NRA Fanatic-- And Montana State Legislator-- Claims Permission To Murder Socialists Is In The Constitution

Socialism-- of the Scandinavian variety-- was once very popular in Montana, particularly among miners. Montanans were voting for the Socialist Party candidate for president, Eugene Debs, almost doubt the rate of the U.S. in general and in 1917 Butte elected a Socialist Party mayor. That all eroded with the infamous Anaconda Road Massacre-- a corporate/fascist  response to the Industrial Workers of the World and the Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union strike in 1920. The owner of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company was reported in a local Butte newspaper to be urging the shootling and hanging of the strikers. His mine guards opened fire on the picketers, killing one and wounding 15 others-- each one in the back as they tried fleeing. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder.

Montana's 52nd House district, basically the south side of Billings, is represented in the state legislature by Rodney Garcia, a far right Republican freshman who won his seat in 2018 with 1,858 votes (53.3%) against 24 year old Democrat Amedlia Marquez who had 1,631 votes (46.7%). Garcia, a 66 year old high school graduate and retired oil worker had served in the legislature previously (1985-87). He campaign primarily on allowing guns in schools, cutting the size of government and against public healthcare (i.e., Medicare and Medicaid). Over the weekend he became much better known, saying he believes the U.S. Constitution calls for the shooting or jailing of those who identify as socialists.

Garcia made the statement at a state party gathering in Helena Friday meant to kick off election season and offer training for party members and candidates. Garcia said he was concerned about socialists "entering our government" and socialists "everywhere" in Billings, before saying the Constitution says to either shoot socialists or put them in jail. Amid cries for his resignation, he said yesterday that he would resign only if God asked him to.

The Montana Republican Party later condemned Garcia's remarks.

In this year's presidential election, President Donald Trump has often called Democrats "radical socialists" in an attempt to use the term socialism, which is defined as theories about collective or government ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution, as a boogeyman-like phrase to criticize proposals from Democrats where the federal government would play a larger role in areas like health care or education.

...On Saturday, a reporter asked Garcia to clarify his remarks.

“So actually in the Constitution of the United States (if) they are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot,” Garcia said.

Garcia could not to point to where in the Constitution it says socialists could be shot or jailed.

Asked to clarify if he thought it was fair to shoot or jail a socialist, including those who live in Montana, Garcia said yes.

“They’re enemies of the free state,” Garcia said. “What do we do with our enemies in war? In Vietnam, (Afghanistan), all those. What did we do?”

Asked if that was an appropriate response to his opponent from the last election cycle, Garcia said “according to the Constitution, I’m telling you.”

“I agree with my Constitution,” Garcia said. “That’s what makes us free. We’re not a democracy, we’re a Republic Constitution.”

In 2018 Garcia ran against Amelia Marquez for the House District 52 seat in Billings.

Marquez said Saturday she is associated with the Montana Democratic Party and is an eastern member at-large with the party’s executive board. She said she is also a democratic socialist and her political views align with those of Sanders.

Marquez said Saturday after being told about Garcia's statements she wished the state legislator would spend more time talking to his constituents about their needs.

“I wish Rep. Garcia would continue to focus on the issues rather than this constant worry over things that are somewhat ludicrous,” Marquez said.

Garcia said he views what he sees as an influx of socialism in Montana as a “very dangerous” situation and that socialism has destroyed countries like Venezuela.

“They’re teaching that to kids. Thank God my grandkids know it’s wrong because I teach them. And it’s a very dangerous situation," Garcia said.

Garcia added he believes socialism is growing, citing advertising he says is done by socialists on Facebook.

Garcia is not new to controversy. During the 2019 state legislative session in the midst of debate over child protective services, he went on a conservative radio show to accuse child protection workers of kidnapping children. He was forced to return a $3,000 campaign contribution in 2018... The Montana Republican Party issued a statement Saturday censuring Garcia’s comments. When Garcia spoke Friday there was laughter after his question; some of those asked by a reporter about it said it was a response to an uncomfortable situation.

“The Montana Republican Party wholeheartedly condemns the comment that was made and under no circumstance is violence against someone with opposing political views acceptable,” said Spenser Merwin, the MT GOP executive director. “It’s disappointing that this isolated incident took away from the weekend’s events which showcased the strength of our statewide candidates and the importance of the upcoming election.”

Missoula area state Rep. Tom Winter, a progressive congressional candidate for Montana's one congressional seat, now open, told us that "Montana made national news today. It marked the second time in a week that the GOP called for the deaths of citizens they disagree with politically. Outrageous? Absolutely. Surprising? Not really. This time it was a fellow state legislator-- a colleague of mine-- claiming that our Constitution allows socialists to be shot. Ryan Zinke, with whom he was speaking, did not even bother to condemn his remark. Yes, that Ryan Zinke-- former Montanan Congressman and former Secretary of the Interior-- who resigned due to a corruption scandal, who sold off our public lands, and who now hides out in his fancy second home in California. He saw no problem 'killing socialists'. And last week the Republican Party in my district shared a video calling for civil war and to 'hang Democrats for treason'. They are talking about me. And my family. And my constituents. Just last month our Republican Secretary of State used a taxpayer-funded website to write, in regards to Native Americans, 'Species, languages, races all adapt and assimilate or they fade away'. And there it is. Openly applying social Darwinism to our fellow Montanans." Winter-- to whose campaign you can contribute by clicking on the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right-- was not finished, not by a long shot:

We should not be surprised. From Congressman Gianforte’s fearmongering over refugees to his donations to white supremacists, to Attorney General Fox praising a fast-food chain for its homophobia, to various state legislators palling around with white nationalists, to Auditor Rosendale moderating a far-right racist Facebook group, there is a moral rot at the top of the Montana GOP. All of us here know this.

I sat on the House floor in our state’s Capitol as one GOP representative accused Native Americans of committing a genocide against their own people. And he perpetuated the libel that they ate dogs. The most that the GOP "leadership" could muster was a weak half apology before sweeping it under the rug.

Various GOP Reps planted jars of personal lubricant on their colleagues’ desks, threatening members who had voted in support of Medicaid expansion with sexual violence. The Speaker of the House-- technically my boss-- was the first and only follower of a Twitter account mocking one of my disabled constituents. Like I said, there is rot in the Montana GOP.

This behavior has become standard among the elected officials of the Republican Party. And the MT Democratic Party has let them get away with it. Calling out racism and harassment and bigotry and violence comes at an electoral cost, the political class tells us. So we are supposed to accept the unacceptable, and to remain silent.

I represent a state house district that voted for President Trump by 11 points. Just two years later those same voters elected me, a progressive Democrat. I was told that I should hide my affiliations with Missoula’s refugee community. I was told to hide my past activism against the Muslim ban. To hide my volunteer work with Planned Parenthood.

