Trump Needs To Learn That Revenge Is Sweet, But To A Calm And Considerate Mind, Forgiveness Is Sweeter

No one doubts that Trump is a vengeful asshole. Aren't all authoritarians? It's in their DNA. Interviewed about his own experience with Trump last year on MSNBC, British businessman Richard Branson recalled Trump as "a very vindictive, rather dangerous, rather sad man. I would feel very uncomfortable-- very, very uncomfortable-- with somebody like Donald Trump in the White House.

Some years ago, Mr Trump invited me to lunch for a one-to-one meeting at his apartment in Manhattan. We had not met before and I accepted. Even before the starters arrived he began telling me about how he had asked a number of people for help after his latest bankruptcy and how five of them were unwilling to help. He told me he was going to spend the rest of his life destroying these five people... I left the lunch feeling disturbed and saddened by what I’d heard. There are a lot of frightening things about this election; not least that policy has been pushed so far down the agenda. What concerns me most, based upon my personal experiences with Donald Trump, is his vindictive streak, which could be so dangerous if he got into the White House. For somebody who is running to be the leader of the free world to be so wrapped up in himself, rather than concerned with global issues, is very worrying.

And now members of Congress-- on both sides of the aisle-- wonder if Trump plans to come after them... and what it will mean it their careers. There is, after all, a lot of opposition to his ambitious legislative agenda-- from the wall and eliminating Obamacare to his expensive infrastructure program. Republicans seem to live in fear of his mighty twitter account. And everyone senses he's likely to hold rallies-- he enjoys them more than governing-- against Democrats in states where he's popular to threaten their reelection chances-- Tester in Montana, Heitkamp in North Dakota, McCaskill in Montana, Donnelly in Indiana... states he won with, respectively, 56.5%, 64.1%, 57.1% and 57.2%. He could even start in relation to his horribly flawed Supreme Court nominee. If Republicans like Dean Heller (NV) or Jeff Flake (AZ) their states could see the Trump Show live again too.

Mark Sanford (R-SC), who hasn't always towed the line, told The Hill's Scott Wong yesterday that "He's going to take names. He’s going to look at the people who are supportive and who aren’t. I suspect he will be rigorous in calling attention to those he believes are hampering his legislative efforts."

[S]everal Republicans said it’s only a matter of time before Trump cracks the whip on Capitol Hill.

He’s already given rank-and-file lawmakers a taste of what could be coming if they don’t fall in line. Last month, a series of tweets from Trump derailed House Republicans’ plans to gut an independent congressional ethics office.

And just last week, Trump launched a blistering attack on Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), tweeting that they’re “weak on immigration” and “always looking to start World War III” after the senators slammed his executive order on refugees.

Those types of personal attacks from Trump are certain to fire up his loyalists and could inspire primary challenges to his GOP targets.

“He could whip votes from Twitter,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), who saw Trump personally get involved in his state’s GOP chairmanship race to defeat the handpicked candidate of rival Gov. John Kasich (R), a onetime presidential rival. “He’s definitely got an agenda and he wants to push it through. He’s going to use every arrow in his quiver to get those things accomplished."

“When he gets focused on something and he wants to get it done, he gets after it. That’s definitely a lesson I learned,” Joyce continued. “An enraged Twitter finger could really hurt somebody.”

...GOP fissures are forming that could complicate or delay several top Trump priorities. Freedom Caucus leaders are aggressively calling for the repeal and wholesale replacement of ObamaCare, while GOP chairmen have argued a more measured “repair” of the healthcare law is the right approach.

