Are African Americans Leading The Political Reform Movement Today? In The Streets, Yes. In Congress-- Don't Make Me Laugh

NBC News host Trymaine Lee looked at "a new generation of black candidates," as people look to sustain the movement for racial justice by turning to the ballot box. "Hundreds of Black candidates are running in local races, state races, and congressional races all across the country in 2020. After weeks of protest, will we see a wave of Black candidates elected as an answer to those calls for change? On the report above, "speaks with two women who are trying to bring racial justice to the electoral system. Political strategist Jessica Byrd felt called into the movement while watching the Ferguson uprisings, and Sybrina Fulton’s journey through activism to politics began when her son Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by police in 2012." Inspiring.

Less inspiring was the CBC pressure on Pelosi to make the most egregious crook amongst them, Greg Meeks-- everyone knows he takes bribes-- the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee now that Engels is departing for the retirement home. Personally, I'd rather see them replace him with Jamaal. I wonder if he'll even want to join the poxy group (the CBC, I mean, not the Foreign Affairs Committee, which I know is not among his big priorities. Of the senior members of the committee, Karen Bass, David Cicilline and Ted Lieu would be the best chairs. Meeks would be the worst. (2 Notes: Ilhan Omar is also on the committee, but Pelosi would be more likely to remove her than make her chair. And because of his on-the-ground experience overseas, if it were me picking a chair it would be Andy Levin. I don't get a vote, though.)

The Congressional Black Caucus was once thought of as the moral compass of the House. I don't know if that was ever true but today, following the CBC will lead you right into a sewer. Being a patsy for the status quo patsy establishment-- in return for the establishment allowing corruption-without-consequence-- is the name of the game. As a political force... well, they endorsed Eliot Engel over Jamaal Bowman, which should tell you everything you need to know. Although you might also understand the relevance of their endorsement of New Jersey Blue Dog Josh Gottheimer as well. And remember when they got behind mediocre white congressman Chris Van Hollen for an open Senate seat that Donna Edwards was running for in 2016, which would have made her only the second-ever Black woman elected to the Senate?

The CBC PAC, chaired by Congress' most corrupt Democrat, the aforementioned Gregory Meeks, is a cesspool of corruption, run by lobbyists for industries that target minorities and poor communities. How is that possible? Let me start by listing all 51 House members of the CBC, listed by seniority, along with their ProgressivePunch score:

• John Lewis (D-GA)- A
• Maxine Waters (D-CA)- A
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- F
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC)- D
• Alcee Hastings (D-FL)- B
• Eddie Bernie Johnson (D-TX)- C
• Bobby Rush (D-IL)- B
• Bobby Scott (D-VA)- C
• Bennie Thompson (D-MS)- D
• Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)- C
• Danny Davis (D-IL)- A
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)- D
• Barbara Lee (D-CA)- A
• Lacy Clay (D-MO)- B
• David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)- F
• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)- F
• Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)- C
• Al Green (D-TX)- F
• Gwen Moore (D-WI)- A
• Yvette Clarke (D-NY)- A
• Hank Johnson (D-GA)- C
• André Carson (New Dem-IN)- C
• Marcia Fudge (D-OH)- B
• Karen Bass (D-CA)- A
• Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA)- F
• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)- F
• Frederica Wilson (D-FL)- B
• Donald Payne (D-NJ)- A
• Joyce Beatty (D-OH)- C
• Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)- A
• Marc Veasey (New Dem-TX)- F
• Robin Kelly (D-IL)- B
• Alma Adams (D-NC)- B
• Brenda Lawrence (New Dem-MI)- B
• Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)- A
• Dwight Evans (D-PA)- B
• Lisa Blunt Rochester (New Dem-DE)- F
• Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD)- D
• Val Demings (New Dem-FL)- F
• Al Lawson (New Dem-FL)- F
• Donald McEachin (New Dem-VA)- F
• Steven Horsford (New Dem-NV)- F
• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)- F
• Antonio Delgado (D-NY)- F
• Jahana Hayes (D-CT)- B
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- F
• Joe Neguse (D-CO)- A
• Ilhan Omar (D-MN)- A
• Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)- A
• Lauren Underwood (D-IL)- F
• Kweisi Mfume (D-MD)- B

The Black member of Congress with the most progressive voting record in Congress, Adriano Espaillat-- and who represents Harlem--was judged not black enough and refused membership in the CBC (although they did admit Senator Kamala Harris-- if only for show-- who is a lot less black than Espaillat by any metric you care to use.

A great description of the CBC PAC by Color of Change began by explaining it "is really a mouthpiece for corporate power."

The lobbyists sitting on the CBC PAC’s board represent the worst of the worst-- companies that are notorious in the mistreatment and exploitation of Black people. The depth of corporate influence over the CBC PAC is so troubling because its endorsements carry the name of the Congressional Black Caucus, trading off a name that is wrapped in the moral authority of the civil rights movement... [T]he CBC PAC's corporate board members and donors represent private prisons, big tobacco and the anti-worker National Restaurant Association. Founded in 1971 by Black elected officials like Shirley Chisholm and Ron Dellums, the Congressional Black Caucus has built its reputation as 'the Conscience of the Congress,' often voting as a powerful bloc and joining together as a singular voice for Black people. The CBC PAC, on the other hand, was founded in 1994 and is an entirely separate entity that trades on the name of the CBC and is made up of Washington lobbyists and 8 (out of 46) Black Caucus members.

How bad could the board of the CBC PAC be? In 2016 The Intercept reported that "Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD), a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations."

The CBC is frequently in opposition to reform. Also back in 2016, Gaius Publius wrote about their campaign to maintain anti-democratic super-delgates as a controlling force at the Democratic presidential conventions.

Back in April, after Morgan Harper was defeated in Columbus, Ohio, with the connivance of the CBC PAC, DWT asked the question Will African-American Voters Help Reform The Democratic Party?. Among those seeking to block Harper, one of the brightest stars among Africa-American congressional candidates this cycle were Cedric Richmond, "a bullshit artist and New Dem, the conservative Democrat tasked early on with roping in anti-progressive Democratic House members for Biden. He's tight with K street and tells lobbyists who's for sale and who's not. Other conservative Democrats backing Beatty included Oralndo's Val Demings (who some are touting, besides the fact that she is a severe sufferer from brainlessness, as a VP contender for Biden), the Queens political machine boss Gregory Meeks, and Brooklyn's Hakeem Jeffries, a contender for the post-Pelosi speakership." Meeks' attitude towards progressives who challenge entrenched incumbents is one of entitlement. To him Harper, a 36 year old former Obama administration official at the CFPB, with no ties to the incompetent and fully corrupt Ohio Democratic Party was, as he stated in an interview, someone who seemed "to come out of nowhere, who ha[s] done nothing, ha[s]e nothing to show for." To a crook like Meeks, Harper was just challenging Joyce Beatty-- the payday loan industry's rep in the House-- challenging an incumbent just for the sake of challenging her. He doesn't get it. He never will. But maybe he'll get the House Foreign Affairs chair-- and be able to buy an even bigger house, financed by Haim Saban.