I was told to hide anything that could be construed as 'too liberal.' Think about that. MT GOP candidates spew bigotry, fear, and racism, they call for shooting their own constituents, yet the political class thought I was the one who needed to keep my mouth shut.

Montana voters respect a candidate that fights for what they believe in, tells you who they are, and does not accept the unacceptable. That’s it. The political class needs to stop assuming Montanans’ only cross-party qualities are violence and racism.

We need to change: It doesn’t matter that, in fact, the Constitution does not allow a legislator to murder his constituents. It doesn’t matter that no other Republican elected official in that room saw fit to say anything to stop him. It doesn’t matter that at this point it’s just another sign of the moral rot in GOP leadership-- and I haven’t even gotten to President Trump. Tolerating violence, tolerating sexual lubricant left on legislators’ desks, tolerating all this fearmongering and bigotry and pettiness demeans public service itself-- regardless of party. And it demeans the Montanans we serve.

I asked some of the other Blue America-endorsed candidates how they feel about Garcia's call for violence. Lauren Ashcraft, a candidate in New York City, told us that "What this individual is calling for us murder... which is never acceptable or justifiable in this country." And, a little closer to the scene of the crime, Chris Armitage, whose running in eastern Washington in a district that borders Idaho, told us that "Using your elected position to incite violence is terrorism and a federal crime. I left Law Enforcement after witnessing the unfairly balanced scales of justice. In Congress, I look forward to ensuring that elected and appointed officials are not just held accountable, but held to the highest standards for conduct and ethics."

Shan Chowdhury is running for Congress in southeast Queens and he didn't take to Garcia's fascist rhetoric at all "For starters," he told me, "language that promotes violence in this nature is dangerous. And remember, a great American, Martin Luther King, Jr. identified himself as a socialist. There might still not be civil rights for tens of millions of Americans without him. And he was killed because of it. Socialism in the U.S. in not new and nowhere in the United States Constitution states does it say we must live in a capitalist society. If being a socialist means we are looking out for our fellow human beings so they have housing, healthcare, and jobs, then I am a proud socialist."

Texas Democratic Socialist, Heidi Sloan, running in a gerrymandered central Texas district, told us that "Do-nothing Republicans misrepresent socialism as a bogeyman to rally their base-- it's a cheap trick, and they resort to it because they offer nothing else for working class people to get excited about. Our campaign strongly condemns violence, and we also object to lies whether they are about socialism or about what the Constitution does and does not permit. With people like Rodney Garcia at the helm, it's easy to see why young people are rejecting the Republican Party in droves. Socialism is and will continue to be a compelling alternative to a lifetime of exploitation under capitalism."

Texas Labor Movement Does The Right Thing At The Intersection Of Politics And The Climate Crisis-- DCCC Weeps Bitterly

This story has a happy ending-- but it didn't always seem like it would while Kate Aronoff was writing it in real time last week in Austin. The big Texas AFL-CIO convention was considering which candidates to endorse for November. The building trades unions and the unions involved with the fossil fuels industries were not nearly excited as the rest of the labor movement was about the progressive candidates who were firmly backing the Green New Deal. They made a move to stop the endorsements of some of Texas' most energetic grassroots campaigns. Saturday was looking pretty ugly. Then the sun came out... on Sunday.

Aronoff focussed on the most important congressional race in Texas-- the non-DCCC effort to win the gerrymandered central Texas district that, incongruously, winds from Austin and its northern suburbs into the exurbs northwest of Houston (TX-10). Progressive champion Mike Siegel, ignored entirely by the DCCC, nearly ousted Republican incumbent Michael McCaul in 2018, holding McCaul down to a narrow 51.1% win, his closest ever. McCaul, who married into one of Texas' wealthiest families, spent $1,754,122 to Mike's $477,926. The DCCC spent zero on the race, petrified another working class progressive would break into Congress. What did they learn from the 2018 results? To support Siegel as he tries to finish the job he started 2 years ago? Not on your life. Conservative and anti-democratic DCCC head Cheri Bustos, recruited a Republican corporatist, currently pretending to be a Democrat, Shannon Hutcheson, claiming she could raise more money than Siegel. Siegel has raised more grassroots support and virtually all the local endorsements, including from unions. (Blue America has also endorsed Siegel and you can contribute to his campaign-- and to the other Texas' candidates who support the Green New Deal and a progressive agenda-- by clicking on the 2020 Turning Texas Blue thermometer on the right.)

"Having been dual endorsed by the Houston-based Texas Gulf Coast Labor Federation, Siegel and Hutcheson battled it out for the Texas AFL-CIO endorsement he won in 2018, made at the regional federation’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) Convention in Austin this past weekend. While Siegel won it again, his harder-fought victory this cycle offers a preview of what it will take to win labor’s support for a new generation of climate policies."

Siegel and his supporters spent last weekend in nearly round-the-clock meetings with unions, some of whose international leadership have previously spoken against the Green New Deal. “Everybody throws in something about a just transition when they talk about taking on climate change,” Rick Levy, President of the Texas AFL-CIO, told me. “But I think there’s concern about how central workers issues are going to be to that process. ... It’s just really hard when you’re in that industry, particularly in a place like Texas,” Levy said of unionized fossil fuel workers in the Right to Work state. “You see all these slings and arrows headed your way to your livelihood, climate change being one of them.” The Green New Deal, he told me, “is either the panacea or the devil depending on where you’re coming from.”

“It’s going to take a lot of real work for people advocating for this type of legislation to prove that the cost of transition is not going to be in working class communities,” Levy added. “The way power is distributed, it’s a hard sell to say that that’s not going to be the case.”

Siegel was aware of the resistance to this core element of his platforms, and worked hard to make sure it wouldn’t cost him with members. “Spent 3 days caucusing... Only opposition was Green New Deal,” he told me in a text message after Sunday’s floor vote on the CD 10 race. “My job was to build trust and let folks know we won’t move forward until labor is on board.” It seems to have worked. What ended up winning Siegel the endorsement, Levy said, was his time spent “addressing working people’s issues, and giving them a sense that he cared about those concerns and would actively work to incorporate them.”

It was a good weekend for Green New Deal-backing candidates overall. The Texas AFL-CIO also endorsed the Green New Deal supporter and Justice Democrats-endorsed candidate Jessica Cisneros against Representative Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democrat representing Texas’s 28th Congressional District who has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations from fossil fuel interests. In the 25th Congressional District, the Texas AFL-CIO issued a dual endorsement for Julie Oliver and Green New Deal supporter Heidi Sloan.

