

Trump Tsunami by Nancy Ohanian

David Feldman tapes a radio show/podcast with me every Monday. The new one-- with special guest eastern Washington state congressional candidate Chris Armitage-- will be posted online late tonight. David and I are pals and it feels like we've known each other for decades. Last week, though, he pissed me off no end by weaving some kind of cockamamie scenario and asking me to respond to it. I almost blew a gasket. He came up with something absolutely nonsensical-- "what if the the death rate goes down; will Trump win in November?" What kind of a crazy question is that? What if Trump gives everyone in the country-- or in the swing states-- a check for $100,000; will he win in November? What if Martians invade? What if Ivanka turns into a talking marlin?

The second spike of the first wave is upon us-- and, thanks to Trump and incompetent governors, it is a doozy. Yesterday, as you've no doubt read, Florida reported its worst one-day numbers ever-- 15,300-- which is not just Florida's worst daily report, but the worst daily report of any state anywhere... ever. Yes, worst than New York's or New Jersey's worst days. That brought Florida's cases to 269,811-- 12,562 cases per million Floridians. Those numbers, reported yesterday, were for Saturday, a day the whole country reported 61,719 new cases. Yesterday the national increase was 58,349 bringing the total number of Americans who Trump has infected to 3,413,995--  and rapidly rising.

And it isn't just Florida where new cases are out of control. Yesterday, judging by nothing but their one day reports these 10 states-- not even counting Florida-- were all pandemic disaster zones:

• California +7,702
• Texas +6,091
• Arizona- 2,537
• Georgia +2,525
• South Carolina +1,949
• North Carolina +1,910
• Alabama +1,640
• Ohio +1,398
• Louisiana +1,319
• Tennessee +954

Why are those statistics important? Because in several weeks they will represent hospitals overrun with patients-- as they already are in Texas, Florida and Arizona-- and patients starting to die in larger numbers. In a statement to New Yorkers yesterday, Andrew Cuomo said "What's happening elsewhere in the United States is very concerning to us here at home, and our ability to avoid the same fate rests on New Yorkers' willingness to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands, and local governments' willingness to enforce state guidelines. Today's numbers remain low and stable, but it is up to us to keep it that way. Being New York Tough isn't easy, but New Yorkers have shown the nation that we can effectively fight the virus when we all come together, and I urge them not to give up any ground now."

New York State is closely monitoring an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Rensselaer County, a number of which are being investigated as being linked to several individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling back to New York from Georgia. They are in isolation and the New York State Department of Health and Rensselaer County Health Department are conducting contact tracing.

On Friday, Cuomo predicted that the northeast will be hot again because of the surge in cases across the country. " Speaking on WAMC radio, he said the state government is "doing everything we can. The quarantine, we have an enforcement mechanism. But, you know, how do you catch somebody driving in, right? I mean, it’s very very difficult, it’s trying to catch water in a screen... You’re going to see our numbers and the Northeast numbers probably start to increase because the virus that you see now in the south and the west, California has real trouble, it’s going to come back here... The other states don’t take the same precautions. It rises up in the other states and then is going to come back here from the other states. That’s what’s going to happen. The only question is how far up our rate goes. But you can’t have it all across the country and not come back. You think nobody’s coming here from California and these states?"

Yesterday the Associated Press reporter "A long-expected upturn in U.S. coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data on the pandemic. The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling for months, and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations-- and reported daily U.S. infections broke records several times in recent days. Scientists warned it wouldn’t last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too. Now that’s happening."

“It’s consistently picking up. And it’s picking up at the time you’d expect it to,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious diseases researcher.

According to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the U.S. has increased from 578 two weeks ago to 664 on July 10-- still well below the heights hit in April. Daily reported deaths increased in 27 states over that time period, but the majority of those states are averaging under 15 new deaths per day. A smaller group of states has been driving the nationwide increase in deaths.

...Deaths first began mounting in the U.S. in March. About two dozen deaths were being reported daily in the middle of that month. By late in the month, hundreds were being reported each day, and in April thousands. Most happened in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere in the Northeast.

Deaths were so high there because it was a new virus tearing through a densely populated area, and it quickly swept through vulnerable groups of people in nursing homes and other places, said Perry Halkitis, the dean of the Rutgers University School of Public Health in New Jersey.

