Will Barr Be The First Attorney General To Be Impeached? Or Is Pelosi Too Tired?

Pre-Trump, historians have considered the two worst Attorneys General to be Wilson's A. Mitchell Palmer and his successor, Harry Daugherty, who was appointed by Warren G. Harding and also served, briefly, under Calvin Coolidge. Daugherty, a career criminal, was complicit in the Teapot Dome Scandal and was indicted and tried twice, although shenanigans in the Justice department led to hung juries and dismissals. The House Judiciary Committee also took up impeachment charges against him (1922) but partisan politics intervened and he was never impeached. That was the closest any Attorney General has come to impeachment.

If Memphis, Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen has his way, William Barr, will be the first to actually be impeached. Pelosi and his clique oppose impeachment-- not because they believe he doesn't deserve to be removed from office, but because they feel it's too big a hassle before the election. Former Austin City Attorney Mike Siegel, a candidate for Congress (TX-10) feels strongly that Cohen is doing the right thing by moving forward. "The Attorney General has proven himself to be a threat to democracy and the rule of law," Siegel told me yesterday, "and I thank Congressman Cohen for pushing forward and making a record of Barr’s unlawful and incredibly damaging actions. The corruption of the Trump Administration is pervasive and never-ending, but it remains important that we draw clear lines about what is acceptable in a democratic nation."

On Friday, Cohen said "Even if the ultimate trier of the Senate is impotent to see the truth and to exercise discretion in keeping with the American public and the rule of law, we should pursue impeachment of Bill Barr because he is reigning terror on the rule of law." He wrote to his colleagues that he intends "to introduce a resolution laying out many instances of Attorney General Barr’s misconduct and urging the Judiciary Committee to continue its investigations into these instances, evaluate the evidence, and to determine if this constitutes impeachable conduct." Most Democrats are afraid to get on Pelosi's bad side and aren't joining Cohen's request for an inquiry, although Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Joe Neguse (D-CO) have both called on Barr to resign. New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell tweeted out his support for Cohen last week.

Pelosi said the solution to the "mess" that Barr is, would be the election. "He is contemptible; there’s no question about that. But at this point, let’s solve our problems by going to the polls and voting on Election Day, 131 days from now." Members of Congress make $174,000 a year. The majority and minority leaders of both the House and Senate make over $193,000 a year. And the Speaker-- Pelosi-- makes $223,500. Is that what she gets all that extra money for-- shoving her responsibilities off to the voters in 131 days. Barr can-- and, no doubt will-- cause irreparable damages in the next 131 days.

Yesterday, law professor Jennifer Taub penned an OpEd for Newsweek, William Barr Is Not America's Attorney General. Barr, she wrote, was activated by Trump "to do his personal and political bidding." John Elias, who works in the anti-trust division at DOJ, "testified that Barr is bending justice to serve Trump. As one example, Elias said that in August 2019, the antitrust division's leadership unjustifiably directed staff to investigate the world's four largest automakers to appease Trump. A month earlier, California announced that Ford, Volkswagen of America, Honda and BMW had each agreed to follow the state's emissions standards, which were far more stringent than what would be required under Trump's planned rollback. The deal humiliated Trump, and he lashed out on Twitter. The day after those tweets, the investigation began, said Elias, who explained that this was inappropriate in any case, as there are long-standing legal doctrines that make both state action of this type and joint efforts by private businesses to influence policy lawful."

She wrote that former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer "was the moral conscience of the hearing and gave perhaps the most overt condemnation of Barr. 'I believe that Attorney General Barr is a major threat to our legal system and to public trust in it,' he said. Barr has worked 'to free the president from accountability under a broad range of checks and balances that have played a critical role in our system for many decades,' Ayer testified. 'He has also grossly misused his powers as attorney general to advance the president's personal and political interests, and to protect his friends.'"

The bottom line is this: Barr is yet another public resource that the president is using for his private benefit. A tool. Even the witness invited by the Republican leadership, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, did not deny the pressure Trump exerts on the attorney general. With Barr, Trump has the entire criminal justice apparatus in his hands to target his enemies and reward his family and friends.

But here's the good news. Congress created the position of the attorney general in 1789 with the Judiciary Act. Over the centuries, statutes have further fleshed out the attorney general's powers and duties. Congress still has the authority to shape this role, fund the Justice Department and, of course, impeach. It is long past time to use these powers. Our nation's top law enforcement officer must serve the public interest of justice, not the whims of a corrupt, authoritarian president.

But Pelosi wants to leave him to keep behaving this way for 131 days because... it's inconvenient? "Frankly," said Ayer, "my worry is he’s going to do it more and more in the weeks and months ahead as we get closer to the election." Ironically, House Republicans agree with Pelosi that there should be no impeachment hearings. Gym Jordan (R-OH): "Bill Barr is trying to do the Lord’s work to clean it up, so it doesn’t happen again."

Jordan set the tone. Barr, with his “exemplary record,” was “restoring integrity” within the department, said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). The hearing was a “farce,” said Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), with Democrats knifing Barr for “trying to clean up and clear up messes made by the previous administration.” Most ominously, Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) told the three witnesses that “history will not judge you kindly in the days ahead… whether we get to continue this experiment in self-government or not.” A spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether Gohmert believes the American republic is in danger of collapse.

It was the most foursquare defense of Barr from Hill Republicans yet. Their support for Trump, post-Russiagate and post-impeachment, is compulsory at this point. But on Wednesday, they went beyond allegiance to Trump to affirmatively portray Barr as the one out to drain the swamp.

  They did so days after perhaps the lowest point in Barr’s brief tenure. On Friday, Barr lied that the U.S. attorney in New York had resigned, prompting a weekend standoff over ousting Geoffrey Berman before Barr partially backed down. It remains unclear if Barr will himself testify before the House committee, but he knows he has a GOP firewall if he does.

Against all that, Democrats had rhetoric. Their leadership doesn’t want to impeach Barr. Their caucus is internally divided on what to do about him. Their response, which frequently overshadowed their focus on the substance of Elias and Zelinsky’s testimony, was to hurl invective at Barr. Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called him Trump’s “fixer.” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called the politicization of the Justice Department “worse than Watergate, worse than Nixon.” Referring to Barr’s violent suppression of the June 1 protest in Lafayette Square, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) said that to the attorney general, friends of the president get pardons and reduced jail time, but “if you’re peacefully protesting brutality, you get tear-gassed.”