Writing for The Atlantic, McKay Coppins speculates that #NeverTrump Republicans are bracing for Revenge of the Asshole that Branson described. "Trump," he reiterated, "has never made a secret of his penchant for personal vengeance. He boasts about it, tweets about it, tells long, rambling stories about it on the transcontinental speaking circuit. When, last year, he was asked to identify a favorite Bible passage, he cited 'an eye for an eye.' And in his 2007 book, Think Big and Kick Ass, he devoted an entire chapter to the joys of exacting revenge. 'My motto is: Always get even,' he wrote. 'When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.' For those who have crossed Trump, then, these are understandably anxious times. As he enters the White House and takes the reins of the most powerful government in the world, a small cadre of high-profile conservatives-- the haters, the losers, the Never-Trumpers who never fell in line-- has found itself wondering whether their party’s president will use his new powers to settle old scores."

“The question is not whether he’s vengeful,” conservative columnist Ben Shapiro told me. “The question is how willing he is to use the levers of government to exact that revenge.”

This is no idle question for Shapiro. The California-based commentator emerged in 2016 as one of Trump’s most vociferous-- and most frequently targeted-- critics in the conservative movement. He spent months relentlessly prosecuting the candidate on TV and Twitter, and in March set off a media frenzy when he abruptly quit his job at Breitbart and blasted the company’s then-CEO Steve Bannon for being a “bully” who had turned the site into “Trump’s personal Pravda.”

Now that Trump and Bannon are both in the White House, Shapiro says he has no intention of trying to make amends-- but can’t help but worry about his standing with them. “Trump has an extremely long shit list...I don’t want to flatter myself and say I’m top 10, but I’m certainly top 50,” he told me. “I’ve been half-joking for almost a year that my IRS audit is already being drawn up.”

In fact, he’s taking the threat of retaliation from Trump and his allies quite seriously. A favorite target of the alt-right troll army that Breitbart helps marshal, Shapiro told me he’s already purchased a shotgun and installed a high-end security system in his home. When we spoke the night before the inauguration, he was deliberating over whether to delete his entire personal email archive before spies or Russian hackers could infiltrate his inbox.

He knows all this may sound a little paranoid, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. “They can fight very ugly and very nasty,” he said of Trump and Bannon. “And they do have power now, where if they feel like destroying you, they can.”

For Glenn Beck, there’s nothing new about the fear of payback from a power-crazed president and his minions. The right-wing talk radio host spent much of the past decade preaching against the tyrannical terrors of the Obama administration, and twitchily looking over his shoulder as a result. Now, it looks as if Beck-- who spent the 2016 election bitterly feuding with Trump-- is consigned to repeating that experience for at least another four years. He believes the new president is “dangerously unhinged,” and he travels with two bodyguards by his side, fearing the death threats he’s received from Trump supporters.

“It is not fun,” Beck told me. “I don’t cherish it, but I value the truth more than I’m afraid of retribution.”

...Last month, the Washington Post reported that more than 100 national-security veterans in the GOP establishment are said to be “blacklisted” from administration jobs because they signed a public letter during the campaign opposing Trump’s candidacy. In another episode, the president-elect aggressively campaigned behind the scenes to unseat a state party chairman in Ohio who had fought him during the election.

Trump also spent weeks during the transition publicly weighing two of his most stubborn 2016 foes-- Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney-- for top cabinet posts, only to unceremoniously dump them once they’d been seen cozying up to the president-elect. Transition officials insisted these meetings were all in good faith; Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone claimed otherwise.

 “Donald Trump was interviewing Mitt Romney for secretary of state in order to torture him. To toy with him,” Stone said on the Alex Jones Show. “And given the history, that’s completely understandable. Mitt Romney crossed a line.”

...For many Republican politicos who were critical of Trump during the campaign, the fear of personal retribution from the leader of the free world is softened somewhat by their unwavering conviction of his incompetence. Several consultants and operatives, who requested anonymity so as not to provoke the president’s wrath, said Trump would likely be too overwhelmed and disorganized in office to keep working his way down the enemies list.

“I don’t think anybody’s too worried about Trump death-starring their business, because he’s still struggling to even make the Death Star operational,” cracked one strategist.

“When you’re really dealing with Putin and Turkey and Syria, is that county chair in Iowa who turned on you gonna get the attention of the president of the United States?” asked another. He paused and then added with a laugh, “Of course, that’s what staff is for.”