Yesterday, HuffPo asked if The Black Caucus is ready to ride the progressive wave? That seems liked an absurd question to ask-- and the writers-- Daniel Marans, Philip Lewis, and Matt Fuller-- knew it. "It should be the Congressional Black Caucus’s biggest moment," they began. "Multiple CBC members being vetted as a potential vice presidential pick. A national uprising over systemic racism in policing that could finally address core issues in Black communities. And a host of Black progressives winning Democratic nominations that will almost certainly sweep them into office. But with the CBC either not endorsing some of those liberal Black candidates who won Tuesday night-- or outright opposing them-- many activists are wondering if the CBC is progressive enough to lead this movement. 'If it wasn’t clear before tonight, I hope it is now. The CBC is disconnected from middle and lower black America,' progressive Black activist Danny D. Glover tweeted Tuesday night after the election results. 'Do not listen to them,' he added."

Regardless, in a number of Democratic primaries Tuesday-- the first major elections since Black Lives Matter protests swept the country in late May-- Black insurgents cleaned up.

...In all of those cases, electing a new generation of liberal leaders went hand in hand with a new generation of Black candidates. And with other new, stalwart progressives in the CBC-- like Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN)-- combined with more experienced liberal lawmakers like Barbara Lee (D-CA) and CBC Chairwoman Karen Bass (D-CA), the caucus could be a progressive force in the House in years to come.

In fact, the CBC is already flexing its muscle. On Thursday, the House passed a sweeping police reform bill that was largely composed by members of the CBC.

But activists and progressive aides worry that some of the old trappings of the caucus-- taking corporate money, being friendly with Wall Street and lobbyists, and defending institutionalist norms, like seniority and incumbency-- could threaten its ability to be a progressive force. And the decision to endorse Engel over Bowman typifies that concern.

“Endorsing Engel over Bowman is absurd,” the senior progressive House aide told HuffPost. “They should have been aware of the dynamics of that race. More sophisticated actors would have stayed out.”

Part of the issue is that, despite a desire for change from a number of members in the CBC, many are party loyalists. The CBC has had success in supporting a tenure system in Congress, which rewards the members who can stick around the longest with powerful committee chair positions. Many CBC members sit in safe Democratic districts, and don’t like the idea of primary challenges. In fact, the CBC has a policy of supporting incumbents.

In 2018, the CBC endorsed then-Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), who went on to be unseated by Pressley, the first Black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress. And barring a massive upset, Bowman will enter Congress and the CBC next year after the organization opposed his candidacy.

But it’s not just the CBC supporting incumbents over Black candidates. The CBC has endorsed-- or chosen not to endorse anyone-- in a number of curious races.

  For instance, the CBC hasn’t endorsed Will Cunningham, a former aide to CBC lion Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who died last year.

Cunningham is running to unseat Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Democrat turned Republican in South New Jersey. And while Cunningham-- who, like Jones and Torres, is also gay-- has not generated nearly the money or enthusiasm of other Black insurgents, a campaign adviser argued that a CBC endorsement could change that.

“This is the kind of race that the CBC should be pushing,” Cunningham adviser Kaushal Thakkar told HuffPost.

The CBC’s non-endorsements are especially glaring alongside the list of candidates they have chosen to back. In addition to standing by Engel, the caucus endorsed the reelection of Josh Gottheimer, a white, centrist super-conservative Wall Street whore Democrat facing a progressive challenge July 7 in a suburban New Jersey swing seat. Gottheimer leads a bloc of moderate Democrats and Republicans that prevented the Democratic-controlled House from placing tougher humanitarian conditions on a border funding bill in July. Gottheimer’s challenger, Arati Kreibich, is a neuroscientist who immigrated to the U.S. from India as a child.

...Glover called Bowman’s win a “reckoning” for the CBC. He predicted that if CBC members didn’t embrace the more ambitious calls for reform issued by the younger Black protesters taking the streets over the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, individual CBC members would be run out of office with primary challenges.

“This inflection point we have does not deal with only white people. This inflection point also speaks directly to the establishment of both Blacks and whites,” he said. “Gone are the days of them just giving us lip service.”

Sad how the CBC and Trump are on the same page

Who's Behind The Move To Wipe AOC's Congressional District Off The Map?

It came as no surprise that New York would be losing a congressional seat after the census. Speculation in Albany over a year ago was that NY-27, a large rural district in the western part of the state-- then held by crooked Trumpist Chris Collins--  would be divided up between NY-26 (Buffalo- D+11), NY-25 (Rochester- D+8) and NY-23 (Southern Tier- R+6). The move would make NY-26 and NY-25 slightly more competitive but still safely blue and make NY-23 much redder and much safer for a Republican. And it would get rid of Collins and a district with a shrinking population.

But Collins resigned and is going to prison and the New York Democratic Party bosses have switched their focus on another congress member they hate-- and fear-- even more than Collins: AOC. The scuttlebutt in Albany is that the dominant Republican-wing of the party, in a move to protect Schumer’s Senate reelection in 2022, wants to dismember NY-14. That'll teach 'em! And that will, the thinking goes, keep AOC, now old enough to run for the Senate (30), in her place! So wrong on so many levels!

There was a buried mention in Politico on Tuesday morning:

With New York likely to lose at least one congressional seat, the district held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be broken up, forcing her to find a new winning coalition. There’s little love for the disruptive young upstart in Albany, and many state lawmakers would like nothing more than to redraw her out of office. Ocasio-Cortez seems aware of the threat, as she’s been promoting Census sign-ups in her district to ensure that her constituents are fully counted.

