Don't Be So Sure The Democratic Party Has Moved Left The Way The Corporate Media Says It Has

The Morning Consult poll released by Politico this morning shows an electorate moving sharply left... at least on taxing the super-wealthy. The two party establishments may not like the progressive tax reform ideas Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and AOC are bringing up, but the voters do-- overwhelmingly. The Morning Consult poll shows 76% of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70% of Americans favor AOC's proposal that taxes need to go up on those earning over $10 million-- including 54% of Republicans. Warren's wealth tax proposal is opposed by just 20% of voters, while 61% want to see it enacted. "It’s not surprising to me at all," said Senator Warren. "Washington has been working so long for the billionaire class that people around here cannot imagine crossing them. It never even becomes a topic of conversation. The ultra-millionaires have gotten so much from this country that it’s not unreasonable to ask them to give back a little bit."

The numbers suggest the political ground upon which the 2020 pres-idential cam-paign will be fought is shifting in dramatic ways, reflecting the rise in inequality in the United States and growing concerns in the electorate about the fairness of the American system.

“There is a deep wellspring in terms of perception of unfairness in the economy that’s been tapped into here that either didn’t exist five years ago or existed and had not had a chance to be expressed,” said Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management who has studied the latest tax proposals. “This is quite a moment in American economic history where all of a sudden in a matter of months this thing has kind of exploded like this.”

Voters seem to be moving left a lot faster than the status quo-oriented Democratic Party establishment is. Nevertheless, writing for The Intercept early Sunday morning, Shaun King exclaimed cautious optimism about the 2020 Democratic Party. Obviously, no one needs King to tell us that 2016 was a disaster that "caused real harm to legions of everyday Americans." One of the reasons he's optimistic is because he sees the party embracing progressive ideas.

A few years ago, if you supported “Medicare for All,” you were probably either a hippie, a Bernie supporter, or both. Today, polls show that 70 percent of Americans like it, and mainstream Democrats are finally embracing it publicly. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez began talking about how essential it is that the United States embrace a “Green New Deal,” on Day 1 her idea only had support from a few of her closest allies in government. In just a few weeks’ time, you’d now struggle to find a Democrat who doesn’t support it. Speaking of Ocasio-Cortez, she’s got the entire country talking about finally making the ultra-rich pay their fair share of taxes. And a few years ago, I struggled to find a single mainstream Democrat talking about ending cash bail or decriminalizing weed-- now those are basic talking points for presidential candidates.

I’m glad about all of this, but here’s why I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s easy as hell to talk about your bold policy choices when your party doesn’t have the power to enact them. I just want to make sure the Democrats don’t lose their nerve when it matters most.

Not 70% of the Democrats in Congress-- not even half

I'm less optimistic than Shaun. He thinks that because the presidential candidates have been hiring minority staffers there's a better chance that they won't-- let's call it-- sell out or wimp out. Good luck with that, buddy. That Julián Castro hired an amazing black woman, a highly skilled organizer named Maya Rupert, as his campaign manager, is a good thing on many levels. That it's a reason to be optimistic, even cautiously, about the Democratic Party... I wish I could find the new MSNBC promo for Chris Hayes' show. Or even just remember it exactly. It's about how his show will cut through all the bullshit and noice to get to what's really important in the election: who candidates are going to fight for and how believable and capable they are.

A couple of days ago, Les Leopold, writing for CommonDreams.org warned readers to Beware the Moderate Democrat. Like me, Leopold resents how the corporate media has given the word "moderate" over to those on the right of the Democratic Party. "Such a soothing political word," he wrote. "It conjures up a reasonable, considerate person who seeks the middle ground between ideological extremists: Works well with others, crosses the aisle to make good policy, knows how to win incremental change rather than issuing jarring proclamations that jump too far ahead of the electorate. A moderate is pragmatic, gets things done and doesn't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Oh, in these troubled times, aren't such moderates-- beloved as they are by right-wingers like Bret Stephens-- desperately needed?"

Get ready to hear more and more of that from mainstream media pundits as the Democratic Party moves more towards the kind of progressive populism put forward by the Sanders/AOC wing of the party. We'll be asked by centrist journalists to take a careful look at more reasonable moderates like Gillibrand, McAuliffe, Bloomberg, Biden, Booker, Landrieu and many more (e.g. Is There Room in 2020 for a Centrist Democrat? and The Loneliness of a Moderate Democrat).