Indeed, Trump’s administration is not lacking for enforcers who share his instincts. Reince Priebus, now the White House Chief of Staff, publicly threatened Republicans who were withholding their support from the nominee in the final weeks of the election. And according to two knowledgeable sources, White House press secretary Sean Spicer used to maintain a “bad reporters” folder in his inbox to keep track of journalists he believed had treated him or the RNC unfairly.

But if consultants are worried about their contracts, and party officials about their positions, some of Trump’s opponents harbor deeper and more serious concerns. For Evan McMullin-- who quit his job as policy director for House Republicans to launch a long-shot indie bid in 2016 under the #NeverTrump banner-- the question of how President Trump plans to get even from the Oval Office is a singularly important one. Petty partisan punishments are one thing, McMullin told me. But as a former CIA officer, he has witnessed firsthand the rise of despotic regimes abroad. “If Trump uses state power to exact revenge on political opponents, that will be a very clear sign that he is a true authoritarian."

During the election, McMullin’s candidacy unexpectedly threw his native Utah into contention, sending the Trump campaign on a frantic last-minute scramble to lock down the deep-red state. By the end, Trump managed to eke out a plurality win there, but he was left seething at McMullin’s meddling. The future president lashed out repeatedly at McMullin in the final days of the race, calling him a “puppet” for moneyed establishment interests. And the attacks only intensified once Trump won and embarked on his post-election victory tour.

McMullin told me that watching the president-elect rail against him at raucous rallies was a “chilling” experience. “I remember at one of his rallies when he was attacking me, he said something like, ‘He’s sort of a bad guy, this guy.’ I immediately recognized that as something I’d seen before overseas in places where authoritarians takes power. They try to criminalize their political opposition. They tried to do it with Hillary Clinton… and they could do it with more of us.”

McMullin made clear that it’s still too early to know whether Trump will cross that line. “Despite my concerns, I genuinely still have hope that he will not govern in the way that he said he would during the campaign,” he told me. “At least, I hope that’s the case, because it would certainly make my life a lot easier.”

Clearly, though, neither Trump nor #PresidentBannon has ever thought about Martin Luther King's aphorism: "Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." This morning's NY Times carries an explosive piece by Jason Horowitz about Bannon's intrigues against Pope Francis with, among others, crackpot Raymond Cardinal Burke. The anti-Pope Francis forces have rallied around the Trump Regime. "While Mr. Trump, a twice-divorced president who has boasted of groping women," wrote Horowitz, "may seem an unlikely ally of traditionalists in the Vatican, many of them regard his election and the ascendance of Mr. Bannon as potentially game-changing breakthroughs. Just as Mr. Bannon has connected with far-right parties threatening to topple governments throughout Western Europe, he has also made common cause with elements in the Roman Catholic Church who oppose the direction Francis is taking them. Many share Mr. Bannon’s suspicion of Pope Francis as a dangerously misguided, and probably socialist, pontiff... [I]n Mr. Trump, and more directly in Mr. Bannon, some self-described '“Rad Trads'-- or radical traditionalists-- see an alternate leader who will stand up for traditional Christian values and against Muslim interlopers."

Tomorrow's Non-Presidential Primaries

The corrupt Democratic establishment has been far more successful shutting down primaries than has the corrupt Republican establishment. Primaries are usually the only way it ever challenge entrenched incumbents in gerrymandered safe districts. All Americans actually owe the Tea Party a debt of gratitude for scaring the congressional Republicans and for cleaning out some trash, particularly Wall Street whore Eric Cantor. This cycle, the most comparable action on the Democratic side of the aisle is Tim Canova's challenge to a Democrat as vile and deserving of ignominious defeat as Cantor was: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, although head Blue Dog Kurt Schrader (OR) and So. Jersey machine corruptionist Donald Norcross are also being pounded, respectively, by reformers Dave McTeague and Alex Law.