Like most Green New Deal advocate, Siegel believes decarbonization will be a process of designing a suite of policies, not one hulking bill. To make that work politically, he says, labor will have to be “in the driver’s seat.”

“We’re not gonna snap our fingers and implement a national Green New Deal policy,” he told me. “It’s going to be iterative, a series of pieces of legislation over time.” Before the convention, he had already signed onto a pledge from unions committing to hire a labor representative to work on any such measures. “We can put labor guarantees into this legislation that reinforce the right to collectively organize, and even demand sectoral bargaining,” he said. Labor is often, mistakenly, treated as a unified bloc when it comes to climate issues, with press and policymakers assuming that the outspoken international leadership of building trades unions (generally skeptical of decarbonization plans due to job displacement fears) speaks for the AFL-CIO’s 12.5 million members and large non-AFL-CIO unions like SEIU and the Teamsters. It’s true that the trades, clustered in the AFL-CIO’s Energy Committee, can hold outsized sway. Echoing a letter from that committee saying that Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey’s Green New Deal “makes promises that are not achievable or realistic,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s spoke out briefly against it in April 2019. But the statements were also less aggressive than right-wingers attempting to gin up labor-environmentalist conflict made them out to be. Furthermore, several union internationals and locals, including SEIU, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and the New York State Nurses Association, have endorsed the Green New Deal, which boasts hearty support among rank-and-file union members. Ocasio-Cortez sat down to talk about the Green New Deal last week with members of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), locals of which eagerly supported water protectors at Standing Rock in stark contrast to union leadership. Building on the work of people like Tony Mazzocchi, groups such as Trade Unions for Energy Democracy have been rallying labor around climate action, around the world, for years. This weekend’s convention in Texas further highlighted a labor movement that’s anything but monolithic, both between and among unions.

Ryan Pollock is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 520 in Austin as well as the city’s Central Labor Council, which recommended that the Texas AFL-CIO endorse Siegel. The national IBEW and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1624 have also backed Siegel. At the Texas AFL-CIO’s Constitutional Convention last summer, he worked with members of other unions to get a resolution supporting federal climate policy passed unanimously through the state AFL-CIO, in a process that mirrored the kind of negotiations that happened at the COPE convention.

It wasn’t easy. Oil runs deep in Texas. The Permian Basin in the West has given rise to one of the biggest oil booms in history. The jobs bound up in the fossil fuel economy aren’t just limited to miners and drillers and refinery workers. They include utility and railroad workers and even-- in some sense-- public employees, whose salaries in many places are contingent on the tax revenue extractive industries furnish to states and cities. In West Texas boomtowns, few if any sectors are untouched by the oil and gas business and its volatility.

Much of the tension over jobs and environment comes down to the type of work union members are doing. Pollock is an indoor electrician wiring commercial buildings. Energy experts note that an energy transition will require effectively tripling the amount of activity that takes place on the grid, electrifying everything while converting combustion-based activities—from transit to home heating-- to run on electricity. Electricians like Pollock will likely see work proliferate during that transition: IBEW workers around the country have been enthusiastic about solar power-- Local 11 in Los Angeles, for example, has seen a windfall in work thanks to the state’s pro-renewables legislation. But UA plumbers and pipefitters have been less open to Green New Deal proposals, since “electrifying everything” would also mean replacing much of their work running gas lines. And IBEW members also include workers at the coal-fired Fayette Power Plant East of Austin in CD 10, which Siegel has urged shutting down over rampant pollution concerns: one of Siegel’s 2020 ads highlights a third-generation pecan farmer whose family business has been destroyed by pollution from the plant, which also left him with a massive brain tumor.

“There’s no easy answer to these folks other than we have to take care of you,” Siegel said of the Fayette plant workers. “We have to make our demands to take care of you as specific as our demands to unwind fossil fuel energy production. The only other choice is environmental destruction and calamity.”

Pollock spent no shortage of time convincing members of the plant’s IBEW Local 66 to support Siegel and the climate resolution at last summer’s Texas AFL-CIO constitutional convention. “I laid out that we’re both IBEW,” Pollock said. “I’m doing this to make sure that we are taken care of, that you are taking care of. This stuff isn’t going away. The ever-increasing cost of fossil fuels means your plant’s in danger no matter what we do. We can do this now or we can do it later, or we can kick this can down the road,” he says of mapping out what a just transition might look like. “This is about labor getting ahead of the ball for once in the last century or so, and it’s about us calling the shots and not letting someone else call them for us.” Siegel supports providing five years of the same salary for any workers whose jobs are eliminated by a Green New Deal, with an option for workers over 55 to retire with full pension and benefits.

Pollock and Siegel’s other labor backers managed to get Local 66’s agreement on the climate resolution, which passed unanimously. But they weren’t persuaded to endorse Siegel. Local 66 and UA made up the small minority that backed Hutcherson through the nominating process this past weekend.

Though she boasts of working-class roots, Hutcheson would normally be an odd fit to win a labor endorsement over a guy with a string of union supporters, background in labor activism and what Data for Progress has deemed the third most ambitious labor platform in the country. She runs a boutique, women-owned corporate law firm called Hutcheson Bowers, which, as the Texas Observer reported, has represented a for-profit prison company that runs ICE detention centers. Hutcheson also penned a handbook for employers called “Agencies Run Amuck,” full of tips for how companies can defend themselves against the tyranny of federal labor law.

Still, many workers see any talk of decarbonization as an existential threat greater than any management-side Democrat. From the decline of the auto sector to the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs under NAFTA, there’s never been what workers in the United States would consider a “just transition.” Many are understandably weary of empty promises. Historically, environmentalists have made vague promises of jobs in the future, while opposing existing infrastructure projects like oil pipelines, which provide union members with lucrative work. After decades of attacks on organized labor and a dearth of infrastructure investment, the Green New Deal’s employment promises can still ring hollow.

Joe Uehlein, Founding President of the Labor Network for Sustainability, is the former secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department, having entered the labor movement in the 1970s as a United Steelworkers member at an aluminum plant, and then as a LIUNA member working on heavy construction projects. He’s worked for decades now at the intersection of labor and climate. Uehlein emphasized the sheer number of jobs union members have to gain from a Green New Deal, from a transportation overhaul to energy efficiency upgrades to infrastructure investment to agriculture. These policies, he believes, have the potential to expand the labor movement by bringing more people into the work of decarbonization. “The fact that [a just transition] has never happened is the biggest stumbling block,” he told me. “But at the same time, our history is replete with things that never happened that people imagined and fought for and won.”