Many of the infections occurred before government officials imposed stay-at-home orders and other social-distancing measures. The daily death toll started falling in mid-April-- and continued to fall until about a week ago.

Researchers now expect deaths to rise for at least some weeks, but some think the count probably will not go up as dramatically as it did in the spring-- for several reasons.

First, testing was extremely limited early in the pandemic, and it’s become clear that unrecognized infections were spreading on subways, in nursing homes and in other public places before anyone knew exactly what was going on. Now testing is more widespread, and the magnitude of outbreaks is becoming better understood.

Second, many people’s health behaviors have changed, with mask-wearing becoming more common in some places. Although there is no vaccine yet, hospitals are also getting better at treating patients.

Another factor, tragically, is that deadly new viruses often tear through vulnerable populations first, such as the elderly and people already weakened by other health conditions. That means that, in the Northeast at least, “many of the vulnerable people have already died,” Halkitis said.

Now, the U.S. is likely in for “a much longer, slower burn,” Hanage, the Harvard researcher, said. “We’re not going to see as many deaths (as in the spring). But we’re going to see a total number of deaths, which is going to be large.”

But Disney is opening its properties... pandemic be damned.





Generally, Americans are aghast at Trump's incompetent-- even sociopathic-- handling of the pandemic and are ready to let him know what they think of him and his enablers in November. The new Ipsos poll for Reuters released Friday show that an increasing a majority of registered voters disapprove of how Trump has handled the pandemic (57%), and only 37% approve, which is the lowest number since Ipsos began tracking in early March. When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, voters prefer Biden over Trump 43% to 37%.

Reward Candidates Whose E-mails Aren't Meaningless Spam-- Meet Mark Gamba Of Oregon

Remember that series I started a couple of months ago to demonstrate how candidates can write worthwhile e-mails rather than the hackish garbage turned out by the media consultants spawned by the DCCC? We've got another one today, this by the progressive mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon, Mark Gamba, who is competing for a congressional seat with reactionary Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. It does what every e-mail to voters should do; it lets the reader know what kind of a representative the writer will be. Mark doesn't say he will work with Pelosi and Hoyer to protect the status quo. Instead he says "Together with other representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, I will hold corporate demagogues’ feet to the fire and demand accountability where inequity has previously reigned." Isn't that the kind of elected officials we want in office-- need in office?

Currently, Schrader has raised $736,454 (with $2,836,780 of corporate cash in his war chest) to $77,201 raised by Gamba. Obviously Mark needs some help. I hope after you read the e-mail he just sent to his list you'll consider chipping in for his campaign-- which you can do by clicking on the 2020 Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right. One candidate in this race is actively campaigning for Medicare for All, for affordable house and for implementing the Green New Deal-- and the other candidate is leading the fight against both. In terms of the progressive agenda, Kurt Schrader is no better than an actual  Republican. That's a heavy statement, but, it is very precise and exactly correct. Kurt Schrader votes with the Democratic establishment on many of their bills-- after helping water them down-- but when it comes to anything remotely progressive, Schrader can always be counted on to be on the warpath to kill, kill, kill.

This is Gamba's e-mail:

I want to take a moment to address a question  on many peoples'  minds these days.

What can we do to address the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class and poor are  struggling to keep up with the costs of living?

Many children in today’s America will be poorer than their parents.

We need to identify the systems allowing this to happen. Then we need to dismantle them.

There is absolutely no reason why income equality should be on the rise when we can see the catastrophic effects of it in recent history.

We need only look to the 20th century to see the relationship between economic discontent and the rise of political extremism. The Nazi party offered a way out of deepening poverty and economic instability that financially overburdened people were willing to follow.

America’s true polarization is not Republican vs. Democrat. It is a segregation of wealth and resources from the majority of Americans.

We all want to have our basic needs met. We all need to have stable work and good health.

In 1890 the United States of America passed The Sherman Act, the first of a series of anti-trust laws designed to prevent companies from forming industry monopolies and suffocating competitors. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis believed that large corporations struck at the very soul of American democracy, limiting the opportunities of the average American to thrive.

The rise of mega-corporations and multinational conglomerates today are directly responsible for the widening gap in income between rich and poor.

For example, Boeing’s late CEO, Dennis Muilenburg was given a severance package of at least $26 million but potentially up to $60 million DESPITE failing to heed several safety warnings on the Boeing 737 MAX  which cost hundreds of people their lives.