Tomorrow, though, there aren't many primaries in either party against incumbents that are likely to yield surprises. The one exception might be in northeast Ohio-- (OH-14) between Cleveland's eastern suburbs and the Pennsylvania state line west of Erie-- where dull backbencher David Joyce is being challenged by a crackpot extremist again. In 2014, Joyce fended off the very same crackpot extremist, ex-state Rep. Matt Lynch, 27,547 (55%) to 22,546 (45%). This year though, election officials in Lake, Cuyahoga, Geauga and Summit counties are expecting much, much larger turnouts because of the simultaneous presidential primary. Lynch is counting on Trump and Cruz voters figuring out that he's their man, while Joyce is counting on Kaisich backers voting for him. Lynch has been spending money on tarring Joyce as a compromiser afraid to shut down the government while making it clear that the radicals and extremists back his race against Joyce.

Unfortunately for Lynch, by the Feb. 24 reporting deadline Joyce had already spent $1,058,471 and had another $549,665 ready to deploy, while all he had managed it raise was $173,406. He's getting free airtime on Hate Talk Radio (especially on Beck's show) but will it be enough? Few think so and the establishment and all the newspapers in the area have endorsed Joyce. The DCCC is once again ignoring the race although, presumably, if Lynch wins tomorrow, they'd jump in to try to bolster Michael Wager, the progressive who ran against Joyce in 2014 and is on the ballot again. With Bernie-- or even Hillary-- at the top of the Democratic ticket in November, particularly against Trump, Wager would likely be a shoo-in.



There's also a far right extremist running against John Shimkus in the sprawling, empty southeastern district (IL-15) that skirts all cities and big towns that might have a library. It was Obama's worst-performing district in the state and the last Democrat who ran for the congressional seat, spent $24,243 and won 25% of the vote. This cycle there isn't even a Democrat running at all. Instead, Shimkus, the congressman who repeatedly allowed Mark Foley access to the underage pages he molested for years, is facing far right state Sen. Kyle McCarter, who's being supported-- to the tune of $345,650) by Club for Growth. This is the completely deceptive-- and probably ineffective-- ad they're running in the district:



Shimkus had spent $1,764,009 by Feb. 24 and reported another $995,864 in the bank, while McCarter had spent $245,018 and was getting ready to spend $106,985. American Action Network-- a Chamber of Commerce establishment group run by notorious anti-Semite Fred Malek and ex-Jew Norm Coleman-- spent $200,485 helping Shimkus. Shimkus doesn't appear to be in any real trouble.

The races where there actually could be upsets are both Democratic primaries, a Senate race in Ohio and a House race in Illinois' 10th district. The DSCC and DCCC had each mandated a candidate, the elderly and feeble conservative Ted Strickland in Ohio and the corrupt conservative New Dem Brad Schneider in Illinois. Schneider and his DCCC backers appear to be about to lose to Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who is strongly backed by Se. Dick Durbin and endorsed by all the local newspapers.

The Ohio race is a much bigger longshot and Blue America has strongly backed challenger PG Sittenfeld against the NRA's top Democrat, Ted Strickland. Paul Rosenberg covered the primary in great detail forSalon over the weekend. He noted that "when 78-year-old former Ohio governor Dick Celeste endorsed Sittenfeld recently, he directly invoked what was happening in the presidential race. 'What we’re seeing in the presidential campaigns across the country is a growing level of discontent with party leadership in both parties. And I think it was a mistake for the Democratic Party of Ohio, for example, to make an early endorsement in the Senate race,' Celeste said. 'PG Sittenfeld represents a fresh way of moving forward,' he said, pointing to Sittenfeld’s hands-on engagement in dealing with a multitude of urban issues. 'What we have here is a race between the future and the past,' Celeste continued. 'When I say the past, I’m talking about the Democratic Party itself. It is trying to operate in an old way. And that old way was insiders who tried to make decisions and insiders who tried to call the shots. And that’s not what people want.'"