But what is the substance of all this centrism and moderation?

First and foremost, these moderates are united by their unwillingness to take on Wall Street. And because of that unwillingness, they are unable to confront the defining problem of our era-- runaway inequality.  They cannot face up to the fact that the wages of the average worker have been stagnant for an entire generation. Meanwhile the pay gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker has risen from 40 to 1 in 1980 to an obscene 800 to 1 today.

The centrists run away from this problem in large part because they are in a desperate race to win the very first primary-- the fundraising primary. And it is no secret that victory goes to the candidate who garners the most financial support from Wall Street/corporate Democrats.

Rather than discussing runaway inequality and ways to ameliorate it through Medicare for All, free higher education, and higher taxes on the super-rich, these moderates instead will stress enhancing "opportunity," and "removing barriers" to race/gender advancement.  Rather than confronting billionaire oligarchs they want to "partner with business" and, in some vague way tame their excesses while also building a robust and fair economy with "opportunity for all." No conflict needed. No diatribes against the billionaire class. Hear the melodious tones of moderation.

From this coziness with Wall Street flows the trope about being "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative."  The moderate centrists, and their Wall Street donors, support LBTQ rights, the advancement of women in business, immigration and criminal justice reform, gun control, and abortion rights.  At the same time, they believe the entire progressive runaway inequality platform is an affront to economic reason: High taxes on the rich will discourage initiative and innovation; single-payer health care and free higher education will bankrupt the country; breaking up the big banks will cripple investment and jobs.

Of course, the moderates must ignore the reams of data from all over the world that show that these progressive reforms would reduce inequality and enhance the well-being of nearly everyone, though it is true that reducing inequality would harm-- at least to some extent-- the precious privileges of the very few. The super-rich would have to pay more. They would no longer be able to financially strip mine the rest of us through wasteful stock buy-backs.  Their billions would be reduced a bit. But most alarming would be their deflated egos: No longer could they bask in the false narrative that what is so very good for them is good for all of us.

But do "moderates" represent anyone other than their Wall Street donors? Is there a mass base for the kind of moderation they are putting forward?

Let's take a look at the eye-popping data from the 2016 presidential election, put together by the Voter Survey Group, which polled 8,000 Americans (a very large sample which is eight to fifteen times larger than most of the surveys we usually see in the news.) A study of these voters showed that they could be divided into four major groups.  (See Lee Drutman, Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyond. Note: the title names used below are mine not his.).

• The first group, Left Populists, are those who are both social and economic progressives. They support immigration, women and minority equality, LBGTQ rights and immigration. They also worry about rising inequality and support proposals that would attack it.
• The second group, Nativist Populists, also worry about rising inequality and support proposals that attack it. But they are more comfortable with traditional gender roles, have qualms about abortion, see immigration as a problem and are not particularly supportive about LBGTQ rights.
• The third group are the Arch Conservatives who are not interested in reversing economic inequality or social inequality.
• And finally we have the Socially Liberal/Fiscal Conservatives. This is the home base for the "moderate" politicians who are wooing Wall Street and see themselves as the sensible alternatives to the extremist populists.

So more or less, that's who we are.  If the electorate were equally divided among these four groups, the "moderates" might have an argument. The facts tell a different story:

• Left Populists account for 44.6 percent of the electorate according to this study.
• 28.9 percent are Nativist Populists. This means that nearly three-quarters of all voters fear runaway inequality and want to reduce it. But these economic populists are divided on identity issues.
• Arch Conservatives account for another 22.7 percent.
• And that leaves a miniscule 3.8 percent for the Socially Liberal/Fiscal conservatives.

How pathetic is that? It goes to show how out of touch these billionaires and their accolades are from political reality. They have no base. Nada. There's no one there... except very rich Wall Street/Corporate funders and centrist pundits who feel compelled to find a judicious balance between left and right.

Danger Ahead

The data shows why Trump's nativist, race-baiting, immigrant-bashing base-building makes some electoral sense. If he can hold both the Nativist Populists and the Arch Conservatives he can win again. And he can do that most easily against a candidate with virtually no natural base-- the "moderate"-- the Socially Liberal/Fiscally Conservative Democrat.

Given enough financial support, a "moderate" might be able to buy her or his way through the Democratic primaries, especially if many candidates split the progressive populist vote. One could imagine one of the "moderates" becoming a media darling of the center, which might further enhance his or her status.