I decided to run a quick Twitter poll to see if there is any kind of consensus around the importance of AOC’s political career. There is. The polling started strong for her:

And admiration for Ocasio-Cortez ended strong as well. 89 people participated in the poll-- one for each freshman!-- and 92% indicated they think AOC is the most consequential and most important new addition to Congress. Go Twitter! The New York (and DC) political establishments would be on the losing end of this battle, of that I'm certain.

As you know, AOC doesn’t take campaign contributions from any of the crooks who make the wheels turn in DC-- and Albany-- but she has still managed to raise $3,381,334.59 as of September 30, significantly more than any of the notorious New York whores who sit on the phone all day begging special interests for money:

• Max Rose - $2,139,582.51
• Antonio Delgado (D)- $2,063,246.39
• Hakeem Jeffries- $2,048,723.08
• Lee Zeldin (R)- $1,867,986.14
• Anthony Brindisi- $1,417,403.05
• Elise Stefanik (R)- $1,330,918.47
• Tom Reed (R)- $1,264,624.41
• John Katko (R)- $1,182,074.69
• Carolyn Maloney- $1,016,483.16
• Sean Patrick Maloney- $841,739.78
• Greg Meeks- $643,895.51
• Eliot Engel- $566,230.84
• Brian Higgins- $514,347.20
• Kathleen Rice- $334,379.20

Someone in Schumer’s operation denied that his boss-- who has raised $1,526,081.84 so far for his 2022 reelection campaign-- was behind the anti-AOC move and told me the impetus was from the Queens party machine. That is run by one of the most corrupt members of Congress, Gregory Meeks, a Wall Street-owned and operated slime ball New Dem (and Schumer ally). I spoke with Shan Chowdhury, the progressive Democrat challenging Meeks on his him turf and a former AOC campaign worker, what he though about this. "Would any of us be surprised if my opponent, the corrupt Gregory Meeks, is behind the anti-AOC movement? I sure am not! Meeks is only about himself and his special interest donors that keeps him in office. He’s anti-labor, anti-movement, and anti-people. As the Queens Democratic County Chair, he is doing everything in his power to keep the movement outside of the county democratic process. If he’s unwilling to make a system that’s fairer and just for all, is he a real Democrat at all? Working families deserve better. Our country deserves better. The movement deserves better. I will be his most competitive challenger he’s ever had. Let’s vote him out and vote me in because I will work for and with the people. We will make New York bluer. Happy New Year!

It's Long Past Time For Congress-- And Queens-- To Be Rid Of Serial Corruptionist Gregory Meeks

In June, Blue America endorsed a bartender, rugby player, former legislative aide and Democratic Socialist, Shaniyat Chowdhury, for Congress. He's running in the deep blue (PVI is D+37) southeast Queens district (NY-05) that includes Jamaica, the Rockaways, Cambra Heights, Laurelton, Rosedale, Ozone Park, St Albans, Kew Gardens (+ a sliver of western Nassau County including Valley Stream and Elmont). Ethnically, it's a very diverse district, about 48% African-America, 20% Hispanic, 13% Asian, and 11% white. The incumbent is one of the most corrupt members of Congress, New Dem Gregory Meeks, more than just garden variety corrupt-- a real criminal.

The meme up top was produced by the highly respected nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in 2011 when they named Meeks one of the most-corrupt members of Congress, just after the FBI had opened an investigation into fishy loans Meeks had gotten from a friend. Before that he had been fined $63,000 by the FEC for using campaign funds for personal expenses, basically the same charges that are likely to send Duncan Hunter to prison. Meeks always seems to use the race card when he gets into any trouble and manages to slip away with minimal damage to himself.

He's always claiming poverty but has a lifestyle of the rich and famous-- or at least always did til the NY Times and NY Post began writing his spending habits up as news, especially after it became obvious he was using taxpayer funds for fancy vacations and excessive luxuries. For over a decade the papers have been writing about his shady spending. In 2015, for example, Post reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein noted that he "raked in thousands of travel miles last year, crisscrossing the globe in luxury trips to at least 16 countries-- including some funded by taxpayers, including trips to Morocco, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Panama, Israel, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Colombia...

“Congressman Meeks racks up more travel than most other members of Congress,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group. “Not only is he one of the most frequent foreign travelers, but he also has been at political fund-raisers from Las Vegas to the Virgin Islands. It’s a wonder he has any time to do work in his Queens district or Washington.”

Meeks has logged more travel since 2001 than any other Congress member from New York, according to a tally on the Web site LegiStorm.

...Meeks came under fire for shady travel in 2013 when he and nine other federal lawmakers and 32 staff members accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan. The sponsor was the Council of Turkic-American Associations, but the junket to Baku, where participants received rugs and other expensive gifts, was secretly funded by the country’s oil company, according to a classified report by the Office of Congressional Ethics recently obtained by the Washington Post.

But he wasn't spending all his time globe-trotting. After whining how he lives "paycheck to paycheck" like so many of his constituents, he bought a mansion for $830,000 which seemed excessive for someone on a salary of $174,000; his wife's salary was $79,000. In his official congressional financial disclosures he claimed to have no checking or savings account worth more than $5,000, or any investment account worth more than $1,000."

Last week, the NY Daily News' Chris Sommerfeldt and Dave Goldiner dug around a little into the feud Meeks has been stoking with AOC, The Squad and the Justice Democrats, basically because he's freaking out about the primary challenge from Chowdhury, who hasn't been-- at least not yet-- been endorsed by AOC, The Squad, the Justice Dems or anyone else aside from locals and Blue America. "Queens Democratic boss and 11-term congressman Greg Meeks took a thinly-veiled jab at fellow Big Apple Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday," wrote Sommerfeldt and Goldiner, "urging her to back off her racially-tinged feud with party leaders or face a fight for her political life."

"Racially tinged?" Like every other Black Democrat in Congress, Meeks is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) which, like every other groups has some good members-- like Barbara Lee (AC), Joe Neguse (CO), John Lewis (GA), Alma Adams (NC), Karen Bass (CA), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Gwen Moore (WI) and Ilhan Omar (MN)-- and some bad members-- Meeks coming right to mind, but also David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL) and Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA). The CBC has been having an institutional meltdown at the prospect of primaries and blaming it on The Squad. Meeks has been leading the charge, causing Ayanna Pressley to address Netroots Nation with a statement including "we don't need any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don't want to be a black voice." Meeks seems to have taken it personally, probably because he's still feeling guilty for endorsing Hillary Clinton against Obama in 2008. More recently Meeks has been backing a series of white conservative candidates against progressive people of color, Tiffany Cabán, opposing for example, in favor of Melinda Katz in a still too-close-to-call race for Queens DA. In 2018 he loudly backed Michael Capuano, a white man, against Ayanna Pressley, a black woman. Meeks: "At a time when Donald Trump continues to spew hateful rhetoric and policies, we need a leader like Rep. Capuano in Congress. Civil rights are under attack, and we need to fight back. Rep. Capuano has built his career on standing up for those who have been left behind, from healthcare, to transportation, to housing. We in the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee have a strong, committed partner in Mike and unanimously support his campaign for Congress." With Meeks it's part of a pattern.

