Do You Think The Worst Presidency In The History Of The U.S. Will End Without A War?

It increasingly looks like Trump is ginning up a war with Iran to get peoples' minds off the Mueller Report and the myriad other problems that are spinning out of control and drowning his presidency and his hopes for reelection. Maybe Venezuela? Yeah, there's always that... but the Saudis and Israelis are both really pushing for the U.S. to attack Iran.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing when Rand Paul (R-KY) reminded him that "Only Congress can declare war. You do not have our permission to go to war with Iran." What brought that on, you wonder? Paul asked Pompeo if the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force-- which still technically allows a president to send troops to fight anyone "responsible for the 9/11 attacks." Pompeo ducked the question, as though he were being questioned by a Democrat. He said that it would be something for "the lawyers" to decide but that there is "there is no question there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda. Full Stop."

That worried Paul-- and rightfully so-- who said, "I can tell you, you have not been given power or authority by Congress to have war with Iran. So my hope is, I'm not arguing if IRGC is terrorists, my argument is you do not have permission Congress to go to war with Iran. It's the way the constitution was written. You want it, you have to come to us."

On Monday, the Trump administration accused the group, formed by an order of Ayatollah Khomeini as a branch of Iran's Armed Forces founded after the 1979 Iranian revolution, of not only facilitating, but perpetrating, terrorism. President Trump declared the designation an "unprecedented step" that "recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft."

The designation marks the first time that the U.S. has said a part of another government is a terrorist organization, according to the White House, and will expand the scope and scale of the administration's maximum pressure campaign on the Iranian regime. The White House emphasized the action "sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious consequences."

If Trump decides to go ahead with a war against Iran anyway, do you think Congress would stand up to him? McConnell? Schumer? McCarthy? Pelosi? Rand Paul and Barbara Lee aren't going to be able to stop it alone.

And speaking of Pelosi, Shahid Buttar is the progressive Democrat challenging her this cycle. I asked him that very question. Here's what he told me this morning: "The military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us to fear has unfortunately co-opted both of the major corporate political parties in the United States, which continue to march in lockstep with our criminal president despite the empty words of leaders mouthing resistance. And with so many Americans ignorant of our own nation's history, the parties have come together to drag We the American people, military families, and overlooked foreign communities from one neo-imperial war to another. Few remember how the U.S. effectively created the right wing theocracy in Iran, by installing and supporting a dictator for decades who inspired a populist backlash. If we merely walked our own talk of supporting democracy abroad, we would advance U.S. national security far more reliably than through any number of military interventions."

I also asked the same question to our old friend Doug Applegate, a strategic thinker, former congressional candidate and ex-Marine colonel. He didn't seem sanguine. "Given the ease of that the Bush Cheney cabal served up the fraud and misrepresentations to invade Iraq, Trump will have no hesitation to lie and misrepresent his way to a war with Iran. But the draft dodger will find out quickly that the Iranians will draw far more U.S. blood and treasure while yielding no prize. But the bigger question will be whether or not the Democrats can stop them given the way the Democrats play chess."

Alan Grayson added, sorrowfully, that "Because no one was held accountable for the last time that we were lied into a war (WMD), or the time before that (the Tonkin Gulf incident) or the time before that (Remember the Maine?) it very well might happen again."

Impeachment Time Is Coming

Pelosi thinks it's "bad politics" to impeach Trump. (It's no less her duty than it was Paul Ryan's-- maybe more so.) She may be wrong... and her hand may be forced. A new poll, released this morning by the Associated Press, confirms that most Americans believe that Trump has obstructed the investigation by Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election that put Trump into the White House. And a smaller majority think that if the case is proven that Trump worked with the Russians on this, he should be impeached and removed from office.

It's become painfully obvious that the Republican-controlled Senate won't vote to remove Trump regardless of what crimes he's committed (and what danger he puts the country in)-- including high treason. But if Pelosi is making her calculations based on what is good and bad politics, impeaching Trump, only to see the Republicans vote not to remove him, might be great 2020 Senate election politics. This could tip the scales in Republican-held seats in Kentucky (McConnell), Arizona (McSally), Colorado (Gardner), North Carolina (Tillis), Iowa (Ernst), Kansas (Roberts, if he runs again), Maine (Collins) and maybe even in Texas (Cornyn). 

A majority of Americans-- 58 percent-- think the president has tried to impede the Russia investigation, while 4 in 10 say he has not. An overwhelming share of Democrats, 90 percent, say the president has sought to obstruct the probe, compared with 22 percent of Republicans.

The survey also shows that if Mueller’s investigation finds that Trump did not personally have inappropriate contacts with the Kremlin but nonetheless tried to obstruct the FBI’s work, 51 percent of Americans think Congress should take steps to remove him from office, while 46 percent think it should not.

The special counsel’s obstruction investigation has shadowed the president for a year and a half, unfolding alongside his inquiry into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to sway the election and the separate campaign finance probe in New York. The last month has produced bombshell developments in the investigation, including Cohen’s sentencing, allegations that Trump’s former campaign chairman lied to prosecutors and a judge’s unexpected upbraiding of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

...About 8 in 10 Democrats and 2 in 10 Republicans think Trump should be removed from office if he committed obstruction. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats and only about 1 in 10 Republicans think Congress should take steps to impeach him if he directed illegal payments.

Overall, 45 percent said Congress should take steps to remove him from office if he orchestrated the hush money payments. Slightly more, 53 percent, said Congress should not take steps to remove Trump for that.

About 4 in 10 think he broke the law when it comes to directing Cohen’s payments, and about as many say the same of his ties to Russia. About 2 in 10 think Trump has done nothing wrong, with the remainder saying his actions were unethical, but not illegal.

About 7 in 10 Democrats believe Trump has done something illegal involving Russia. Among Republicans, 55 percent say Trump has done nothing wrong when it comes to Russia, while 35 percent think he has done something unethical but not illegal.

...The poll finds rising confidence among Democrats of the fairness and impartiality of Mueller’s investigation. Overall, about a third of Americans say they’re extremely or very confident that the inquiry is fair and impartial; another quarter say they are moderately confident. Roughly 4 in 10 say they’re not confident.

Democrats are more likely to express confidence today compared with a year ago, 51 percent to 38 percent. Just 14 percent of Republicans say they are confident, which is unchanged from last year.

Members of Congress who will have to sit in judgment of Trump, probably shouldn't be making too many public statements about impeachment at this point. I reached out to some former members and so candidates we supported who ran and didn't wind up winning. Alan Grayson has been loud and clear about his support to move forward on impeaching Trump. This morning he reiterated that "Trump said on national TV that he fired Comey because of 'that Russia thing.' He exchanged information with Manafort and dangled a pardon after Manafort signed a plea agreement. That’s obstruction of justice. Trump called on Russia to hack Democratic e-mails, and Russia did so. Russia also ran a social media campaign to suppress votes for Clinton. Trump paid back Russia by removing Ukrainian support from the GOP platform, appointing a National Security Advisory on Russia’s payroll known as 'Misha' [Flynn], giving state secrets to the Russian Ambassador in the Oval Office, refusing to implement sanctions on Russia, and now withdrawing US troops from Russian ally Syria.  That’s collusion and treason. Trump should be impeached and removed from office because he has committed impeachable offenses, in broad daylight. Q.E.D."