Another serious Green New Deal supporter in the Austin area-- Heidi Sloan-- was also endorsed by the AFL-CIO (co-endorsed, actually, along with another progressive Green New Deal backer) seems to be as campaigning as hard for Bernie as she is for herself. "Climate change is humanity's greatest threat," she told me yesterday, "but it's also our greatest opportunity to rebuild our economy for the many, not the few. Workers make the world go round, and we need leaders who understand both the urgency of climate crisis and the absolute necessity of centering the working class in our response to this crisis. Our underdog campaign won the endorsement of the Texas AFL-CIO because when we talk about a Green New Deal, we talk about a just transition for workers and we back that talk up with a demonstrated commitment to labor. Our campaign was ranked by Data For Progress as having the strongest labor platform among both candidates and incumbents, and for years I have walked picket lines, supported union drives, and stood with striking workers. Over Thanksgiving I was arrested in solidarity with airport workers on strike for higher wages and better healthcare. I'm ready to fight for workers in Congress, and during this campaign I will keep working to build trust with union organizers, labor leaders, and every day working class people."

A Gift To Democrats Running Against GOP Incumbents

Trump has demanded his congressional puppets start endorsing him during the impeachment trial. The optics may seem good for him, but they look dreadful for the Republican incumbents who are falling in line. Take John Katko, a Syracuse-area conservative still making a half-assed attempt to try to pretend to be a "moderate." He represents the only blue district (D+3) in the country that the DCCC managed to lose last year.

Yesterday, Katko's progressive challenger, Dana Balter, shredded him for formally endorsing Trump's reelection bid. "Congressman John Katko," she wrote to New Yorkers in Onondaga, Wayne, Cayuga and Oswego counties, "is endorsing Donald Trump because he believes that Trump’s made our country better than it was four years ago. He’s endorsing a man who is trying to rip healthcare away from 130 million people with pre-existing conditions. He’s endorsing a man who blew a $2 trillion hole in our national debt for tax giveaways to the ultra-wealthy and corporations on the backs of working families. He’s endorsing a man who is trying to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He’s endorsing a man who stokes fear, hatred, and division to maintain power. He’s endorsing a man who started and continues to escalate a reckless trade war that has done massive harm to our small businesses and our family farms. He’s endorsing a man who violated the Constitution, disgraced his oath of office, abused his power, and broke the law by extorting a foreign government to interfere in our elections. And John Katko believes this man has made us better off than we were four years ago? That tells us an awful lot about John Katko’s vision for our future."

Across the country, in eastern Washington, progressive Democrat Chris Armitage, the most recent candidate to be endorsed by Blue America, is voicing similar sentiments about the lockstep Trumpist positions his opponent, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, keeps taking. He told me yesterday that she "continues to be in the shameful position of defending the Trump brand. Beyond betraying our ideals of truth, liberty, and justice, Trump is also just a garbage brand. Trump is his own greatest and worst product and my opponent is all in."

Last cycle, Trump dragged himself down to Missouri's 8th congressional district to campaign for two total puppets, Rep. Jason Smith and the-AG, now U.S. Senator Josh Hawley. There's no doubt whatsoever Smith will be endorsing Trump imminently. The progressive Democrat opposing Smith is Kathy Ellis. "News just came out that Missouri added 47,000 new union members in the last year," she told me, "remarkable considering the state's attack on unions. To us, that indicates that people aren't happy-- typically, folks won't join unions if they're pleased with their working conditions. In my district, we've seen tariffs devastate small farmers, and wealthy farmers are receiving special treatment from Rep. Smith through government payouts and financial assistance. Yet, people in the district are suffering-- farms are underwater, farmers are committing suicide at high rates, and folks are suffering from lack of healthcare access. Smith acts ignorant of this-- in fact, just a few weeks ago, he said that the district and the country's economy is doing so well that we should cut back on so-called entitlement programs, such as food stamps. The 8th district is suffering as one of the poorest districts in the country, and Smith remains a rubber stamp to Trump's policies."

In southwest Michigan (MI-06) Republican incumbent Fred Upton can't decide if he's running or another term or not. He says he'll make an announcement next week. The most current polling in the district shows he would have a very tough time being reelected-- a job favorability rating of just 20% with 59% of respondents giving him an unfavorable rating. Trump's recent remarks about being willing to make cuts to Medicare and Social Security aren't going to help a lockstep Trump supporter like Upton--  not in a district where early 16% of the population is over the age of 65 and with almost another 14% in the 55-64 bracket. On top of that, Trump's most recent efforts to roll back environmental protections are particularly relevant in a district where the shoreline is being further eroded by the day, and where residents have to worry about pollutants like PFAS in their drinking water. I asked state Rep. Jon Hoadley, the progressive Democrat running for the seat-- and a big supporter of Social Security, Medicare and environmental protections if Upton is feeling the pain yet. "Trump's policies are speaking much louder than his words," he told me. "Whether his policies are hurting farmers or seniors, student loan borrowers or people who want clean water, people in southwest Michigan are looking for a President and Congress that will fight for us and our values."

In Iowa's 4th district, the situation is somewhat different. The Republican incumbent, neo-fascist and racist Steve King, is even less popular than Trump and it's hard to tell which one is hurting the other more. J.D. Scholten, the progressive Democrat in the race, told us that "Steve King continues to back Trump 100% despite the fact that his reckless trade has cost Iowa’s 4th district $558 million-- more money than any other district in America-- and his Administration has abused the Renewable Fuel Standard to benefit big oil companies at the expense of rural jobs and our planet. They both revel in targeting immigrants and the press and further widen the divides of our country. King will continue to put his own selfish ideology over our district and his party over our country."

Central Texas Republican, Roger Williams, is a typical Trump enabler. "Roger Williams has happily cheered Trump on for every step of his egregious administration," said Heidi Sloan, one of the progressive Democrats taking him on this year, "and his cheerleading has earned Williams Trump's endorsement. Williams is not a leader-- he's not a big player in the GOP, he's not the guy the Republicans call to do their big dirty work, he's just keeping a comfortable seat warm in a district that was gerrymandered for him personally. He and Trump are bosom buddies because they have so much in common-- neither has ever experienced a day of hard work, both are millionaires who inherited their wealth from their fathers, and both of their careers are made possible solely because they deliberately mislead working class people into thinking our class interests align with theirs. While Williams is counting on a Trump endorsement to save his seat in November, we're hustling every day to build a ground game strong enough to take this district back for the working class."

Texas: A Problem And A Solution, A Solution To A Problem Democrats Have Almost Everywhere

Before running for Congress to replace Rep. McCaul in TX-10, Mike Siegel was best known in Texas as the lead lawyer for the City of Austin in the statewide legal battle over Texas Senate Bill 4, a "show me your papers" anti-immigrant law passed after Trump took office in 2017. Mike recently announced the endorsement of Jolt Action, a powerful statewide organization devoted to engaging Latino youth in electoral politics.