Jerry Nadler, who at first toed the Pelosi line about not impeaching Barr, now says he's considering it, telling reporters who asked if there will be impeachment hearings that "We're looking into that; we may very well. I think the weight of the evidence and of what's happened leads to that conclusion. More than one solid progressive, each of whom would love to see Barr impeached, told me they thought that Cohen should wait to drop the resolution until after Barr testifies... or if he refuses to testify. That takes away the argument of Republicans that the Democrats were already biased against him.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

America is right to expect the worst of Bill Barr, who has repeatedly interfered in criminal investigations on Trump's behalf. We have a hearing on this topic on Wednesday. We welcome Mr. Berman's testimony and will invite him to testify.
- House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, June 19, 2020

So Attorney General William "Kneepads" Barr has fired the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Of New York Geoffrey Berman. Of course he did. Berman saw his job as Attorney of the people of the United States, not for the republican goons in the White House and Congress. The slime is strong with Barr. Since day one, he has seen his job as to do the bidding of his insane boss of bosses in the oval office. Trump, of course, says he had nothing to do with it. That's the way crime families and their consiglieres operate. Does it make you wonder how long before Trump starts ordering hits on people in his way? Has he done it before. Look who he idolizes, Kim, Putin, and Duterte. One thing's for sure no one in the White House will ever move to stop Trump. Same with all of those corrupt Republicans that currently infest the Hou$e and $enate, made men and women, everyone of them, including Mittens Romney who cagily only voted to remove the orange cancer on one of two articles of impeachment when he had nothing additional to lose by voting for both articles, not that the end result would have been altered.

Obviously, Geoffrey Berman was following the law and wouldn't join Barr in the ceremonial wearing of the kneepads. It's also painfully obvious that Berman was closing in on something either about Trump himself, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, something in Trump's taxes or who knows what. One clue may reside in who Trump and Barr have tried to slot in as Beman's replacement, Jay Clayton, the head of The Securities and Exchange Commision. Clayton has no prosecutorial experience which would make him an exceedingly odd choice for U.S. Attorney. His background is as a corporate lawyer. Ah, but Clayton has the kind of career connections, past and present, that would come in handy if, just suppose, someone in high (on Adderall) office wanted to quash anything to do with Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank is the highly likely doorway to all sorts of things; payoffs, Russian money laundering, unusual purchases of goods and people, the recently departed Jeffrey Epstein, dodgy real estate deals... The possibilities are near endless. Follow the money as they say. But, alas for anyone tied up that sort of thing Barr and Trump blew the transition, at least temporarily; just more ineptitude. The gang that can't shoot straight, in every meaning of the phrase.

Now, according to law, as Berman mentioned in one of his parting statements, his former Deputy Attorney, Audrey Strauss, who's not a Trump appointee, directly or indirectly, is in charge of the investigations, at least for now. The investigations reportedly go on. Word here in New York has it that Attorney Strauss has all the integrity that Berman has and is smarter and more exacting and driven. God, I hope she has some serious bodyguards. Follow the money Audrey Strauss. Follow the money.

The Party Of Treason-- All Of Them

A few hours ago, Pelosi asked the House to begin drafting impeachment articles against Señor Trumpanzee, pushing ahead with a rapid timetable that's going to set the stage for an uber-partisan vote before Christmas charging the pig with high crimes and misdemeanors. Pelosi: "The facts are uncontested: the President abused his power for his own personal, political benefit at the expense of our national security, by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival... Our Democracy is what is at stake. The President leaves us no choice but to act, because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The President has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections. His actions are in defiance of the vision of our Founders and the oath of office that he takes 'to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and our hearts full of love for America, today, I am asking our Chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment." Trump though had already issued a prebuttal-tweet in line with his own personal sense of dignity:

A few hours earlier, on Morning Joe former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (FL) indicated what a circus the GOP will attempt, having no real defense, to make the impeachment into. He referred to Trumpists like Nunes (CA), Gym Jordan (OH), Doug Collins (GA), Elise Stefanik (NY), John Ratcliffe (TX), Mike Turner (OH), Louie Gohmert (TX), Matt Gaetz (FL) as "clowns" who spent their time "quoting Vladimir Putin propaganda talking points. This is the most desperate defense. And it's literally just throw whatever you want at the wall."

Another former Republican-- I think former, who knows?-- Rick Wilson wrote an OpEd, The Traitors Among Us for Rolling Stone which gives us an idea of GOP intentions about how they intend to deal with Trump's impeachment. "Trump," he wrote, "likes to call his opponents traitors-- but if he’s looking for treasonous behavior, he should look within his own party." Wilson noted that "hearing an insult too many times drains it of its potency [and that] Trump has diluted the power of that approbation. He has labeled loyal, dedicated Americans who served this country in the military and law enforcement as traitors, so much so that we could almost give in to the temptation to excuse it as 'Trump being Trump' and let it slide like any of the other insults he vomits forth on the daily." Wilson isn't happy about that since he, like many of us, are certain that Trump and many of his cronies "richly and actually deserve the title of traitor."

Traitors from Benedict Arnold to Klaus Fuchs to Aldrich Ames to Robert Hanssen sold out this country for a host of reasons, all explicable and unforgivable. The intelligence community even has a handy acronym for the motivations of traitors, and one that applies readily to known cases. The acronym is MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. Pick a traitor and one of those reasons will underpin their betrayal.

Add a new one to the acronym. Call it, MICE-T, with the “T” naturally standing for Trump.

Their treason isn’t executed in the old ways of secret meetings, furtive brush passes, or encrypted messages. No, the traitors of today show us their cards on cable TV, laughing and giggling over their betrayal of the oath they swore, and the security of this country, all for the political service of Donald Trump.

As the impeachment hearings have worn on and as evidence of the complete moral collapse of the Republican Party has become more and more evident, it has become quite obvious there really are traitors among us. There are elected officials who have made the decision to protect a corrupt president by embracing conspiracy theories, refusing to acknowledge sworn testimony of career foreign-service officials, and piling on to Trump’s attack of democratic institutions.

The traitors deliberately ignore the reporting, counsel, and warnings of the intelligence community when it comes to Russia’s attacks and Vladimir Putin’s vast, continuing intelligence and propaganda warfare against the United States.

The traitors-- be they United States senators like John Kennedy and Lindsey Graham or columnists from the Federalist, Breitbart, and a slurry of other formally conservative media outlets-- repeat the Kremlin-approved propaganda messages and tropes of that warfare, word for word.

It’s not simply treason by making common cause with a murderous autocrat in Russia, or merrily wrecking the alliances around the world that kept America relatively secure for seven decades.

Their betrayal is also to our system of government, which as imperfect-- and often downright fucked up-- as it is, has been remarkably capable of surviving.

The traitors talk a good game, hands over their withered hearts, about supporting the Constitution, but they’re happy to ignore it when it suits their purposes.

The traitors believe the executive branch is superior to all others and unaccountable under the law. Traitors believe the “fuck you, pay me” ethos of this president and this White House isn’t an open door to a pay-to-play political culture in Washington where everyone and everything in our government is for sale.

They defend the White House’s indefensible position of stonewalling, silencing witnesses, and refusing to testify before Congress.

Traitors keep racial arsonists like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon in their orbit and employment. They pretend these men are selling populism and nationalism when in fact it’s just the same weaponized racism that worked so well for them in 2016.

