The GOP Civil War Is On-- What About A Much-Needed One Among Democrats?

Sinema-- This is how Upchuck Schumer defines "a Democrat"

There's no denying that Roy Moore is far less fit for office-- any office-- than even Trumpanzee. That said, I admire Republican Party insurgents for successfully derailing a swampy lobbyist who oozed his way into the Senate and represents, more than anything, the repulsive, soul-murdering corruption of the establishment. By defeating-- gloriously defeating-- Luther Strange (despite the blandishments of their beloved Trumpanzee), a right-wing populist base sent a chilling message to Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and their coteries of swamp creatures. This week every establishment Republican in Washington was shaking in his or her boots. More of them are contemplating early retirement. Not shaking: Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. They feel confident that populists on the left will do nothing of the kind.

Shouldn't Democrats be working furiously to end the vile political careers of Joe Manchin (WV), Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Clare McCaskill (MO) and Jon Tester (MT)? Maybe... but that isn't really analogous. You may-- you should-- dislike those conservative Democrats but those are really red states:

• West Virginia- R+19
• Indiana- R+9
• North Dakota- R+19
• Missouri- R+9
• Montana- R+11

That is tough territory. And although the anti-Trump/anti-GOP tsunami may be big enough to defeat Moore in December and replace him with Doug Jones... well, that would have to be the biggest tsunami in history. Alabama's PVI is R+14. So Bannon and Mercer and that crew weren't really taking that big of a gamble they would give away a red seat. In fact, every poll shows Moore winning. (Google Consumer Surveys: Moore- 58%, Jones- 42%; Opinion Savvy: Moore- 50%, Jones- 45%.) We'll get to situations that are analogous below, but first, let me share some typical Politico conventional Beltway "wisdom": Bernie backers give Dem incumbents a pass in 2018. Gabriel Debenedetti reassures Beltway Dems that they have nothing to fear. No Democratic civil war brewing anywhere.

“What Democrats right now care about more than anything is winning,” veteran Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock said of divisive Democratic primaries. “I don’t think the ultra-progressives have abandoned their principles-- not at all-- but I think they looked at the challenge and said, ‘This is not the right place.’”

...[T]he relative peace on the left wasn’t preordained-- the divisiveness of last year’s presidential primary was widely expected to manifest again in 2018 statewide elections. Yet with next year’s Senate and gubernatorial races shaping up, it’s Democrats whose sighs of relief are echoing around the country.

Democrats have escaped the brunt of their own party’s populist fury largely because they’re heading into the midterms in a defensive crouch, with 10 of their incumbent senators on the ballot in states that voted for Donald Trump. So instead of going after their own senators, progressive activists are focused on gaining Republican-held seats in the House.

“There’s some reluctance to put a lot of time into [unseating Democrats], versus [building] a more progressive Congress overall,” said former Communications Workers of America union president Larry Cohen, a top Bernie Sanders advisor who now chairs the board of the Our Revolution political group that was spawned from the senator’s 2016 presidential campaign. “There’s going to be a lot more activity where it’s possible to change the makeup of the Congress.”

Not all statewide Democratic incumbents are home-free: Actress Cynthia Nixon has been encouraged to mount a long-shot challenge against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the left next year-- much like the one he fended off in 2014. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has suggested he may take on first-term Gov. Gina Raimondo, criticizing her for not being sufficiently progressive on an array of issues.

And in California, fourth-term Sen. Dianne Feinstein has faced fury from the left for not challenging Trump more aggressively. State Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, who made the rounds in Washington this month, and liberal activist Joe Sanberg have gained notice as potential challengers... [L]liberal challenges to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have so far failed to gain traction... [N]one of the many Democratic senators running in liberal states in 2018-- such as Delaware’s Tom Carper, Maryland’s Ben Cardin, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, or Washington’s Maria Cantwell-- have seen any reason to sweat their own positions.

...Still, messy Democratic primaries are still expected in several House districts where vulnerable Republicans are running for re-election. One conservative Democratic House member-- Illinois’ Dan Lipinski-- already faces a primary fight.

That’s reason enough for establishment-oriented and moderate Democrats to avoid complacency, insisted a handful of party operatives.