And now he's whining, dishonestly, that Justice Democrats, AOC and the Squad are targeting members of the CBC, never mentioning that their candidates are also black. He also never mentions that he's being challenged by Shaniyat, although that has a lot to do with why he's melting down over primaries.

In an interview with Sommerfeldt and Goldiner, he was flipping out over the Justice Democrats "openly backing insurgent candidates trying to unseat members of the Congressional Black Caucus."

He also said the CBC can play the same game.

“Primaries go two ways," Meeks said when asked whether his wing of the party would consider challenging progressive members next year, including Ocasio-Cortez. “If someone picks a fight with somebody else, you fight back. That’s what my parents told me.”

Meeks stressed there weren’t any current plans to challenge Ocasio-Cortez, but left the door open: "If you get in the ring, expect that people are going to start throwing punches.”

The Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee that is closely aligned with Ocasio-Cortez and propelled her to victory in 2018, has already backed primary challenges against CBC members, including 10-term Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO).

The group, which is pushing to get corporate cash out of politics, has also made noise about possibly challenging Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn), both CBC members. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx) is another New York lawmaker who’s being targeted by the group.

Engel is white and his opponent, school principal Jamaal Bowman, happens to be black and, at one time, might have expected a helping hand, instead of slings and arrows, from the CBC. Lacy Clay's opponent, Cori Bush, is black (and Clay is nearly as notoriously corrupt as Meeks). Jeffries has no primary opponent and Clarke has three, all of whom are black and none of whom have been endorsed by Justice Dems, AOC or The Squad. This is all Meeks playing his game.

Meeks said the Justice Democrats and left-leaning lawmakers may be shooting the party in the foot.

“I would hope that these individuals would realize who the opposition is here,” Meeks said, referring to Republicans. “The focus should be to keep the majority, grow the majority and win the presidency.”

The escalating tensions come amid increasingly nasty clashes between party progressives and centrists, boiling over this week with Ocasio-Cortez accusing Pelosi in an interview of being “outright disrespectful” for privately scolding her and other “newly elected women of color" for picking Twitter fights with fellow Dems.

Meeks called Ocasio-Cortez’s Pelosi comments “intolerable."

“We’re all on the same team,” Meeks said. “You don’t go after the speaker like that.”

A Democratic leadership source, who only spoke on condition of anonymity, was harsher.

“Justice Democrats in general are trust fund kids who are funding this with their parents’ money,” the source said, blasting the progressive group as “elitist” for criticizing black lawmakers from poor districts who take corporate donations. “It’s offensive for CBC members when these elites are looking down on them when they don’t have the financial ability to say, ‘I don’t want that money.’”

Asked for an example, the source pointed to Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff and Justice Democrats co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti, a millionaire Harvard graduate who worked on Wall Street before turning to left-wing politics.

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment Friday, but the Justice Democrats took aim at the party establishment on her behalf.

“Senior members of the Democratic Party can make whatever false claims they want, but it’s clear that their bottom line is: no primary challenges," Justice Democrats board members Alexandra Rojas, Demond Drummer and Nasim Thompson said in a joint statement.

“Let’s make one thing clear," the trio added. "No incumbent is entitled to their seat. That’s why we have elections...Primaries are good for our party.”

The leadership source said the Justice Democrats and Ocasio-Cortez are getting some of their own medicine.

“They have attacked, attacked, attacked and attacked. For the first time, they were attacked back and now they claim to be the victim,” the source said, referencing the pushback from Meeks and Pelosi. “Ocasio-Cortez kind of operates like Trump. She’s hellbent on sowing discord and spreading chaos, but if you look at it, it always traces back to one person: her.”

Trump, of course, has weighed in on Pelosi's side against the reformers. Big surprise! If you'd like to help Shaniyat Chowdhury replace Meeks... see that thermometer above? Just click on that and contribute what you can in the box next to his name.

The Root Cause Of The Pelosi-AOC Fight Is Simple-- And Never Mentioned By Corporate Media: CORRUPTION AS A Way Of LIFE IN CONGRESS

The Beltway media has no idea how to explain the rift inside the Democratic congressional caucus because the largely uneducated "reporters" don't understand even the most basic dynamics and classifications. For example, Heather Caygle, Sarah Ferris and John Bresnahan gave it a try-- and utterly failed-- yesterday at Politico: Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez clash drags on, threatening Democratic unity.

They don't seem to be able to connect the dots and see what the intra-party struggle is all about. Among the members cited in the report are Lacy Clay (D-MO) who is in Congress for the corruption opportunities, Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL), also corrupt, Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA), also corrupt, Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD), also corrupt. Only Kilmer is described as a New Dem-- in fact as "chairman of the New Democrats"-- but without a description of what a New Dem is.

The New Dems are basically a new version of the Blue Dogs but without the overt racism and homophobia. It is a corporately-funded, pro-Wall Street group of right-of-center Democrats who have figured out how to take tainted corporate cash without taking it directly from the lobbyists and corporate PACs. The New Dems are the heart and soul of legalistic corruption inside the Democratic congressional conference.

Now, recall way back when AOC first got into Congress. She immediately identified this type of corruption as the reason for Congress being unable to pass legislation protecting working families from corporate predators. But instead of signing onto the gravy train, she declared war on it. If you know anything about the New Dems (and Blue Dogs), you know that THIS was seen by them as a declaration of war-- and a declaration of war against the war business is conducted in American politics-- on BOTH sides of the aisle:

"I don't think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health care legislation. I don't think people who are taking money from Oil and Gas companies should be drafting climate legislation."