At the most obvious level, this race pits an aging, backward-looking insider against a young, forward-thinking outsider. As Celeste said, it’s “a race between the future and the past.” But the past also means an aging candidate significantly at odds with his party’s voting base-- though with varying degrees of obfuscation-- who has repeatedly refused to debate his opponent… for good reason, it would seem.

On guns, Strickland bragged to a radio caller last year, “As a Congressman I had A and most of the time an A+ rating with the National Rifle Association.” He went on to brag that he voted against the 1994 assault weapons ban that Ohio Gov. John Kasich voted for. As governor, he signed a so-called “castle doctrine” law  that was opposed by Ohio prosecutors and police chiefs associations, who said it would provide legal cover for bad guys hurting folks who had no intention of harming them. He also supported a bill that would allow firearms in family restaurants and bars-- a measure opposed by police groups, which was blocked by the speaker of the state assembly at the end of the 2010 session. He now claims to have undergone a conversion, but even so he admitted, “My record is mixed and spotty and I could be criticized for that.”

On the environment, Strickland got a 100 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters just one year out of 12 he spent in Congress, as opposed to seven years with scores in the 60s and 70s, and four in the 80s. He voted repeatedly for coal and fossil fuel subsidies (1993, 1994, 1997, 2001), against higher fuel economy standards (2001, 2003, 2005), and against protecting public forest lands (1999, 2000, 2003), along with a range of other anti-environmental votes.

Although Strickland calls himself “pro-choice,” his record is more multiple-choice. He did score 100 percent twice on NARAL’s scorecard, but also scored in the 30s twice, and 60 or lower five times. He cast multiple votes that would restrict abortion rights, including a 1998 vote to override a Clinton veto. As governor, he signed an abortion-ultrasound bill that drew anti-choice activists’ praise.

On all three of these  issues, Sittenfeld’s progressive positions signal a clear-cut break with Strickland. He’s pledged that he will only support a Supreme Court nominee who pledges to uphold Roe v. Wade. He’s got a comprehensive agenda to reduce gun violence: first, by closing loopholes to make background checks truly mandatory; second, by holding gun manufacturers and dealers accountable; and third, by keeping violent weapons out of dangerous hands. On the environment, Sittenfeld has a proven leadership record on the city council, chairing the committee overseeing all environmental issues. When a GOP plan was launched to defund the city’s Office of Environmental Quality (OEQ) as part of a cost-cutting plan, he alerted local activists to fight back, pointing out that “OEQ saves tax-payers more money each year than the Department costs-- so axing it would represent broken fiscal management and in no way be productive for our budget situation.” Regarding global warming, he supports Obama’s Clean Power Plan, opposes the Keystone Pipeline, and says “the need to act has never been more urgent or more important.”

But beyond these key issue positions, reflecting the vast majority of Ohio’s Democratic base, Sittenfeld has a mature sense of how intricately different issues and ideas interweave and synergize with one another, based on his own lived experience. Before being elected to city council, Sittenfeld served as the assistant director of the Community Learning Center Institute, which played a key role in dramatically transforming the city’s public schools. He described the result in a speech laying out his urban agenda last year:

Virtually all of our schools are new. But instead of using them only during the school day-- and then shooing the kids out of the building and into the streets-- we’ve turned them into bustling, round-the-clock community centers.

Co-located health and dental facilities…. adult education programs… and enhanced cultural and recreational opportunities have removed barriers to student learning, boosted academic achievement, and sparked broader neighborhood revitalization.

Rather than seeing education through the narrow lens of high-stakes testing of individual students, destroying neighborhood schools in the process, as has happened in Chicago and other major cities, Cincinnati’s approach was the complete opposite, seeing education as the process of a whole community creating a better future by investing in its children holistically, synergizing different support systems that had previously been disconnected, or even absent. Similarly, a careful reading of his issue agenda shows a constant awareness of how different pieces of the progressive policy puzzle fit together.