But should one of them squeak through to become the nominee, we might have a Democratic debacle. The nativist economic populists on the right might flock back to Trump along with the arch conservatives who will never leave him. Trump may look incredibly weak now, but a Wall Street-backed Democratic "moderate" with a natural base of 3.8 percent could give the worst president in American history a real chance.

Jim Hightower, the great Texan populist, turned a phrase that comes to mind every time a Wall Street "moderate" is touted.

"There's nothing in the middle of the road," he famously quipped, "but yellow stripes and dead Armadillos."

And even Jim Hightower fully embraced Beto, even as Beto, an unabashed New Dem, was one of the minority of Democrats in the House, when he was a unaccomplished backbencher there, refusing to support Medicare-For-All. Don't even ask about the Green New Deal. I can barely wait to hear him discussing AOC's proposal for a 60-70% marginal tax rate on annual earnings of over $10 million.

The DCCC Screwed Up A Primary In Houston But They Didn't Learn Their Lesson-- And Now They're Doing It In Dallas

Very much by design, the DCCC doesn't have a Regional Vice Chair for the area of the country that includes Texas rand Colorado. That gives the national headquarters and their incompetence staffers an opportunity to do whatever they want without adult supervision-- like the catastrophe they caused in Houston, a catastrophe they seem hellbent to repeat in Dallas now. TX-32 is a district held by a corrupt conservative Republican, Pete Sessions. The district, which has been gerrymandered again and again to keep it as white as it could be to make it "safe" to Sessions. Looks like demographics have finally caught top with the GOP on this one. This prosperous North Dallas area is surrounded by more diverse neighborhoods and even though the GOP cut out minority areas around Irving and Grand Prairie, dropping the Hispanic part of the population significantly, the district is just 50% white. The R+10 is now just R+5 and Romney's 57-41% win over Obama turned into a 2016 Hillary win over Trump (48.5% to 46.6%). Sessions is looked at as a vulnerable incumbent, especially in a wave cycle like the one we're experiencing.

Two Obama alumni, Colin Allred and Lillian Salerno came in at the top of the primary and will now face off in a May 22 primary. Yesterday the DCCC announced they were putting their fat fingers on the scale against Lillian-- the more progressive candidate-- and put Allred on their Red to Blue list. I might add that when the DCCC pulls shenanigans like this, they usually say the other candidate in not financially viable. In this case the two candidates are about even. As of the February 14 FEC reporting deadline Allred had raised $541,064 and had $74,821 in his war chest. Salerno had raised $430,783 and had $164,698 in her war chest.

Salerno responded with a press release that emphasized that "Folks here are sick and tired of a bunch of Washington insiders trying to make their decisions for them. But I’m not scared-- I’ve stood up to power and fought for what’s right my entire life. Our campaign is confident and remains focused on sharing our vision with voters: electing a fighter who will get results for working families. Texas hasn’t elected a new woman to Congress in twenty-two years, and we’re not taking it anymore. The DCCC would do well to remember: Don’t mess with Texas women."

Her campaign manager Jeanne Stuart, hit back at a DCCC on the rampage against progressives and against local democracy: "After the DCCC’s embarrassing stumble attacking candidate Laura Moser, they have not learned their lesson. Texas Democrats know better than some Washington D.C. committee that’s trying to tip the scales. 62% of primary voters did not vote for Colin, and we are confident we will win the run-off and that Lillian is the strongest candidate to beat Pete Sessions in November.

Progressive activist and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Jim Hightower went further yet: "The D-triple-C has gone d-triple-crazy, barging into local elections like clueless, antidemocratic potentates. Lillian is a strong Texas Democrat. She knows how to take-on Sessions and win-- despite what the party’s corporate establishment wants."

Two more powerful surrogates weighed in against the DCCC's interference. Betty Ritchie is the Chair of the DNC Rural Council and Secretary of the DNC Women’s Caucus. She knows the candidates and said that "Lillian is a fighter through and through. The voters of Congressional District 32 will see that Lillian has stood up for people her whole life. She’s the only candidate that can take on Pete Sessions, and is unafraid of going up against the powerful." Lenna Webb, President of North Dallas Texas Democratic Women, agreed wholeheartedly, "We’re witnessing an unprecedented surge of activism here in North Texas, with thousands of concerned citizens organizing in their communities to beat Pete Sessions. Voters are deeply engaged in evaluating Democratic candidates in CD-32, and deserve the opportunity to make this decision for themselves. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee should step back and let voters decide."