What Debenedetti missed are the two Senate primaries in the two states Democrats expect to flip from red to blue. Schumer and Van Hollen recruited 2 of the absolutely worst, most abysmal excuses for Democrats to run, grotesquely corrupt Blue Dog Kirsten Sinema (who actually-- by voting record-- is the single worst Democrat in the House) and almost-as-bad-as-Sinema worthless Jacky Rosen. Arizona progressives haven't gotten their shit together yet, but Nevada progressives sure have-- and with a far more qualified candidate that the swampy establishment is offering: Jesse Sbaih. Schumer, Reid and Van Hollen ar doing everything they can to bury Sbaih's campaign but progressive voters in Nevada are taking note-- and seeing who he is and who Jacky Rosen is. (Shamefully, the imbeciles at HRC have endorsed Sinema on the day she announced. She may be right-wing on everything else, but went it comes to her own private parts...)

Jesse Sbaih is upbeat and hopeful, if wary. "Democrats across the nation have awoken," he told us. "The days of Super Delegates, interfering with primary elections, and embracing corporate money are no longer tolerated by the majority. The more the Democratic Party insists on pushing its anointed candidates, disrupting the democratic process, and advancing the interests of greedy corporations (not the people), the more registered Democrats refuse to come out to vote in general elections. The 2016 election cycle was a perfect example of such intolerance. As we approach 2018, it behooves the Democratic Party to change its old ways or it shall face the peril of continuing to lose elections."

And progressives need to pick off corrupt and Republican-lite reactionaries in blue district primaries. One of the most important this cycle is the Chicagoland seat occupied by Blue Dog throwback Dan Lipinski. He can be beaten because the Democrats have an extraordinary candidate-- a stalwart progressive with deep community roots and the right message for the middle and working class voters in IL-03, Marie Newman. Yesterday she told us that "We have to start upgrading the party to have members of Congress who have real ideas and are willing to both fight and collaborate to get things done. Mr. Lipinski is the epitome of Blue-dog, Do-nothing establishment Dems. This district deserves a real Democrat with real ideas who will actually work and get results."

Normally, it takes 2 cycles to dislodge an entrenched incumbent and progressive champion Tim Canova is on his second cycle to replace the odious Debbie Wassermann Schultz in South Florida. "It's crucial we hold incumbent Democrats accountable," he just told us, "when they've shown a repeated pattern of selling out voters to corporate interests and personal political gain. There are none more in need of scrutiny and challenge than Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- for her many failures when chair of the Democratic National Committee, for undercutting so many other Democrats in and outside of Florida, and for taking millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the largest Wall Street banks and big corporate interests. Wasserman Schultz talks like a liberal and progressive, but she shills for predatory payday lenders, private prisons, fossil fuels and other big business donors. She personifies all that's wrong in our politics and with the Democratic Party. Wasserman Schultz will remain a danger to democracy and drag down Democrats as long as she's in public office."

As Humanist Report host Mike Figueredo reported at HuffPo yesterday, Yes, Medicare For All Is Definitely A Litmus Test For Democrats, not for swamp creatures like Schumer or Reid or Van Hollen, of course, but for actual Democrats.

Medicare for All is absolutely a litmus test! Democrats that refuse to cosponsor Sanders’ or Conyers’ bill in the Senate or House, respectively, will not only lose support (read: votes) from progressives, but we will actively find primary opponents to challenge and defeat them. If incumbent Democrats won’t support Medicare for All, progressives will find somebody else that will. In fact, we’re already doing that. Our intentions have been quite clear from the beginning.

On my podcast, The Humanist Report, I discussed a town hall that took place in Nevada’s 4th congressional district with newly-elected Rep. Ruben Kihuen. An activist named Amy Vilela showed up to ask Kihuen-- a self-proclaimed “progressive” and member of the congressional progressive caucus-- why he refuses to cosponsor Conyers’ Medicare for All bill. More importantly, Vilela’s question was accompanied with her daughter’s poignant story. Vilela explained to Kihuen that her daughter, Shalynne, died at the young age of 22-years-old because she was denied basic medical screenings that would have undoubtedly saved her life. Shalynne couldn’t prove that she had medical insurance and was instead told to go get insurance and find a doctor. But Shalynne’s story didn’t resonate with Kihuen, apparently. Not only did he refuse to commit to cosponsoring Conyers’ Medicare for All bill at that town hall, but even got arguably defensive, as constituents kept pushing the issue further. After reporting on the events that took place at this town hall, and how a so-called progressive couldn’t provide his constituents with one good reason why he wouldn’t support Medicare for All, my viewers submitted hundreds-- if not thousands-- of voicemails to both of Kihuen’s offices, demanding that he cosponsor Conyers’ bill. He still wasn’t moved.