The traitors will sit in Congressional hearings on impeachment knowing the truth about Trump’s extortion racket and of the grubby, sleazy plan Trump sent Gordon Sondland, Rudy Giuliani, et al to carry out, and tell lie after lie, the bigger the better.

The traitors cheer when Trump rides roughshod over the military chain of command and the Universal Code of Military Justice, freeing men who killed civilians, abused and violated the warrior ethos, and broke the very laws of war they swore to uphold. They’ve gone from respecting hard men carrying out tough missions to fetishizing the outliers, edge cases, and the war criminals.

You can spot the traitors simply by watching their television shows, as they look you in the eye and tell you to your face they side with Russia. Tucker Carlson wasn’t winking and nodding to the camera; it was where he’s landed politically-- a pro-Putin schill on a network that looks away from their pet president’s grotesque subservience to the Russian leader who helped elect him.

The traitors are ass-deep in oligarchs, eagerly selling access to the president, the secretary of state, the attorney general, and of course, the president’s venal pack of lucky-sperm-club spawn.

And if you can’t spot the treason yet, you will soon enough. That’s the thing about spies, traitors, and those who betray their country-- they rarely stay hidden forever.

The traitors are the ones who, when this is all done and dusted, will sit in the dock at some new Nuremberg trial and claim their innocence of the worst charges and penalties not by claiming their actions were “just following orders” but that they were “just following Trump.”

Omaha progressive congressional candidate Kara Eastman's statement, just released a few moments ago, is typical of how serious Democratic candidates are dealing with this. She wrote that she supports Pelosi's address this morning but warns that "This is a solemn day. There should be no celebration for the need to impeach the President. I have always said that I respect the office of the President. The problem America faces now is that Donald Trump does not respect the office. His actions involving Ukraine were bribery and extortion, pure and simple. As the evidence demonstrates, and as several legal scholars stated in public hearings yesterday, if this is not impeachable conduct, what is? As a candidate who intends to serve in Congress, my oath will be to uphold the Constitution. It is not to allow my oath to be clouded by partisan politics. That’s why I call upon my opponent, Representative Don Bacon, to rise above his partisan games and support Impeachment as well. He should recognize that now is the time to put country above party and defend the U.S. Constitution, as he is sworn to do."

The Biggest Moments Of Today's Judiciary Committee Hearing

Likely Western New York candidate for Congress, Nate McMurray: "The GOP really has become the party of conspiracies-- while ignoring what’s right before them. It’s like the house is on fire, and they want you to look at mold in the basement. But we have it, word for word... THE PRESIDENT WAS NOT EXONERATED"

One of the most compelling moments this morning was made by Jamie Raskin of Maryland (below). After he was finished I asked him what the Committee was trying to accomplish. He told me that he thinks "we demonstrated that there is overwhelming evidence in the Report that  President Trump repeatedly obstructed justice. I was one of the Members who described in fine-grained detail a specific episode of obstruction and mine was Trump’s outrageous witness tampering with Michael Cohen. I only had three and a half minutes but I think the point was made. Despite Attorney General Barr’s best efforts, the Administration’s fog of propaganda is lifting."

Mike Siegel, a candidate for Congress-- previously an attorney for the city of Austin-- watched the hearings today and soon after Jerry Nadler gaveled the session to a close he told me that "Robert Mueller has done his part to document criminal activity by Donald Trump. Although he is clearly weary of these proceedings, today he confirmed the core findings of his report. It’s in the hands of Congress. If I were there, I’d support starting impeachment proceedings. But either way, this is the fork in the road. Go big or go home."

Ted Lieu (D-CA):




This is what Ted told me after he was finished questioning Mueller: "I simply walked Special Counsel Mueller through the three elements of the crime of Obstruction of Justice. Mueller agreed that Donald Trump had met the first two elements and then I read the third element verbatim from his report, which stated there was 'substantial evidence' of corrupt intent. Without the Department of Justice OLC Opinion preventing the indictment of a sitting President, Donald Trump would have been indicted. That's why over 1,000 former federal prosecutors signed a letter stating that any other person would have been indicted if they had done what the President did. In America, no one should be above the law. It is clear that right now we have a person in the Oval Office who has committed multiple felonies."

Jerry Nadler (D-NY):




Ken Buck (R-CO)




Jamie Raskin (D-MD)




Marqus Cole is a prominent attorney in Georgia running for Congress in an open suburban Atlanta seat. He watch the Buck questioning with a great deal of interest and he shared his impressions with me. "With one word," he said-- referring to Mueller's 'yes' response-- "in one moment, the man that was tasked with investigating the sitting President provided Pelosi, House Democrats and the country with everything we need to know. To review: without any question, the President of the United States is an unindicted co-conspirator to a federal crime in which a fellow co-conspirator was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Now, separate from that crime we have Mueller saying in one word that the President could be charged with a second a separate criminal offense. I want to be crystal clear; an impeachment inquiry needs to be opened right away. The House is the sole body in the entire country that has that power, authority and obligation to do so. House members should put aside party, politics and questions of whether the Senate will remove from office. It is time to impeach the unindicted con-conspirator to a federal crime that currently occupies the White House."

Val Demings (D-FL)




Hank Johnson (D-GA)




Kina Collins is another congressional candidate (Chicago) who watched the Mueller testimony carefully. "Robert Mueller's testimony today," she said, "confirmed what many of us have believed from the beginning-- that the president and his administration were involved in obstruction of justice and were aware of Russian interference with the 2016 election. I want it to be clear-- I stand with representatives like Maxine Waters who have been vocal from day one with calls to 'Impeach this man.' Because Democratic leaders have slow walked this issue, we have quickly descended into one of the darkest and most corrupt periods in our country's history. There are consequences for the choices we make in how we proceed next. I know what side of history I am standing on, and if I was in Congress now, I would be voting for impeachment hearings to begin. We can't keep playing these games when the morality and integrity of our entire democracy are at stake."




Adam Schiff did an excellent job later at the House Intelligence Committee. His introduction (above) was powerful and he was able to get Mueller to be very clear (below) that his investigation was neither a "witch hunt" nor "a hoax," that Russia helped Trump win the election and that the Trump campaign knew it and coordinated with the Russians and that Trump was trying to make a lot of money in his dealings with Putin and the Russians. Mueller also warned the Intelligence Committee several times that the Russians are currently trying to interfere with the 2020 elections.




New Mexico Secretary of State-- and Senate candidate-- Maggie Toulouse Oliver issued a statement after the Judiciary Committee adjourned. "The Mueller Report and the Special Counsel’s testimony on Capitol Hill today," she wrote, "provide more than enough evidence to warrant impeachment proceedings. For the good of our democracy, I am asking Congressman Luján to join my call for impeachment so that we can hold this president accountable and prevent any further abuses of power by him... Anyone who has read the Mueller Report can see there is evidence that the president, in an effort to protect himself, fired FBI Director James Comey, forced Attorney General Jeff Sessions to step down, and even attempted to have the Special Prosecutor fired. The president is not above the law and it is Congress’ job to hold him accountable. We can’t wait any longer. We must take action now to protect our democratic process by impeaching President Donald Trump. What’s more, we can hold this president accountable and still pass important legislation like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All."