Dan Cannon, who ran for an Indiana congressional seat this year, sees it much differently. "It's incredible that nearly half of Americans would not support impeachment at this point, given everything we know about our incompetent, narcissistic, crime-boss president. These poll responses, especially from Democrats, say a lot about how easy it is to manipulate the public into accepting a new normal for ethical behavior and the rule of law in general, and how quickly that manipulation can be accomplished. Still, as much as I would enjoy seeing Trump impeached, imprisoned, and humiliated, I think a better outcome would be to see him decisively defeated at the ballot box next year. Without the votes in the Senate, impeachment seems an exercise in futility anyway (Trump doesn't have the dignity even of a Richard Nixon type-- he won't resign). The real question is whether American democracy can handle another two years of Trumpism."

Los Angeles progressive activist and former congressional candidate Marcy Winograd told me she's "looking forward to a Democrat-controlled House conducting vigorous hearings and investigations into multiple Trump abuses of power, most importantly the use of corporate facilitators to pose as regulators, allowing polluters to plunder our land, air and water. My concern about impeachment is that I would not want to see the Vice President, a fundamentalist, ascend to the presidency to execute a dystopian vision. If we could impeach both Trump and Pence, then so be it. As for Trump obstructing justice by interfering with the Russia probe, I think the answer to that is clear: He obstructed justice when he fired the former FBI director James Comey and when tampered with witnesses on twitter, urging them, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone, not to cooperate with the Department of Justice."

Blue America supported Norman Solomon when he ran for Congress in northern California. We'd be way better off now if he had won. "The House," he told me today, "should move toward impeachment, though at best there'll be nothing immediate about it. First step is an impeachment investigation via committee."

Mueller's report or anything coming through the courts shouldn't impede or delay the House from going ahead with impeachment proceedings. Impeachment is a legislative branch function-- it's not a judicial function-- and frankly it has a lot more to do with politics and media than legalisms.

Tactical discourse can go on indefinitely, and conventional wisdom has been wrong so often in recent years that you gotta wonder why the pundits are taken so seriously at this point. From the outset of his presidency, Trump has been violating the foreign and domestic emoluments of the Constitution of the United States-- which is supposed to be 'the supreme law of the land.'

Impeachment would anger most Republicans. No telling what would do for independents. The 'backfire' argument cites what happened after Clinton was impeached, but skips over what happened after Nixon was forced from office on the verge of impeachment-- the Republicans lost lots of congressional seats and the White House.

No one is above the law-- what a concept!

John Laesch is another great candidate Blue America strongly supported (against Denny Hastert). I asked him what he thinks about all this impeachment discussion. He said that "A Democratic majority was elected by the American people to serve in the House of Representatives during the 2018 election. When those newly elected members of Congress take office we will probably see more congressional investigations on top of the ongoing Mueller investigation into Donald Trump’s Russian dealings. At this point, I think the American people want the United States Congress to do more to make sure that nobody, not even the President of the United States, is above the law. But as the Democratic majority pursues their 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy to thwart the rest of Trump’s chaotic presidency, they should be paying attention to polls like this one. According to a Dec. 2018 poll, 51% of Americans think that Trump should be impeached if he obstructed the Mueller investigation and 45% think that he should be impeached if he initiated hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. According to a Reuters  poll on Aug. 2018, 70% of Americans now support Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare. It doesn’t seem like rocket science and the math doesn’t lie. The American people are more willing and ready to support fundamental healthcare change than they are ready to support impeachment. A stronger strategy for Democrats would be to advance a bold, populist agenda that works for working Americans. This strategy has the added benefit of undermining Trump's populist rhetoric that helped get him elected."

Doug Applegate had the least honey-coated and more dire warning. A former Marine colonel, who ran for Congress in the Orange County/San Diego district and basically ran Darrell Issa out of office, he reminded us just moments ago that "Since 2016, I have stated publicly that Donald Trump was unfit to command. Donald Trump's actions disclosed to date far exceed the wrongful conduct of Nixon. Should we fail to impeach a president attempting to slay our Republic by suicide, the parties responsible (both political and individuals) will forever lose the moral authority to stop the next Donald Trump. Worst yet those political parties and individuals will have enabled the next despot to occupy the Oval Office. Chuck and Nancy must act now or step aside."

A Worse California Candidate Than Gil Cisneros-- Meet Mike Levin

A friend listened in on a phone call between Pelosi and a very well-paid-- and very sleazy-- Mike Levin consultant. The guy, who has rounded up a gaggle of really slimy members of Congress to endorse Levin against Doug Applegate, asked Pelosi to get the DCCC to do likewise. She assured him she would. She was unable to deliver, although she was able to prevent the DCCC from endorsing Applegate, very much inline with what the DCCC is doing in other California districts where the is a chance that 2 Republicans could emerge from the jungle primary in 2 weeks, leaving no Democrat in the general election competition. It was the same way the DCCC screwed over Applegate in 2016 when they stalled until the last minute to endorse him, giving him the most minimal help as he came close to defeating Republican super-villain Darrell Issa. There were so many counts and recounts that it was the last election finalize-- and the final score was:

• Issa- 155,888 (50.3%
• Applegate- 154,267 (49.7%)

Had the DCCC not waited 'til the end of the cycle to jump in against Issa-- and perhaps wasting so much time and resources fighting against progressives instead of fighting Republicans-- Applegate would be an incumbent now and not going into a crazy primary with a dozen candidates including 2 especially vile self-funders, Paul Kerr-- who just wants to get his name out there for his race for the campaign in a neighboring district when rich conservative Scott Peters retires to run for mayor-- and Qualcomm heiress Sara Jacobs who parachuted into the district from Brooklyn to spend a load of daddy's money yelling nothing but he's a woman and deserves the seat. By the May 16 FEC filing report Kerr has lavished $4,112,728 of his own on his campaign and Jacobs had spent $1,587,831 of her own (plus $1.7 million more from her family) on her campaign.

Aside from Applegate, none of the other candidate had shown the slightest interest in defeating Issa in the past. Mike Levin was the head Orange County fundraiser for Hillary's 2016 campaign but never contributed a nickel to Applegate's campaign. As soon as Issa announced his retirement, fearing he could never fend off another challenge from Applegate, The 2 other clowns sensed an opportunity to get a business card that said "Congressmember" and jumped right in. Levin already had his plans in the works before the final count between Doug and Issa was close to being done. Since then "the Janus-faced quality of the Levin campaign--  publicly unctuous and privately defamatory--  was not only repugnant, but also, more importantly, extremely effective. This was immediately obvious to me as Doug’s campaign manager, and I made efforts to force the surreptitious negativity of Levin’s campaign into open public conflict."

Keep in mind that 5 San Diego County Democratic clubs-- including the Democrats of MiraCosta College, Saddleback Young Democrats, Palomar College Democrats, San Diego Democrats for Equality, and Democratic Woman’s Club of San Diego County-- have all taken the unprecedented step of rating Levin "unacceptable" or "unqualified" because of the thuggish nature of his campaign.

A couple of weeks ago Cody Petterson, President of the San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action, spilled the beans on Levin with a long and powerful post at Medium, Square Deal. It hasn't had enough attention and with the primary coming up on June 5, I figured I'd give it a boost. Levin's character and campaign, he wrote "bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the demoralizing toxicity that currently plagues the 49th. I believe that his brand of politics has no place in a revitalized, community-rooted Democratic Party, and that exposing it is essential to preventing it from thriving in the future." He couldn't be more correct and sees sees Levin's deceitfulness as nothing less than Trumpish and very much following "the Cohn/Stone dictum, 'Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.'