Just days after AOC was sworn in, the dynamic-- progressive reformer vs corruption-- was already notable, albeit not by the Beltway media. For politics junkies, I noted in January, yesterday started with a pre-dawn Rachael Bade/Heather Caygle click magnetic piece at Politico, Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez. I noted that their piece really amounted to petrified servants of the status quo within the conference continuing their desperate efforts to force Congress' most popular member-- AOC-- to OBEY! I even wrote that Beltway status quo publications like Politico will continue to back the effort. "The effort," wrote Caygle in January, "described by nearly 20 lawmakers and aides, is part carrot, part stick: Some lawmakers with ties to Ocasio-Cortez are hoping to coax her into using her star power to unite Democrats and turn her fire on Republicans. Others simultaneously warn Ocasio-Cortez is destined for a lonely, ineffectual career in Congress if she continues to treat her own party as the enemy."

They identified AOC as a disruptor and insisted she use her secret powers to disrupt only Republicans not themselves. The concept of disrupting a corrupt system is too abstract for most of them. Corrupt, conservative incumbent Democrats were immediately annoyed by her implicit threat to back primary opponents against members in their ranks she deems too corrupt and too conservative. But their frustration went beyond that: Democratic leaders were upset that she railed against Pelosi's entirely anti-progressive PAY-GO scam on Twitter the first week of the new Congress. Corrupt, conservative incumbent Democrat and jealous seat-warmers were peeved that there’s a grassroots movement to try to win her a top committee post they felt she didn’t deserve because she wouldn't bother using to extort legalistic bribes for the party-- the New York seat on the House Ways and Means Committee (which was open because AOC defeat Joe "the next Speaker of the House" Crowley," a corrupt sack of shit, Pelosi ally and New Dem-emeritis.

Caygle wrote that AOC had "barely been in Congress a week and is better known than almost any other House member other than Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis. A media throng follows her every move, and she can command a national audience practically at will. None of that came playing by the usual rules: Indeed, Ocasio-Cortez’s willingness to take on her party establishment with unconventional guerrilla tactics is what got her here. It’s earned her icon status on the progressive left, it’s where the 29-year-old freshman derives her power-- and, by every indication, it’s how she thinks she can pull the Democratic Party in her direction. The Freedom Caucus didn’t win many popularity contests in Congress the past four years, but it’s hard to dispute the hard-liners’ success dragging the GOP to the right." She's been dragging the Democrats to the left... and the New Dems and Blue Dogs don't like it, not one bit.

One of the most rot-gut, corrupt pigs in Congress, Blue Dog/New Dem Kurt Schrader of Oregon mansplained that "She’s new here, feeling her way around... She doesn’t understand how the place works yet." Today, he's desperately fighting off a strong primary challenge from the progressive mayor of Milwaukie, Mark Gamba, an admirer of AOC.

Caygle noticed that even back then some of the (corrupt) House Democrats were scared shitless. They’ve noticed that Ocasio-Cortez had hired two former organizers from the anti-establishment group Justice Democrats to run her office. One of them, her new chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, told supporters during a November conference call that "we gotta primary folks." Fast forward to... yesterday:

And who think it's a coincidence that Trump took Pelosi's side-- the only person in Congress who is keeping him from being impeached-- against AOC? Scott Wong got into how the New Dems and other corrupt conservative Pelosi allies went into full-fledged attack-mode against AOC and the Justice Democrats yesterday:

Justice Democrats is backing primary challengers to eight-term Rep. Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), a Hispanic Caucus member, and 10-term Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The insurgent group also made noise this year about challenging Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a CBC member seen as the heir apparent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). [Worth noting here that the candidate opposing Cuellar is a Latina and the candidate opposing Clay is African-American. The differences aren't about race. Cuellar and Clay are corrupt; they opponents are reformers.]

And CBC leaders are fretting that Justice Democrats may target other black lawmakers in the coming weeks and months, including Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) and Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD). Brown said the group has been making calls in his district, actively trying to recruit a challenger to run against him-- something that Justice Democrats denies.

“It just seems strange that the social Democrats seem to be targeting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, individuals who have stood and fought to make sure that African Americans are included and part of this process,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), a senior CBC member, told The Hill.

“I don’t know what that agenda is, but if they want to come after members of the Black Caucus, it’s two ways,” warned Meeks, the Queens Democratic Party boss who clashed with Justice Democrats in a local district attorney race last month.[Meeks' primary opponent, Shaniyat Chowdhury is also a person of color and hasn't been shy about talking to southeast Queens voters about Meeks' jaw-dropping corruption.]

...Some Democrats are hoping that Ocasio-Cortez, the rabble-rousing freshman with 4.7 million Twitter followers, gets a primary challenge herself in 2020.

Justice Democrats stormed onto the scene last year when one of their little-known handpicked candidates, Ocasio-Cortez, who is Hispanic, unseated then-Rep. Joseph Crowley, the powerful Democratic caucus chairman, in a New York primary.

In a statement, Justice Democrats’ executive director, Alexandra Rojas, defended the group’s strategy, noting that it has endorsed several candidates of color.

One of them is Cori Bush, a registered nurse and Black Lives Matter activist who is taking on Clay for the second time.

“We are supporting a black woman who is a community organizer who has taken on police brutality in the St. Louis area,” Rojas said. “Seventy percent of congressional districts in America have no competitive general election; primaries are often the only places where voters can have a real say.

“Barack Obama first ran for Congress in a primary challenge to Rep. Bobby Rush, a CBC member,” Rojas added. “This is a democracy and voters deserve choices.”

Justice Democrats also pointed out that they endorsed Ayanna Pressley, an African American woman, in her successful primary challenge last year against Democratic Rep. Mike Capuano in a Massachusetts district where minorities make up the majority.

This cycle, Justice Democrats is also supporting Bronx educator Jamaal Bowman, who is black, as he takes on House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY), who is Jewish, and Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old Hispanic woman who is running against her former boss, Cuellar.

The CBC’s allegations are “absurd and more about protecting incumbency over democracy,” a Justice Democrats source said.

Pelosi hasn't-- while the progressive movement has continued to evolve

In the last cycle, Justice Democrats backed American Civil Liberties Union activist Chardo Richardson over Rep. Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL), who made history as the first Vietnamese American woman elected to Congress. The group in 2018 also endorsed Bush, who eventually lost to Clay by nearly 20 points in the primary. This week, the group said they will back Bush once again as she gives it another shot in Missouri.

In an interview in the Capitol, Clay said it was absolutely clear that Justice Democrats are targeting lawmakers of color like himself. He and his father, Bill Clay, have represented the district for the past 50 years, and Lacy Clay called the group’s actions “insulting” to the intelligence of Missouri voters.