I promise you, a barista at Starbucks isn’t going to be offered millions after negligent manslaughter. They’ll go bankrupt trying to pay for legal fees.

We need to break up the big companies like Amazon and Facebook. We need to interrupt corporate escapism and hold executives responsible for the impact of their sacrosanct “bottom line”. Corporations are set up to protect people like Muilenburg whose criminal choices destroy families, communities, and the planet. This is wrong.

I will work to pass legislation that takes on the business behemoths and stops them in their tracks. Together with other representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, I will hold corporate demagogues’ feet to the fire and demand accountability where inequity has previously reigned.

Income inequality is a systemic failing, not a personal one. To tackle it requires courage, persistence, and a national community standing shoulder to shoulder. I am proud to stand on the front lines with you and for you as we turn the tables and create economic freedom for ALL.

In solidarity,

Mark Gamba

Whose Side Is The DCCC On? Bustos Moves Against Progressive Candidates Kara Eastman, Dana Balter And Mike Siegel

All My Sons And Daughters by Alejandro Cartagina

Rachel Cohen and Ryan Grim have been keeping an eye on reactionary anti-democracy Blue Dog— and DCCC chair— Cheri Bustos. Bustos is working overtime to disadvantage the progressive movement… but not effective pushback from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which didn’t even bother to run a candidate against her when she moved— successfully— to grab the DCCC chair. She is already proving herself the worst DCCC chair in modern history and has turned herself into the most hated Democrat among party activists, something that took Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rahm Emanuel many years to accomplish when they held that title. The Republicans aren’t running anyone against her— why should they? She votes very conservatively and having someone as incompetent as she is head up the DCCC is a dream come true for them. The 50 seats the Democrats could take in 2020 will likely turn into a couple of dozen— at best— under Bustos’ guidance. (Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Bustos isn’t running anyone against her Republican counterpart, Tom Emmer (R-MN), the incompetent head of the NRCC.

The Grim and Cohen post at The Intercept yesterday, shows, politely, how Bustos is working to doing whatever she can to undermine the efforts of progressives who have built two-cycle campaigns to win districts with Republican incumbents. Bustos’ targets are Kara Eastman (NE), Dana Balter (NY) and Mike Siegel (TX). Before we get into it, please take a look at these three results:

Grim and Cohen, apparently hoping to maintain a cordial, professional relationship with Bustos and the DCCC call their sabotage of the 3 candidates, “a hands-off approach.” They make the point that the DCCC’s refusal to spend money on the 3 progressives who Bustos hates on ideological grounds— she vehemently and savagely opposes everything they’re running own— is a departure from DCCC policies in the past. After several candidates lost races that the DCCC didn’t think were winnable, the committee then backed them when they tried again and they won the second time. They use Larry Kissell (NC) and Dan Maffei (NY) as the examples. Maybe Cohen and Grim should have mentioned that Kissell was a Blue Dog and Maffei a New Dem… and neither ever likely to support anything more progressive than the kind of pablum Pelosi and Hoyer tend to push.

Last year, the DCCC wanted a Blue Dog, creepy-crawly already rejected Brad Ashford, for the Omaha seat, but Kara beat him in the primary. So the DCCC did whatever they could to make sure she lost, primarily by telling institutional contributors not to donate to her campaign against Republican Don Bacon. Balter had a similar situation after she beat the DCCC recruit in a primary. They basically just gave up on a very winnable district (with a D+3 PVI, that Obama won twice and where even Hillary managed to beat Trump (49% to 45%). Down in Texas, it ws a somewhat different situation. They refused to back Siegel because they said the district was “too red” and as he made significant headway, instead of helping him, they told unions not to waste their money on him. Like I said, the NRCC isn;’t running anyone against Bustos. There’s no way the DCCC could find them anyone worse. One more thing: that thermometer on the right is so you can contribute to progressive running for Congress, in this case, progressives who have to contend not just with Republicans, but with a hostile and rotten-to-the-core Cheri Bustos and her vile DCCC.