It’s not a mystery what Levin’s plan was prior to 2016: 1) use his work in corporate government affairs to take home tidy paychecks while developing relationships with donors and government officials, 2) bundle campaign donations to secure an appointment in the HRC administration, 3) climb his diligent way to an undersecretary position, and then 4) run for the 49th in 2020 alongside an HRC re-election bid. It wasn’t a bad plan, as plans go, though a more pious man would have remembered that plans anger the gods. Doug’s wildcat run in 2016 must have been an unsettling disruption of his program, and it’s telling that in spite of multiple direct asks from Doug, Levin, by his own admission, didn’t give a dime or lift a finger to help him. Bear in mind, Doug was a Democratic challenger, neck-and-neck with an eight-term Republican incumbent, in Mike’s own district. It doesn’t take a priest to guess that Mike wasn’t just praying for Hillary’s victory when he knelt beside his bed, Fall 2016.

Though Doug’s narrow loss was undoubtedly some consolation, one can only imagine Mike’s existential terror standing there in Javits Center watching his meticulous plan to jump from corporate government relations (i.e., lobbying) to appointed office implode. By his own account he decided to run on the flight home from New York --  weeks before, it should be noted, the outcome in the 49th was declared. Hillary’s loss dramatically disrupted Levin’s strategy and timeline. The narrowness of Doug’s loss meant that he would have to accelerate his timeline or risk Doug beating Issa and holding the seat for the foreseeable future. But Hillary’s loss meant that Mike would have to run on his corporate career, rather than as an appointed official, as he had planned, and he knew that eight years of directing corporate lobbying would not endear him to voters.

Levin’s strategy was thus born of necessity and haste. The vacuum left by the loss of those four planned years of appointed office is the defining factor in Levin’s campaign. Robbed of the centerpiece of his campaign, Levin settled upon the only strategy available to him: 1) avoid all mention of his career, 2) clone Doug’s 2016 platform in order both to align with the ascendant progressive base of the Party and to force the primary race to center around fundraising and tone, rather than clear differences of values and priorities, and 3) peddle Doug’s decade-old divorce and custody battle behind every closed door. However invidious and unscrupulous I may find the strategy, I can’t fault Levin’s SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis for leading him to it. The 49th has suffered immeasurably for it, and it has put Democrats at much greater likelihood of defeat in November, but it was rational for him personally... The misrepresentations and prevarications of Levin’s “Record on Clean Energy” provide a perfect illustration of the deceit upon which his campaign is predicated.

The first “myth” that Mike set out to ‘debunk’ was that he “is not a ‘real’ environmental attorney, because he didn’t litigate many cases, and there is no record of his advocacy prior to 2016.” Classic misdirection. Levin’s claim to the title of ‘environmental attorney’ isn’t weak because he hasn’t litigated ‘many’ cases. Mike Levin has a law degree and standing before the California State Bar. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to lay claim to being an attorney. It is his claim to being an environmental attorney that is weak and deceptive. The only litigation of which LexisNexis has record were three cases at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, Hernandez v. Countrywide, Gallegos v. Countrywide, and Arenas v. Countrywide. Unfortunately for Mike, he was not valiantly representing struggling Latinx victims of Countrywide’s predatory lending; on the contrary, he was defending Countrywide against them and, in the event, was able to help Countrywide successfully foreclose on their homes.

All three San Diego County homeowners had alleged predatory lending, unfair debt collection, and RICO violations. Levin pleaded these cases in the immediate aftermath of the financial collapse and three months after the announcement of Countrywide’s $8.68 billion settlement of predatory lending suits, the largest in history. For precisely the activities alleged in the suits. Levin defended Countrywide against San Diego County Latino foreclosure victims with contracts that were predatory on their face. The Arenas contract had a 2% teaser rate that ballooned after the first month. The first allowable Interest Rate Change Date was the first day of December, 2006--  a month after the contract was signed. The change was determined by adding 3.7% to the twelve-month average yield of US Treasury Securities, which was around 5% in late 2006. That’s potentially an 8.7% interest rate six weeks after signing a contract for a 2% interest rate. Classic predatory lending. The Hernandez contract featured a 6.5% rate-- to a man who had previously been foreclosed upon.

At least one of the plaintiffs, by their own report, was subsequently selected for inclusion in the $335 million settlement of claims against Countrywide of discriminatory lending to Latinos and African Americans. Whatever his private objections may have been, Levin remained at the firm until September 2010. Now, I don’t approve of holding youthful mistakes unduly against any individual, including candidates, if their subsequent conduct reflects contrition and maturation. Unfortunately, the expedient, mercenary quality that these cases demonstrate is the hallmark of Levin’s career, rather than an aberration or youthful error.

The second ‘myth’ that Levin attempted to debunk in his rejoinder was that he “supports a fossil fuel-based energy future.” This is a remarkably clumsy dodge. There is no Democrat, in the current political climate, who actively supports a fossil fuel-based energy future or opposes eventually transitioning to 100% renewable energy. The question is, and has been for the last decade, how aggressive that transition should be. Levin’s challenge here is that, his youth notwithstanding, he is himself a fossil. Levin’s career unfolded in the context of a protracted struggle within the Democratic community between climate hawks who demanded the immediate transition to renewables, and moderates who believed fracked natural gas could serve as an affordable, less carbon intensive alternative to coal.

Levin’s career choices put him firmly on the moderate side of the argument, along with Obama’s ‘all of the above’ energy strategy and HRC’s globetrotting fracked-gas junkets. In September 2010, Mike became Director of Government Affairs for FlexEnergy, which at the time was focused on developing a proprietary technology that oxidized rather than combusted natural or coal gas. Several months after Mike’s arrival, however, FlexEnergy acquired rights to Ingersoll-Rand’s MT250 microturbine, which could, ostensibly, be powered by their oxidizer, but which soon became the primary focus of their manufacturing and sales. At the end of 2012, FlexEnergy spun off their gradual oxidizer technology and focused exclusively on microturbine sales, buoyed by $400 million in projected sales to the Russian oil and gas industry, backed by the US Export-Import Bank, which, however, collapsed in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea and US Ex-Im’s moratorium on financing for sales to Russia (See Russia, Notes 12a and 12b). Levin’s participation and equity position in FlexEnergy post-spin-off is unclear, as it became a private corporation and ceased filing publicly available financial reports. Although he was listed as an officer and shareholder in their final Form D filing, V. John White Associates, which FlexEnergy retained as its outside lobbyist in California, lists him as ‘terminated’ as FlexEnergy’s Responsible Officer in their 2012 filing.

Levin continued on as Secretary and VP of Legal and Regulatory Affairs of the gradual oxidizer spin-off, Ener-Core, as it continued to hemorrhage venture capital: FlexPower had lost $7.6 million in 2011, $6.5 million from January to November 2012, and then, after the spin-off, Ener-Core lost $6,923,000 more from November 2012 to December 2013. Levin jumped ship abruptly in mid-March 2014--  three days after the Russian annexation of Crimea--  and it’s likely that he sold his 105,510 of vested shares before the 10-K for 2013 dropped on April 15th, which precipitated a steady decline in stock value. If so, he would’ve gotten out at around $36, a hundred times the value of the stock today.

Levin landed with premeditated ease at FuelCell the following month, where he served through September 2017 as Director of Government Affairs. FuelCell researches, designs, manufactures, and distributes large-stack fuel cell power plants, which run predominantly on natural gas, the majority of which, in the US, is fracked. All evidence suggests that Mike did for FuelCell what he had done for Ener-Core and Flex-Energy before that. When he avers that he “has never been a registered lobbyist,” it reinforces how deceptive the man habitually is. I want to be perfectly clear: Michael T. Levin has spent most of his career lobbying. Some of it was spent planning and directing the lobbying of others. FuelCell has hired a rogues’ gallery of lobbyists over the years. You can search the California or Connecticut registries, where they had legislative and regulatory interests, or the federal registry: Albertine Enterprises, Cassidy & Associates, Podesta Group, Foley & Lardner, White Associates, Evans & Associates, Global Strategy Group, and others. If you select “Financial Activity/Filing History” under “View:” you can see what his corporations were lobbying on: California Air Resources Board (CARB), California Energy Commission (CEC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), AB-327, AB-1228, AB-1466, AB-1478, AB-1624, AB-1935, AB-1953, AB-2229, AB-2649, SB-699, SB-874, the AB-32 Scoping Plan, etc). Almost exclusively energy legislation or regulation with the potential to impact FuelCell’s access to subsidies, exemptions, and other government benefits.