“They are going after the wrong target. Instead of fighting Republicans and defeating Trump and holding on to our majority, they find it convenient to go after their own, which is to me a bunch of B.S.,” Clay told The Hill.

...A senior House Democratic aide called it “ironic and funny” that Ocasio-Cortez is accusing Pelosi of attacking women of color, when Justice Democrats is targeting minority lawmakers.

“She’s only a woman of color when it’s convenient. None of the things she’s fought for aligned with communities of color and her group is funded only by elitist white liberals; she’s a puppet,” the top Democratic aide told The Hill in a phone call.

The aide then texted an image of a Goomba puppet from the Super Mario Bros. video game.

“I can’t tell you how pissed off people are” about the Justice Democrats, the aide added. “All these CBC members feel like they are under siege. But it’s offensive that these elitist white liberals feel like they can undermine the foundation of our party,” African American voters.

...Rep. Donald McEachin (New Dem-VA), a CBC member, said it was upsetting that Justice Democrats appeared to be taking aim at so many black lawmakers, especially since they have some of the most progressive voting records in the caucus.

“I think challenging other Democrats in the primary when we’re trying to hold on to the majority is wrong unless the person is so far out of bounds, so far away from Democratic orthodoxy, but that’s not what’s going on here,” McEachin told The Hill.

“It’s disturbing to see challenges to that many CBC members.”

So which trolls are circulating this lovely meme online this week? Is it Trump and/or Russian trolls? Or do the New Dems, Cheri Bustos/DCCC and/or the Pelosi office have their own troll army now too?

Washington Politics-- Hopelessly Broken?

In his State of the Union interview Sunday with Jake Tapper, Justin Amash (I-MI), Amash was steadfast in his position that it isn't Trump-- who he obviously detests-- that caused him to leaved the GOP but Congress itself. He told Tapper he had made the decision to leave the party before he called for Congress to begin the impeachment process and before Mueller issued his report. While Tapper kept trying to get him to say something negative about Trump, Amash wanted to make the point that he "had concerns with the Republican Party for several years. I have had concerns with the party system generally. When I first got to Congress, I thought I could change things from the inside. But, as I have spent time there, I have seen that, not only me-- I don't think there's anyone in there who can change the system. It's pretty rigid. It's top-down. It comes down from leadership to the bottom. And, over the years, it's gotten more rigid. So it's more difficult now to actually change the process than it was even a few years ago... I think this term in Congress has really shown how bad it can get. When I started the House Freedom Caucus-- I was one of the founding members-- what we were fighting for was better process. We were fighting for a more open government, a more accountable government. We wanted members to have a voice in the process, so that we'd have a deliberative body and we'd be able to represent people back home, whatever the outcome. Sometimes, the outcomes would be more conservative. Sometimes, the outcomes would be more progressive. But whatever the outcome, we wanted to open it up. But, over the years, I have seen that people are just falling in line behind the leaders, including people in my own caucus, you know, which I left. So it's gotten worse and worse. And I think this was the term that really broke it for me."

AMASH: I have worked within the Republican Party. I have tried to make changes from within. My colleagues have tried to make changes from within. It hasn't worked. It's not working for anyone.

And I'm not the only one trying. I have colleagues who are trying every day, and who are frustrated. But they are not speaking out the same way.

I hope they will speak out.

But it's time to try something different. It's time to be a committed independent representative for my district, so that everyone back home knows where I stand, because, right now, when you go back home, you hear Republicans who don't trust you because you're not aligned with the president. You hear Democrats who don't trust you because you're a Republican.

And most of the people in my district do trust me, they respect me, they support me. And I want those people to know that I'm there for them. I'm there to represent every single person in the community.

TAPPER: But not having any power on a committee, doesn't that hurt your ability to serve your constituents?

AMASH: In today's politics, the committees have almost no power.

And I want people at home to understand that. Everything is really run top-down. When I say that, I mean it very literally. The speaker of the House very much controls the entire process. The speaker decides what comes out of committee.

When Speaker Ryan, our Republican speaker, was there, the-- I was on several committees, and nothing ever came out of the committees that wasn't approved by Speaker Ryan.

TAPPER: So, let me ask you about that, because I talked to Brendan Buck, who was a senior adviser to both Speaker Paul Ryan and to Speaker Boehner.

And he says one of the reasons why Congress isn't functioning as it should is because of the Freedom Caucus. That's the perspective of a lot of people in Republican leadership, as I'm sure you know.

Specifically, Buck said: "You can't have an honest conversation about partisanship and polarization in the last five years without acknowledging the role the Freedom Caucus played. They insisted on loyalty to their own tribe above all else, and drove this toxic notion that compromise is treason."

As you mentioned, you're a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. What's your response to that? Do you-- do you think that the Freedom Caucus deserves any blame for how things are going in Congress right now?

AMASH: So I don't want to speak for the Freedom Caucus today, since I'm no longer a member.

But I will say, when the Freedom Caucus was founded, the purpose was to open up the process. And the speaker of the House and his spokespeople have it totally backward. They were closing down the entire system. And members of the Freedom Caucus said, well, we need to band together to ensure that we open this up. We want to be able to offer amendments on the House floor.

Under Speaker Ryan, for example, for the first time in congressional history, we had a whole Congress where not a single member of Congress was able to go to the House floor and offer an amendment. It was the first time in history. It was the most closed Congress in history.

And now, under Speaker Pelosi, we have the same problem, where we're not allowed to go to the House floor and offer amendments.

So, the thing is closed down. We need to open it up. And, sometimes, you have to form a group like the Freedom Caucus to stand up to the establishment in Washington.

...TAPPER: You have said that people turn to-- into-- quote-- "zombies" when they come to Washington, because they're telling you things privately that are different than what they say publicly.

What are you hearing from fellow Republicans privately-- obviously, you don't have to mention their names-- about your decision and about being a Republican member of Congress in the Trump era?

AMASH: Well, I get people sending me text messages, people calling me, saying, "Thank you for what you're doing, great op-ed."

When I was discussing impeachment, I had fellow colleagues and other Republicans, high-level officials, contacting me, saying, "Thank you for what you're doing."

So there are lots of Republicans out there who are saying these things privately. But they're not saying it publicly. And I think that's a problem for our-- for our country. It's a problem for the Republican Party. It's a problem for the Democratic Party, when people aren't allowed to speak out.