In 2018, the DCCC… deemed a handful of races unwinnable, yet the candidates nearly won anyway. In Omaha, Nebraska, the party walked away from Kara Eastman, but she came within 2 percentage points of flipping that House seat. Again in Syracuse, the DCCC wrote off Dana Balter, spending just $300,000, but she fell just 5 percentage points short on Election Day. In Texas’ 10th district, Mike Siegel ran an aggressive race against Michael McCaul, the Republican currently serving in Tom DeLay’s former seat. The national party didn’t have the race on its radar, but Siegel, who put together a strong grassroots network and ran as an outspoken progressive, gave McCaul a scare, losing by a margin of 4 percentage points.

Unlike in 2008, the last presidential cycle to follow a Blue Wave, the DCCC seems to have little interest in 2020 in revisiting its assessment of candidates who fell just short. In Texas, the DCCC is courting a corporate lawyer with big-money backing to challenge Siegel in a primary. In Omaha, Eastman is running again, but the DCCC, whose recruit lost to her in 2018, has its eye on several other potential candidates. And in Syracuse, there’s been no shift in the DCCC’s distant posture toward Balter, who is running again, so far without the support of the party committee.

A DCCC spokesperson acknowledged that the party committee is not rallying behind candidates who fell just short in 2018 but said that they are not opposing them, either. [A blatant and typical DCCC lie, as you will soon see.]

Eastman’s race in particular was a progressive flashpoint in 2018, because in the primary, the DCCC supported former Rep. Brad Ashford, who was broadly conservative and had a record as an anti-choice state legislator. The committee did spend some $300,000 on Eastman’s general election race, after opposing her during the primary, but that was far less than it invested in a typical race, and down the stretch, the party committee declined to help push Eastman over the top.

One potential candidate the DCCC is courting in lieu of Eastman is Gladys Harrison, the general manager of a beloved Omaha restaurant, Big Mama’s Kitchen. Harrison, who has never run for office before, has not yet formally announced but told The Intercept in late May that she was considering entering the race. Reached again last week about running, Harrison said “at this time I am not ready to comment.”

Local party officials, who closely monitor political developments in the district, said the DCCC was working to recruit Harrison into the race. “I know they’ve been reaching out to her, and they’re considering supporting her for Congress,” said Ben Gray, president of the Omaha City Council.

A spokesperson for the DCCC said they would “not confirm or deny” whether they have worked to recruit her.

Sam Barrett, who managed Ashford’s 2016 campaign, is now working for the DCCC. Ashford lost his primary bid to Eastman in 2018, and his wife, Ann Ashford, is now competing against her for Congress. (On Wednesday, Ann Ashford announced on Facebook that she had been endorsed by six former elected officials, including her husband.)

The DCCC also spoke with another potential candidate, Denise Blaya Powell, according to an active member of the local Democratic Party. Powell started a local organization called Women Who Run, but she is an Eastman supporter who donated to her campaign in March.

Crystal Rhoades, an Eastman supporter and the chair of the Douglas County Democratic Party, told The Intercept that she spoke directly with the DCCC about their efforts to recruit other candidates about a month ago. “The DCCC told me, ‘Well, we can’t win on Medicare for All; Omaha is an insurance town,’” she said. “And I said, ‘I know corporations are people now, but insurance companies don’t actually vote.’” Rhoades added that in a district like hers, the challenge is not peeling off Republican voters but boosting Democratic turnout.

Despite the $300,000 the DCCC spent on the general election, Rhoades said she felt the party committee did not really support Eastman. “The DCCC didn’t support Kara last time, even in the general, and anyone who says differently is lying because they did not,” said Rhoades. “Most support from the DCCC and those other national organizations comes in the form of independent expenditures, and they did nothing for Kara, and yet she still came in with less than 2 points as a first-time candidate for federal office in a district as tough as ours. That she did that with zero help from the DCCC is really a testament to her candidacy.”

Meanwhile in Texas, after his near loss, Mike Siegel started earlier this time, announcing his bid in January 2019. Knowing how important the D.C.-based party committee considers early fundraising numbers, he came out of the gate strong, raising $150,000 to start. It didn’t matter. Instead, the DCCC has had its eyes on Shannon Hutcheson.