But Levin was also himself lobbying. FuelCell apparently decided that he was spending less than “one-third of his…compensated time in a calendar month engaging in direct communication with qualifying officials,” and that he therefore did not meet the FPPC’s threshold for qualification as an in-house lobbyist. Nonetheless, he was certainly lobbying, as can be easily verified by his submissions to various government agencies, primarily the California Public Utilities Commission, California Air Resources Board, and California Energy Commission. Now, lobbying isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I myself have lobbied (without compensation) at the city, county, and state level on affordable housing, smart growth, habitat conservation, and other progressive and environmental issues. Maybe Mike was just doing that?

Except he wasn’t. Mike was lobbying to slow California’s transition to renewables and to preserve taxpayer-funded ‘incentives’ for his company’s fossil fuel-based technology. If you think I’m distorting or exaggerating, get ready for some strong medicine. Mike had done some lobbying of California’s energy agencies at FlexEnergy. As mentioned previously, he is listed as the Responsible Officer for the lobbying firm V. John White & Associates, which had lobbied on FlexEnergy’s behalf before the CEC, CPUC, and CARB. FlexEnergy had been lobbying the CPUC to expand the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) to include their natural gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) turbines. In the event, CPUC President and former president of Southern California Edison Mike Peevey--  notoriously favorable to investor-owned utilities--  issued a decision in 2011 that did, indeed, expand SGIP to include their turbines and FlexEnergy was quick to applaud him for it (note that Mike is listed as the company contact on this rapturous bit of corporate fluff).

...With California’s green pastures drying up, FuelCell struck upon a different strategy. In May of 2016, ExxonMobil invested an undisclosed sum in FuelCell, and the two entered into a cooperative agreement to develop carbon capture and ‘clean coal’ technology. Throughout 2016, Trump drew on initiatives like these to tout ‘clean coal’ as a way of bringing jobs back to places like Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Days before the general election, FuelCell and ExxonMobil announced their intention to develop a carbon capture pilot project at Alabama’s mixed-use coal/gas James Barry Generating Station, with support from the US Department of Energy.

In the year and a half following Trump’s election, the company’s enthusiasm for ‘clean coal’ has only grown. Anthony Leo, FuelCell’s Vice President of Advanced Applications and Technology Development, shared the podium with Trump’s Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, at the National Coal Council’s 2017 Annual Spring Meeting (his presentation can be seen here). In 2017, FuelCell derived 9% of its revenue from ExxonMobil (up from 3% the previous year), and 9% from USDoE, in part from its work on the Barry carbon capture project. All told, the ExxonMobil joint venture probably accounted for around 15% of FuelCell’s revenue in 2017. Presumably Levin, as Director of Government Affairs, helped to secure some of the US Department of Energy funding for the FuelCell/ExxonMobil joint venture at the Barry Facility. Perhaps he was also involved in the international negotiations surrounding FuelCell’s joint venture with Alberta Innovates to develop carbon capture technologies for the Canadian tar sands, announced the week after the 2016 general election.

In spite of these injections, FuelCell fell from $31 to $1.50 during Levin’s tenure. The ongoing slide in FuelCell’s valuation undoubtedly reflects the fact that government subsidies are drying up and genuinely carbon-neutral solutions are advancing in capacity and declining in price so rapidly that carbon capture technologies will never be commercially viable at an industrial scale, even if they are one day technically feasible. Attempts like FuelCell’s to make hydrocarbon energy more sustainable are not only consistently failing at great expense to taxpayers, but also retarding our transition to 100% renewable energy by misdirecting government and private sector investment and providing cover to corporations and their Republican servants to prolong our dependency on fossil fuels.

This is Mike Levin’s career. In lieu of a legislative record, this is all we have to go on. Robbed by Donald Trump of three glorious years of kissing up and kicking down in our nation’s capital, Mike had to run on a decade at the trough with predatory lenders, ‘clean tech’ hucksters, and ExxonMobil. From the time he left Bryan Cave in 2010, to his departure from FuelCell in September 2017, Mike has never held a job that was not intimately tied to fracked natural gas. In a world without natural gas--  in a world of 100% renewable energy--  Mike could not have worked a day at any of his jobs. Period. It takes a certain kind of audacity to run on a platform of 100% renewables on the proceeds of a career in fossil fuel ‘bridge’ technologies. A lesser man would have folded under the weight of the irony.

Well, that’s my say. I don’t intend to sway the election with these words. Levin’s done. He needed the California Democratic Party endorsement, which is why he was willing to stoop to attempting to strip the 11 hardest working Democratic activists in the 49th of their delegate status in order to cheat his way across the finish line. Failing that, he’s now just a guy who lost his investors a million bucks, which is chump change compared to the six or seven million he’s helped lose investors every year of his ‘clean energy’ career. No, the couple hundred folks who read this--  only a third of them in the 49th--  won’t change much. But it’s important to send a message to candidates who believe they can deceive their way to power.

I don’t blame his staff, supporters, donors, or endorsers. He surely didn’t come clean to any of them about his career. He didn’t take them into his office and slide his Countrywide defense, or his CPUC comments, or FuelCell’s 10-K across the table, as he did with Doug’s divorce documents to one of the Colonel’s earliest and most faithful supporters. Maybe they should have done a little more due diligence, particularly Sierra Club and other environmental organizations who endorsed a man who has dedicated his career to lobbying against their efforts to remove fossil fuels from California’s energy grid.

Some have pointed the finger at Levin’s General Consultant, Parke Skelton, who by all accounts is among the best in the business. While general consultants are not famed for their strict adherence to principle, they also aren’t paid to offer spiritual counsel. If Mike wanted help distinguishing right from wrong, he could have headed down to lovely Mission San Juan Capistrano and talked to a priest. There’s no political trick, dirty or clean, that Parke Skelton hasn’t learned in the course of a storied career, and he undoubtedly presented to Levin all those strategies and potential activities that he thought advantageous. Mike alone, however, bore the responsibility for maintaining the campaign’s adherence to principle, and failed to do so.

Levin, to me, is cut from the cloth of an old world courtier (in this regard, read de Tocqueville on the “courtier spirit” in American democracy): ambitious, calculating, unscrupulous, sycophantic. A flatterer of donors and doyens. An exploiter of asymmetries of information. Fundraising and endorsement favor those who are willing and able to adapt their self-presentation to the audience in front of them. People of goodwill are often so busy with their own lives and struggles that they must largely rely on candidates’ self-representations. It must be acknowledged, in this regard, that Levin is exceptionally well-equipped. He is diligent in his research, hard-working, ingratiating, and adept at massaging his message to make it palatable to various--  predominantly white, affluent, liberal--  audiences.

The problem, however, is that this is precisely the kind of candidate that undermines faith in our political process. Precisely the kind of candidate that is ill-equipped to provide the authenticity and genuine depth of feeling that citizens crave in this populist turn. And a Democratic Party that continues not only to tolerate, but to aggrandize these candidates is a significant contributor to the calamity in which we now find ourselves. A Democratic Party that slips a velvet glove of social and cultural liberalism over the hand of corporations and their servants. Voters are tired of these Janus-faced parties and their bland, Janus-faced candidates. Of the bundlers, and bagmen, and backroom dealers.