Under the heading of “rebuilding the middle class,” he says he will “fight for a livable minimum wage, expanded overtime pay, better child care assistance, family leave, and paid sick days,” and “reject bad trade deals that create an uneven playing field for American workers,” pledging to “always be steadfast in standing up for workers’ rights, including collective bargaining,” which Ohio Republicans have fiercely attacked since 2010. At the same time, he won’t be pigeonholed as defending dying industries of the past, saying, “We won’t rebuild the middle class by yearning for yesterday or clinging to a past that will never return. We must embrace innovation, champion change, and understand the tools of tomorrow, including ensuring fast, affordable internet for all Americans.”

His positive stance toward innovation is reflected in other issue areas he stresses as well-- most notably education and the environment. And he has a detailed urban policy agenda, encompassing four major components: ending mass incarceration, improving police-community relations and better gun safety, jobs and economic opportunity, and improving urban schools and making college affordable. This is not a laundry list of issues in his view, but a tightly interrelated set of concerns. Being grounded in the reality of that interrelation is arguably Sittenfeld’s greatest strength-- and given the nature of the Democratic Party’s diverse constituency, it’s just the sort of leadership strength the party desperately needs. “All of us want our best selves represented by who we cast a vote for,” Celeste said. “And I believe PG Sittenfeld represents the best of us.”

But the party also needs leaders who can bring people together in different ways. And that’s precisely where the outsiders excel over the anointed insiders in the other three states as well.

The state's newspapers are all disgusted with Strickland for ducking debates and have almost all endorsed Sittenfeld. Hillary Clinton, who makes believe she opposes the NRA and cares about families, is strongly behind Strickland despite his very Republican record that spans decades. Summing up months of coverage, the Columbus Dispatch closed Saturday by noting that "Ted Strickland, a 74-year-old veteran politician, has been employing a rope-a-dope strategy ... Meanwhile, Sittenfeld, a 31-year-old Cincinnati councilman, has pressed for debates, held news conferences and traveled the state." And the final Toledo Blade editorial reported that "Strickland...has largely limited his campaign appearances to friendly audiences, and even other Democrats have noted his overall lack of visibility... In a year in which voters are turning to insurgent candidates at every level, in search of new voices and fresh faces, such a contrast could work in Mr. Sittenfeld’s favor."

But Chuck Schumer doesn't want energetic and committed independent thinkers like Sittenfeld in the Senate. He wants tired old conservative hacks like Strickland who will just do what they're told. Schumer has no realistic hope that a doddering and incoherent Strickland could actually beat Republican incumbent Rob Portman and he and Tester are just gambling that November will see a battle between Hillary and Trump and that she will be seen as the lesser evil and have the coattails needed to drag Strickland's NRA carcass across the finish line. Ohio Democratic primary voters should give Chuck Schumer the finger tomorrow and nominate PG Sittenfeld. Beyond tomorrow's primaries... in Illinois and Ohio:

Why Does The FBI Still Refuse To Release Their Investigation Of David Joyce's Cocaine Abuse?

Andrew Rayburn (r) bought some sports teams, a jet and a crooked congressman (l)

Some people say Ohio Congressman David Joyce has kicked his cocaine addiction and is no longer a substance abuser. But not everyone who knows Joyce agrees. Joyce became so obsessed with 2 Live Crew when he was on a jihad against their music that started... living the life. He's become a notorious corporate whore in Washington and everyone on K Street-- which is salivating at the prospect that Republican congressional gains next week will bring them more David Joyces-- knows he'll roll over if the price is right.

But Joyce doesn't just take bribes Inside the Beltway. It's no secret in northeast Ohio that Joyce has been right up Chagrin Falls multimillionaire Andrew Rayburn's ass. Rayburn, who owns his own jet and is a part owner of the Cavs, takes Joyce to games at his expense-- which Joyce doesn't report-- and paid for a very fancy 4-day trip for Joyce and his family to go down to Anguilla-- a tax shelter and den of iniquity for rich crooks-- for Rayburn's daughter's wedding. Joyce filed an inadequate report on the trip and purposely covered up the "contributions," a clear ethics violation-- and probably a criminal one as well, especially if cocaine was involved in the festivities.