Hutcheson had a more direct route into the good graces of the DCCC than a mere show of strength. Her finance chair, Aimee Boone Cunningham, a Container Store heiress, gave $35,500 to the committee on February 20. Not long after the donation, Hutcheson traveled to Washington to meet with DCCC officials, a meeting confirmed by a DCCC spokesperson. On March 4, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi headlined a signature Democratic Party fundraising dinner in Travis County, Texas, which included a VIP reception honoring Cunningham as a “philanthropist & activist.” Cunningham, a major Democratic donor, is chair of the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and previously served on the board of Emily’s List and its Texas version, Annie’s List.

Hutcheson has a long career as a corporate attorney, and in 2010, a critical year for Democrats, voted in the Republican primary. (It may seem odd, but that profile— a corporate lawyer who was recently a Republican— is attractive to the DCCC, which sees in it money and bipartisan appeal.)

The DCCC has not publicly endorsed Hutcheson yet, but the message is clear. Four of the first followers of Hutcheson’s new campaign Twitter account are DCCC officials. Within just two days of entering the race, she announced having raised $165,000. She did not boast of it coming from small donors, which suggests she had lined up commitments from the ultra-wealthy ahead of the announcement.

Siegel said that he’s frustrated the party appears to be taking sides against its own electoral interests. “In 2018, we stepped up and ran our campaign the right way in a district that the state and national party had left for dead,” he said. “We campaigned in all nine counties, had 1,000 volunteers. We put this district in play. We made up 15 percentage points against an incumbent considered to be unbeatable. We put this in play. Running a top-down campaign attempting to buy a district is what McCaul did [to win the primary to succeed DeLay], that’s not what we need here.”

Siegel is confident he can win the race with the DCCC’s support or its neutrality, but it becomes dicier if he has to battle not just the GOP but his own party too. “What my campaign brings is, we’ve made tens of thousands of voter contacts, won the loyalty of grassroots groups, and can combine that with a traditional red-to-blue campaign,” he said. “I can do that with the DCCC’s support, and I can also do it if the DCCC remains neutral. But if they actively work against me, they’re sabotaging what is probably our best chance to win this seat.”

In some cases, it may make sense for the DCCC to stay out, as it gives other candidates a chance to come forward and compete. In Texas’ 24th District, Jan McDowell fell by just 3 percentage points to incumbent Rep. Kenny Marchant and is running again in 2020. Money isn’t everything, but McDowell raised just $108,000 over the entire cycle, the mark of a campaign that never truly caught on, either with big donors or with a grassroots network. And in context, her 3-point loss is less impressive than it looks: Beto O’Rourke carried the district during his Senate run, and state Senate and House candidates also flipped seats.

This cycle, Candace Valenzuela, a local school board member whose launch video of her time spent homeless as a child went viral, is also getting in the race. “I’m never going to be a favored establishment candidate,” she told The Intercept. “I don’t have a rich aunt Jill to call and ask, can you send me $2,800? And get all your friends from— I don’t know what rich aunt Jills do— your manicure circle, and tell them to send me money too?”



Also jumping into TX-24 is Kim Olson, a retired Air Force colonel. In her own viral ad, she boasts of playing a leading role in the Kosovo air war, which she called “the largest bombing campaign since World War II,” and “a battle we won without a single loss of life.” If the more than 500 people killed by that bombing campaign could hear her make that claim, they’d surely be surprised. (She presumably means that no Americans were killed.)

Later in her ad, she alludes to war profiteering she engaged in, which ended her military career when she accepted a fine and a reprimand to avoid a court martial. “Pentagon investigators allege that while on active duty as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials, as well as for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006. There’s no evidence that the DCCC recruited or is supporting Olson, or that it’s otherwise gotten involved in the district.

The DCCC, however, does know how to consolidate around a candidate they’d previously overlooked. Gina Ortiz Jones lost a nail-biter in Texas’ 23rd District in 2018. The DCCC had preferred her opponent in the primary, but after the party’s recruit didn’t even make the runoff, the committee got behind Ortiz Jones and remains supportive of her for 2020, even if there hasn’t been an official endorsement.

Jones is a New Dem, so she passes Bustos’ smell test since she will never vote for programs Bustos is trying to stop, like the Green New Deal and Medicare-For-All. That she isn't the best candidate in a 70+ percent Latino district-- she's a Filipina-- is something the Republicans are over-the-moon about. I guess Will Hurd will be safe again. I wonder if he sends a cake or something to Bustos as a thank you gesture. Back to Mike Siegel for a moment-- an interview David Feldman did with him 8 months ago.