[Note: Kihuen pretended to be a progressive to help him beat actual progressive Lucy Flores last year. Once he got to Congress he joined the corrupt, Wall Street-owned New Dems and quickly reversed his progressive positions and started running up a dreadful voting record. His ProgressivePunch Crucial Vote grade is a "C," far from what he promised when he sat in my living room and portrayed himself as a progressive champion. For Blue America, he was 2016's biggest disappointment.]

As a direct result of Kihuen’s unwillingness to do what he was elected to do (i.e. represent his constituents), he is now facing a primary challenger. His opponent is the mother he didn’t take seriously during that town hall: Amy Vilela. She announced her candidacy on July 19 on The Humanist Report, and she intends to cosponsor H.R. 676 herself since her representative refused to do it. But Amy isn’t the only progressive challenging an incumbent Democrat that refuses to support single-payer.

After months of putting pressure on Rep. Denny Heck in Washington state’s 10th congressional district, he’s now being challenged by a progressive named Tamborine Borrelli, namely because Heck refuses to cosponsor John Conyers’ bill.

...[C]onventional wisdom tells us that Democrats residing in relatively conservative districts-- or red and purple states-- shouldn’t get on board with an idea that presumably won’t resonate with more conservative voters. This line of thinking, however, is outdated. First and foremost, Democrats have lacked the courage to embrace bold progressive policies in conservative states and districts and have played it safe for years; and yet, they still managed to get wiped out at all levels of government. Playing it safe obviously hasn’t been a successful strategy for them.

Second of all, we’re witnessing a rapid cultural shift akin to the wave of social acceptance we saw in the early 2010s towards marriage equality. The “big government” and “socialist” boogeyman arguments just don’t work any longer. A majority of Americans now support single-payer. A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that 52% of Americans back Medicare for All. Some polls even find that single-payer is supported by a plurality of Republicans; that is, more support it than oppose it. Even in polls indicating single-payer doesn’t yet have a majority of support, attitudes towards Medicare for All are still becoming increasingly positive. Additionally, there’s overwhelming support for the general idea that “government is responsible” for ensuring citizens have healthcare. So even in polls that are less kind to single-payer as a policy, there’s still a great deal of symbolic support for it-- which is a strong indicator that Bernie is changing hearts and minds. In fact, Vox’s Dylan Matthews reports that even the alt-right “loves” single-payer, surprisingly.

But even if momentum wasn’t shifting towards single-payer among the general public, it would still be a winning strategy for Democrats. That may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s actually strategically sound. As Democrats have continued to shift to the right—in an effort to court moderates turned off by the Republican Party’s increasingly extremist right-wing views-- they’ve disenfranchised their core base that still exists on the left. America’s Overton window is almost exclusively right-wing, and the Democratic Party has abandoned their populist ideas in an effort to cater to what they think are more moderate voters. This is a strategy that has lead to the Democratic Party being completely annihilated at all levels of government. Moderates don’t like Democrats. When given the choice between a Republican candidate and Republican-lite candidate-- they’ll almost always opt for the real deal. The Democratic Party’s constituents have always been working class voters, and those individuals aren’t going to take time off of work and spend hours in line at the voting booth supporting a candidate whose neoliberal policies will only harm them slightly less than the Republican. They’ll just stay home.

If Democrats actually move back to the left and embrace a bold, progressive message, the voters they’ve abandoned just might come back to them and vote for the first time in a while. So, Democrats should be thanking progressives for making Medicare for All a litmus test because, if anything, it will help their electoral chances. Running away from progressive ideas is a losing strategy in conservative regions of the country because you need your base more than ever in these particular areas. Republicans don’t court moderate voters on the left because they know their core base on the far right won’t go for that; and in a time where Americans are incredibly polarized, it’s time Democrats acknowledge the reality of our current political landscape and opt for a strategy that will actually help them defeat Republicans. They must reinvigorate their demoralized base.