Aside from whatever illegal "contributions" Rayburn has given Joyce in the way of unreported or partially-reported gifts, he has contributed thousands of dollars to Joyce's shady political career and helped strong-arm other business associates on Joyce's behalf. In fact Rayburn spends a great deal of money on right-wing political candidates-- but Joyce is his biggest "investment." Rayburn owned Flexalloy all through the eighties and nineties and then sold it and started Big Game Capital in August, 2000, a private investment firm. The FBI is still sitting on their investigation of Joyce's cocaine use and adamantly refuses to release FOIA requests for the report. The latest polling shows Joyce, who was not challenged by the DCCC at Steve Israel's orders, despite poor reelect numbers, will probably be reelected Tuesday. Thanks for another grotesquely corrupt GOP coke head in Congress, Steve Israel!

Corporate Bailout for Ohio’s Weakest Incumbent, Dave Joyce

Despite recent ratings changes to the contrary, Congressman Dave Joyce is in trouble in Ohio’s 14th District. Defending Main Street Super PAC, a corporate backed special interest group funded by former 14th District Congressman turned lobbyist, Steve LaTourette, just swooped in with a $67,000 TV buy to bail out Joyce.

It’s no surprise that Joyce is in trouble, given that OH-14 is a true swing district, voting for Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown 48-47% in 2012, and polling shows Congressman Joyce is vulnerable to defeat from a Democratic challenger.

 

Joyce has built virtually his entire campaign with big money from corporate PACs and Super PACs, to the tune of over $1.7 million this cycle. But voters are ready to toss Joyce for his 90% voting record with Speaker John Boehner, and his turning a blind eye to corporate inversions, a practice that allows large companies to dump their tax burden on the middle class by reincorporating in tax havens overseas.

Michael Wager, Joyce’s Democratic opponent, has been relentless in calling out Joyce’s support for corporate interests, taking him to task in a recent interview for being the largest recipient of PAC dollars from Eaton Corporation, a formerly Cleveland-area based company that moved its headquarters to Ireland to dodge paying taxes. Here’s what Wager said in a Cleveland Scene interview this week:

I’ve been aware of what are called corporate inversions for a long time. It's just another one of the enormous loopholes in the way the tax code is set up in the U.S. They're largely taken advantage of by large companies, corporations and very wealthy people who have tax planners. What they're doing is not illegal. It's just wrong. Eaton Corp. is the example I use, because they're local. And they're not fond of me using them. In a sense, I don't blame Eaton Corp. They did what was in their interest to maximize their profits. Do I believe it was wrong and inconsistent with the notion of being an American company? Of course I do. And I understand why they did it. What I don't accept is that the U.S. Congress knows they're doing it and that dozens of other large companies are doing it — and the list is growing as we sit here.

I've tried to draw David Joyce out on this. And it's more than just, 'He's a Republican in Congress and he hasn't acted on it.' He is the single largest recipient of PAC money from Eaton Corp. When I mentioned that to him in a side-by-side debate last Friday, he didn't respond. He just said it's a big loophole and something should be done about it.

Wager, a corporate lawyer, knows the tricks that these large companies use to dodge paying their fair share. That’s why they’re scared he’ll make it to Congress, push for real tax reform, and cut into their massive profits.

Things aren’t looking so good for corporate America’s lapdog, Congressman Dave Joyce. Joyce is in retreat: just days after Michael Wager went on air calling him out for his votes to shut down the government and cut Social Security and Medicare, Joyce pulled his first ad, and LaTourette’s Defending Main Street Super PAC stepped in to bail him out.

 

If you want to help Michael, a Blue America endorsed candidate, before the Super PAC ads air next week, please click here.