Don't Be Fooled-- The Party's Elite Establishment Still Controls The Democratic Party

Trump is so disgusting. Reich is so right about him-- and his enablers in Congress. It seems impossible the Democratic Party could lose against them even if they try. How about if they try really, really hard? Ah... so we're talking about the DCCC. Did you see that piece by Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic on Monday: The Democratic Party Just Ticked Off Its Youngest Organizers? Pelosi really should get rid of Bustos before it's too late. "The youths in the Democratic Party are angry," wrote Godfrey. "Sixty-eight chapters of the College Democrats are urging voters not to donate to the party’s congressional-campaign arm after it instituted a new policy to protect incumbents from primary challenges. The protesting students say that the change will deter young candidates and people from historically marginalized communities from running for office. Their outrage isn’t just noteworthy because they represent younger voters in the electorate-- these young people are also some of the party’s key organizers and activists."

“As College Democrats, we did a lot of work to build the new Democratic majority,” says Hank Sparks, the 20-year-old president of the Harvard College Democrats, which is spearheading the boycott. “This is a policy that’s going to silence a lot of voices like ours.”

They did do a lot of work: College Democrats help form the backbone of the party’s organizing infrastructure. The chapters currently boycotting the policy change from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee canvassed and phone-banked for dozens of Democratic congressional candidates across the country, including some of the 40 so-called majority-makers who flipped House seats from red to blue. Alumni from these College Democrats chapters have gone on to work for lawmakers on Capitol Hill and as staffers on presidential campaigns, and some have even run for office themselves. And current members are already gearing up to help Democrats up and down the ballot win in 2020.

Until the boycott’s announcement, progressive organizations and lawmakers such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York had been the most vocal opponents of the DCCC’s new rule. The fact that the College Democrats-- the party’s stalwart organizers and its future leaders, staffers, and reliable voters-- have joined in the protest demonstrates that they, too, are worried the party is setting itself up for failure.

The DCCC unveiled the new standards in March, which require vendors hoping to do any work with the committee-- political-consulting firms or campaign advertisers, for example-- to sign on to a set of terms. The one the College Democrats oppose is an agreement for vendors not to contract with any primary candidate who is challenging an incumbent Democrat. Explaining her opposition to the rule, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that “primaries are often the only way that underrepresented and working-class people are able to have a shot at pursuing elected office.” During a closed-door meeting with DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos on March 27, leaders of the House Progressive Caucus pressured her to reverse the new standards.

The controversy surrounding the vendor rule embodies one of the central debates currently roiling the party. According to the DCCC and other Democrats, the party’s core job is to protect its incumbents, even in safe blue districts: How can Democrats protect their House majority and win back the Senate, they wonder, if they’re spending time and resources mounting challenges to their fellow Democrats? But others in the party, many of them progressives, argue that the DCCC shouldn’t discourage primary opponents from challenging any Democrat-- even the longest-serving incumbents. After all, what if such incumbents no longer represent the interests of their constituents?

The protesting College Democrats, whose views run the ideological gamut, argue that the DCCC’s new vendor rule shows that the party is ignoring its younger voices—their voices—in favor of maintaining the status quo. The policy, they say, will only serve to stymie the evolution of the Democratic Party, which is skewing younger, browner, and more female.

The DCCC might see the victories of outsider candidates in 2018, such as Ocasio-Cortez, as a reason to impose the vendor rule. She mounted the first primary campaign in more than a decade against Joseph Crowley, beating the powerful Queens-based congressman who was long considered a future speaker of the House. But the College Democrats argue that victories like hers are evidence that the party should be allowing, if not encouraging, primary challenges, especially in safe blue districts; clearly, they say, the district was ready for new representation. (That’s not to say that progressive candidates were responsible for the House majority; to the contrary, moderate candidates provided the most wins in the last midterm elections.)

“We are stakeholders in the future of the Democratic Party,” says Ruby Schneider, the 20-year-old chair of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, which worked on behalf of several state and federal candidates during the midterms, including Representative Elissa Slotkin. “We want to see a party that reflects diverse identities and is open to change.” Primary challenges, Schneider adds, allow for “necessary shifts.”