So I-- I think we really need the American people to stand up and say, hey, enough is enough. We have had it with these two parties trying to ram their partisan nonsense down our throats week after week. We want a person to go represent us and be open and represent the entire community.

TAPPER: Are you running for reelection as an independent to Congress?

AMASH: Yes, I am.

TAPPER: You are? And you think you can win as an independent?

AMASH: Yes. I'm very confident about that... I feel confident about running in my district. I feel a close tie to my community. I feel-- I care a lot about my community. I want to represent them in Congress.

...TAPPER: So you have come out in support of impeaching or at least beginning the proceedings of impeaching President Trump.

You said there's no point in formally bringing articles of impeachment right now because Speaker Pelosi doesn't support it. Is she making a mistake? Do you think that the Democrats should be starting impeachment proceedings, based on the Mueller report, what's in there about potential obstruction of justice, which is the case you laid out?

AMASH: Yes, from a principled, moral position, she's making a mistake.

From a strategic position, she's making a mistake. If she believes, as I do, that there's impeachable conduct in there, then she should say so. She should tell the American people, we're going to move forward with impeachment hearings and potentially articles of impeachment.

When she says things like, "Oh, I think that we need to have the strongest case before we go forward," what she's telling the American people is, she doesn't think there's a strong case. If she doesn't think that, then she shouldn't open her mouth in the first place and say she thinks there's impeachable conduct. I do believe there's a strong case. I believe she believes there's a strong case. And, if so, she should move forward and make sure that the American people understand what's going on, because people at home aren't reading the Mueller report. Most people don't have time to read a 448-page report.

They expect their members of Congress to do the work for them. They want Speaker Pelosi to do the work. They want other members to do the work. And if she doesn't want to go forward, then we're going to have a big problem.

TAPPER: Last question.

How many of your Republican colleagues do you think have actually read the Mueller report?

AMASH: I think it's probably less than 15 percent.

And I would say that's probably the case on both sides of the aisle.

TAPPER: Do you think it's -- that, once anyone reads it, they would reach the same conclusion as you?

AMASH: I think a large number of them would reach the same conclusion.

There are some who would reach different conclusions. But when you look at the conduct in there, when you look at the evidence that's presented, I think basically anyone would be indicted for that conduct, anyone who is not the president of the United States.

I want to make a very sharp left turn now-- so hold onto your hat. While Amash was on the air with Tapper, Politico published a piece by Laura Barrón-López and Sally Goldenberg about anomie inside the House Democratic caucus over this cycle's primaries. Marie Newman, the progressive Democrat running against lousy Blue Dog incumbent Dan Lipinski in Chicagoland, read it as well and I got the feeling from something she said that she and Amash might see their respective parties similarly. It's not about careerism; it's about service. "For me," she said, "alignment with your district is everything. If current incumbents are not in alignment, yes they should be primaried for sure. However, if an incumbent is still in strong alignment and producing proactive ideas, we should not be primarying just to do it. As a party, we need to work with focus and clarity."

Newman has been a particular target of another venal Blue Dog working to turn the Democratic Party sharply to the right-- vicious careerist and Rahm Emanuel protégée, Cheri Bustos, now chair of the DCCC and the person who started the current anti-democracy movement inside the Democratic Party by decreeing a ban on primaries against incumbents, in effect, against Blue Dog and New Dem incumbents from her own Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Somehow, Barrón-López and Goldenberg managed to write this without once mentioning Bustos' name. Politico is so incredibly in the bag for the establishment it's barely worth repeating-- or always worth repeating.

Shahid Buttar is the progressive Democrat, an attorney and activist, taking on Pelosi in San Francisco this cycle. If he wins in 2020, it will be the second most important news after Trump losing. "The grassroots base of the Democratic Party," he told me yesterday, "has been misrepresented by career politicians for entirely too long. It was one thing to subject the country to a supposed bipartisan consensus on corporate rule that helped facilitate climate change, mass incarceration, and continuing human rights abuses. But the complicity of Democratic leaders with our criminal president is too much to bear. They've had their time, and either failed to stop Trump, or succeeded in creating him. Either way, We the People have had enough. I'm looking forward to replacing Nancy Pelosi in November 2020 and to pursuing our country's visionary future, starting with the progressive interests that Pelosi has impeded: universal healthcare, a robust response to the mounting global climate crisis, executive accountability, and human rights."

Barrón-López and Goldenberg seem to want to help create a narrative that blames the primaries-- all of which have been in the planning stages for many months at the least-- on the backlash against Pelosi's decision to help Trump fund his concentration camps. "Tensions inside the House Democratic Caucus," they wrote dramatically, "are running high after an ugly debate last month over legislation to provide emergency aid for the humanitarian crisis at the border. Progressives lambasted leadership and some centrists who backed the measure as 'child abusers' because it lacked money to improve hygiene and nutrition standards for detained children migrants. That Democratic firefight and others have inflamed liberals looking ahead to 2020, including the group that was behind now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset win last year. The raw emotions have many in the party wary of an all-out battle for the party’s soul in primaries from the presidential race all the way down to the congressional level." Isn't that what primaries are all about? And isn't in healthy? Go back to what Newman said: "alignment with your district is everything. If current incumbents are not in alignment, yes they should be primaried for sure. However, if an incumbent is still in strong alignment and producing proactive ideas, we should not be primarying just to do it. As a party, we need to work with focus and clarity." No one could expect Politico to explain what's wrong with that. But I would love to hear Bustos, Pelosi and Hoyer try.

Barrón-López and Goldenberg seem unaware that candidates around the country are mounting primaries against incumbents gone bad-- from Mark Gamba's fight to replace Kurt Schrader in Oregon and over a dozen looming in California to challenges to Pelosi East Coast allies like Steny Hoyer (MD), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), Nita Lowey (NY), Carolyn Maloney (NY), Richard Neal (MA)... In fact, there are 88 incumbents facing primaries-- so far. Barrón-López and Goldenberg mentioned that super-corrupt Queens County machine boss, New Dem Gregory Meeks told them that he's preparing "and if somebody decides to run, we're ready. But you're not going to catch us by surprise." The reporters should have been prepared to ask them about former legislative aide and international rugby star, Shaniyat Chowdhury, who already is running a strong grassroots campaign against Meeks. He reminded us that in 2016 and 2018 just 10% of eligible voters even bothered to come out and vote, disdain for Meeks running so high. "He’s so corrupt that when he’s driving down the streets, he thinks home foreclosures are promotional ads for his real estate friends. He’s so out of touch, most people say 'who?' when asked who their representative is. If who was a person, they’d get more votes than my opponent and win." 