Dishonesty and deceit are commonly considered hallmarks of politics. Over the last year and half, however, I’ve had the opportunity to develop personal relationships with most of the elected officials, candidates, and activists in the San Diego County Democratic Party and have found the vast majority to be principled and sincere. Calculating, cagey, carefully composed--  as is appropriate to the calling--  but not unscrupulous or deceitful. Some of them will present difficulties for me and other progressives when they win. Most will have to be lobbied from time to time to ensure they vote in a manner consistent with our vision and values. But I can’t think of any but Mike Levin to whom I have deep moral objections.

Does It Make A Difference If The President Is A Truculent, Ill-Advised Imbecile?

Nikki Haley by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday Señor Trumpanzee announced, as expected, that he's withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, "reneging," as NBC put it, "on a landmark pact and raising the question of whether Tehran might respond by resuming its frozen weapons program." Babbling like a psychotic money, Señor T imagines he got even with with Obama for making fun of him at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011. Trumpanzee: "It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal."

Trump further said that he would impose the "highest level" of sanctions, which would not only affect Iran but other countries that do business with it. The Treasury Department said a series of primary and secondary sanctions-- those affecting American and foreign partners of Iran-- would go back into effect after wind-down periods specified by law.

...If Iran seeks nuclear weapons, he said, it will face "bigger problems than it has ever had before."

But the move also raises two important questions for the Trump administration and the international community: whether Iran will respond by resuming its quest for nuclear weapons-- and whether reneging on the Iran pact might affect North Korea's willingness to cut a denuclearization deal of its own with the president.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the air on his way to North Korea during the announcement, Trump said. Critics of Tuesday's move said Trump is giving North Korea little reason to trust him.

"We are basically just going back on our word," said Jon Wolfstahl, who was the National Security Council’s senior director for arms control and nonproliferation under Obama.

The withdrawal of the U.S. leaves a big hole at the negotiating table after Trump had sought over the past six months to force a new deal by threatening to scrap the existing one.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that his country would remain engaged with the other signatories to the original deal.

"We've known for months that President Trump wouldn't be committed to this deal," he said. "The Iranian foreign ministry will continue talks with remaining countries in the deal."

French President Emanuel Macron, who spoke with Trump Tuesday morning, tweeted his "regret" over Trump's decision. "The nuclear non-proliferation regime is at stake," he wrote.

Alan Grayson mentioned something to me on the phone a few minutes ago that I don't think he'll mind me sharing: "Let’s see how people feel about this if Iran celebrates the Prophet’s Birthday (Nov. 20-21) by exploding a nuclear weapon." President Obama, reminding everyone about the difference between a thoughtful and literate president instead of a senile ape, posted a reaction on his Facebook page, asserting that "There are few issues more important to the security of the United States than the potential spread of nuclear weapons, or the potential for even more destructive war in the Middle East. That’s why the United States negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the first place."

The reality is clear. The JCPOA is working-- that is a view shared by our European allies, independent experts, and the current U.S. Secretary of Defense. The JCPOA is in America’s interest-- it has significantly rolled back Iran’s nuclear program. And the JCPOA is a model for what diplomacy can accomplish-- its inspections and verification regime is precisely what the United States should be working to put in place with North Korea. Indeed, at a time when we are all rooting for diplomacy with North Korea to succeed, walking away from the JCPOA risks losing a deal that accomplishes-- with Iran-- the very outcome that we are pursuing with the North Koreans.

That is why today’s announcement is so misguided. Walking away from the JCPOA turns our back on America’s closest allies, and an agreement that our country’s leading diplomats, scientists, and intelligence professionals negotiated. In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one Administration to the next. But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America’s credibility, and puts us at odds with the world’s major powers.

Debates in our country should be informed by facts, especially debates that have proven to be divisive. So it’s important to review several facts about the JCPOA.

First, the JCPOA was not just an agreement between my Administration and the Iranian government. After years of building an international coalition that could impose crippling sanctions on Iran, we reached the JCPOA together with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia, China, and Iran. It is a multilateral arms control deal, unanimously endorsed by a United Nations Security Council Resolution.

Second, the JCPOA has worked in rolling back Iran’s nuclear program. For decades, Iran had steadily advanced its nuclear program, approaching the point where they could rapidly produce enough fissile material to build a bomb. The JCPOA put a lid on that breakout capacity. Since the JCPOA was implemented, Iran has destroyed the core of a reactor that could have produced weapons-grade plutonium; removed two-thirds of its centrifuges (over 13,000) and placed them under international monitoring; and eliminated 97 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium-- the raw materials necessary for a bomb. So by any measure, the JCPOA has imposed strict limitations on Iran's nuclear program and achieved real results.

Third, the JCPOA does not rely on trust-- it is rooted in the most far-reaching inspections and verification regime ever negotiated in an arms control deal. Iran’s nuclear facilities are strictly monitored. International monitors also have access to Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, so that we can catch them if they cheat. Without the JCPOA, this monitoring and inspections regime would go away.

Fourth, Iran is complying with the JCPOA. That was not simply the view of my Administration. The United States intelligence community has continued to find that Iran is meeting its responsibilities under the deal, and has reported as much to Congress. So have our closest allies, and the international agency responsible for verifying Iranian compliance-- the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Fifth, the JCPOA does not expire. The prohibition on Iran ever obtaining a nuclear weapon is permanent. Some of the most important and intrusive inspections codified by the JCPOA are permanent. Even as some of the provisions in the JCPOA do become less strict with time, this won’t happen until ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years into the deal, so there is little reason to put those restrictions at risk today.

Finally, the JCPOA was never intended to solve all of our problems with Iran. We were clear-eyed that Iran engages in destabilizing behavior – including support for terrorism, and threats toward Israel and its neighbors. But that’s precisely why it was so important that we prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Every aspect of Iranian behavior that is troubling is far more dangerous if their nuclear program is unconstrained. Our ability to confront Iran’s destabilizing behavior-- and to sustain a unity of purpose with our allies-- is strengthened with the JCPOA, and weakened without it.

Because of these facts, I believe that the decision to put the JCPOA at risk without any Iranian violation of the deal is a serious mistake. Without the JCPOA, the United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East. We all know the dangers of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. It could embolden an already dangerous regime; threaten our friends with destruction; pose unacceptable dangers to America’s own security; and trigger an arms race in the world’s most dangerous region. If the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program under the JCPOA are lost, we could be hastening the day when we are faced with the choice between living with that threat, or going to war to prevent it.

In a dangerous world, America must be able to rely in part on strong, principled diplomacy to secure our country. We have been safer in the years since we achieved the JCPOA, thanks in part to the work of our diplomats, many members of Congress, and our allies. Going forward, I hope that Americans continue to speak out in support of the kind of strong, principled, fact-based, and unifying leadership that can best secure our country and uphold our responsibilities around the globe.

There was also a joint statement-- in the form of a press release-- from Prime Minister May, Chancellor Merkel and President Macron.

It is with regret and concern that we, the Leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom take note of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States of America from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Together, we emphasise our continuing commitment to the JCPoA. This agreement remains important for our shared security. We recall that the JCPoA was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council in resolution 2231. This resolution remains the binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute about the Iranian nuclear programme. We urge all sides to remain committed to its full implementation and to act in a spirit of responsibility.

According to the IAEA, Iran continues to abide by the restrictions set out by the JCPoA, in line with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The world is a safer place as a result. Therefore we, the E3, will remain parties to the JCPoA. Our governments remain committed to ensuring the agreement is upheld, and will work with all the remaining parties to the deal to ensure this remains the case including through ensuring the continuing economic benefits to the Iranian people that are linked to the agreement.

We urge the US to ensure that the structures of the JCPoA can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal. After engaging with the US Administration in a thorough manner over the past months, we call on the US to do everything possible to preserve the gains for nuclear non-proliferation brought about by the JCPoA, by allowing for a continued enforcement of its main elements.

We encourage Iran to show restraint in response to the decision by the US; Iran must continue to meet its own obligations under the deal, cooperating fully and in a timely manner with IAEA inspection requirements. The IAEA must be able to continue to carry out its long-term verification and monitoring programme without restriction or hindrance. In turn, Iran should continue to receive the sanctions relief it is entitled to whilst it remains in compliance with the terms of the deal.

There must be no doubt: Iran’s nuclear program must always remain peaceful and civilian. While taking the JCPOA as a base, we also agree that other major issues of concern need to be addressed. A long-term framework for Iran’s nuclear programme after some of the provisions of the JCPOA expire, after 2025, will have to be defined. Because our commitment to the security of our allies and partners in the region is unwavering, we must also address in a meaningful way shared concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its destabilising regional activities, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. We have already started constructive and mutually beneficial discussions on these issues, and the E3 is committed to continuing them with key partners and concerned states across the region.

We and our Foreign Ministers will reach out to all parties to the JCPoA to seek a positive way forward.

Not everyone is opposed to what Trump did. Staten Island mafioso, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, recently released from prison and running for Congress, issued a statement too: "President Trump's decisive rejection of the terrible Iran Deal is yet another foreign policy victory that will make our country and the world a safer place. We cannot allow the world's leading state sponsor of terror to ever obtain nuclear weapons, and the deal devised by Barack Obama's Administration did nothing to protect our long-term interests while giving away massive concessions to the regime in Tehran. The financial concessions Iran secured under the deal were further used to militarize the rogue state while funding violence and terrorism across the Middle East. As we have seen, President Trump's bold approach and leadership have already helped us reach historic steps toward peace and denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula. I am confident that today's decision will reinforce the pressure on Iran and ultimately lead to a final solution to the Iranian threat."

And Darrell Issa, forced to retire by Democrat Doug Applegate told whomever still listens to whatever he has to say, "I applaud President Trump’s bold leadership putting Iran, and its regional proxies, on notice and demanding that they permanently abandon any ambition to develop nuclear weapons. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated under the previous administration was irresponsible agreement that put our people at risk, left our most important allies in the Middle East in jeopardy, and did not achieve a single stated foreign policy objective of the United States. As I said in 2015: No nation has ever abandoned its nuclear ambitions without first agreeing to actually abandon its nuclear ambitions. Absent any commitment by the Iranian regime to permanently abandon its goal to develop nuclear weapons and a robust ‘anywhere, anytime’ inspections regime, the JCPOA was not worth the paper it was written on. Needless to say Doug Applegate, a former frontline Marine Colonel, saw it very differently from Issa. "Trump’s repudiation of the Iran Deal is utterly ill-advised, insulting to our allies, a huge risk for little gain. The Russians will find it to their liking because disruption inevitably spikes oil prices and will help save the Russian economy... which is, of course, why they so love their useful fool, Donald Trump."

But most of the responses I hear were more in line with what Ro Khanna (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) had to say after the speech yesterday. Ro, a member of the House Armed Services Committee: "Withdrawing from the Iran Deal only sends the message that the US can't keep its commitments when administrations change and the only way to resolve disputes with us is through nuclear deterrence. Pulling out makes it more likely, not less, that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon."

Elizabeth Warren: "America should be a country that keeps it promises. The Obama Administration negotiated a landmark agreement to peacefully prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran Deal breaks our word, hurts our credibility with our allies, empowers Iranian hardliners, and doesn't make us any safer here at home. There's no question that Iran's government is a bad actor. But inspectors have independently verified that Iran has been complying with the deal-- a fact that even the Trump Administration has conceded. I'd rather the United States-- together with our allies-- counter Iran's bad behavior with the nuclear deal than without it. Instead, President Trump has pulled the US out without offering any real alternative to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, creating chaos and confusion across the Middle East, and the world. This isn't a strategy. It's a recipe for disaster."

Carol Shea Porter: "This decision will make Americans and people all across the world less safe. Before the agreement, Iran was months away from having a nuclear weapon. Now, they are at least a year away, and we can snap sanctions back into place immediately if they make any move towards developing a weapon. Under the deal, Iran cannot enrich uranium beyond 3.6 percent, far short of the 80 percent needed for a weapon. Iran agreed to give away 97 percent of its nuclear fuel. In addition, we forced them to take the vast majority of their centrifuges out of service, meaning it will be very difficult and noticeable if they try to enrich more material. And we mandated inspections, so if they try, we will know, and we can take appropriate action. The Iran Deal is not perfect. But we must consider the danger facing the world before the deal and the improved security we now enjoy because of it. We should side with our allies and stay with them in this deal. American leadership is at stake. You don’t do arms control agreements with your friends; you sign them with your enemies in order to make the world a safer place for all. Inspections have confirmed that Iran is complying with this deal. We should too. We have a responsibility to the people we swore to protect-- and to the world-- to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That’s what this deal does, and without it, we seriously risk another conflict in the Middle East. We should steer our nation down the pathway to a safer and more peaceful world, not the pathway to war."

Major General (Ret.) Paul Eaton released a statement through VoteVets that is very much worth thinking about:

If Iran is in compliance with the deal, as all indications say they are, then Donald Trump’s decision today is an active violation of a deal we signed.

The implications for the United States violating agreements it signed could be disastrous and far-reaching. It puts American security in greater danger, frays our alliances, and sends a message to North Korea, and others, that the word of the United States is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Democrats and Republicans alike-- even many who opposed the Iran Deal-- correctly note that losing our ability to monitor Iran's nuclear program blinds us in the face of great risk to us and to our ally, Israel. At a time of great peril around the world, the multilateral Iran deal is our best hope at keeping a nuclear Iran out of the question.

Now, unfortunately, America must rely on its allies to clean up Donald Trump's mess, and keep Iran from restarting its nuclear program. If they can do so, we may be able to avoid catastrophe.

But that will be a credit to them, not to Donald Trump.

Are Orange County Democrats Selling Congressional Nominations?

This is what a DCCC recruit who wants to buy a congressional seat looks like

Well... we'll see. That's certainly the DCCC's most fervent desire. They scumbags at 430 S. Capitol St SE in Washington prefer that and recruit candidates and on self-funding capacity. So let's look at who's self-funding in the 4 Orange county districts that Hillary won but that have Republican incumbents.

First is CA-39, where really stupid DCCC staffers stumbled and actually recruited two very wealthy candidates, Gil Cisneros and Mai-KhanhTran, neither of whom live sin the district. So here's the self-funding activities as of March 31, the last FEC reporting deadline:

• Andy Thorburn- $2,335,900 (91.20%)
• Gil Cisneros- $2,504,467 (81.96%)
• Mai-KhanhTran- $480,000 (40.56%)
• Phil Janowicz- $194,900 (56.68%)

Next up is CA-45, the district that needs to rid itself of Mimi Walters

• Ron Varasteh- $250,000 (99.04%)

Brian Forde has a lot of money-- and do do his friends and over 93% of his contributions come from large individual contributions, most from wealthy friends and colleagues. Next is CA-48, the Rohrabacher seat on the coast, home of Cisneros, Tran and several other carpetbaggers.

• Omar Siddiqui- $764,856 (81.95%)
• Harley Rouda- $730,500 (59.61%)
• Hans Keirstead- $430,400 (34.35%)

And now the big one, CA-49, the Orange County/San Diego County seat Doug Applegate drove Darrell Issa out of and, in so doing-- has attracted a pack of grotesque opportunists

• Paul Kerr- $1,612,728 (82.75%)
• Sara Jacobs- $1,074,151 (77.24%)

Any other gross self-funds among California Democrats, the party working for the interests working families and the down-trodden? Just two:

• Sue Zwahlen ($206,181)- CA-10
• TJ Cox ($265,500)- CA-10, but now CA-21

At least no one in California is as bad as David Trone in Maryland though, right? Last cycle Trone lost after spending  $13,385,373 of his own money. His personal money amounted to 99.95% of what he raised. As of the December 31 FEC reporting deadline he had raised $2,471,785 in his campaign for the open 6th district seat in Maryland (a different district), of which $2,281,939 came out of his bank account (92.32%). Expect lots more from where that came from!

OK, back to Orange County for a moment. There are excellent candidates in 3 of the 4 districts who have a shot at winning and who aren't trying to buy the seats, 2 men and a woman who are endorsed by Blue America and who are actually trying to win based on their ideas, values and intentions towards the working families of the districts. Each of the 3 is financing their campaigns with small donor contributions and each is under tremendous pressure from the self-funders. In CA-39 that candidate is Sam Jammal, In CA-45, it is Katie Porter, and in CA-49 it's Doug Applegate. You can contribute by tapping on the ActBlue congressional thermometer on the right. I might add at this moment that Marianne Williamson will be visiting San Clemente on Saturday afternoon, April 28th, to help raise money for Doug Applegate. I'll be there too and I hope you can come say hello. Our artist, Nancy Ohanian, has contributed some really beautiful art towards Doug's election that I'll have with me.

How Badly Has The Corrupt Stench Of The DCCC Spread Across America? Now It's Infected California

Imagine if the DCCC did something useful instead of trying to destroy progressive candidates

Monday morning Emily Cadei updated her Sacramento Bee story about how the establishment intends to further marginalize Democratic voters in selecting party candidates for Congress. First a warning: poor Emily used the phrase "liberal groups" to describe corrupt conservative establishment operations. I don't think she understands the difference; maybe she wasn't paying attention at school that day. Take the first "liberal group" she mentions, Fight Back California. This is ex-Congresswoman Ellen Taucher's group. She was a Democrat so she must be "liberal," right? Wrong. Tauscher was once the head of the New Dems, a vice chair of the DLC, and a proud Blue Dog. Tauscher is working with her original campaign manager, strategist Katie Merrill, who loses all her races, and, as you should expect, they've been hiding who has been funneling 6-figures into their SuperPAC-- just what you would expect of a slimy character like Tauscher: dark money fueling her efforts to sucker the grassroots into contributing to a gaggle of dreadful right-of-center Republican-lite candidates just like herself. Their main goal will be to make sure no Berniecrats win any nominations, just Tauscher-like offal from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. One source told me she’s getting money from Gill Cisneros, the "ex"-Republican lottery winner the DCCC wants to sell the CA-39 nomination to. That has been impossible to confirm since Tauscher takes advantage of the dark money Supreme Court rulings to hide her sources.

My history with Tauscher goes back a ways. In 2006, she recruited another “ex”-Republican to run against the grassroots candidate in California who she and Rahm Emanuel, then chair of the DCCC, were eager too defeat, Jerry McNerney. They decided McNerney was too liberal to beat Republican Natural Resources Committee chair Richard Pombo and they dug up a Republican masquerading as a Democrat instead. McNerney slaughtered the interloper in the primary and Tauscher and Rahm put a hex on the district, calling donors and telling them not to contribute to McNerney in the general. That’s how Rahm taught the DCCC to play-- a practice continued by Steve Israel and whoever tells the hapless Ben Ray Lujan what he should do. In any case, McNerney pulverized Pombo, shocking the GOP (and Tauscher’s and Rahm’s Republican wing of the Democratic Party). It was one of the biggest races of the year and McNerney, propelled by grassroots enthusiasm, took 109,868 votes (53.3%) to Pombo’s 96,396 (46.7%). Pombo spent $4,629,983 that year, to McNerney’s $2,422,962. The NRCC came to Pombo’s defense with a then-massive $1,442,492, while Rahm grudgingly allowed the DCCC to spend a mere $295,366, less that the Sierra Club or even the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. The media has always white-washed Tauscher and given her favorable treatment. But she's a monster-- and far from "a liberal." Luckily for Emily, you don't have to actually know anything to write for the Sacramento Bee.

Katie Merrill, advisor to the Democratic Super PAC Fight Back California, still intends to target Republican incumbents in key California congressional races-- its original purpose. “But if it looks like we’re in danger of a Democrat not advancing to a general election as we get closer to June, we might have to-- and other groups might have to--focus on supporting a particular Democratic candidate.”

Did you contribute to Tauscher's and Merrill's PAC, thinking you were helping "liberals?" Too bad. They back the worst conservative garbage, just like themselves. We warned you.

Now let's look at sleazy right-wing Democrat Kyle Layman, who I'm certain Cadei was referring to when she wrote this:

An aide at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) confirmed that the party committee hasn’t ruled out supporting or even attacking a particular Democratic candidate in California, despite the backlash that produced in Texas last month. The DCCC sparked outrage from liberals after it publicized negative research on Laura Moser, one of a handful of candidates running in the Democratic primary for a Houston-area congressional seat. Their rationale was she was not a good fit for the moderate district.

Cadei's very biased sources claim that the "problem for the party stems from the fact that many of these races have also drawn more than one well-funded Republican." Really? "Many?" Looks like Cadei was also asleep in her math class. Not "many." Perhaps 3, a problem created by the DCCC itself by recruiting and encouraging too many corrupt conservative self-funding candidates in CA-39 and (thanks to Layman's incredible incompetence; he recruited Harley and DC recruited Hans, two nearly interchangeable New Dems) CA-48. The DCCC never believed they could win CA-39... until GOP incumbent, Ed Royce, who did believe and withdrew. So the DCCC asked candidates looking to run in CA-48, Republican lottery winner Gil Cisneros and a very random, very wealthy lady doctor from CA-48, to run in CA-39 instead. So they're stuck juggling candidates instead instead of fighting Republicans, the same old position the spectacularly failed GOP is always in. What the DCCC is whining about now is that California's ridiculous top-2 jungle primary could produce outcomes where the Democratic vote is splintered and two Republicans proceed to the general.

Kyle Lameman (DCCC)

Zoe Lofgren, chair of the California Democratic congressional caucus, commenting on DCCC bullying tactics to clear the field for their preferred corrupt conservative candidates: "I think people don’t like that, I don’t like it. I would expect to at least be consulted." Note, for example, that there was no reason to push Emilio Huerta out of his race (at least not that fit that criteria) against David Valadao-- the only Republican running in CA-21. What the DCCC really wants to do is make sure they could guarantee the nomination for the fake Democrat lottery winner, Gil Cisneros, who bribes them and their members-- bigly. He's a fool and can't win but the DCCC would rather lose than not deliver for Cisneros. He only got one vote (1) is the district pre-emdorsement convention and 4% in the Indivisble poll. The DCCC is now manufacturing their own absurd polling that shows him with a chance. It's really disgraceful especially when you take into account that Cisneros lives in a multimillion dollar beach mansion nowhere near CA-39 and has a life that is nothing like the people in the district that the DCCC parachuted him into. "Party officials and lawmakers," wrote Cadei, "say they’ll continue to have conversations with other candidates they think could play a spoiler role, even though it’s virtually impossible for a candidate to get his or her name off the primary ballot once they’ve filed to run. But they and other strategists believe that the party’s best chance to influence the California races is to get involved directly in the campaign." But they won't ask the worst candidate they have, Cisneros, to drop out. Instead Kyle the Lame is threatening to destroy Andy Thorburn's reputation if he doesn't get out of the race.

Yesterday one of these dip-shits (who backs Brooklyn big spending Qualcomm heiress Sarah Jacobs) told me Applegate-- who ran the closest congressional election in America last quarter and nearly beat Darrell Issa and then drove him into announcing his retirement-- "can't win" in the CA-49 general election. These are the public polls that have come out this year:

DCCC should stand for Democratic Corrupt Conservative Crap

If the DCCC cared in the slightest about policies, they would either be staying out of the CA-39 primary or be fighting tooth and nail for Sam Jammal, the local, progressive non-self funder. Yesterday Sam issued a position paper on protecting the environment. The DCCC staffers never would, but you should read it-- and then consider contributing to the California candidates who aren't involved with the DCCC. It's called Jumpstarting A Clean Energy Revolution. He writes that he's running to be a champion for our environment and to help us reach our still untapped potential when it comes to clean energy innovation. Nice sounds, right, but in Sam's case that's no cliche, but a plan for action:

Save Our Open Spaces in the 39th District: Whether listening to the will of our voters and preserving Coyote Hills, keeping Tres Hermanos available to everyone or preserving the hills above Yorba Linda Blvd., our open spaces are a community treasure. We have a long history of open spaces throughout our community, but, as areas have been developed, we are losing our natural beauty. The reality is that once land becomes developed, we don’t get it back and the next generation misses out on hiking the trails and having the needed escape from busy urban areas. While I am not opposed to development and support addressing our housing shortage, we can do this without removing the hills and open spaces that make our community a destination. Protect Our Beaches from Drilling: In January, the Trump Administration announced its plan to expand offshore drilling on California’s coast. Our coastline sets our state apart from the rest of the world. In Congress, I will use every means available to block attempts to open drilling on our beaches and will work with policymakers in the state to slow any efforts to drill. Whether it’s through litigation or restricting funds for implementation of Trump’s plan, we must stop this extreme attempt to destroy our coast.

Fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): We all remember the days of smog alerts and, while we have made progress, we cannot let Republicans undermine the EPA. The EPA has helped transform the air we breathe and the water we drink for the better. Under President Trump and climate denying Scott Pruitt, there is an active attempt to dismantle this organization and take us back to days where going outside or drinking tap water can make one sick. We should not allow what is happening in places like Flint to occur anywhere in America in 2018 and beyond. Whether its undermining Obama-era regulations or cutting funds for enforcing environmental protections, the mission of the EPA is under attack. In Congress, I will fight to make sure the EPA is fully-funded and we are holding Scott Pruitt accountable.

Transition to 100% Clean Energy: We have the technology today to begin the transition to 100% clean energy. The biggest hurdle we face is politics. The Koch brothers and fossil fuel industry have overpowered Republicans and even some Democrats at the expense of our environment and economy. This is why I have pledged to reject any donations from the oil and natural gas industries. I have also pledged to do all I can to move our nation towards 100% clean energy. This means transitioning away from fossil fuels and investing in the next generation of jobs.

Lead on Clean Energy Innovation: According to the non-profit Solar Foundation, there are over 100,000 solar jobs in California. This includes thousands of solar jobs and small businesses throughout Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. Solar is creating middle class jobs throughout our district. Across the country, the solar industry already employs more people than coal and natural gas. Combined with a rapidly growing energy storage sector and growth in electric vehicle adoption, our state is leading on clean energy innovation and we are just getting started.

The key is making sure we have smart policies that encourage competition, deployment and job creation. This starts by removing Trump’s anti-competitive tariffs on solar panels as well as steel and aluminum. While we must encourage American manufacturing, the use of tariffs is an outdated solution that only serves to drive up the costs of solar panels. Instead, we should look for targeted incentives to encourage solar and battery storage manufacturing and deployment to help these industries compete and promote American leadership in clean energy innovation. The fossil fuel industry enjoys millions in subsidies that, along with their political influence, creates an uneven playing field, which hurts our ability to lead. It’s time we correct this and promote the industries and technologies that represent our future.

Promote Clean Energy Adoption: As noted earlier, the technology is here to build a clean energy future. The challenge is building political will. We can do this if we focus on solutions encouraging local adoption. Here are my ideas for building a clean energy future:

• Green School Infrastructure Bank-- Earlier this year, the City of Anaheim Public Utilities announced a partnership with the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District to build shade structures over schools’ parking spaces and picnic tables and cover them with solar panels that generate energy for the utility. The schools will receive a lease fee for use of their campuses. This is the type of program Congress should be encouraging. In Congress, I will introduce legislation to establish a green school infrastructure bank funded by matching public and private dollars to promote the deployment of solar, wind and battery storage to power our schools. This fund will support projects that provide energy to our schools, which will enable schools to sell excess power back to the grid and utilize their energy cost savings to fund our schools.
• Veterans in Clean Energy-- Modeled after the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Ready Vets program, I will draft legislation to create a job training partnership between our military, community colleges, apprenticeship programs and the clean energy sector to train veterans for jobs in clean energy. Today, the U.S. solar industry employs 13,000 veterans of the armed forces, a figure which represents 9.2% of all solar workers in the nation, exceeding the percentage of veteran employment in the overall economy. As clean energy adoption expands, we have an opportunity to help those who served once more serve our nation by leading the fight against climate change. It is critical we make sure local training resources are available to train our veterans for these jobs.
• Community Solar and the Post Office-- The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) maintains more than 25,300 leased spaces in its facilities inventory nationwide. These facilities encompass thousands of acres and unutilized roofs that could be the site for solar projects. I will introduce legislation to promote using USPS facilities to provide solar power in the communities they serve. Solar produced at the facility can be used to power the USPS, which will lower their operating costs, and excess power generated can be used for community solar projects that power surrounding neighborhoods.
• Electric Vehicles Adoption-- According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all U.S. emissions-- emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for every gallon of gas. These emissions are also a leading cause of respiratory illness. While electric vehicle adoption continues to grow as cars become more affordable, we do not have sufficient infrastructure to support purchase of these cars. We also have incentives that promote foreign manufacturing over domestic suppliers. In Congress, I will propose inclusion of funding for electric vehicle charging stations in any infrastructure bill. I will also work to fix the electric vehicle tax credit to apply to make sure American manufacturers are not disadvantaged and we are promoting middle class adoption of electric vehicles.

Budget and Plan to Adapt to Climate Change

Climate change is real and it comes with significant costs. We have already seen these costs in Puerto Rico, Houston and South Florida as a result of massive and unprecedented hurricanes. We have to put a price on climate change now, which means we must begin to budget for our response to natural disasters made worse by climate change, as well as prevention; otherwise, we will continue to absorb “unexpected” costs, which will be a drain on our budget. As Trump’s tax reform severely tightens our federal budget, we must double down on adaptation programs in order to avoid the high costs of catastrophe.

In Congress, I will introduce a matching grant program geared to support state and local climate adaptation efforts. For the 39th district, these funds can help with efforts to wildfire prevention efforts in our hills and canyons already underway by our local fire departments. Funds can also be used to address droughts that will likely be the new normal in the coming years. We must increase water conservation efforts, supporter waste water treatment and water recycling and invest in rebuilding our aging water infrastructure. Climate change is already causing catastrophic financial burden which will only get worse, we must begin making these investments for the future now.

Or vote for some out-of-touch "ex"- Republican, serially untruthful lottery winner who only knows one thing: tasting potato chips for Frito-Lays and bribing grotesque corrupt Democrats in return for endorsements.