Ted Lieu: Instead Of Holding Stupid Hearings About Why Republican Legislators Don't Get Enough Likes On Facebook, We Will Be Holding Hearings On Whether Any Crimes Were Committed

The Washington Post has a squad devoted to reporting on Trump's lies. Monday they wrote about his deranged address at CPAC-- the one that crackpot editor of Reason, Nick Gillespie, insists won him the 2020 election: "Powered by his two-hour stemwinder at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2-- which featured more than 100 false or misleading claims-- President Trump is on pace to exceed his daily quota set during his first two years in office. The president averaged nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in his first year in office. He hit nearly 16.5 a day in his second year. So far in 2019, he’s averaging nearly 22 claims a day.

That Trump lies a lot should surprise no one with a functioning brain. At the moment only 4% of the statements PolitiFact have checked out by him are true-- YES, only 4%! Saving grace: another 15% of his statements have been found mostly true. that means just over 4 out of 5 of Trump's checked statements are rated half true, another way of saying half false (14%), mostly false (21%), flat out false (34%) or such big lies that they are rated "Pants on Fire" (14%). Lying isn't an impeachable offense per se. But in Trump's case, it endangers the security of the nation and should absolutely be part of the impeachment process.

In response to a tweet by Bob Cesca after Trump's CPAC breakdown ("This crackpot has the nuclear codes in his pocket. Sleep tight, world."), top Republican Party strategist Stuart Stevens tweeted that "It is impossible to watch Trump’s two hour meltdown at CPAC and think this person is of sound mind." In case you're unaware of who Stevens is, he was Romney's chief strategist in 2012 and worked for President Bush, Governors Haley Barbour (R-MS), Tom Ridge (R-PA), Bill Weld (R-MA), Paul Cellucci (R-MA), and Bob Riley (R-AL), as well as Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS), Dick Lugar (R-IN), Mel Martinez (R-FL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ).

Mental health isn't impeachable but theoretically there is a way of removing a mentally deranged president, like Trump-- the 25th Amendment. Here's a brief analysis:

[W]hat happens if the President becomes unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office? Several Presidents suffered debilitating illnesses and injuries. For weeks and months at a time, the country was left without effective or accountable presidential leadership. Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 provided for the Vice President to step in when the President had an “inability to discharge [his] powers and duties,” but it provided no decision-maker, no procedures, and no definition of “inability.” Nor did it make clear whether the Vice President would act as President only until the President recovered, or instead would become President for the duration of the term. No Vice President wanted to seem like a usurper. In practice, power was never transferred and presidential inner circles typically concealed the President’s condition.

...Section 4 addresses the dramatic case of a President who may be unable to fulfill his constitutional role but who cannot or will not step aside. It provides both a decision-maker and a procedure. The initial deciding group is the Vice President and a majority of either the Cabinet or some other body that Congress may designate (though Congress has never done so). If this group declares a President “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” the Vice President immediately becomes Acting President. If and when the President pronounces himself able, the deciding group has four days to disagree. If it does not, the President retakes his powers. But if it does, the Vice President keeps control while Congress quickly meets and makes a decision. The voting rule in these contested cases favors the President; the Vice President continues acting as President only if two-thirds majorities of both chambers agree that the President is unable to serve.

That's never going to work against Trump. He could be filmed naked, eating grass on the front lawn of the White House and screaming obscenities at passers-by and still be declared perfectly sane by Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Steven Mnuchin, Patrick Shanahan, William Barr, Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross, Alex Acosta and Mr. and Mrs. (and Miss) Mitch McConnell, et al. And that takes us back to... Jerry Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Yesterday, the committee's attorneys sent letters to 81 individuals, companies and government entities seeking a wide range of materials that should be able to help prove that Trump is guilty of clearly impeachable offenses. In the letters, Nadler wrote that "This is a critical time for our nation. President Trump and his administration face wide-ranging allegations of misconduct that strike at the heart of our constitutional order." The letters will lead to closed door interviews and open hearings and some of the recipients include Trumpanzee, Jr., Allen Weisselberg, David Pecker, Alan Garten, Rhona Graff, Ivanka, Kushner-in-law, Steve Bannon, Tom Barrack, Reince Priebus, Don McGahn, Jay Sekulow, KT McFarland, Hope Hicks, Sean Spicer, Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Anatoli Samochornov, Brad Parscale, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Carter Page, Erik Prince, Jeff Sessions, Michael Caputo, Randy Credico, Sam Nunberg, Viktor Vekselberg, Tony Fabrizio, as well as Wikileaks and the NRA. I still haven't been able to confirm if either of the Mercers, who were clearly behind Putin-Gate, have gotten letters yet.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "The counsel’s office and relevant White House officials will review it and respond at the appropriate time." As I mentioned yesterday-- but worth repeating today-- Judiciary Committee member and Air Force JAG officer, Ted Lieu told me that "Unlike last term, the House Judiciary Committee will actually conduct oversight over the Executive Branch. Instead of holding stupid hearings about why Republican legislators don't get enough likes on Facebook, we will be holding hearings on whether any crimes were committed by Executive Branch officials and those within their orbit. We have launched a massive investigation into Trump, his family and his associates. We do not work for Trump. We are part of a separate and coequal branch of government. And we intend to honor our oath of office."

The Count Down To Impeachment Has Now Begun

A lot of people I hired to play concerts at Stony Brook died young and not long after they played their shows-- Jim Morrison (27), Jimi Hendrix (27), Janis Joplin (27), Otis Redding (26), Tim Buckley (28). Tim Hardin died in 1980, age 39, still young, still tragic... but at least not right after his concert at my school! Last Thursday on Nicole Sanders' show I held the phone up to me speakers and let her listeners hear at little of "Reason to Believe," my favorite Tim Hardin song. I did it because a member of Congress, in response to me asking about Jerry Nadler having said "I view this president and his conduct as the greatest threat to the democratic system and to the constitutional government since the Civil War, whether it’s threatening the newspapers or threatening the judiciary or calling people who criticize him treasonous," told me to be sure to watch Nadler on Sunday. The implication was that he would announce that the preliminary steps towards impeachment hearings were beginning.

(Unless ABC News has removed it, as they've been doing all day), this is a video of George Stephanopoulos' whole show, but don't worry-- Nadler was the first guest. In the intro-- with Nadler sitting right across from him-- Stephanopoulos used the "I" word. First question: "Did you learn anything from the Michael Cohen hearing this week that would lead you to open an impeachment investigation?" Listen to how Nadler-- no doubt having gone over the wording carefully with Pelosi-- handled the question. He didn't flat out say "yes," as he should have, but gave us plenty of reason to believe.