“Members are looking over their shoulders,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), the chairman of the House budget committee. [Barrón-López and Goldenberg didn't bother to mention he's likely to be primaried by progressive state Rep. Attica Scott.]

...There are still questions about how far-reaching and organized the effort to remake the Democratic caucus in the House will be-- and whether it could jeopardize the party’s control of the chamber. But the uptick of actual and threatened primary challenges presents an additional headache for the party as it seeks to hang on to its majority next year. An Associated Press analysis found that 40 percent of currently declared Democratic challengers were in districts with sitting Democrats.

Immediately following the 2018 election, the progressive group Justice Democrats put incumbents on notice, vowing to focus on sitting Democrats. Six months later, they’ve only announced two recruits. The targets: seven-term Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel of New York.

...In an effort to hamstring primary challengers, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fired a warning shot to the party’s consultants in March, telling them that they risked losing the party committee’s business if they worked for anyone primarying a sitting member of Congress.

“The question that comes up all the time is: Is there anybody internally assisting and abetting, encouraging people to run against incumbents?” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who has faced Democratic opponents in previous cycles, said of members and their staff. [Barrón-López and Goldenberg didn't bother to mention Pascrell already has 2 primary challengers, progressive activist Zina Spezakis and a guy named Alp Basaran.]

But the DCCC’s so-called blacklist has only inflamed tensions more. The left is trying to build an alternative consulting infrastructure to support these insurgent candidates. Two alums of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign rolled out plans for a new firm last week, reported the Daily Beast.

...The 2020 election would hardly be the first cycle in which rebels in either party took aim at the establishment. Typically, they have little success: In 2018, just four House incumbents were defeated in primaries, two Democrats and two Republicans.

Justice Democrats hopes to be a galvanizing force to change that. The group plans to back opponents to sitting Democrats who don’t support progressive ideals, or who failed to use their position as lawmakers in more aggressive forms, they say.

Though promising to dedicate more attention to Democrats, the group is also open to getting involved in a small number districts that could be turned from red to blue, according to their executive director Alexandra Rojas.

Justice Democrats is potentially eyeing challenges to Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Don Beyer (D-VA), according to a source close to the group.

Rojas didn’t deny or confirm any of the names, instead saying “anywhere we haven't announced yet means that we may or may not have someone.”

Though members have expressed frustration and concern about primary challenges, there appears to be less fear among members about the power of Justice Democrats, which has struggled to fundraise and provide a clear picture about where they plan to invest their time.

The recent district attorney race in Queens highlighted the growing party divide, as New York lawmakers Gregory Meeks and House Democratic Chairman Hakeem Jeffries threw their weight behind the establishment candidate, Melinda Katz, the borough president. In a statement, days away from the primary, Meeks blasted Sanders and Warren for getting involved in the local race on behalf of the insurgent candidate.

The episode rankled progressive activists like Shaun King, a loyal Sanders supporter, who backed the outsider candidate, Tiffany Cabán.

"Meeks should absolutely be challenged and defeated for his seat in Congress,” said King, co-founder of the Real Justice PAC.

King then directed his ire toward Jeffries, who he said is “out of step” with the progressive base. King took issue with Jeffries’ support of Katz, the establishment-aligned candidate who is currently ahead by only 20 votes, with the count still ongoing.

“Jeffries continues to duck and dodge on impeachment, continues to fail to support Medicare For All, and seems more interested in rising up the ranks of power than actually taking bold stands for his constituents,” King said, adding that he thinks the caucus chairman, who is on a leadership fast-track, should be primaried “without hesitation.”

“The leadership of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries on criminal justice reform issues, including the dismantling of ‘stop-and-frisk’ in NYC, ending inmate-based gerrymandering in the state, electing former District Attorney Ken Thompson in Brooklyn and the recent passage of the Historic FIRST STEP act speaks for itself,” said Jeffries’ spokesperson Michael Hardaway. “If you don’t know, now you know.”

Asked if she agreed with King’s call for a primary challenge against Meeks and Jeffries, Rojas of the Justice Democrats dodged. “Every politician needs to be on notice,” she said.

But six months after Politico reported that Justice Democrats was weighing a potential challenge to Jeffries according to two sources with direct knowledge, the group has not produced a candidate against him or Meeks or any other New York lawmaker aside from Engel.

“[King] came into my district and tried to hold a rally and only eight people showed up,” said Meeks. “Come on after me. You think you can get me, come on.”

“I'm preparing; I know Hakeem is,” Meeks continued. “And if somebody decides to run, we're ready. But you're not going to catch us by surprise.”

Justice Democrats was doing God's work when they helped AOC win her "impossible" race to replace "the next Speaker," Joe Crowley. Hopefully they'll find other candidates as good and help bring them into Congress. But elections aren't about Justice Democrats, as much as Politico likes that narrative. Elections are about candidates... and if Justice Democrats have two so far, that's great... although that doesn't say much about the 86 others (and counting). You can help some of the candidates who have stepped forward far by contributing what you can to their campaigns. Just click on the Primarying a Blue Dog 2020 thermometer on the right, where you'll find carefully vetted progressive candidates Marie Newman (IL), Shaniyat Chowdhury (NY), Eva Putzova AZ) and Michael Owens (GA). 

Before he decided to take on Blue Dog David Scott in the suburbs south and southwest of Atlanta, David Owens had served as Cobb County Democratic Party chairman. He knows a lot about how the party works and he knows how tough primaries are for challengers. "This isn't a narrative about people primarying Democrat incumbents because it something cool to do. It is rooted in the awaking of people across the country who are demanding more of their elected officials and demanding that their voices count more than corporations and industry lobbyists. Many incumbents are finding themselves having to now look over their shoulder for challengers because they didn't bother to extend their hand  to the community in the past. The party has shifted towards values that are more progressive. And it isn't just the Democratic Party; millions of people in this country have shifted to more progressive stances on issues around health care, education, jobs, economic and environmental justice. These are platform issues that voters are demanding solutions to. Representatives who are unwilling to listen to what their constituents are asking for and instead continue to do the bidding of corporations will find themselves will a lot of free time on their hands next summer."

And now a few words from a former primary winner who helps explain what this mess in the Democratic Party really is all about.