This is what I can tell you as a person looking at this for over a decade: the DCCC has no idea how to win, especially in Texas. The harder Democrats run away from their failed machine, the better they do. Want to beat Pete Sessions? How about a hard-nosed, authentic, lifelong Texan who has battled big pharma, insurance companies, and big corporate Ag to help working families, nurses, and family farmers. That's Lillian Salerno. But the DCCC is so out-of-touch that they not only ignore Lillian, but they try to tip the scales to her opponent whose experience can be counted in months not years. It makes me want to scream, and Dallas Democrats shouldn't have to suffer two more years of Pete Sessions because of this stupidity. I got Lillian on the phone this morning and asked her directly what she thinks about the DCCC coming in and supporting her opponent? If you'd like to contribute to her campaign, please click on the Blue America 2018 congressional thermometer on the right. This is what she told me:

This move shows why we need new leadership in Congress. This is an attack on those of us in Texas who are trying to elect new leadership to Washington. Folks here are sick and tired of a bunch of DC insiders trying to make their decisions for them. Our campaign is confident and remains focused on sharing our vision with voters: electing a proven Texas Democrat who will get results for working families. Let the people of Texas decide."

Last night Abby Livingston wrote the controversy up for the Texas Tribune, noting that "In past cycles, the DCCC has named districts to its Red to Blue program, rather than specific candidates, to avoid these kinds of flare-ups." The DCCC also endorsed the less progressive candidate, retired Air Force Intelligence Officer Gina Ortiz Jones, over progressive Rick Treviño.

This morning Treviño told his supporters that "The DCCC has just announced they want to pick the winner of our primary-- and they don't want the progressive. They want to control our elections in West Texas because they want their consultant friends in Washington to get rich by running high-dollar candidates. They don't care what happens to us after they lose another race. It's disrespectful to the people who live here, and we don't have to take it. In today's Washington, the working class doesn't have a voice. That's just a fact. The Democratic Party has been losing up and down the ballot because the political establishment keeps forcing candidates on us that will pay big bucks to their consultants instead of fighting for the working class. If we want to win again, we can't let the DCCC keep derailing progressive change. When I travel around this district, from San Antonio to the colonias, I see the result of the DCCC's constant failure to win. People who live outside gated communities too often lack even the basic services that should be their right to expect in a rich country like the United States. Last year, they let Will Hurd get away with winning by one percent of the vote, and because of that, the one-percent keeps getting its way in Congress. It's time to win again for the working class. There are enough insiders on the ballot. We need a Member of Congress who has been fighting for the working folks here for their entire career, not another D.C. insider. The DCCC doesn't understand what life is like here, and they don't know how to win. But you and I do: we win by standing with working people and fighting for a progressive future."

From Wisconsin... To Florida

I'm the most upbeat guy you'll ever meet, always optimistic and if you started reading this blog any time since 2005, you never heard me say "I'm depressed." But Tuesday evening I was. (I was better by yesterday, cheery as ever.) Most people would say I might have been depressed because I had a chemo "tune-up" and got a bunch of drugs pumped into me including stuff that made me semi-delirious. But no, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I was even happy about that because one drug that usually takes 4-5 hours to infuse now only takes 90 minutes because I react so well to the process. And 90 minutes... instead of 4-5 hours... you can imagine! Anyway, it was the returns from Tuesday's Wisconsin primary that got me depressed Tuesday.

I knew defeating Ryan was the longest of long shots and something like that could never get me down. In fact, I thought it was funny that despite Señor Trumpanzee's obvious disdain for Ryan and despite his girl-squad-- Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schlafly-- all campaigning their black little hearts out for Nehlen, Ryan still got84% of the vote. Nope, it wasn't the first district that bothered me. It was the third, Ron Kind's district, which sprawls from Eau Claire, Menomonie and Stevens Point down to La Crosse and the Iowa border across from Dubuque. As I explained the other day, It's a solidly Democratic district-- PVI is D+5 and Obama won it both times by double digits-- but it is represented in Congress by reactionary corporate shill Ron Kind, an affable Wall Street pawn who is head of the New Dems (basically, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party). Thanks to the corporate crooks he works for-- the insurance industry, Pharma and investment firms are his biggest donors-- Kind, who has no Republican opponent (the GOP loves him), had $2,247,137 cash on hand. The progressive in the race was a Berniecrat, Myron Buchholz. And, it wasn't even close.