Yesterday, Mike told me that in Texas, "Democrats often say 'this isn't a red state, it's a non-voting state.' That's why my campaign is focused on broadening the Democratic base here in the Texas 10th, and the way we do that is by fighting hard on issues that matter most for each community. Texas Latinos are not monolithic; they include Democrats and Republicans, youth activists and older conservatives, Dreamers and socialists and moderates, too. But I earned the Jolt Action endorsement, and the endorsement of folks like Dolores Huerta and retired Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, because I'm committed to doing the work, showing up and listening, engaging young people, opposing hateful attacks, and fighting alongside our Latino neighbors. That means we oppose the Border Wall and Family Separation and other racist policies; it means we fight for good jobs and universal healthcare and quality public schools; and we show that we as Democrats believe in solidarity, not just during elections, but every week of every year, whenever the community calls."

I got an e-mail yesterday from Latino Decisions with an analysis Albert Morales did for the group. He begins with a statement that a debilitated DCCC should have figured out long ago-- "everything about how Democrats do GOTV-- not only in Texas, but nationally-- is flawed. My major conclusion was this: The outdated strategy employed by Democrats to de-prioritize registered voters with little or no vote history has a disproportionately negative impact for Latino turnout... [E]lectoral strategists are generally befuddled by what might be called the chicken-or-the-egg turnout mystery. Should Latinos become targets only after they’ve proven they will vote, or should they become targets precisely because they are registered yet rarely if ever vote? Put another way, does voting create a new target or does targeting create a new voter? To me, the answer is clear: It takes an egg to make a new chicken, and it takes targeting to create new voters. In Texas, confusion about this turnout puzzle limits Democratic electoral prospects in contests from the presidency down to sheriff races. If millions of Latino registrants on the rolls never get direct mail, phone bank calls or visits from paid or volunteer canvassers, how can we expect them ever to graduate from citizen to registrant, registrant to voter, voter to reliable voter, and reliable voter to reliable Democratic voter?"

[I]f Democrats are serious about flipping Texas or similar states they need a seismic shift in the way the party conducts Latino outreach. America is highly polarized. The share of true independents is dwindling, and both party coalitions get their news from divergent media sources. The Mark Penn-led era of clever swing voter groups-- soccer moms, office park dads-- is over. Mobilization, not persuasion, is king.

Elections today thus turn on how well (or poorly) each side delivers its voters to the polls. Notice that Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 invested few resources on persuading voters. Instead, the campaign executed a two-pronged, mobilization/de-mobilization plan: Ratchet up their highly-conservative base and suppressed turnout among black voters and other disaffected Democrats. Too few Democratic strategists understand these realities.

How, exactly, do Democrats develop their targeting strategies? Let me answer that question by sharing from my own experience.

Any Democratic operative who got her or his start in campaigns before the turn of the century surely remembers the party’s training manuals. They were the bibles of get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. The scripture was simple and straightforward: Avoid knocking on the doors of voters with no vote history, and instead target reliable and consistent voters with whatever GOTV resources you had at your disposal, from door-hangers to phone banks.

That’s how I was trained when I cut my teeth knocking on the doors more than two decades ago. Times and technologies have changed; organizers now carry tablets, not clipboards. But the premises and practices are largely unchanged.

Unfortunately for Latinos, this targeting philosophy means Democratic campaigns too often fail to sufficiently reach them via direct mail, canvassing or phone banks. Indeed, countless polls and studies conducted by Latino Decisions show that Latinos report they are contacted by campaigns at much lower rates than white or even black voters. The 2018 election was no exception.

With the 2020 election underway, organizers have more targeting tools at their disposal than ever. For those working in states that will make or break their candidates, contests can turn on the amount and type of resources invested to turn out low-propensity voters. A new philosophy is essential if Democrats ever hope to flip any state, but especially my home state of Texas.

Four million undermobilized Latinos in Texas

Nowhere is the mobilization problem more pronounced than in Texas, a state where 4 million Latino voters are on the sidelines including the nearly 400,000 minors who will turn 18 in time to vote in the 2020 presidential election. Trump carried Texas by roughly 800,000 votes in 2016.

Texas has approximately the 1.6 million inactive-but-registered Latino voters. How does their inactivity matter? Put simply, their disfranchisement creates policy, political and even polling problems.

• POLICY. To cite just one prominent example, the muting of Latino voices results in passage of state laws like Texas’ SB4, otherwise known as the “show me your papers” law that targets the state’s Latinos. The law allows police officers to seek their legal status. In a recent focus group of low-propensity Latino voters, not one of the participants was aware of the bill Republican Governor Gregg Abbott signed into law.
• POLITICS. Who counts is a self-fulfilling prophecy of perception. Sadly, the perception among too many campaign managers, most of whom are white, is that Latinos are less critical than other voting groups. Hence, when making campaign budget choices, the Latina field director’s field budget often gets sliced first. Less money is spent on Spanish Language TV, radio and digital buys.
• POLLING. Pollsters use turnout among Latinos to dictate sample sizes. As LD’s Matt Barreto explained recently in the Washington Post, most mainstream pollsters severely under-sample Latinos and other people of color in Democratic primary polls.

And this doesn’t include the 2 million eligible-but-unregistered Latinos in Texas. What might registering and mobilizing mean for Lone Star politics? I focus on that question in next week’s follow-up post.

A Flipped Script

Two publications out this week echo my conclusions about the insufficient focus on unmobilized or undermobilized Latinos, in Texas and elsewhere.

First, the Democratic Strategist distributed a list of every voter mobilization organization working on the center-left to find, register or motivate citizens to vote Democratic. Only three of the 34 listed organizations focus on Latino voters, and two of these are state-focused groups. Mi Familia Vota is the lone, national organization that specifically targets Latino voters.

Second, The Atlantic’s Christian Paz published a deeply-reported piece on Democrats and their problems with Latino voters. After interviewing a number of activists and strategists, Paz concludes:

“[S]ome of the Latino political organizers I spoke with described the primary season so far as a master class in ‘political malpractice’-- as one person phrased it-- with candidates struggling to engage Latino voters, address issues beyond immigration reform, and treat Latinos as the influential voting bloc they are. Others reported a lack of candidate interest in working with their organizations, including missed meetings and radio silence on questionnaires…There’s a real risk that if Democrats don’t sort out these issues soon, they could struggle to attract and mobilize what could be the largest minority voting bloc in 2020.”