Stephanopoulos was trying to get him to admit they were beginning the impeachment process. Nadler deftly danced around it, although he said, flatly-- seemingly in contradiction of the bullshit Pelosi has been spouting all year-- that what his committee has to do is not sit around waiting for Mueller. "Crimes and impeachable offenses are two different things. There can be crimes that are impeachable offenses and impeachable offenses that are not crimes. They’re just two different tests. But we have to lay out for the American people and we can’t depend on the Mueller investigation for this. The Mueller investigation, number one, we don’t know when it’s ending despite lots of rumors, number two it’s focused on specific crimes. And we have to focus much more broadly on abuses of power and what I said a moment ago... We are starting this investigation, we will-- tomorrow we will be issuing document requests to over 60 different people and individuals from the White House, to the Department of Justice, Donald Trump Jr., Alan Weisselberg to begin investigations to present the case to the American people about obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power... [W] will be releasing the list tomorrow."

He aded that his committee's investigation will go "far beyond collusion. We’ve seen all the democratic norms that we depend on for democratic government attacked by the administration. We’ve seen attacks on the freedom of the press, the press called the enemy of the people, we’ve seen attacks on the Department of Justice, attacks on the FBI, attacks on-- on judges. All of these are very corrosive to liberty and to the proper functioning of government and to our constitutional system. All this has to be looked at and the facts laid out to the American people." When Stephanopoulos asked him if he thinks Trump obstructed justice, Nadler sad, flatly, "Yes, I do... It’s very clear that the president obstructed justice. It’s very clear-- 1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a 'witch hunt,' he tried to-- he fired-- he tried to protect Flynn from being investigated by the FBI. He fired Comey in order to stop the 'Russian thing,' as he told NBC News. He-- he’s dangled pardons... he’s intimidated witnesses in public... We have to do the investigations and get all this. We do not now have the evidence all sorted out and everything to do-- to do an impeachment. Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the-- of the opposition party voters, Trump voters, that you’re not just trying to... We may or may not get there but what we have to do is protect the rule of law."

All the members of the Judiciary Committee I spoke with are eager to get going with this. Ted Lieu was in Selma, Alabama with John Lewis yesterday, but when he got back this morning, he told me that "Unlike last term, the House Judiciary Committee will actually conduct oversight over the Executive Branch. Instead of holding stupid hearings about why Republican legislators don't get enough likes on Facebook, we will be holding hearings on whether any crimes were committed by Executive Branch officials and those within their orbit. We have launched a massive investigation into Trump, his family and his associates. We do not work for Trump. We are part of a separate and coequal branch of government. And we intend to honor our oath of office."

Is Climate Change Denial An Impeachable Offense?

"President" Gas

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler was the ranking member of the committee but he didn't have a free shot at the chair when the Democrats won back the House. Pelosi ally Zoe Lofgren is the number 2 most senior Democrat on the committee and she decided to play "a woman should have this position" card. In a case like that, the House Steering and Policy decides with the guidance of the top Democrat in the House. In other words, Pelosi makes the decision. She knew it had to be Nadler. She just wanted one thing out of him: she'd call the shots, especially on impeachment. He agreed, became chair and she's not allowing impeachment to move forward. Everyone just spits out her idiotic, misleading talking point that they can't do anything until Mueller is finished with his investigation-- actually an outrageous, boldfaced lie, worthy of Trump himself. Yesterday, Nadler was on John Catsimatidis' radio show, where the takeaway was this Nadler quote:

"I view this president and his conduct as the greatest threat to the democratic system and to the constitutional government since the Civil War, whether it’s threatening the newspapers or threatening the judiciary or calling people who criticize him treasonous."

The "greatest threat," huh? "Since the Civil War?" And still no impeachment? And as horrifying as Trump's threat to democracy is-- which Nadler is supposed to protect us from-- there's an even more existential threat Trump has made himself to our families, our country, our world: his line in the sand stance that Climate Change doesn't exist. That's a big deal. The fake "president is going to kill us all.



Author Daniel Levitin isn't a Climate Scientist; his field is cognitive psychologiy and he is best know as a neuroscientist. This morning he told me that "Science has become very specialized, and scientists tend to be expert only in the narrow domains they’re trained in. You wouldn't believe what a climate scientist has to say about building a particle collider; you shouldn’t believe what biologists, engineers, and chemists have to say about climate science. And that’s exactly what’s going on here. If you look at the scientists who have come out against the idea of climate change-- I mean if you really look to see what field they were trained in, and what kinds of journals they publish in-- you’ll see that almost none of them are actually climate scientists. Nearly every climate expert agrees that (a) climate change is real, (b) it is caused by human activity, and (c) it is urgent to do something about it."



Today, just a few hours ago, Audrey Denney officially launched her 2020 congressional campaign for California's first congressional district, where the current incumbent, Trump ally Doug LaMalfa, might as well be wearing an "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt. Just before her noon launch, Audrey told us that she was "mortified when I read that article. This administration seems to be intent on systematically undermining our country’s trust in science-- all to give more money and power to their political allies. Climate change is not a partisan issue-- it is a moral issue. If we want a planet for our children to live on, we need to elect leaders at all levels of government who are committed to climate action."

Eva Putzova is running for Congress in Arizona for a seat held by an "ex"-Republican Blue Dog, Tom O'Halleran, who didn't get the message about what switching parties means. He's about as likely to embrace the Green New Deal as Trump is. "Trump's denial of climate change," Eva reminded us today, "is already costing our country lives and resources. Our President and Congress should do what we did in Flagstaff, Arizona-- adopt a climate action plan. We need urgently political courage at every level of government to take bold, meaningful climate actions, not more debates over the science of climate change." Progressive Chicagoland Democrat Marie Newman is in a similar situation-- running against a Blue Dog, Dan Lipinski, who doesn't back the Green New Deal and, in many ways, is more a Republican than a Democrat. "We need to support the Green New Deal initiative and support the development of this framework into actual programs and legislation-- we literally do not have a choice anymore. We must act," said Newman, in no uncertain terms.

Kara Eastman, the progressive Democrat running for the swingy Omaha-based Nebraska seat, has been completely clear on where she stands on Climate Change. Today she asked, "Why would an administration do this? There is overwhelming evidence of climate change, its causes, and its solutions. This is the way for Republicans to counteract the tremendous support for plans like the Green New Deal. It is a political ploy to undermine the Democrats and dupe the American public. Ensuring a new, booming economy with great paying jobs and true community development is how America can become a leader in combating climate change. There is simply no sane or moral reason anyone would be against this."

Mike Siegel, the Austin-based progressive Democrat taking on one of Trump's top allies in Texas, Michael McCaul, told us today that "Trump's announcement is one more example of the Republican Regime abusing government offices to push propaganda. Instead of developing rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific research, this will be a corporate front group designed to protect fossil fuel profits to the detriment of human life and our planet. I can only hope this panel will suffer the same fate as Kobach's election fraud commission. In the meantime, progressives will keep fighting for a Green New Deal, and winning the hearts and minds of the American people."

Yesterday, writing for the Washington Post Juliet Eilperin, Josh Dawsey and Brady Dennis reported that Trump is putting together a committee of scientists as fake as he is a president to discredit the science behind Climate Chance. Eilperin, Dawsey and Dennis wrote that Trump "plans to create an ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter its conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet, according to three administration officials." Looks like they already reached their conclusion before they've even been formed! It sounds like a joke. Nate McMurray, who came within a handful of votes of defeating Trump-enabler Chris Collins in an area of New York between Buffalo and Rochester last year-- and plans on finishing the job next year-- told me that Trump "is a little late. In Western New York we are beyond debating the obvious, as we deal with more intense storms, higher water levels eroding land on the Great Lakes, and changing farming patterns. This President tries to reshape reality. We live in it." I think there are few regions in the country where people would disagree with Nate.

The National Security Council initiative would include scientists who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem, according to these individuals, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The group would not be subject to the same level of public disclosure as a formal advisory committee.

The move would represent the Trump administration’s most forceful effort to date to challenge the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are helping drive global warming and that the world could face dire consequences unless countries curb their carbon output over the next few decades.

The idea of a new working group, which top administration officials discussed Friday in the White House Situation Room, represents a modified version of an earlier plan to establish a federal advisory panel on climate and national security. That plan-- championed by William Happer, NSC’s senior director and a physicist who has challenged the idea that carbon dioxide could damage the planet-- would have created an independent federal advisory committee.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act imposes several ground rules for such panels, including that they meet in public, are subject to public records requests and include a representative membership.

While the plan is not finalized, NSC officials said they would take steps to assemble a group of researchers within the government. The group will not be tasked with scrutinizing recent intelligence community assessments of climate change, according to officials familiar with the plan.

The National Security Council declined requests to comment on the matter.

During the Friday meeting, these officials said, deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman said Trump was upset that his administration had issued the National Climate Assessment, which must be published regularly under federal law. Kupperman added that congressional Democrats had seized upon the report, which is the product of more than a dozen agencies, to bolster their case for cutting carbon emissions as part of the Green New Deal.

Attendees at the session, which included acting interior secretary David Bernhardt and senior officials from across the government, debated how best to establish a group of researchers that could scrutinize recent federal climate reports.

Happer, who headed an advocacy group called the CO2 Coalition before joining the administration in the fall, has challenged the scientific consensus on climate change inside and outside of government.

Public records show the coalition, which describes its mission as informing policymakers and the public of the “important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy,” has received money from far-right organizations and donors with fossil fuel interests.

In 2017, according to federal tax filings obtained by the Climate Investigations Center, the group received $170,000 from the Mercer Family Foundation and more than $33,000 from the Charles Koch Institute.

One senior administration official said the president was looking for “a mixture of opinions” and disputed a massive inter-agency report in November that described intensifying climate change as a threat to the United States.

“The president wants people to be able to decide for themselves,” the aide said.

Several scientists, however, said the federal government’s recent findings on climate change had received intense scrutiny from other researchers in the field before they became public.

Christopher Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute who served on the National Academy of Sciences review panel for the scientific report that formed the basis of last year’s climate assessment, said the committee met several times “to do a careful, page by page evaluation by the entire report.”

“The whole review process is confrontational from the very get-go, but it’s based in scientific credibility, in a traceable chain of evidence through publications,” said Field, an earth system science and biology professor.

Trump officials had weighed the idea of conducting a “red team-blue team” exercise on climate change, an idea espoused by Scott Pruitt, who was then the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, during the early months of the administration. White House aides, including then-chief of staff John F. Kelly, blocked the idea, and at one point discussed whether to “ignore” the climate research being conducted by federal scientists.

Government researchers across a range of disciplines have identified climate change as a serious threat for the past two decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations.

In 2003, the Pentagon commissioned a report to examine how an abrupt change in climate would affect America’s defense capabilities: Its authors concluded that it “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.”

Last year, a military-funded study warned sea level rise and other climate impacts could make more than a thousand low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean “uninhabitable” by midcentury, including an atoll where a missile defense site is located.

Just last month, the national intelligence director delivered a worldwide threat assessment that “climate hazards” including extreme weather, wildfires, droughts and acidifying oceans are worsening, “threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security.”

Judith Curry, a former Georgia Tech climate scientist whom Republicans have sought to testify on climate change because she often highlights the uncertainties that remain, said in an email that she backed the idea of an independent assessment of government climate reports as long as the participants reflected a range of perspectives and are not activists on either side of the debate.

But retired Rear Adm. David Titley, who served as oceanographer of the Navy and chief operating officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the new initiative could imperil national security by clouding “truthful assessments of the risks stemming from a changing climate.”

“I never thought I would live to see the day in the United States where our own White House is attacking the very science agencies that can help the president understand and manage the climate risks to security of today and tomorrow,” said Titley, who sits on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan group focused on climate-related risks. “Such attacks are un-American.”

2020 Primary Challenges Could Get Pretty Ugly-- No, No... They Will Be Ugly For Sure

No one can put the Ocasio-Crowley primary in a box and sell it in other districts

Last week the New York Times published a lazy piece by Shane Goldmacher, The Ocasio-Cortez Effect: Wave of Challenges Hits Entrenched N.Y. Democrats, that defines superficial reporting. It should be lost on no one that Ocasio Cortez's stunning and successful campaign against New York's ultimate congressional insider ("the next speaker of the House"), Queens County machine boss, Joe Crowley, was utterly missed-- if not purposefully ignored-- by her hometown paper. Perhaps they're making a half-assed attempt to make up for it by covering some generally non-existent primaries in the area. "Half assed" is better described as quarter-assed... if that. The first sentence may be correct-- let's hope: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be just the beginning." But Goldmacher goes nowhere from the correct way to begin his piece.

Blue America has been involved, on one level or another, in every successful Democratic primary against a conservative incumbent since 2006-- Donna Edwards, Beto, Matt Cartwright, AOC... We have also been involved on a ton of them that haven't been successful. If I've learned one thing it's that they succeed when a determined and capable challenger (very, very hard to find, let alone invent) takes on an easily-defined villain with an established bad record. That was certainly the case with Edwards in Maryland, Beto in Texas, Cartwright in Pennsylvania and Ocasio Cortez in New York. Each of them is an extremely talented and charismatic politician and each ran against a corrupt, out-of-touch conservative who was supported fully by an establishment generally loathed by the grassroots.

Goldmacher generally neglected to look at any of that and instead spouts irrelevant nonsense like "Party insurgents are plotting and preparing to battle with the entrenched establishment-- targeting as many as a half-dozen Congress members in and around New York City-- over what it means to be a Democrat and a progressive in the age of President Trump. The coming New York uprising could result in a series of races that lay bare some of the same generational, racial, gender and ideological cleavages expected to define the 2020 presidential primary. The activist left, in particular, hopes that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s victory will inspire a brush fire of Democrat-on-Democrat campaigns that will spread from New York across the nation."

"Party insurgents?" Really? Grass roots activists might be a better way to describe the point he's fumbling towards. As for "generational, racial, gender and ideological cleavages," which worked in Ocasio Cortez's campaign, we'll have to look at each race Goldmacher is reporting to be a potential primary battle. He's certainly right when he claims "serious primary challengers for House seats have historically been rare, and it is almost unheard of for so many to emerge in one region so early in the election cycle." And they haven't emerged, except on the page in the Times his piece was published on.

The first member Goldmacher identifies as a potential target is Jerry Nadler-- who represents a district that includes areas of Manhattan (the Upper West Side, Soho, Chelsea, the Village, the Financial District) and Brooklyn (mostly Borough Park). His super-highly educated Manhattan constituents are not likely to be persuaded he's a villain at all. His ProgressivePunch score is "A" and has always been "A" and his voting record is ranked-- and has always been ranked-- among the 20 most perfect progressive records in Congress. I don't think Nadler or his team ever thought he could be primaried from the left. His last primary was in 2016 when the far right Hassidics who run Borough Park recruited and supported a candidate, Mikhail Oliver Rosenberg, son of a millionaire, to run against Nadler when he voted for the Iran nuclear deal. It looked like if they could order their zombie followers to go out and vote against Nadler-- in what was predicted to be a low-turn-out election, they could pull off an upset. (They even persuaded racist former comedian Jackie Mason to cut a robocall for their candidate.) Instead it was the second highest turn-out primary in the state that year and Mason and the zombies were nowhere to be seen.

Rosenberg fancied himself the new generation (and a part of a strong LGBTQ community) up against an old and tired Nadler. (Nadler has been in the forefront of every pro-gay initiative in his career and gay organizations backed Nadler.) Rosenberg campaigned on a solid green energy platform, on legalizing marijuana, and as an advocate for Israel. 85% of his campaign expenditures ($366,852) came from his own bank account and, like Trump, he claimed he wouldn't be beholden to special interests. Nadler beat Rosenberg in a landslide-- 88.78% to 10.26%.

Goldmacher reports that next year "Nadler could face a primary from Lindsey Boylan, a former economic development adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who appears to want to run on a platform of "I'm a woman and he's not."

She said she was considering a run after watching the 2018 midterms, as “these women decided not to wait their turn because it was never going to be their turn.”

“I just can’t justify having my daughter watch me sit on the sidelines,” she said.

A huge X-factor in any Nadler primary would be the billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has pushed for the impeachment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Steyer has already polled the popularity of impeachment in the district and is launching a $200,000 direct mail, television and digital ad campaign this week urging Mr. Nadler to begin impeachment hearings in his committee.

Goldmacher identified Tom Suozzi, Eliot Engel, Yvette Clarke, José Serrano, Carolyn Maloney and Kathleen Rice as likely targets. Suozzi, Engel and Rice are New Dems with relatively conservative voting records. Serrano, Maloney and Clarke are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Engel is rumored to be buying his way into the Progressive Caucus so he will be able to use that membership to claim he's progressive. These are the crucial vote scores for all 7 candidates identified in the piece.

• Yvette Clarke- 95.88- A
• Jerry Nadler- 94.98- A
• José Serrano- 93.71- A
• Carolyn Maloney- 86.47- C
• Eliot Engel- 85.30- C
• Kathleen Rice- 63.16- F
• Tom Suozzi- 54.05- F

"Not every challenge in New York," wrote Goldmacher, "will be run on ideological grounds. Some will be powered by more local disputes, longstanding grudges or just timely ambition. But for many progressives, the goal is to police the Democratic Party ideologically, much in the way the Tea Party pushed Republicans to the right."

“We are trying to elect more Alexandrias,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, the insurgent group devoted to recruiting progressive primary challengers nationally. “She is an example of what one victory can do. Imagine what we can do with more primary wins across the country.”

After Mr. Crowley’s defeat almost no one is seen as untouchable.

“They should be afraid,” Maria L. Svart, the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, which backed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, said of incumbent House Democrats.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself appeared in a promotional video for Justice Democrats and on an organizing call for the group last November during which Saikat Chakrabarti, now her chief of staff, declared, “We gotta primary folks.”

True, but targets should be carefully chosen. It amazes me, for example, that Justice Democrats and DSA have seemingly ignored, at least so far, corrupt New Dem Gregory Meeks. Nadler and Serrano may not be perfect-- but they certainly are in comparison to Meeks, who seems to exist in Congress primarily to collect bribes. A member of the House Financial Services Committee, he's taken $3,665,788 from the Finance Sector, including $564,100 in the last cycle. What's more, Meeks' likely challenger is the ideal candidate for the seat. Khaair Morrison is a 25 year old African-American attorney born and raised in the district, which, he told me yesterday "is ripe for a fresh leadership after having ineffective leadership for 20+ years. Working class neighborhoods like South East Queens, Nassau, Valley Stream, and Far Rockaway have had an up-close seat to the major issues of our time. After Hurricane Sandy, areas are still rebuilding as we see the effects of Global Warming. We were the epicenter for the foreclosure crisis and many have still not able to get their homes back. We see the brutality of broken windows and mass incarceration as our kids are constantly targeted for low-level offenses that ruin opportunities for black and brown lives to be productive members of our society. We have seen how poor infrastructure and lack of planning can ruin a neighborhood's vitality. We have seen the decrepit state of public housing and are still without creative ideas to make housing more equitable. It is time we do things differently and that we speak truth to power." True, that-- and time for a self-serving do-nothing congressman like Meeks to bow out and let a fresh can-do kind of guy like Morrison take the seat.

Meeks is one of the New York congressmembers who Goldmacher was no doubt referring to when he wrote that they "have sought to establish personal or professional bonds with Ocasio-Cortez, signing onto her Green New Deal, for instance-- recognizing the power of her megaphone. In an interview in January, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she had 'put zero energy' into the question of primarying colleagues. She said the freshman class had 'already changed the opinions and commitments of a lot of incumbent members already. And I think that is something we should absolutely consider.' Whether or not Ms. Ocasio-Cortez gets personally involved, insurgent groups are plowing ahead."