But everything I’m saying would be considered blasphemous to the Democratic Party’s overpaid strategists. Why listen to ordinary Americans when elites in D.C. and the media reinforce all of their bad decisions? More importantly, why alienate potential donors from the health insurance industry when Democrats know they only have to wait for Americans to grow so tired with Republicans and Trump that they’ll inevitably come running back to them even if they change nothing? That’s what the Party is banking on, which is why progressives have made Medicare for All a litmus test. We know Democrats won’t back Sanders’ or Conyers’ bills unless we force them to-- and that’s exactly what we intend to do.

Progressives (and left-leaning Democrats) would be dimwitted to not capitalize on the momentum and grassroots enthusiasm we currently see for single-payer. But besides Medicare for All being a practical and advantageous strategy for Democrats, it’s a litmus test because it’s the right thing to do. If Democrats don’t support a policy that would literally save countless lives, then what good are they? Really, Medicare for All is the easiest litmus test for Democrats to pass. If you don’t care about helping people, and only care about appeasing your donors, why did you run for Congress in the first place? If Shalynne’s story doesn’t tug on your heartstrings, then you’ve become too detached with the struggle of ordinary citizens. This is a moral issue.

Why Do Millennials Hate The Democratic Party Almost As Much As They Hate The Republican Party?

Yesterday while I was getting dressed, I switched on MSNBC and saw Maryland Wall Street whore and DSCC chair Chris Van Holland being interviewed.A little background MSNBC didn't provide:

• Panicked that stalwart progressive Donna Edwards might be elected, last year the banksters financed Van Hollen's successful primary race against her for the Senate, giving him $3,306,869, more than any other non-incumbent from either party.
• The Finance sector has given Van Hollen $4,932,470 in bribes since he was first elected to Congress in 2002.
• Van Hollen has worked very hard to make Wall Street happy they put their faith in him.
• Big Insurance ponied up $267,805 last year to make sure Van Hollen got into the Senate instead of Edwards.
• Pharmaceutical companies chipped in last year too, giving Van Hollen $254,100 for his primary against Edwards.

Now, the 2 questions, he answered while I was putting on my socks. The anchor asked him if he is supporting Bernie's Medicare-For-All bill and he used every focus group-tested weasel word to avoid an honest answer. Slimy politicians are the reason why people absolutely despise career politicians. The closest he came to explaining his position was to assure MSNBC viewers that there would be "other proposals." He's so awful, it's no wonder Schumer picked him to run the DSCC and it's no wonder the DSCC's two first candidates are absolutely execrable conservative shiotheads from the House, Blue Dog Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and worthless waste-of-a-seat Jacky Rosen (NV), each of whom is more comfortable voting with the GOP than with progressives.

Then she put up a chart from a new poll that shows the millennials hate the GOP but don't much like the Democratic Party either and asked him why, with the Democrats having put so much energy into courting millennials, they have failed to get that demographic to think of them as anything other than just the lesser of two evils. Clueless as always, Van Hollen started babbling nonsense about taking the battle to the campuses. He literally started talking about the geography about where out-of-touch, corrupt Beltway politicians could physically find millennials. It made me want to throw up-- and I hadn't even had breakfast yet.

People like Schumer and Van Hollen can't win in 2018. They can only be there if the Republicans self-destruct enough so that the lesser of two evils party is the only choice for distraught voters who may be forced to vote for unbelievable garbage candidates like Sinema and Rosen. Van Hollen, of course, is working to derail the Bernie-backing alternative to Rosen in Nevada, Jesse Sbaih. Tonight Jesse told us that "In the past 8 years, Democrats lost over 1,000 state and federal seats. The Democratic Party will continue to lose unless corporate money is rejected. Democrats must start putting the best interests of the people over greedy corporations."

I actually stumbled upon the graphic MSNBC asked Van Hollen to explain. And an analysis of the poll. It starts with a bit of good news for the Democrats: "A majority of millennials, 64 percent, disapprove of Trump's job performance, while 58 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party." And then a warning: "Millennials are a critical group for Democrats, and although they feel warmer toward the party than they do the GOP, they don’t feel overwhelmingly positive about either party."

Just 43 percent of millennials have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and only a slight majority (53 percent) said the party cares about people like them.

Similarly, millennials were more likely to say the Democratic Party cares about people like them than the Republican Party does. Only three in 10 millennials said the Republican Party cares about people like them. Still, nearly half (46 percent) of millennials said they don’t think the Democratic Party cares about them.

In other words, millennials aren’t fully convinced that either party best represents their interests.