Several of the College Democrats I spoke with cited increased voter support across the country for progressive proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, and suggested that preventing progressives from launching primary challenges will hinder the party from achieving those goals. “We have a bunch of younger and progressive Democrats who want the party to be taken in that direction only to see the leadership and the establishment not be responsive to our needs,” says Ben Pearce, the president of the University of Southern California College Democrats.

Pearce’s chapter, whose members helped phone-bank for candidates such as Representative Katie Hill in 2018, plan to avoid DCCC-sponsored volunteer events during the 2020 election, and will instead work directly with candidates. “I don’t think it does the party any favors to protect incumbents who might not be as responsive to the new voices that are coming forward,” Pearce says...

But the consequences of the DCCC’s new policy are already being felt on the ground, and the College Democrats I spoke with are troubled by it. Marie Newman, a 55-year-old progressive and former nonprofit executive, is challenging the anti-abortion Democrat Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s third congressional district. Newman, who has the support of several progressive lawmakers in her party, ran against Lipinski in 2018, but lost by 2 percent. She’s trying again in 2020, but since the DCCC’s new vendor policy was enacted, four different consultants have dropped her campaign, Newman has said. (On the bright side for her campaign, however, the attention that progressive activists have brought to the vendor rule have helped her raise almost $45,000.)

Interesting that Shane Savitsky at Axios tried making the case that the establishment is losing power inside the Democratic Party. I wish it were so. But... well, let's hear Shane's rationale. "Traditional political kingmakers like the parties' national committees and powerful insiders," he wrote, "have lost their edge for 2020 as buzzy, insurgent campaigns have the ability to seize control of the narrative-- and bundles of cash. The smoke-filled room has burned to the ground, and the advantage now lies fully with the electorate to determine what they want. For Democrats, that means making sense of a massive field of more than 20 candidates-- while, for Republicans, that means bending to the originator of this trend: President Trump. We're seeing it as the 2020 race heats up, and the traditional voices of the establishment stay silent":

• The closest thing to a kingmaker for the Democratic field is President Obama. If you believe the spin from Joe Biden's team, they didn't seek his endorsement to allow the former veep to stand on his own. And Obama's team wants to stick close to a long-held D.C. custom: former presidents sit above the fray.
• The Republican establishment has been remade in Trump's own image and the old guard-- the Bushes and Romneys-- that could conceivably mount some sort of challenge are out in the wilderness, neutered.

OK, true for the Republicans, absolutely. But who cares. They could all drop dead tomorrow and the world would be a better place. As for the Democrats... that's a really weak argument. Biden, a congenital liar on a grand, almost Trumpian, scale, begged Obama for his endorsement and when Obama turned him down, he made up some cock'n'bull story about wanting to win it on his own.

"We're seeing it in the policy platforms that the 2020 candidates are putting forward-- many of which scare the hell out of the establishment," he wrote. Yeah, but those policies are being killed by Pelosi, even before McTurtle or Trump can get them. Neither the Green New Deal nor Medicare-For-All will ever pass the House while Pelosi and Hoyer are in charge-- not to mention $15 minimum wage or free public colleges. The Establishment doesn't want it and it doesn't make any difference to them that the grassroots or even the presidential candidates do. Which brings us to the Establishment candidate, Status Quo Joe, who they are determined to give the nomination to as clearly as they were determined to give it to Hillary, even though Biden will be beaten by Trump even worse than Hillary was.

And when you're part of the Establishment little things like this happen: "Cable News Is Covering Biden As Much As Every Other Democratic Candidate Combined." Biden was mentioned in more clips that any other candidate across the three networks last week, and he was mentioned almost four times as often as Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had been getting the most coverage of any 2020 candidate before Biden joined the race. For the second consecutive week, Biden was mentioned in about as many clips as all the other candidates combined.

Kaniela Ing (D-HI)... How To Be Much More Than Just The Lesser Of 2 Evils Kind Of Candidate The DCCC Loves

There isn't a better candidate running for Congress than Kaniela Ing-- not a better candidate in Hawaii or a better candidate running anywhere. On of the top members of the state legislature, he has a record, not just on policy, but on courageous leadership that qualifies him for Congress. He's the kind of candidate who will make Congress a better place-- or die trying. He's not the kind of guy who's going to sit quietly in the back of the room while Pelosi, Hoyer and the corrupted establishment tell him what their rules are.

Take a look at the clip up top. Yeah, Kaniela wants to impeach Trump... but that's not what his career in public service is all about. Every Democrat running should put out a video like the one above, looking straight into the camera and-- with no bullshit-- explain to the voters exactly what they'll get by voting for him or her. At around the one-minute mark, the clip is what makes a Democratic congressional race clarifying. Listen to him speak. This isn't a New Dem or Blue Dog from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. This is what a Democrat from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party sounds like.

Kaniela isn proud to be the first elected official in Hawaii to call for Trump's impeachment-- just as he was proud to be the first elected official in Hawaii to endorse Bernie for president. He wants to be clear with voters though, this his race isn't just about impeaching Trump. He lays out 9 core issues he's running on:

• Universal Healthcare
• Debt-free college
• Banning private prisons
• Ending reckless wars
• $3 trillion infrastructure/jobs plan
• Affordable Housing
• Living Wages
• Legalizing Adult-use Cannabis
• Campaign Finance Reform

This sure isn't the agenda that the "ex"-Republicans running against him are for. As he explains, his populist, grassroots campaign stands up to Big Pharma, insurance companies and the military industrial complex. Is this your kind of agenda? Kaniela doesn't take corporate contributions. The only way he's going to get his message out in a competitive primary-- filled with big money, establishment corporate shills-- is with the help of grassroots contributions. The ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right will take you right to a page where you can contribute to Kaniela's campaign. When Ro Khanna (D-CA) endorsed him, he explained that he was doing so "because Kaniela walks the walk to get money out of politics and fights for a new way forward. It's young, proven leaders like Kaniela who will shift paradigms on climate action, innovation, and building a future economy that leaves no one behind." Closer to home, Re‍‍‍presentative Sylvia Luke endorsed, in her own words, "because he is the only candidate who has unwaveringly stood up for equal rights and a woman's right to choose. He's someone who captures the spirit and essence of Hawaii. Kaniela is what Hawaii needs right now, and I ask you to join me in supporting him."

If You Vote For Candidates Who Stand For The Status Quo, Nothing Changes... And Then There's Kaniela Ing

A consensus has formed among progressive groups that Hawaii Democrat Kaniela Ing is one of the 5 best candidates running for Congress anywhere in the country. Kaniela, a sharp, dynamic state Representative in Hawaii, is a big idea guy who you can get to know by listening to his 38 minute new interview with David Feldman above. As Feldman pointed out, Kaniela is talking about issues that many candidates are afraid to discuss: universal basic income, free public college education, GMOs, Medicare-For-All... And he makes no bones about being a member of the Democratic Socialists.

When Blue America endorsed Ted Lieu, it was an easy call. He had a record of incredible progressive leadership in the state legislature in Sacramento. It wasn't that tough to figure out what kind of a congressman he would be. And today we find him applying that kind leadership in Washington. Do you feel that Ted is one of the strongest members of Congress? We do. How about Pramila Jayapal from Seattle. It was the same thing-- Washington state's best state senator was easy to see as a spectacular member of Congress. And she is--always, every day and in every way. So it's the same for Kaniela. He's easily the best member of Hawaii's legislature with a spectacular record of leadership and powerful ideas he knows how to turn into legislation. Please give the interview a listen and consider contributing to a grassroots campaign that accepts no corporate PAC money whatsoever. When I imagine getting candidates like Randy Bryce, Jenny Marshall, Sam Jammal, Austin Frerick, Derrick Crowe, Lillian Salerno and, of course, Kaniela Ing, working as a team in Washington... it's like a revolution dangling before our eyes. You want real change? That team you'll find by tapping on the thermometer above will bring real change. Just listen to the interview Kaniela did with David! Please. That's how we come out of this Trump era a better country. 

Last year, Hawaii's presidential caucus goers voted for real change. In the general election 62% voted for Hillary and just 30% voted for Trump. But in the caucuses, Bernie walked away with 70% of the vote to Hillary's 30%. The entire Democratic establishment in Hawaii backed Hillary during primary season-- every single state legislator except for one Bernie supporter: Kaniela Ing. Why? Because Bernie was running on the same platform that Kaniela built his political career on. Let me say one more thing this evening-- in a state that values seniority more than any other state, Kaniela will turn 29 next month (on Christmas Eve). If he-- and his ideas-- make it to Washington, he'll be there long enough to get a lot accomplished.