Let me jump to Carolyn Maloney, a difficult target ideologically put perfect for a reformist challenger to take on based on ethics. Her corruption is just mind-boggling, even if her voting record is pretty good. She's not just a member of the House Financial Services Committee, she's the chair of the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets-- and exploits that to the max in her fundraising efforts. Among current members of the House, only 3 have been bigger Finance Sector money pigs than Maloney. A case can-- and should-- be made that these are the half dozen most corrupt members of Congress, at least in regard to Wall Street banksters, and that they should all be carted off to jail holding tanks before their trials:

• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $8,086,692
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $6,865,814
• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)- $6,376,379
• Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)- $6,309,318
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC)- $5,627,242
• Steve Stivers (R-OH)- $5,620,077

Suraj Patel ran against Maloney in 2018 and may do it again next year. He ought to. NY-12 is a solidly blue district (D+31) that spans Manhattan (Yorkville, the Upper East Side, Midtown, Kips Bay, Gramercy Park, Alphabet City and the Lower East Side), Queens (Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside) and Brooklyn (Greenpoint and north Williamsburg). Interstate 278 separates Maloney's district from Ocasio's in Queens. Of the 251,604 people who voted in 2018, 190,771 were in Manhattan, 35,728 in Queens and 25,105 in Brooklyn. The district has changed-- and rapidly, as Ocasio's had-- and in similar ways. First of all, though not most important per se, the D+27 PVI in 2017 jumped to D+31 in 2019. That's a big jump and it's the other changes that account for it. The white population is smaller but still dominant, though the fastest growing demos are Asians, Latinos, Arabs and-- very significantly-- highly educated and politicized millennials. Patel: "The status quo isn’t good enough. Our values are under attack by leaders that don’t share or understand our lived experiences, and it’s going to take new ideas and louder voices to make real change... We deserve a congressperson who isn’t recklessly indifferent to the less privileged."

Patel ended up with a bit over 40% of the vote, a great accomplishment against a forever incumbent on a first try. Goldmacher interviewed Sean McElwee, who has been involved in finding primary challengers in New York and who was a co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress. McElwee told him that "in deep blue states, Republicans increasingly don’t exist. We spend a lot of time thinking about why we have right-wing corporate Democrats selling out our interests." McElwee told him the push to recruit a challenger to Engel, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and has been in Congress for three decades (and who represents the Likud Party of Israel and their lobbyists, AIPAC, far more than he does the folks who live in the 16th district (including Riverdale, Fieldston and Eastchester in the Bronx, abutting Ocasio's district, and New Rochelle, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Mamaroneck, Scarsdale and up to Rye and Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester.

Blue America has been trying to find a local elected official to take Engel on for years, but with not a nibble. McElwee calls finding a primary opponent for him a "top priority" and recently commissioned a poll there. The district used to be overwhelming white but now whites only make up 39% of the population. Blacks, Latinos and Asians make it a minority-majority district. McElwee is eager to find "a younger candidate of color in 2020; only about a half-dozen white Democratic men represent a more diverse district in Congress than Mr. Engel," wrote Goldmacher.

One potential challenger mulling a run is Andom Ghebreghiorgis, a Yale graduate and 33-year-old educator in Mount Vernon, who said that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez "showed there’s a hunger, especially here in New York, for representatives who reflect the changing progressive politics of their communities."

In a statement, Mr. Engel praised the party’s "new energy" and said the fact that anyone can run "is the beauty of our electoral system." But, he added, "think we’re doing the people we represent and the country a disservice by focusing on 2020 primaries when we have so much to do right now in Washington."

Yeah-- but not in NY-16. There are 4 congressmembers who represent parts of the Bronx, Ocasio, Engel, Adriano Espaillat-- a relatively new member, a progressive and a very good fit for the district-- and José Serrano (NY-15) in the center of the borough, in some ways the furthest left district in New York. The PVI is D+44, the bluest in the state and Trump only managed to win 4.9% of the vote in 2016 (slightly better than Romney did, but still Trump's worst performance anywhere in America. Only 2% of the population is white. The last Republican who won this district was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. The Bronx Machine has been eager to take Serrano out for some time but no one wants to run against him. In 2014 his primary opponent, Sam Sloan won 9% of the vote. His 2016 primary opponent, Leonel Baez won 10.8% and in 2018 there was no primary opponent. In the 2018 general election, the Republican candidate was Jason Gonzalez and Serrano beat him 124,469 (96%) to 5,205 (4%). City Councilman Ritchie Torres, a 30-year-old often described as a rising star, is weighing a run based on the whole "it's my turn, you're too old" thing.

Yvette Clarke, who won with only 53%, is facing a rematch with Adem Bunkeddeko, the Harvard-educated son of war Ugandan refugees who had been endorsed by the New York Times. "We’re at a moment of reckoning. Some people get it and some people don’t. Maybe someone’s seventh term is the charm? But most of us aren’t holding our breath." Goldmacher spoke with her and she told him that "she had reorganized her district office following the 2018 close call and is aggressively selling her progressive credentials in the more gentrified and liberal parts of the district, such as Park Slope. 'I definitely will not be caught by surprise.' She has among the dozen most progressive voting records in Congress. Bunkeddeko's point is that she's basically just a backbencher who votes well and doesn't do much for the district.

The last two likely primary races are on Long Island-- Tom Suozzi and Kathleen Rice, both New Dems who are going to be challenged from the left. I'm going to do a separate post on these two races because both are swingy districts that could, at least in theory, flip red if the incumbents are beaten.


UPDATE: Democratic Primary In Arizona

At dawn today, the Arizona Republic reported that Eva Putzova, a former Flagstaff city councilwoman, is running for the AZ-01 seat currently held by reactionary Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran.

Putzova, who announced her candidacy in January, said her top priority in Congress would be to address the process immigrants have to go through to become citizens. She said the current system takes too long and leaves people at the mercy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for far too long.

She also wants ICE restructured.

“Nobody is saying that enforcement in immigration is not important, but ICE as an agency is rogue,” she said. “It needs to be completely restructured.”

..."A #GreenNewDeal should be every candidates priority in 2020," she tweeted Feb. 10 in support of the "Green New Deal" environmental plan championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Her campaign website lists other top issues: universal health care, tuition-free college, indigenous peoples' rights, "meaningful climate action," "no more wars," women's reproductive health and workers' rights.

...O’Halleran, the two-term incumbent, appears to have the support of national Democrats.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added him to its "Frontline" program.

The DCCC's Frontline program is designed to help provide Democratic members of Congress with the support they need to win re-election. O’Halleran is now one of 44 members of Congress in the program.

“Tom O’Halleran wins tough races because he understands the concerns of hard-working Arizonans, and because he never forgot where he came from,” Rep. Cheri Bustos, the 2020 cycle's DCCC chairwoman, said in a written statement.

“We’re proud to stand with Tom as a member of our Frontline program to ensure he has the support he needs to win and keep working for Arizona,” Bustos (Blue Dog-IL) added.

Blue America has already endorsed Eva Putzova and if you'd like to see another member of Congress who supports Bernie's platform replace an "ex"-Republican Blue Dog, please click on the ActBlue Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right and contribute what you can.