Political uncertainty among millennials is also clear in terms of 2018 congressional election preference-- 41 percent of all millennials said they’re not sure if they will vote Democratic or Republican in the midterms next year. Another 37 percent said they plan to vote for the Democrat, and only 21 percent said they plan to vote for the Republican.

...[N]either party has convinced a majority of white millennials that their policies are sufficiently concerned with people like them-- 60 percent of white millennials said the GOP doesn’t care about people like them, and 55 percent said the Democratic Party doesn’t care about people like them.

Overall, a third of millennials (33 percent) said that neither party cares about people like them-- a significant portion of young adults when considering the growth of the millennial electorate.

How The Politics Of Healthcare Have Made Dean Heller Unelectable In Nevada

Dean Heller is a squishy mainstreamish Republican senator from Nevada. He was appointed to the seat by Republican Governor Brian Sandoval in 2011 when corrupt Republican John Ensign was forced to resign. Before getting into politics, Heller was a stock broker. In 2012 he was challenged by a corrupt New Dem, Shelley Berkley and managed to beat her 457,656 (45.87%) to 446,080 (44.71%)-- an 11,576 vote margin (against an incredibly weak and unattractive candidate who many Democrats just couldn't persuade themselves to vote for).

This cycle, Heller is a dead dog. He has a Trumpist opponent, Danny Tarkanian and another crappy DSCC-backed conservaDem just like Berkley (totally unqualified Jacky Rosen) and a Berniecrat the DSCC is trying to derail, Jesse Sbaih. Sarah Palin has already endorsed Tarkanian and the most recent poll of Republican voters shows Heller losing the primary to Tarkanian 39-31%. There is no doubt that Bannon's whole Roy Moore neo-fascist support team will be showing up in Nevada to destroy Heller as soon as they've finished destroying Luther Strange in Alabama-- and teaching Trump a lesson about where he gets his marching orders.

Unlike Heller, Rand Paul stood up to Trump's bullying and bribes

You know the TrumpCare bill that John McCain just torpedoed, commonly known as Graham-Cassidy? That was actually short for Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson. And that's weird for someone who made such a big deal about sticking with the very popular Governor who originally appointed him to the Senate, Brian Sandoval. Sandoval has denounced the bill as detrimental to Nevadans. This week the Nevada Independent report on this sounded like an early Dean Heller political obituary.

Gov. Brian Sandoval said Thursday that the flexibility fellow Republican Sen. Dean Heller promised will be good for Nevada in a health-care bill he’s sponsoring is a “false choice” because the legislation will also slash funding.

Sandoval, in a statement to the Nevada Independent, said he would not “pit seniors, children, families, the mentally ill, the critically ill, hospitals, care providers or any other Nevadan against each other” because of the steep cuts to federal funding the state would face if the Heller-sponsored measure were to pass. A state analysis, also obtained by the Nevada Independent, agrees with independent calculations from various health-care organizations estimating Nevada will lose between $600 million and $2 billion in federal funding by 2026 if the legislation passes.

As tensions mounted this week with Senate Republicans renewing a health-care debate thought to be laid to rest, Heller publicly touted the “flexibility” the measure would create by dividing up the federal dollars currently spent on the Affordable Care Act among the states in the form of a block grant. Where Sandoval only gently rebuffed Heller on Tuesday, saying he appreciated the “intended flexibility” of the bill, the careful, deliberative Sandoval-- not one to rush to the presses with a strongly worded statement-- didn’t mince words on Thursday.

“Flexibility with reduced funding is a false choice,” Sandoval said in the statement. “I will not pit seniors, children, families, the mentally ill, the critically ill, hospitals, care providers, or any other Nevadan against each other because of cuts to Nevada’s health-care delivery system proposed by the Graham-Cassidy amendment.”

Sandoval’s statement stands in sharp relief against one issued just two days earlier, in which the even-keeled governor attempted to soften the blow to Heller after authoring a letter with a group of nine other bipartisan governors urging Senate leadership not to consider the proposal. In the earlier statement, Sandoval said that Heller is “working in the best interest of the state” while gently, but firmly reiterating that he favors a bipartisan fix to the nation’s health-care system.

The recent rift between the two Republicans is also a sharp turn of events from June, when Sandoval and Heller stood side by side to harshly condemn Senate Republicans’ last repeal-and-replace plan, saying that it would strip health care away from millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans. Sandoval remained mum for weeks on the measure, initially drafted by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and signed onto by Heller amid a week of heated health-care negotiations in the Senate in July.

Heller publicly touted that “Nevada wins” under the measure, which would divvy up the block grant annually based on states’ numbers of poor or near-poor residents as well as create a per capita cap on the half-century old Medicaid program. The Republican senator, who is up for re-election in 2018, has had to walk a fine line amid discussions in the Senate over the past couple of months about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, facing a challenge from the more conservative Danny Tarkanian.

...[W]hile the bill sponsors compare the amount of money Nevada will receive in 2026 under Graham-Cassidy when the block grant ends to how much it will receive in 2020 when the block grant begins, the correct analysis would be to compare the projected funding Nevada will receive in 2026 under the Affordable Care Act under the status quo compared to what it would receive in 2026 under Graham-Cassidy. When that comparison is done, Nevada loses between $600 million to $2 billion by most organizations’ calculations, the state analysis says.

Over months of discussions about repealing the Affordable Care Act, Sandoval has repeatedly argued against touching the extra dollars the federal health-care law made available to states that chose to opt in to an expansion of Medicaid, a point he reiterated in the Thursday statement. Sandoval was the first Republican governor to opt in to Medicaid expansion, and the state has since entirely restructured the way it provides services, such as mental health care, to rely on those new federal Medicaid dollars.

“As Governor, I made a commitment to use all the tools available to ensure Nevadans had access to affordable and quality health care. I made the decision to expand Medicaid to never before covered populations, including childless adults and pregnant women,” Sandoval said. “I made the decision to leverage all the federal funding possible through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and to work to improve the health-care system for those with mental illness, addictions and disabilities.”

Before the state expanded Medicaid, the uninsurance rate was 20.7 percent, 27 percent for adults under 65 and 14.8 percent for children; after, the uninsured rate dropped by 9.3 percentage points, down to 11.4 percent in 2016. Between Medicaid expansion and the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, nearly 400,000 Nevadans have gained access to health care, including more than 300,000 in Medicaid and nearly 90,000 on the exchange, Sandoval said.

According to the state’s analysis, more than 200,000 people currently receiving Medicaid will lose coverage when the block grant goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020 and need to be moved to other coverage with unknown costs. An additional 90,000 Nevadans who purchase insurance on the exchange would also be left without access to subsidized coverage.

The per capita cap that Graham-Cassidy places on Medicaid funding, which organizations who have analyzed the bill do not believe will keep pace with the costs of providing health care, will “fundamentally” change the federal Medicaid program without analyzing the cost of long-term impacts to the state, the state analysis says.

The legislation will also reduce the ability for states to levy provider taxes from 6 percent to 4 percent over time, which will limit Nevada’s ability to help finance increased Medicaid payments to nursing homes. The reduction will result in a $10 million per year reduction in payments to nursing homes by 2025, according to the state’s analysis.

The state analysis says Graham-Cassidy will also reduce the $8 million in prevention and public health funding Nevada receives annually to pay for immunizations and conduct disease investigations to protect public health, as well as reduce Nevada’s hospitals from accessing Medicaid funds in retroactive months of eligibility in many cases, resulting in more uncompensated care and cost burdens being shifted to other parts of the health-care system.

“I have said many times before that I will not support legislation that may result in a cost shift to the State or result in Nevadans losing insurance coverage,” Sandoval said. “I cannot in good faith support the Graham-Cassidy amendment.”

Nevada's U.S. Senate Race Looks Wide Open-- Party Establishment Picks May Fail To Make The Final Ballot

The ad above by Save My Care started running yesterday in Nevada, where panic-stricken serial flip flopper Dean Heller is widely seen as the most vulnerable Senate incumbent up for reelection in 2018. After vowing to Nevadans to not help GOP extremists repeal Obamacare he was threatened by Trump and immediately buckled and voted against Nevadans. And now he's back with another bill he helped write that will rip healthcare away from even more Americans than the last one! Below is the ad a Trump SuperPAC, with money raised by Mike Pence, used as an effective cudgel to beat up Heller and force him to switch his postion from the pro-healthcare position that the popular Republican governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, embraces to flat-out a flat-out anti-healthcare stand that Nevadans hate:



Last year Clinton beat Trump in Nevada, 539,260 (47.92%) to 512,058 (45.50%). She won big in Clark County (Vegas)-- 52.43% to 41.72%-- and narrowly in Washow County (Reno)-- 46.39% to 45.14%-- enough to take the state's 6 electoral votes. On the same day Catherine Cortez Masto beat Republican Joe Heck for the U.S. Senate seat, also narrowly-- 521,994 (47.1%) to 495,079 (44.7%). Nevada is a swing state trending blue.

Schumer and Harry Reid have selected the worst possible candidate to run against Heller, conservative and utterly undistinguished and unaccomplished, Republican-lite freshman Jacky Rosen. Rosen has already earned one of the lowest "F" scores of any Democrat in Congress from ProgressivePunch, normally voting with the Blue Dogs on every important issue. In July Stanley Paher wrote in the Reno Gazette-Journal that it would be very unwise for the Democrats to run her. "For more than a half century," he wrote, "successful Nevada politicians have ascended from lower offices upwards into the U.S. Senate. These include Paul Laxalt, Harry Reid, Dick Bryan and Dean Heller. In contrast, a non-political background as touted by Rosen seldom translates into electoral success. How does synagogual leadership, computer programming skills, and familial experience translate into votes? Her lone electoral win last November was a 1% squeaker against a very weak Republican who had lost 5 elections over the past 8 years... The Rosen forces will point to Las Vegas’ large Democratic registration as an advantage for her statewide bid. But tell that to the bushel full of Nevada Democrats who lost in the 2014 midterm elections up and down ballot, as well as in 2010 when Joe Heck bested incumbent Las Vegas Congresswoman Dina Titus and Republicans Krolicki and Sandoval won in landslides for Nevada’s top two offices."

Rosen beat Danny Tarkanian, a crackpot Trumpist, for the open congressional seat last year, 146,869 (47.2%) to 142,926 (46%). The southern Clark County district, basically everything south of the airport, including Henderson and Boulder City, right down to the tip of the state where California, Arizona and Nevada meet in the Mohave Valley. Obama won the district both times but Hillary lost it to Trump 47.5% to 46.5%. Rosen's brief tenure in Congress has shown her to be, basically, everything that voters in NV-03 didn't like about Clinton. She's a disaster as a candidate and Reid and Schumer-- and EMILY's Lidt, of course-- stumbled right into it.

Meanwhile the Trumpist, Tarkanian, is primarying Heller with the support for Bannon and the rest of the whole nationalist fringe of the GOP. The most recent poll of Nevada Republicans-- which shows Trump with an 80% approval rating and Heller with a 34% approval-- indicates that Tarkanian would beat him 39-31% if the primary were held today.

Democrats do have a choice in their own primary as well. If they want to stand up to the party bosses-- Reid and Schumer-- they can vote for a Berniecrat in the race, Jesse Sbaih, someone who Reid rejected as a Democratic candidate last year because of his Muslim faith. When he was running for Congress, Reid told him to get out of the race because "a Muslim cannot win this race." Unlike Rosen Sbaih is a dedicated progressive and has pledged to fight for Medicare-For-All. Rosen is one of the minority of House Democrats who has refused to co-sponsor John Conyers' Medicare-For-All bill. Sbaih's wife is a physician and he has made Medicare-For-All one of the keystones of his campaign.

I Still Don't Know For Sure Who Beat Harry Reid Within An Inch Of His Life And Got Him To Retire But...

This probably isn't directly connected to Reid's beating but I got an e-mail yesterday from Derek Washington, who identified himself as the press secretary for Jesse Sbaih, the Nevada congressional candidate Reid, a notoriously corrupt sleazebag, tried driving out of the race.

A Muslim Democrat running for a U.S. House seat in Nevada says that-- in a private meeting last year-- Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had encouraged him to end his campaign by saying, “a Muslim cannot win this race.”

“He said, ‘You should not run for this office,’” said Jesse Sbaih, an immigrant from Jordan who is now a trial lawyer. This race for the House, in a district that includes a swath of suburban Las Vegas, is his first run for political office.

A spokeswoman for Reid, however, denied that Reid had said those words... [S]he categorically denied that Reid had cited Sbaih’s religion as a reason he would not succeed.

“Senator Reid did not say that,” said Kristen Orthman, a spokeswoman in Reid’s Senate office. “Jesse Sbaih is a liar and that’s why he is going to lose.”

Sbaih’s assertion could shake up one of the most competitive House races in the country-- a race made possible, in a way, by Reid himself.

Reid is retiring from the Senate, after 30 years. Rep. Joe Heck (R), who holds the suburban Las Vegas seat now, is running to replace him. That has left the seat open: the Cook Political Report rates it as a “Republican toss-up,” a swing seat vital to both parties.

On the Republican side, several plausible candidates have already filed to run. On the Democratic side, however, the race was slow to start: late in the summer, Sbaih was the best-funded and best-known candidate who had declared.

Sbaih is an ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who is running, in part, on his own remarkable life story. Sbaih’s parents immigrated from Jordan to Virginia when he was 11, and he helped support the family by washing dishes in an Italian restaurant as a teen.

Now, Sbaih said, his run for office is a way to repay the country for the way it welcomed his family.

“I’ve always felt: The more America gave me, the more I wanted to give back,” Sbaih said in an interview with the Washington Post.

But, Sbaih said, he was rebuffed when he sought to gain Reid’s support.

First, he said, he met with a political consultant connected to Reid, Rebecca Lambe. At a coffee shop, Sbaih said, Lambe brought up his religion and his Arab heritage: “She said, basically, you’re gonna have a problem winning, as a Muslim, as an Arab.”

Lambe disputed that account in an email message to The Post on Monday.

“It’s not what I said,” Lambe said. “As we would with any candidate, we explored his background, profession, religion, the fact he’d never run before, stance on issues and limited support ...to more fully understand the path and potential attacks from the other side.”

Sbaih said he did not record that meeting with Lambe, or the one he had with Reid a few weeks later.

To bolster his account, Sbaih supplied both emails and text messages from the time, in which he tells another Reid ally that he is “profoundly disheartened and saddened that the Democratic Party is refusing to accept a candidate like me because of my religion and ethnicity.”

Sbaih is still in the House race, but now is facing competition from another Democrat: Jacky Rosen. Rosen, the president of a Las Vegas-area synagogue, is also making her first run for office.

She was recruited by Reid himself, according to Jon Ralston, Nevada’s best-known political reporter.

“She’s been a community leader for years here,” Orthman said, explaining why Reid had recruited a political novice, after criticizing Sbaih for his own lack of experience. “Jesse’s new to the scene.”

Now, back to the e-mail I got from Sbaih's campaign. They asked me to call if I was interested in interviewing him. I did-- and left a message. I haven't heard back yet. They appear to be going public because Reid is pulling all the crap on Sbaih that the Establishment DC types always pull on progressive candidates-- what Steve Israel does, what Zoe Lofgren does, what Chuck Schumer does, what Wasserman Schultz and Steny Hoyer do. Reid, Washington wrote, has "made repeated attempts to obstruct Jesse's campaign by calling staffers, prospective vendors, donors, unions, and national organizations telling them they were not to support Jesse in his congressional bid." Doesn't that sound familiar? Its exactly what Steny Hoyer did to try to drive Matt Cartwright out of his congressional run. It's exactly what Chuck Schumer is doing to Joe Sestak and Alan Grayson today.

"Furthermore," they wrote to me, "after his August meeting with Senator Reid, the Senator's staff offered Jesse a presidential appointment with an obscure committee at a high rate of pay to try to force Jesse out of the state. Jesse would not accept that offer and has chosen to continue running in hopes of giving back to the people of his district."

Would Obama ever do anything like that? Umm... always. That's a common tactic they use. I just happened to mention it yesterday in a look back at the 2010 Pennsylvania primary when Obama offered Joe Sestak a job if he'd get out of the race against Arlen Specter. Voters are catching on to this Mafia-oriented approach to politics though. Cartwright kicked Hoyer's Blue Dog candidate's ass. Sestak beat Specter handily. And I had to laugh last week when I saw a poll of Florida voters that set up an interesting question: "The national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has endorsed Congressman Patrick Murphy in the U.S. Senate primary. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has publicly called on Alan Grayson to drop out of the race. Does this make you more likely to support Patrick Murphy, more likely to support Alan Grayson, or does it not affect your preference in the race?

15% of those polled said it made them more likely to support Murphy but 24% said it made them more likely to support Grayson. And when respondents were asked at the end who they would vote for in the late August primary, 39% said Grayson and 23% said Murphy.

Reid and Sbaih