Latinos are the largest minority voter block. Here at Latino Decisions we estimate the Democratic nominee will only need 40 percent of the white electorate to win on Election Day. It behooves Democrats to recognize both of these facts. Luckily for House Democrats, Congressman Tony Cardenas, Chairman of BOLD PAC who inspired this thought piece, is leading by example. Cardenas has called upon Democrats to reach out to every registered Latino voter regardless of their vote history.

Time is on our side, but it won’t be forever.

Mike Siegel isn't the only progressive Democrat running to flip Republican-held districts in Texas this year. You can see all of them by clicking on the Blue America Turning Texas Blue thermometer on the right. Roger William's gerrymandered 25th CD, which stretches from the suburbs south of Ft. Worth into the heart of Austin. One of the Democrats competing to take Williams on, Heidi Sloan, seems to have a similar perspective not just with Siegel but with Albert Morales of Latino Decisions as well. She told me that in her district "the Republican incumbent, Roger Williams, won his fourth term in 2018 by 26,000 votes-- but over 230,000 eligible voters were not mobilized to participate in the election. Democrats cannot win in Texas without expanding the electorate, and especially here it is crucial to target Latino voters. Our campaign brings enormous ground game to this District (our 600 volunteers have knocked 45,000 doors in just five months), and we are researching which parts of the District have Latino communities but low voter turnout to canvass. Democrats who have run in this district in the past have not prioritized these communities because they are not high-propensity voters, but our campaign understands that we must win their support to win this seat. We are stepping up to the challenge of reaching them with our block walking, sharing our vision that includes the most ambitious immigration proposals on the table as well as workers' rights and healthcare for immigrants, and motivating them to come to the polls with politics that impact their lives."

Bernie And Biden Are Getting Significantly Different Types Of Endorsements

If I were Status Quo Joe, I'd be embarrassed to admit I was endorsed by California New Dem Ami Bera, a member of Congress so toxic that the California Democratic Party decided to not back him for reelection. After all, caught in an illegal campaign finance scheme, he let his elderly father take the rap and go to prison in his place! In fact, when you go through the list of members who've endorsed Biden, most are embarrassing-- Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. But who else would endorse Biden?

Some of the worst Democrats in the House are on Biden's endorsement list-- like Oregon Blue Dog Kurt Schrader and Massachusetts New Dem Stephen Lynch. Of the 33, fully 28 have earned "F" ratings from Progressive Punch.

See that video up top? That was a Bernie endorsement yesterday-- from Make the Road, one of the nation's largest progressive grassroots immigrant-led organizations and works on issues of workers' rights, immigrant and civil rights, environmental and housing justice, educational justice, and on justice for transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex and queer people. I wonder how many more votes that is worth than all the conservative members of Congress opposing universal healthcare that Biden has scooped up.

And as far as members of Congress, while Biden's list is filled with people like former Republican Charlie Crist (FL), now a Blue Dog and-- in 2020-- a closet case, who's more part of the problems facing the country than a solution to anything, Bernie has attracted real activist members of Congress: Ro Khanna, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, people who mean something and stand for something and have an impact on the lives of voters. Biden's latest endorser was Staten Island Blue Dog Max Rose, who had just voted-- along with the GOP and 7 other anti-peace conservative Democrats-- against the War Powers Resolution. Or was Republican former congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois Biden's latest? His son Darren, the current congressman, is the Illinois Trump campaign co-chair but apparently Ray finds Biden closer to the Reagan conservatism he worships than the crazy fascist Trump. Bernie's endorsement today? Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.





I asked a couple of the candidates on our Bernie Congress page, which you can see by tapping on the thermometer on the right. Heidi Sloan is running or Congress (TX-25) against a reactionary Trump ally, Roger Williams and her own campaign is virtually a Bernie organizing exercise. She told me today that she "endorsed Bernie Sanders because he and I share a vision for what our society could be, a consistency and a commitment to the issues we prioritize, and a common understanding of how we beat the power of organized money. Bernie is the only candidate who has spent his entire life organizing, standing with marginalized communities against oppression, and going after the right enemies. I trust Bernie to withstand the pressure of big business when he's fighting for Medicare for All because he has never equivocated on our demands for universal healthcare. I trust Bernie to hold firm in his commitment to LGBTQIA+ rights, to public education, to housing as a human right and so many other things-- but more than anything I trust him to never lose sight of the movement. Bernie uniquely understands that it is not enough for him to get elected-- we must build a movement of regular, working class people by organizing them into the fights that affect our lives, because it is only with that collective power of the working class that we can create real change. Bernie showed me how we could win here in Texas, and I've followed his example as a role model every day of our campaign."

Shahid Buttar is the progressive running for the San Francisco seat from which Pelosi is blocking virtually the entire post-2000 progressive agenda. That's right-- it isn't just MoscowMitch in the Senate. Pelosi will never allow legislation like Medicare-for-All or the Green New Deal to get to the floor of the House. Hopefully Shahid will take care if that this year.

“Bernie Sanders, he told me today, "is unlike any politician on the national stage, particularly in the sense that he has always put the movement before his career. He inspired me to run for Congress because he demonstrated that a vision for federal policy placing people before profit is already the object of a growing national consensus, and also because he demonstrated how to run a political campaign in a way that builds social movements, instead of sapping energy from them. I’m excited to go to Washington next year, either to escalate the struggle to keep fascism from consolidating, or alternatively to support Bernie in crafting and securing a policy agenda to meet the needs of the future.”

Eva Putzova is the progressive Democrat running for an Arizona House seat in a swing district represented by "ex"-Republican legislator Tom O'Halleran, currently a Blue Dog. O'Halleran will never be a Bernie supporter. Eva very much is. She told me this morning that "In 2016, I was Bernie's delegate at the DNC in Philadelphia because he presented an ambitious vision for this country rooted in justice, generosity, and inclusiveness. He spent the last four years further mobilizing communities, building partnerships, and inspiring young and old. He fundamentally transformed political dialog, made progressive positions wildly popular, and defined the conversations in today's presidential election cycle. His leadership is transformative, inspiring, and courageous. Bernie is a true statesman with great integrity, heart, and moral compass and I will be so proud to call him my president."

Robin Wilt, the progressive candidate for Congress in Monroe County, N.Y. (Rochester), sometimes calls herself a Berniecrat. "For me, as the mother of three Black sons," she told me, "the choice to endorse Bernie was the only moral option in a time when the state of affairs is so dire for our frontline communities. Bernie is the only candidate for President who has demonstrated the willingness to unwaveringly support the policies that will center the needs of marginalized communities, and not just resist the retrograde and unjust policies of the current administration, but articulate a way forward with a bold vision that includes all of us."

No one need me to interpret these numbers, right?

Kim Williams, a Central Valley progressive who worked as a diplomat in the Obama administration and is today running for a congressional seat held by a reactionary Blue Dog, Jim Costa, told us that "Bernie is resonating with so many because he makes us feel seen and heard. He shows up in places others pass over and speaks directly to the pain and struggles of millions of Americans. He has the political courage to make the hard calls and the lonely votes, and he stands firm in his position when other candidates are walking policies back. He doesn’t make political calculations or sacrifice the interests of the majority because it might upset the powers that be or because the media will block him out. He simply speaks his truth and he clearly speaks ours. This is why so many progressives endorse Bernie and why so many Americans need him to win."

Shaniyat Chowdhury, a super-progressive from southeast Queens running for a congressional seat held by super-corrupt New Dem Greg Meeks told us this morning that he had "endorsed Bernie because he is the only candidate who has a movement behind him. Some of his biggest supporters and donors are retail workers and teachers. That speaks volumes to his character and values as someone who grew up working class and has continued to fight for the very same people today. We cannot trust politicians, but we sure can trust Bernie to fight for all of us and not just the wealthy few."

Not All Democrats Reacted The Same Way To Trump’s Assassination Of Qassem Soleimani

The Trumpists were whooping it up after the assassinations at the Baghdad Airport. Pompeo claimed Iraqis were dancing in the streets and baking cakes for Trump, although that dancing may have been old footage-- or maybe he was thinking about Don, Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared and their bag of shit father. Iran has already vowed retaliation-- probably just what Trump and those around him want so they can get into a full-scale war. This was the official Iranian statement yesterday:

Ayatollah Khamenei said in a statement on Friday that the “cruelest people on earth” assassinated the “honorable” commander who “courageously fought for years against the evils and bandits of the world.”

His demise will not stop his mission, but the criminals who have the blood of General Soleimani and other martyrs of the attack on their hands must await a tough revenge, the Leader added.

The Leader noted that all the friends and foes must know that the Resistance movement’s struggle will continue more strongly, and a definite victory awaits those who fight on this auspicious path.

“The demise of our selfless and dear general is bitter, but the continued fight and achievement of the final victory will make life bitterer for the murderers and criminals,” he stressed.

In his statement, the Leader also offered condolences to the Iranian nation and General Soleimani’s family, and declared three days of national mourning over the tragedy.

General Soleimani was martyred in a targeted assassination attack by US aircraft at Baghdad International Airport early Friday morning.

The airstrike also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashad al-Shabi. The PMF media arm reported that the two were martyred in an American airstrike that targeted their vehicle on the road to the airport.

Assassinating the Iranians was a dangerous and typically lawless act by Trump. But many politicians were slow in reacting, waiting for focus groups, perhaps? Status Quo Joe’s statement was all over the map and pretty typical:

Very much like Amy Klobuchar’s:

And even Elizabeth:

Only Bernie stepped up the the plate without fear or domestic political calculation:

Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI), co-chairs of the Congressional Progress Caucus, led the opposition to the NDAA and, of course, both voted against it. This morning they issued this joint statement:

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani represents a dangerous, unconstitutional, and unprecedented military escalation with Iran. Congress has not given President Trump the authority to start a war with Iran-- in fact, in the House-passed NDAA earlier this year, we explicitly prohibited preemptive military action of this kind in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote. By circumventing Congress and green-lighting an unconstitutional strike, President Trump is doubling down on the reckless military brinksmanship that has already led us to the edge of war. It should be clear that the Trump Administration’s approach to Iran has been nothing short of a disaster: withdrawing from the Iran Deal and launching a harmful ‘maximum pressure’ campaign has unraveled decades of diplomacy and alienated us from our allies. With the latest airstrike, we may well be at the brink of war. Congress must act swiftly to stop the Trump Administration from further escalating before this situation spirals out of control. We need to know why Congress was not consulted, whether our allies were informed of our actions, how we will keep U.S. troops, regional partners, and civilians in the region safe, and-- critically-- how the White House plans to prevent a catastrophic war with Iran. While we seek those answers, Congress must make it clear that there is no congressional authority for war with Iran. We have spent the last eighteen years trying to extricate ourselves from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. In countries across the region-- including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya-- U.S. military action has destabilized the lives of millions of people and led to the deaths of countless innocent civilians. We cannot afford another deadly, costly, and unending war. There is no military solution to this crisis-- instead, we must pursue meaningful diplomacy to achieve peace and stability in the region.

I asked some of the progressive candidates running for Congress this year. Eva Putzova, the progressive running for the immense AZ-01 district against reactionary "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran, a Blue Dog, was the first to respond. "Last summer," she told me, "my opponent was among only seven Democrats who voted to give Trump the authority to go to war with Iran. Last night, Trump put the world at an incredible risk of war. Vote them all out. They all lack leadership and humanity. O’Halleran received contributions from lobbying firms representing Saudi Arabia and UAE-- countries that have been seeking war with Iran for a long time. It must be clear to everyone that my opponent doesn’t represent the interest of Americans but rather corporate interests of the military-industrial complex and the authoritarian regimes in the region."

Rachel Ventura, a candidate for the Chicagoland congressional seat held by New Dem Bill Foster, emphasized that "We can't have a president deciding on his own to assassinate high level military figures from other countries like Iran. It’s an act of war. It is the responsibility of Congress to declare war and those boundaries should be respected. The last thing anyone wants is a World War III… Rep. Bill Foster voted for NDAA, giving Trump is blank check to start yet another war. I would have voted with the progressive caucus to stop this uncontrollable spending." Basically, her opponent gave a version of the Biden statement-- Soleimani was bad and deserved what he got but Trump shouldn't have done it without consulting Congress... cake and eating it too. Like many of the candidates Blue America has endorsed, Rachel retweeted Ro Khanna:

Shaniyat Chowdhury is taking on corrupt New Dem Gregory Meeks in southeast Queens. “Democrats like Meeks,” Shan told us, “can talk negatively about Trump all they want on CNN. The fact of the matter is, he and the other 187 Democrats who voted to expand the military budget, were conned into doing so. They forgot the President was a conman long before he came to the White House. It’s no coincidence in a time where the lame duck president is being impeached that he’s decided to jump the gun and push the button himself. People dying in a chaotic war is a smoke screen for his crumbling presidency. Starting a war with no congressional approval is criminal. Trump is a war criminal. His actions are foolish and dangerous. Anyone who voted to approve the military spending and believes a war with Iran is good, then they will be complicit in the murders of innocent Iranians and Iraqis in the region. Maybe they should be the ones to sign up for war and see the consequences of war firsthand. Innocent people should not have to suffer.

Marie Newman is also up against a reactionary Democrat who talks like he’ll protect his constituents from Trump— and then never does. “Unfortunately, yet predictably,” she said this morning, “Trump has chosen a wholly risky and  horrifying path. The minute he walked away from the Iran Deal (as a reminder, my opponent voted against it), reasonable folks knew yesterday’s events would be quite likely. Further,  walking away from the Iran Deal combined with the blank check-NDAA passing allowing war without criteria or Congressional approval (Lipinski supported this), clearly enabled Trump to act like a king and potentially start a war in the Middle East. So, very sadly, I am not surprised. I am however, very determined to unseat Dan Lipinski as he proves time and time again, he lacks the judgement and discernment to make decisions for IL-03.”

Kara Eastman is the progressive activist both the GOP and DCCC fear in Omaha. "The issue is not that Suleimani was an enemy of the United States," she just told us. "We all know that. But the President just assassinated one of the most powerful Iranians without congressional approval. This is another foreign policy failure, and it's a direct result of Trump's haphazard withdrawal from the JPOA. My right-wing opponent Rep. Don Bacon continues his unwavering support for Trump. He recklessly conflates anti-terror activity with an act of war, and as a result, helped push our nation further into an armed conflict."

Heidi Sloan is a Texas Democratic Socialist taking on Trumpist stooge Roger Williams. This was Williams' sick perspective. Here's Sloan's: "We've knocked on thousands of doors in this district and have asked thousands of people what keeps them up at night, and not a single person has said Iran. The assassination of an Iranian general in Iraq is an act of war committed by the US government, but since the assassination the stock price of every single major military contractor has gone up. Endless war is the inheritance Trump has planned for our children, and we know it will be our children sent to wage war and to die for rich war profiteers. Draft dodger Trump as always has ardent support from Roger the Dodger, who accepts generous contributions from military contractors and applauds the foolish and avoidable escalation of this conflict. It's not the rich who pay for wars, it's us, and we will do everything in our power to fight back. No war but class war."

Jennifer Christie is the progressive in the open seat Indiana race to replace Susan Brooks in the suburbs and exurbs north of Indianapolis (IN-05). "There is no question that Qassim Suleimani was an enemy of America and our allies," she wrote. "The fact that Trump did not even bother to alert our Congressional leaders nor our allies is deeply disturbing and irresponsible. If there was an imminent threat that required action, then we should know what the intelligence said. Congress should have been immediately notified and briefed of any strategy. Our Constitution grants authority to Congress, not the President, to declare war. It is plausible that Iran will seek retaliation which amounts to war. The American People expect our leaders to be nonpartisan and responsible when it comes to acts of war. This is a very serious escalating situation. Trump has a responsibility to go to Congress to seek any further military action. And here is a reality check: we have a president who has been impeached by the House for misuse of power (specifically around foreign military decisions) and just carried out an assassination strike without even notifying Congress, not even contemporaneously. We have yet to hear of a strategy or reason for a preemptive strike. We have an impeached president who has marched us toward war. Trump has an obligation to the People of the United States to work closely with our Congress and make an account to the People since it is We who could be engaged in war. We are all ears..."

Teresa Tomlinson is the progressive Senate candidate taking on Trumpist incumbent David Perdue in Georgia. While Perdue is in lockstep with Trump on everything, Teresa has a more thoughtful approach. "The escalating tension and military actions in the Middle East between the U.S. and Iran," she said, "are of grave concern to the American people, our allies in the region and beyond, and to global stability. Given the Trump Administrations’s history of irresponsible and ill-considered strategies-- such as the declaration of trade wars with no plan or objective, the reckless emboldening of Kim Jong Un in North Korea or the knee jerk withdrawal of troops from Syria and the betrayal of our military allies on the ground-- the American people deserve an immediate explanation of the long-term strategy to end this present escalation, prevent war and establish regional and global stability."


 

Bloomberg Picks Texas To Make His Stand

About 3 weeks ago, independent polling firm SSRS did a survey of Texas voters for CNN. Texas isn’t a blue state but it will be part of Super Tuesday on March 3, so-- like California-- will play an outsized role in determining who the Democratic nominee will be. The horse race question elicited these results:

• Status Quo Joe- 35%
• Bernie- 15%
• Elizabeth- 13%
• Mayo Pete- 9%
• Bloomberg- 5%
• Castro- 3%
• Yang- 3%
• Booker- 2%
• Steyer- 2%

None of the other candidates were polling above 1%. The general ignorance on the candidates’ policy positions was astounding and even horrifying. It’s clear that Texas Democrats haven’t started paying much attention yet. And they may not. They’re barely prioritizing issues at all and 58% say it’s all about perceived "electability." They just want Trump defeated and don't seem all that invested in what comes after that--  fertile ground, at least for now, for the dismal B-team candidates-- Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg.

When SSRS included Democrats, Republicans and independents, they found that 50% of Texans disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job and only 42% approved. But when it came to one on one match-ups, Trump beats each Democratic candidate, although Status Quo Joe comes closest-- Trump leads by just one point: 48-47%.

I’m hearing the Bernie campaign isn’t on the ground yet but I noticed on Saturday that The Eagle was reporting that Bloomberg, perhaps seeing an opening among low-info conservative Dems, is ramping up his efforts there, "with plans to build a state operation that his campaign says will be unrivaled by anyone else in the primary field." They plan to open a Texas headquarters in Houston and 16 field offices throughout the rest of the state-- spread across the Houston area, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin, East Texas, the San Antonio area, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and the Killeen area-- between now and the March 3 primary.

Yesterday Bloomberg made his second trip to the state since launching his campaign, visiting blue-trending Fort Bend County south of Houston and met with community leaders and elected officials and attended a block walk for state House candidate Eliz Markowitz.

Warren and Biden already have state directors and are starting to build state organizations, although most campaigns haven't prioritized Texas, which is both immense, immensely expensive for media (so no problem for Bloomberg) and generally out of sync with Democrats in the rest of the country (also no problem for Bloomberg, who is also generally out of sync with Democrats in the rest of the country).

Heidi Sloan, an Austin-based Democratic Socialist, always has an interest and insightful perspective to share on this kind of thing. So I asked her what she thinks. "Bloomberg," she said, "is a billionaire who thinks he can buy his way into the presidency, and his campaign was recently caught using prison labor to make campaign calls (he claimed not to know and cancelled the contract with the independent contractor he was using, but that shows how careless his campaign is about labor and shows a very feeble commitment to labor rights). In our district, because we have been organizing for Bernie Sanders as strongly as we have been, I don't believe Bloomberg stands much of a chance here. Our main competition will be Elizabeth Warren in Austin I expect."