House Republicans Have Another Problem-- Rampant Cocaine Abuse

Northeast Ohio's very own 2 Live Crew

Yesterday, according to Fox DC Bureau Chief Chad Pergram, Boehner was whining about how the House Republican conference is filled with "knuckleheads." He didn't name any and everyone-- including everyone here at DWT just assumed he was talking about the Members that don't get bought off by corruption, guys like Justin Amash and Walter Jones, who Boehner hates for their refusal to allow him to bioss them around. No one suspected he might be talking about the House Republicans' massive drug problem. The GOP conference is riddled with coke addicts, meth freaks and pill poppers. Now, I don't know if David Joyce is a still an alcoholic and a coke hound and it's unclear if he was one of Trey Radel's customers before Radel (R-FL) was busted as a coke distributor and forced to resign from Congress. But the FBI does know-- and won't spill the beans. They just sit on it-- in case they ever need any special leverage over Congressman Joyce (R-OH).

OK, here's the background. Most people think Joyce got turned down for a cush job as Northern Ohio's Federal Prosecutor because he's a sexist pig who was always being "inappropriate" with female employees, especially when he was drunk, which was frequently. But the sexism and his own little war against women isn't what caused Bush to kill the nomination. In 2001 two heavy-weight Ohio senators, Mike DeWine ® and George Voinovich ® recommended Joyce for the job and Bush nominated him. By mid-May Joyce was ready to move into his new gig-- “As a career prosecutor, I see it as a challenge that I look forward to. My job now is to make sure that people are treated fairly and that justice is done, and that’s what I hope to bring to the federal system.” But by the end of the year Bush withdrew the nomination. In fact, Bush tried saying that technically he had never even made the nomination. That was after 6 months of FBI vetting and scrutiny and a eye-popping report they gave Attorney General John Ashcroft who was appalled at what he saw. By December the Plain Dealer was reporting that "the Bush administration decided not to nominate Joyce as the U.S. attorney for Northern Ohio due to questions that came up about his past during an FBI background check." But the Plain Dealer didn't seem especially curious to find out what exactly was in that FBI background check, assuming, like everyone else, it had something to do with Joyce's inability to act like a gentleman when he was around women, especially women he could lord it over on some level. But they were wrong.

Joyce said he would "fight for" the job but by May, 2002, he suddenly ended the fight, telling the Plain Dealer "You just get sick of it. It’s been a year, and enough’s enough. I’m honored that I was considered for this job, but it’s time for me to let somebody else have this opportunity." A few years later, when rumors about his cocaine abuse started circulating in Ohio, he was still bitter but started presenting the story in a new light. He said he didn't get the job because he was "out-politicked." He said that Gregory White, who eventually got the job, had the backing of then Governor Bob Taft. "I can’t change what happened. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Joyce told the media. "I got beat at a game I didn’t understand all that well." He got "out-politicked?" WIth Mike DeWine and George Voinovich on his team? No one really believed that.

In 2005, Cleveland Scene Magazine reported that Joyce’s nomination for U.S. Attorney failed because defense attorneys accused him of withholding evidence during a murder case.

Joyce was cleared of accusations but the article reported that the White House did not want to risk nominating Joyce. More nonsense about something the Bush Administration didn't care a whit about. The cocaine rumors never went away entirely and "everybody" knows he gets high-- everybody, that is, except the voters in OH-14.

When Joyce was Geauga County Prosecutor, Steve LaTourette was Prosecutor in neighboring Lake County and the two of them became fast friends and political allies. The 2 of them worked on banning the multiplatinum 2 Live Crew album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be from local record stores. (They failed.) LaTourette went on to serve 9 terms in Congress from the area and when he decided to make a fortune as a lobbyist, he managed to secure his old seat for Joyce and voters weren't allowed to see the FBI report on Joyce's outrageous behavior. They still haven't been.

Funny that Joyce had such antipathy towards 2 Live Crew for their lifestyle instead of inviting them to his legendary Friday night poker games where white people did their version of exactly what he tried persecuting the 2 Live Crew guys for: