The Self-Destruction Of The Republican Party, Puts The Democrats At A Crossroad

The least racist person anywhere by Nancy Ohanian

Last May Trump performed at one of his hate rallies in one of the most vile neo-fascist areas of America, the Florida Panhandle (AKA, "Little Alabama"). He was stoking hatred and bigotry is a place he had no need to be. Panama City Beach is east of Panama City-- in Bay County-- drawing residents from Florida's first and second congressional districts. Trump beat Hillary in Bay County 71.2% to 24.9%. Trump beat her in the first district 67.5% to 28.2% and bear her in the second district 66.2% to 30.6%. They were his top two performing districts in Florida, not just Republican, thorough fascist. Matt Gaetz represents FL-01. At his hate rally he excited the audience with a question and answer: "How do you stop these people? You can’t." He was referring to immigrants. One of his adoring fans screamed, "Shoot them." Trump smiled benignly as thousands of repulsive fascist supporters cheered wildly.

And then, Saturday, we had El Paso. Remember RedHat = HatRed. Yesterday Yasmeen Abutaleb, reporting for the Washington Post, wrote about what's inside the Trump-inspired manifesto posted by the Trumpist mass murdrerer. "It railed against a 'Hispanic invasion' and laid out a plan to divide the United States into territories based on race... It begins by praising the manifesto of the gunman who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand earlier this year. That document cited a white supremacist theory known as 'The Great Replacement,' which postulates that a secret group of elites is working to destroy the white race by replacing them with immigrants and refugees. 'This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,' the manifesto says." Trumpism were sprinkled throughout the 2,300 word manifesto, which she notes is "a jumble of positions and ideologies."

Under “political reasons,” the manifesto lambastes both Democrats and Republicans, suggesting the United States will soon become a one-party state run by Democrats because of the growing Hispanic population, the death of the baby-boom generation and the “anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right.” The author postulates that the growing Hispanic population in Texas will soon make it a solidly Democratic state, which he argues would all but assure repeated Democratic presidential victories.

“The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate,” the manifesto says.

The document repeatedly rails against corporations, which the author says have taken over the government. The author criticizes Republicans for favoring corporations, but argues that “at least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.”

The author also expresses fear over the impact automation will have on job opportunities and argues that immigrants should not be allowed to continue coming into the country as long as job opportunities are scarce. He argues that while immigrants often take menial jobs that Americans are unwilling to perform, their children seek better opportunities and often receive college degrees that allow them to obtain high-skill positions. The document again blames corporations for advocating for work visas for skilled workers and says they rely on immigrants to fill low-skilled positions.

In a jumbled rant, the document rails against corporations for destroying the environment by over-harvesting resources. The manifesto chastises the government for being unwilling to confront environmental issues and most Americans for being unwilling to change their lifestyles to be more environmentally friendly. It argues that the United States therefore needs fewer people consuming resources.

The author wrote that he planned to mainly rely on an AK-47 as his weapon for the shooting, noting that it overheats after about 100 rounds and that he would need a heat-resistant glove.

The manifesto notes that many migrants return to their home countries to reunite with family, arguing that “the Hispanic population is willing to return to their home countries if given the right incentive. An incentive that myself and many other patriotic Americans will provide.” The author writes that such terrorist attacks will “remove the threat of the Hispanic voting bloc.”

In the “personal reasons and thoughts” section, the author writes that he has spent his life preparing for a future that does not exist, though does not specify what that future would be. He ends on an anti-immigrant screed, worrying that Hispanics will take over the Texas government and says the Founding Fathers have given him the rights-- presumably referring to the right to bear arms-- to save the country from destruction.

“Our European comrades don’t have the gun rights needed to repel the millions of invaders that plaque [sic] their country. They have no choice but to sit by and watch their countries burn,” the manifesto says.

Finally, the manifesto ends by decrying interracial couples and proposes separating the United States into territories based on race. The author points to white supremacist theories that “stronger and/or more appealing cultures overtake weaker and/or undesirable ones.”

The author expresses fear that he will be captured, rather than die during the shooting, because that would mean he would receive the death penalty and his family would despise him. And he stresses that he has maintained his white supremacist ideology for many years, predating President Trump and his 2016 campaign, which he says did not influence his reasons for carrying out the attack.

“This is just the beginning of the fight for America and Europe,” the author writes.

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above "have mercy, now save poor Bob, if you please"
Ooh, standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride
Ooh-ee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, babe, everybody pass me by
Standin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' down
Standin' at the crossroad, baby, eee-eee, risin' sun goin' down
I believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin' down
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, babe, I'm sinkin' down
And I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, baby, I looked East and West
Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress

About a month ago, Joshua Zeitz, author of Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson's White House, writing for Politico put the dilemma of the NeverTrumpers into some historical perspective. For years, before the Civil War broke out, there was a mass migration among northern Democrats away from "the political organization that had long formed the backbone of their civic identity. Yet they came over the course of a decade to believe that the Jacksonian Democratic Party had degenerated into something thoroughly autocratic and corrupt. It had fallen so deeply in the thrall of the Slave Power that it posed an existential threat to American democracy. Placing the sanctity of the nation above the narrow bonds of party, these Democrats joined in common cause with former Whig antagonists [the newly-formed Republican Party] in the epic struggle to save the United States from its own darker instincts. Today, a small but influential cadre of Republican elected officials, strategists and policy experts faces a similar choice. Heirs of Ronald Reagan, they have grown to believe that their party has also degenerated into something ugly and undemocratic-- hostile to science and fact, rooted in an angry spirit of racial and ethnic nationalism, enamored of foreign strongmen and hostile to American institutions, and so fundamentally estranged from the nation’s founding values that it poses an existential threat to American democracy. During the presidential campaign of 2016, and for the better part of the past two years, these Never Trumpers could plausibly speak of extracting their party from the grip of white nationalism and angry populism. Now, with midterm elections approaching-- with broad majorities of the GOP electorate firmly in the president’s thrall and the Republican Congress all but fully acquiescent to the White House-- such talk is fanciful... [T]oday’s Never Trumpers face a stark choice: passively acquiesce to the further ascent of Trumpism, or switch parties and play a vital part in stopping it."

In the course of defecting to the new Republican Party, many former Democrats came to look back with disgust on the ways by which Southern Democrats had enforced rigid, doctrinaire support for slavery for decades. Starting in the 1830s, when Congress instituted a “gag rule” barring debate or discussion of the peculiar institution, the Democratic majority blithely tramped over the First Amendment rights of white Northern congressmen in the defense of chattel slavery.

A onetime Democrat from Ohio-- and future Republican congressman-- put the matter in sharper relief when he complained that “we have submitted to slavery long enough, and must not stand it any longer… I am done catching negroes for the South.” Hannibal Hamlin, a Democratic senator from Maine, lamented that “the old Dem. party is now the party of slavery. It has no other issue, in fact, and this is the standard on which [it] measures every thing and every man.” Hamlin soon switched parties and served as vice president in Abraham Lincoln’s first term.

It’s unclear whether the politicians were leading their constituents, or vice versa. The congressional district in Pennsylvania that antislavery Democrat David Wilmot and his Democrat-turned-Republican successor, Galusha Grow, represented had delivered a plurality of 2,500 votes to Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Pierce in 1852. Four years later, Republican nominee John C. Fremont won the district with 70 percent of the vote and a plurality of 9,000. (Grow would go on to serve as House speaker.) Throughout most of the North and Midwest, Democrats were reduced to minority status overnight.

...Ex-Democrats in the 1850s and 1860s didn’t have to become Whigs. They were able to join a new political party-- albeit one dominated by former Whigs.

The shrewdest of today’s Never Trump Republicans realize that they face only one clean choice, and it is, of course, more jarring: Become Democrats or, like the prominent GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, become independents and support Democrats... Never Trumpers will find it a bitter pill to swallow.

Zeitz offers them-- in the name of "history"-- some consolation, promising the Never Trumpers control of the more conservative, less progressive Democratic Party that the ex-Republicans are all over MSNBC and on the editorial pages of the New York Times propagandizing for, as they push, push, push for Biden or-- if he proven too implausible-- Mayo Pete or Kamala "Mnuchin" Harris. Never Trumpers and Democrats can find common cause, wrote Zeitz, filled with disdain for the activist progressive roots of the FDR "wing" of the Democratic Party, in love with the Republican wing. Of the Democrats, he wrote, it "is more center than left. It’s the only American political party that has seriously attempted to develop market-based policies to expand health care access (the Affordable Care Act), address climate change (cap and trade) or upgrade the nation’s deficient infrastructure (an infrastructure bank). He celebrates half measures like RomneyCare/ObamaCare and buries his head in cap and trade as Miami and Fort Meyers sink under the waves. "If Never Trumpers are truly alarmed by Democrats’ recent embrace of single-payer health care and universal community college, they should become Democrats and develop market-based solutions to big, systemic problems. That would also require that Democratic voters understand their role in forging a new majority: They must pitch a larger tent and accommodate a broader range of ideas and perspectives. Some of them might be forced to make sacrifices like Lincoln’s and step aside in favor of former Republicans where circumstances demand it." Zeitz may be hopeful, but that doesn't make him correct.

Reed Galen offers another historical analysis. In the first half of the 19th century, the two major parties in the U.S. were the Democrats and the Whigs. The Republicans broken from the Whigs in 1854, basically to stop the spread of slavery. Six years later, they elected a president, Abraham Lincoln. "While slavery served as the lever around which the Whigs would spin into oblivion," write Galen, "it was their moral failure regarding so odious an institution to so many Americans that ultimately killed them off. Like the Whigs of old, Donald Trump’s GOP is staring at a similar fate should it continue on this path. Many evangelical Christians, seeing themselves as arbiters of moral righteousness, tout the president as the tonic to so many of the country’s problems. The reality is, however, that the party’s outward failures are distinctly grounded in a lack of moral compass, ugly politics and nonexistent policy; for which the electoral consequences have only just begun."

Between 1854 and today, the GOP has completed an about face. Founded as the party of equality for all races, its leader and new spiritual guide now intentionally stokes resentment as a matter of politics, policy and habit. Trump’s reasoning? An abiding fear that his overwhelmingly white, male base will desert him. We’re a long way from Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

In last year’s midterm elections, many suburban congressional districts, long the bastion of Republicanism, saw Democrats elected for the first time in decades. Given these voters’ unwillingness to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, they took their revenge on Republicans generally, and Trump specifically, in 2018.

Based on their feelings about Trump’s language and behavior, many Republicans and conservative independents are turning away from the party. As Jonathan Martin noted earlier this week, Orange County, Calif., once the heart and soul of Reagan Republicanism, saw its GOP voter registration advantage sink from 124,000 to only 1,000 in the course of three years. The Republican Party in California is now third in line, registration-wise, behind Democrats and voters who claim “No Party Preference.”

The GOP’s decade-long war on Obamacare, and its inability to provide a credible substitute, battered and bruised the party last year. Today, health care, and the economic fallout from health crises, consistently top voters’ concerns in public surveys. Republicans are out of step with the electorate, with nothing to say and no one to say it.

The images and stories coming out of our border with Mexico cause many middle-class and suburban Americans to blanch. Despite our nation’s troubles, these voters still see America as exceptional, as humane and as an exemplar to the rest of the world. Keeping men in cages for weeks on end and taking children from their parents is beyond the pale for moderates, independents and many otherwise conservative voters.

In politics, as in life, demographics are destiny. In the 2016 election, Trump lost voters 18-29 and 30-44 by 19 percentage points and 10 percentage points, respectively. As MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki noted on Jon Ward’s podcast, The Long Game, one look at public polling shows there is a massive chasm between voters under/over 45 years of age.

Regarding how they see the world, their personal priorities, what they believe to be the most pressing issues facing the country, the GOP is out of step with a large and growing cohort. On the other hand, the older voters that Republicans have long relied on-- white, more conservative, more working class-- will represent a plurality of registered voters and their impact will drop accordingly.

This argument and warning to Republicans is not new. In the wake of Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss, the “Growth and Opportunity Project” was commissioned by party leaders to determine a direction forward. Their belief? Without a credible position on issues such as immigration and without the ability to draw in minority and younger voters, the way of the Whigs was their likely destination.

While those GOP leaders misread the Republican electorate of 2016, looking back they understood the arc of American politics. What the country needs now is a new collection of political pioneers, willing to find their Ripon moment. The opportunity for new entrants and new energy is there. Harnessing the energy, attention and passion of millennials and Generation X to chart our course forward is completely possible and absolutely necessary.

The catastrophe for America would be for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Blue Dogs New Dems and corrupt careerists like Pelosi and Hoyer and their leadership team-- to be allowed to let the NeverTrumpers woo the Democratic Party into leaving the progressive instincts of the party on the side of the road in return for temporary, self-serving and expedient political dominance. For progressives, this is the time to continue the fight against conservatism, whether that conservatism is led by Trump, Biden, Romney, Mayo Pete or any random MSNBC talking head who was stupid enough to lose his or her own party to a two bit con man in a fancy suit and a long red tie.

Younger Than Yesterday-- Bernie, Not Trump

Hunter Walker, Yahoo News' White House correspondent reported last week that Bernie is set to announce that he's running. My sources inside the gestating campaign told me Walker is just guessing. And yesterday, like every political junking in the country, they were all reading Mike Allen's and Jim Vanderhei's Axios news that coming face to face with the progressive base of the Democratic Party is making 3 of the most conservative Democrats who were thinking of running-- Bloomberg, Biden and McAuliffe-- start reconsidering (along with the Starbucks guy). Gillibrand somehow thinks she's covered her tracks well enough to not fit in with the right-of-center crowd that spawned her to begin with.

"Michael Bloomberg and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe," they reported, "each of whom were virtual locks to run, are having serious second thoughts after watching Democrats embrace Medicare for All, big tax increases and the Green New Deal. Joe Biden, who still wants to run, is being advised to delay any plans to see how this lurch to the left plays out. If Biden runs, look for Bloomberg and McAuliffe to bow out, the sources tell us. The Democratic attacks on Howard Schultz, after he said he was considering an independent bid, reflect the current party's limited appetite for" what Beltway tools always try to call "moderation," but is actually conservatism. Vanderhei and Allen, like most of the corporate shills at Axios always call the politicians on the right and far right of the Democratic Party "moderates." They were also plotting because polling in Iowa "found that 'socialism' had a net positive rating, while 'capitalism' had a net negative rating."

Of course the establishment will do anything to stop Bernie and it goes beyond ideological attacks. We've talked about the ageist attacks before. Last December, former progressive champion, now a sold-out lobbyist, told the Morning Joe audience that he thinks "the country has moved to the left. It’s shocking to me, but a majority of Americans think that Medicare-For-All is a good idea. Frankly, Bernie gets a lot of credit for that. I don’t think he’s gonna be the next nominee… but he could be. I’m very much for somebody who’s younger. I think my generation has got to get the hell out of politics, start coaching and start moving up this next generation." He then went on to name a pack of mostly unaccomplished newcomers known only to insiders and lobbyists like himself, plugging corporatist Kirsten Gillibrand, as well Kamala Harris, Chris Murphy, who isn't running, and Eric Garcetti, who has wisely announced he isn't running.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Biden And Bloomberg Are Too Old To Be President-- Bernie Isn't And Here's Why. It had nothing to do with chronological age, just with ideas and political agendas. When you hear conservative jackasses scolding younger Congress members like AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and telling them to grow up or stop acting like children, they can probably throw Bernie in there too. What conservatives can't grapple with are the ideas these people are putting forward. On Tuesday, Mike Bloomberg said the push to legalize recreational marijuana "is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done." Now that's old! Really, really, disqualifyingly old. And ignorant. "Last year, in 2017, 72,000 Americans OD’d [overdosed] on drugs. In 2018, more people than that are OD-ing on drugs, have OD’d on drugs, and today, incidentally, we are trying to legalize another addictive narcotic, which is perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done." His idea on pot is from the 1950s. Biden has similarly old fogey perspectives on the world. He doesn't understand Medicare-For-All and he doesn't understand the Green New Deal. It would be a complete waste of time to nominate the Warren G. Harding of the Democratic Party to follow Trump. Trump is ignorant and venal but his instincts are much "hipper" than two squares like Bloomberg and Biden. Bernie on the other hand... he may not skateboard or do Ramones covers, but his ideas are way hipper-- and more fearless-- than Beto's.

Yesterday, writing for the Boston Globe, Robert Weisman opened a can of worms: Too Old To Lead The Nation? That Sounds Lke Ageism To Some. "Fifty-eight years after President John F. Kennedy proclaimed 'the torch has been passed to a new generation,' many Democrats long for another young dynamo, one who can harness the energy of millennials to oust President Trump. That could bode ill for the parade of septuagenarians readying their campaigns."

But a growing movement of older Americans bristles at the notion that gray hair is a deficit-- that the demands of a youth-obsessed culture require candidates with long resumes to step aside. When some candidates say generational change, they hear ageism.

“Of course it’s ageist,” said Ashton Applewhite, a writer and activist whose 2016 book, This Chair Rocks, is billed as a manifesto against age discrimination. “Any call for young blood without evidence that an old person is incompetent or that a young person can do the job better is like saying a black person can’t do the job, or a woman can’t do the job.”

Generational change may be the central dynamic in the 2020 presidential campaign. Age is the subtext of every conversation about new ideas versus experience, every debate about whether a candidate can capture the millennial imagination. And there’s a clear generational split in the crowded field of those hoping to replace Trump, now 72, who was the oldest candidate elected to the presidency in American history.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who formed an exploratory committee last month, turns 70 this summer. Several other prospective contenders are in their mid-70s: former vice president Joe Biden, who is 76; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 77; and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, 76, to name a few.

Another cohort of those eyeing the nomination is at least 20 years younger, including Senators Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who are in their 50s, and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, former Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke of Texas, and former Obama administration housing secretary Julian Castro, also of Texas, who are in their 40s.

At the same time, the electorate’s demographics are changing. An analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center found that millennials and Generation Xers-- people ages 18 to 55-- together cast nearly 70 million votes in the 2016 presidential election, a majority of the 137.5 million total.

“Millennials are emerging as the dominant force in American politics and will soon supplant baby boomers as the group that decides elections,” said state Senator Eric Lesser, 33, a Longmeadow Democrat who worked as an Obama aide and runs a millennial caucus in the Legislature. “And they’re fed up that everything in their lives has changed-- the way they work, the way they shop-- except government” and its inability to solve problems.

But some advocates for older people object to the notion that the seventysomethings are yesterday’s news, or are simply “too old,” as some activists have complained.

“Saying people are ‘too old’ is reflective of an outmoded idea,” said Eric Schneidewind, a Michigan lawyer who stepped down last year as AARP’s national president. “If you can get through the meat grinder of a presidential election, whatever your age, you’ve made it through trial by combat.”

Voter preferences don’t always hew to generational lines. Sanders racked up margins of more than 2 to 1 among millennials in his antiestablishment campaign against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary. And while young voters in the November midterms also powered insurgents who won seats in the House like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, of New York City, and Ayanna Pressley, 44, of Boston, they were joined by many older voters, especially women and people of color.

Still, a surfeit of older candidates could be a problem for the Democrats, who need to electrify the party’s base in the next presidential race.

“The Democratic Party is getting younger, but some of the candidates are very old,” said political strategist Brad Bannon, president of a Washington polling firm. “That’s a dangerous combination. We’re on the cusp of a generational change, and generational change is incredibly disruptive.”

Rather than tap into that sentiment openly, younger candidates will make the appeal obliquely, he said.

“You can’t say Joe Biden is too old,” Bannon said. “You can say he represents the policies of the past. You can say there’s a need for a fresh approach for a new age.”

The mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg, 37, who launched a long-shot campaign for president last week, is appealing explicitly to fellow millennials by calling for “intergenerational justice” and stressing issues, like school shootings and climate change, that resonate with young people.

But candidates have to be careful in making generational arguments.

Representative Seth Moulton, 40, of Salem, who’s also weighing a presidential run, was roundly criticized by Democratic loyalists when he called for a “new generation of leadership” in initially opposing the bid of Representative Nancy Pelosi, 78, a woman with decades of experience, to be House speaker. One lesson: Many voters don’t see women, largely absent from the power structure until recently, as part of the old guard.

Youthful Democrats who can draw a generational contrast more artfully have been rewarded in presidential races over the past decades. Kennedy was 43 when he was elected president in 1960, while Bill Clinton was 46 when he won his race in 1992, and Barack Obama was 47 when elected in 2008. All of them defeated older Republican candidates-- and succeeded older Republican incumbents.

“There’s a compelling argument for a younger candidate,” Lesser said. But he added that ideas for creating opportunity and improving people’s lives matter more to millennials than age.

“We’re the first generation that will have lower living standards than our parents,” he said, “because of student loans, rising inequality, and skyrocketing housing and health costs.”

But Americans over 65, a bloc of about 50 million people who are among the most reliable voters, are dealing with their own issues, including workplace discrimination and financial stresses, that some believe aren’t fully understood by younger candidates. While they benefit from Social Security, one of the few government programs that enjoys a sterling reputation, they worry about health care-- a concern Democrats traditionally exploit during election season by warning voters that Republicans want to cut Medicare.

“From my perspective, the concerns of older persons aren’t very well addressed in the general population,” said Jack Kupferman, president of Gray Panthers NYC, an advocacy group.

“There’s always a need for new ideas,” he added, “but there’s also a need for continuity and experience. And some of the older candidates are the ones that have the new ideas.”

Looking at the business world, Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter said younger entrepreneurs and managers bring innovations vital to commercial success.

But she also finds value in “adult supervision,” especially in the political realm. Kanter cited Pelosi, 78, who she said channels her experience into effective action. “There’s a lot of feisty energy that in another era might have been put out to pasture,” she said.

A president doesn’t have to be young to “make room for a new generation’s fresh thinking,” she added. It’s available for hire by smart leaders.

“Every White House is full of young fresh idea people running around,” she said.

By the way, the recent Marist poll for NPR that measured popularity among Democratic voters for their candidates indicated that the only candidates with a favorability over 50% were all pretty old-- Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and Biden.

Is Cantor Technically A Lobbyist Yet?

Since first being elected to Congress in 2000, Eric Cantor has raised $32,386,930 and spent $30,889,639 on his reelection bids-- and on building power for himself inside the GOP caucus. He spent $5,794,611 in the current cycle, significantly more than the $392,316 his primary opponent no one had ever heard of spent. Eric Cantor, on the night he lost his primary election to Dave Brat addressed his supporters at what everyone assumed would be a victory party: "I believe in this country," he declared. "I believe there's opportunity around the next former… for all of us." He basically wanted nothing more to do with his constituents in the Richmond suburbs. As far as he was concerned the Republicans of Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield, Spotsylvania and Culpeper counties could take their job and shove it. He announced he would be resigning on August 18 and they would have no Representative in Congress at all. Take that, ingrates!

Today was Cantor's first day at work as vice chairman and managing director of international banksters, Moelis & Co. Because of legal technicalities, he won't be called a "lobbyist" per se for a couple of years, just the guy who gives "strategic advice." He once worked as a real estate developer in his father's company but I have a feeling that private sector experience isn't why Moelis is paying him over $3 million this year-- a $400,000 base salary, $1.4 million as a guaranteed bonus and this year, a special incentive of $1.6 million. How cool is that? Wall Street owes Cantor-- despite the Financial sector having paid him $8,940,890 since he was first elected, more than to any other Member of the House other than John Boehner ($10,463,339). The closest any Democrat has come to getting that kind of love from Wall Street was Charlie Rangel ($5,501,943) and he was kicked out of his committee chair for the kind of unethical behavior that made Cantor a Republican hero. But, more than anyone else in Congress, Cantor carried Wall Street's water. There was never a single instance in which the interests of consumers, average investors or the general public ever came before the interests of the managerial class of the Wall Street banks. Welcome home, Eric!

This is as good as what the banksters did for Rahm Emanuel when he took a few months off from government work to make himself into a multimillionaire. And, look-- Cantor's contract specifically permits him to leave Moelis after just 24 months without any monetary penalties if he leaves to "take a full-time elected or appointed position in federal government, state government, or a national party." Sweet!

Two of the sleaziest and most self-serving wheeler-dealers to have darkened the halls of Congress in modern times were ultra-conservative New Dem John Breaux (LA) and racist/neo-fascist Republican Trent Lott (MS). Theoretically, the Senate became a better place when the two of them retired. But not really. Both put their connections and friendships up on the market to the highest bidder and the two scumbags are among Washington's shadiest lobbyists, working for Washington's most corrupt firm, Patton Boggs. A Russian bank, widely viewed as a criminal operation for Putin and his inner circle, Gazprombank, just hired the two of them to help them circumvent sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

Last cycle Paton Boggs and its lobbyists handed out just over $2,000,000 in vaguely legalistic bribes to Members of Congress, including $155,220 to Steve Israel's DCCC and $115,800 to Debbie Wasserman Schultz's DNC, $74,156 to the RNC, $42,500 to the NRCC and $36,750 to the NRSC. They're big players. And so far this cycle, they've put another $733,496 into legalistic bribes to Members of Congress. Over 10K pops have already gone out to slimy conservatives like Mark Warner (D-$18,000), Susan Collins (R-$12,750), Mark Pryor (D-$11,500) and Paul Ryan (R-$10,750).

Lott resigned from the Senate after he was taped making the kinds of vile racist comments Republicans aren't supposed to say publicly. He resigned early so he could get finished with the 1 year grace period before senators were then allowed to officially be able to become lobbyists. It was due to kick up to 2 years in 2008. So he tendered his resignation on December 18, 2007 and 3 weeks later, on January 7, 2006, he and Breaux, who had retired from the Senate in 2005 and was working as an influence peddler for Patton Boggs already, opened the the Breaux-Lott Leadership Group one block from the white House. 2 years later their firm was bought out by Patton Boggs. By the way, there are over 300 former Members of Congress currently serving as influence peddlers in DC lobbying firms. There ought to be a law… No, I mean a real one.

Unplugged... For Carl Sciortino

We've been talking about the race in MA-05 to replace Ed Markey for some time now. It's just a month away and there are 7 Democrats running. Six of them are garden variety Dems and one, state Rep. Carl Sciortino, is a proven, dedicated progressive leader, which is why we endorsed him-- and why progressive organizations from People for the American Way, Progressive Mass and Mass Equality to the Human Rights Campaign and Grey2kUSA have also endorsed him. This week-- starting today-- we're launching a fundraising drive to help Carl pay to run his amazing TV ad (up top). We're being joined in this effort by Congressmen Alan Grayson, Jared Polis, Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison and by the People for the American Way Voters Alliance and the Congressional Progressive Caucus' Progressive Action PAC. And one lucky, random donor is going to get an incredible Eric Clapton platinum award as a "thank you." (Photo below.)

Here's how that works. Contribute any amount-- no amount is too small-- to Carl's campaign here and you will become eligible to win. You probably know what a gold record is-- an award for 500,000 RIAA certified sales in the U.S. For a platinum award, the number is a million. In recent years, the music industry created a new category: diamond, to mark 10,000,000 domestic sales. Eric Clapton's Unplugged album was one of the first-- and only-- albums to achieve that status. What we're giving away is one of the original award plaques for 10,000,000 sales of Unplugged, which was made for the president of Eric Clapton's record company, who is a big fan not just of Eric Clapton, but also of Carl Sciortino. This stunning 30" x 30" custom plaque isn't something you can buy in a store, no matter how much money you have. Only a small handful were ever made and they were never sold.

Whether you contribute $5, $50 or $500 you will have one chance to become the owner of the plaque. (In fact, if you can't afford to make a contribution but you want the plaque, you can just send a post card to Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027 and you'll be eligible as well!)

And if rock'n'roll memorabilia isn't your thing, remember this: Carl Sciortino has been fighting for progressive values-- and winning-- in the Massachusetts legislature. Alan Grayson, Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Mark Takano and Jared Polis would like to see him in the U.S. Congress helping lead the charge. Sciortino wasn't afraid to speak right out against bombing Syria and he wasn't afraid to say NO WAY to the Beltway scheme to cut Social Security through a Chained CPI.

Eric Clapton, B.B. King And... Patsy Keever

When I was a teenager I worked at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village for a stint. It's where I first met many artists I later became involved with, from Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, the Grateful Dead to the Jefferson Airplane and The Animals. In 1967 I saw Eric Clapton, then 22 and a member of Cream, perform with American blues great, B.B. King. More than 30 years later I was the president of Reprise Records when Eric, one of our biggest-selling and most respected artists, told me he had gone into the studio with B.B., who he idolizes, and they had recorded several songs. This turned into a collaborative album, Riding With The King, which hit #1 on the Billboard blues chart, #3 on the Billboard album chart, sold over 2 million copies and won a Grammy Award. The RIAA certified the album "double platinum" in 2000 and the custom award plaque is one of the most aesthetically beautiful RIAA awards ever made. Only a small handful were given out and, of course, it was never sold or made available to the public. Eric and B. B. gave me one. I want to use it to help raise some money for one of the most deserving progressives running anywhere in America, Rep. Patsy Keever, an intrepid Democrat taking on Wall Street shill Patrick McHenry-- much the same way we used the Green Day signed guitar to raise $37,000 for Alan Grayson's campaign a few weeks ago.

Another fighter for working families from North Carolina, Congressman Brad Miller, is supporting Patsy's run. He told us that "The contrast between Patsy and Patrick McHenry couldn't be greater. Patsy is a respected community leader, not a self-promoting political operative. Patsy has strong progressive instincts grounded in her understanding of what people's lives are really like." Patsy's record as a representative of the North Carolina legislature showed she is a staunch believer in helping working families, standing up for civil rights and including everyone who wants to pitch in and work hard in the American dream.

I never talked with either Eric or B. B. about politics and don't know where they stand on the issues... but they did cover Charlie "Hoss" Singleton's classic "Help the Poor" [below] on Riding With The King-- and they're both very decent, generous human beings so... I'll just jump to the logical conclusion. To get a chance to wind up with this plaque on your wall, just contribute to Patsy's campaign-- any amount-- at this ActBlue page. We'll randomly select one person to thank by sending him or her the plaque.

McHenry is widely considered one of the worst Members of Congress and his record shows him to be a total shill for Wall Street's corrupt banksters. On issue after issue after issue, Patsy Keever is showing the voters how they differ. "Patrick McHenry," she told North Carolina voters last week, "wants to end Medicare and replace it with a voucher system that would cost seniors at minimum an additional six thousand dollars a year for their health care. I want to keep our promise to our seniors and protect the current Medicare benefits that they have earned by paying into the program throughout their lifetimes." Clear and simple, so there can be no confusion in voters' minds who's with them and... who's not. Please consider standing with Patsy today and contributing whatever you can spare. And if you wind up with an Eric Clapton/B. B. King collectible, all the better. You can contribute by clicking on this link or by sending a check to Blue America at P.O. Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027. And if you want a chance to win the award plaque but don't have even a dollar to spare, just send us a note to that P.O. Box and we'll include you're name as well.

Irene

With Saturday post-noon update (below)

It's all new to us, "mandantory evacuation," here in the Greater New York area. Above you see what we now know as Zone A. (The Rockaways are actually Zone B but have been included in the Zone A mandatory evacuation because road and rail access to -- and consequently egress from -- the Rockaway peninsula is so limited.)

by Ken

It's so strange. Here we are, in the Greater New York area, girding for the worse -- while everything outside remains perfectly normal, and isn't suppose to go bonkers for another full day, though the rain is expected to start tomorrow. More importantly, though, tomorrow at noon the region begins turning into a pumpkin, when all public transport goes into shutdown mode.

I figured it was going to be a closer, nail-bitinger call tomorrow. But it makes sense that if you're going to prepare for the worst, you have to actually plan for the worst. You can't tell a quarter of a million people (and that's just in the city itself; obviously there are equally low-lying areas in New Jersey and out on Long Island, and in Connecticut too) to evacuate in an hour. Of course we still don't know what it means to tell New Yorkers -- and other tri-staters -- that they have to evacuate. It's never been done before.

Well, at least I didn't have to go to bed wondering whether I was going to try to catch my 9:52am Metro-North train en route, eventually, to Constitution Island, opposite West Point, where I discovered only today online that it's Reenactment Day tomorrow. Probably I could have made onto that train, and even gotten to Constitution Island, assuming they're going to go ahead with tomorrow's festivities. (I tried calling the office, but there was just a recorded message. Not a recorded message about the present situation; it just related the normal arrangements for the island.) The problem, though, is that by mid-afternoon it was already announced that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which operates not just the city's buses and subways but the Metro-North train I would be taking, prompted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (the MTA is a state-chartered agency),

will begin an incremental suspension of its subway, bus, and Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North Railroad service beginning approximately eight hours prior to sustained 39 mph winds reaching the area. Subway and bus lines will begin shutting down after 12 noon tomorrow.

This is another first for New York. As far as I know, there's never been a deliberate shutdown of the transit system.

By Sunday the storm is expected to be upon us, so I guess my scheduled Municipal Art Society walking tour of the Tompkins Park area of the East Village is also kaput. The normal MAS policy is "rain or shine," as we were reflecting a couple of weeks ago when a surprisingly large band of us gathered for a walk through the area between Union Square and Madison Square in Manhattan. By coincidence that was also a tour led by Francis Morrone (it is a coincidence, isn't it, Francis? have you don something to offend the weather gods?), who reflected that way back when somebody at MAS decided on that "rain or shine" policy. He ventured that the decision might be worth reexamining. Nevertheless, we accomplished the tour quite successfully. There's a difference, though, between "rain or shine" and a historic hurricane.

It was also by mid-afternoon that Mayor Bloomberg had announced the mandatory evacuation by 5pm tomorrow of the city's lowest-lying areas, designated "Zone A." The weather folk have warned us that In the event that the storm visits its maximum wrath upon us, bring surges in the six-to-eight-foot range (meaning waves who knows how high?), Zone B areas too will be at risk, but it was a momentous enough decision to order the evacuation of Zone A.

Already today we saw video on TV of hospitals in the Zone A area being evacuated -- not an inspiring sight. On TV this afternoon I saw a genius man-in-the-street saying what a lot of us, I admit, had fleetingly thought: that the ordered evacuations and shutdowns were "a little premature," since the storm hadn't hit yet. But of course you can't wait till then to attempt that kind of evacuation.

If we get anything as serious as they are predicting, it’s likely to be pretty awful. As I've been pointing out a lot lately, in a much different context, New York City is a port city, and the city and its surroundings contain an awful lot of low-lying coastal terrain. And as the meteorologist expert guy on NY1, the local cable news channel, pointed out this morning, this damned storm hasn’t changed track in two days. Of course I saw that same segment, obviously on tape, about three times in the time I had the TV on, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence in its up-to-the-minute-ness.

In all the time my mother lived in Florida, I got to participate vicariously in hurricane watches — down there EVERY time a storm is approaching everything else goes off the TV and nobody talks about anything else. (You’d think they would have gotten used to it, but apparently this is how you “get used to” living season in, season out in the playground of tropical storms and hurricanes.) And as you say, you just never know. Sometimes they forecast the worst and not much happens, and sometimes they’re fairly casual in anticipation and dreadful stuff happens. What you discover is that the response is usually based on what happened LAST. So if the forecasters OVER-predicted, people tend to assume the new storm will be no big deal, whereas if they UNDER-predicted, people tend to assume it will be the end of the world. Unfortunately, the storms have no memory of the last one, and so do what they like.

Nevertheless, this thing is still headed straight at us, and I don’t know that there’s much between it and us to throw it off course. It just strikes me as kind of weird to thing that whatever’s going to happen, by Monday it will have happened.

A colleague at work recalled her sister's experience living through Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992. (I looked it up.) My mother never forgot Andrew. She was in an area close enough to the water to be subject to mandatory evacuation, but she didn’t evacuate, and you could see when she talked about it how she was affected by the memory of the SOUND of the storm passing over her area. (I don’t think she was that near the center of the storm, but of course hurricanes are very big storms, and some part of it did pass right over her area.)

The thing is, when she talked about it, it was never quite clear what the “lesson” of Andrew was for her. That she should have evacuated? I don’t think so, because I don’t think she was prepared to evacuate even WITH the memory of Andrew. But she sure lived in dread of living through something like that again. Alas, with stuff like hurricanes, you never find out till afterward what the correct response should have been!

On the way home this evening I stopped in the supermarket to pick up some stuff. The place was busy but not mobbed. I thought about getting milk but decided the amount I have on hand should be enough for the weekend, but on the way home I questioned the decision. And then it occurred to me that I still have time tomorrow to shop -- though I don't know how much milk they'll still have. Nevertheless, it's a reminder of how long we still have to wait, probably a full day yet, for whatever's going to happen to happen.

And then the weird thing is that, whatever's going to happen, by Monday it will almost certainly have happened.

Be safe, everyone.


SATURDAY POST-NOON UPDATE

Well, the first-ever transit shutdown has been in progress for about half an hour. Buses and subways are carrying passengers only as they make their way to the end of their final trip and/or to their designated hibernation site. New York Transit officials already began yesterday moving trains and buses from yards and garages that fall within the flood-prone zone, and no doubt many of those finishing up their pre-storm travels will also be headed for unexpected shelters.

NYT officials also caution that the shut-down system will take a minimum of eight hours to restart once they're given the "all clear," which throws the Monday morning commute into doubt.

For the record, I did venture back to the supermarket this morning for those items I regretted not buying last night, but I was lazy about it and waited till after 11, and while there was certainly a healthy crowd, under the circumstances it was manageable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shelves had indeed been restocked since last night and I was able to snag not just my milk but a number of this week's sale items.

As I hit the sidewalk on the way out this morning, about 11:25, the rain was just beginning, and by the time I walked the block and a half to the store it was coming down -- though I assume not a patch on the way it's going to be coming down.

[courtesy of Howie]

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If John Ensign Or David Vitter Had Been Caught With A Few Grams Of Crack, What Would The Senate Have Done?

There isn't much unanimity in the Senate these days. Even if the GOP isn't in full obstructionist mode just for the heck of it-- the default position for about 90% of the hours the joint is open-- you'll always find a Bunning or a Coburn in his own private Idaho of reflexive obstruence. But on Wednesday they unanimously passed S. 1789, Dick Durbin's misnamed Fair Sentencing Act. It will reduce sentencing disparities for powdered cocaine (which white middle class people tend to use) and crack cocaine (which poor minorities tend to use.) The sentencing disparity drops from 100:1 to a "mere" 18:1.

Currently, a person convicted of crack cocaine possession gets the same mandatory jail time as someone with 100 times the same quantity of powder cocaine. That 100-1 ratio has been particularly hard on the black community, where convictions on federal crack laws are more prevalent.
Under the measure, approved by a voice vote, the ratio would be reduced to 18-1.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who worked out the legislation with Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, said he had initially wanted a straight 1-to-1 ratio, but that the final product was a good bipartisan compromise... Under current law, possession of five grams of crack cocaine triggers a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence. The same mandatory sentence is handed down to a person convicted of trafficking 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Meanwhile, back in July, the House Judiciary Committee approved HR 3245, by a vote of 16-9, which would completely eliminate sentencing disparities between crack and powder. As you can see from the list of 62 cosponsors, this was being pushed by progressive Democrats plus Ron Paul. No other Republicans, other than odd duck Mike Castle of Delaware, signed on and no Blue Dogs at all. The ACLU, the NAACP and the Justice Department all favor the House's approach.

Republicans, Blue Dogs and other right-wing Democrats are standing in the way of the House position and working to fast-track the mediocre Senate bill through the House. Clueless as usual, the mainstream media is presenting this as a great step forward instead of another missed opportunity to right a wrong. Color of Change has a petition on line, to Obama and Pelosi, urging them to stick with the House version over the Senate's racist compromise with knuckledragging Republican bigots. You may think Ron Paul is off his rocker on most thing, but he's right about this one.

As Jeralyn at Talk Left wrote Wednesday night, "This sucks."

It takes 500 grams of powder to trigger a 5 year mandatory minimum penalty. Under current law, it takes 5 grams of crack. Now, 28 grams of crack will do the trick. So an ounce of crack will carry the same penalty as almost a pound of powder (500 grams is 1/2 kilo, a kilo is 2.2 pounds.) And 280 grams of crack (10 ounces) will trigger the 10 year mandatory minimum penalty while 5 kilos of powder are required.

Worst of all, the bill is not retroactive and the reduction won't help anyone who has already been sentenced... The unfair law has been in effect for 24 years. 75,000 people have been sentenced under it. Today, once again, the politics of compromise triumphed over principle, fairness and justice.

Clapton Unplugged