• Ron Kind- 33,283 (81%)
• Myron Buchholz- 7,680 (19%)

Hey, you win some, you lose some... and Blue America didn't even get involved in this low-profile race (which I regret). But that isn't the point. There are 18 counties in WI-03-- all blue-- but the biggest in terms of population, the ones that determine how elections go in the district are La Crosse, Eau Claire, Portage, Grant and Wood. Bernie won every one of those counties-- in fact, Bernie won all 18 counties that make up WI-03. These were Bernie's percentages against Hillary in the primary:

• La Crosse- 62.8%
• Eau Claire- 63.9%
• Portage- 64.7%
• Grant- 59.3%
• Wood- 60.2%

There were no close calls. In La Crosse County alone, Bernie's 15,139 votes was almost double what Buchholtz got district-wide! Now that's depressing! Had Bernie voters turned out, just in Eau Claire, La Crosse and Portage counties-- just those 3 of the 18-- the head of the New Dems wouldn't be going back to Congress in 2017 to plot with the Republicans how to pass the TPP and cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Instead another Bernie-agenda progressive would have been fighting alongside Keith Ellison, Raul Gijalva and, hopefully, Zephyr Teachout, Pramila Jayapal and Tim Canova to expand Social Security and healthcare and to help switch the country over from "free trade" to fair trade.

But nope... great that tens of thousands of western Wisconsin Democratsturned out to vote for Bernie but... why sit out the congressional primary? Why? Why? Why? Please don't let this happen in Florida, where really excellent progressives like Alan Grayson, Tim Canova and Annette Taddeo are running tough primary battles against reactionary nightmares Patrick Murphy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Garcia. Grayson wrote about it from a Senate perspective Tuesday:

One by one, the Party Establishment has defeated progressive Senate candidates this year, elevating ConservaDems over them.

In Ohio, the Establishment helped Ted Strickland defeat P.G. Sittenfeld. The NRA gives Strickland an “A” rating.

In Illinois, the Establishment helped Tammy Duckworth defeat the President of the Chicago Urban League, Andrea Zopp.

In Maryland, the Establishment helped Chris Van Hollen defeat Rep. Donna Edwards. If she had been elected, Edwards would have been only the second African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

In Pennsylvania, the Establishment spent $3 million in the primary to push Katie McGinty across the finish line, against John Fetterman and Joe Sestak.

In Nevada, the Establishment helped Catherine Cortez Masto defeat a Black Lives Matter activist.

And here in Florida, the Party Establishment already has sunk a million dollars into a TV ad campaign to try to prevent me from winning the nomination.

...Weirdly, it’s the GOP that seems to have adopted the salutary principle of “may the best candidate win.” But on our side, the Party Politburo employs every trick in the book to dictate the outcome of our primaries. And they are using their power to purge the party of progressive champions.

We can’t let that happen. We can’t allow the Democratic Party to become the Un-Democratic Party.

This is our last chance. Ruthless party bosses have tripped up, sandbagged or decapitated virtually every other progressive Senate candidate in the entire country. If you want to see a progressive champion elected to the U.S. Senate, it’s now or never.

With just three weeks to go before our Democratic Primary, I need your help... Just remember, the Democratic Party belongs to us, not them.

The primaries in Florida are August 30-- less than 3 weeks away. If you click on the thermometer below, you'll see all the Blue America-backed Floirida candidates, the best in each race-- from U.S. Senate to the state House of Representatives in Tallahassee. Please help make August 30 joyous, not depressing.

Those DCCC Emails Will Still Be Generated Even When Only Cockroaches Remain On The Planet

Neither gone nor forgotten

The DCCC is still sending out their despised e-mails. Wednesday, deposed committee chairman, Steve Israel, sent one titled "I'm So Proud." The greatest failure in the history of the committee but he's proud... why? Because, he says, "Moments ago, we learned that we beat Boehner in one of the last uncalled Congressional races. This one was Republicans’ top target in the entire country. The Republicans spent a fortune to elect Obamacare-repealing, Social Security privatizing extremist Doug Ose. In fact, Boehner, Rove, and the Republican outside groups spent more money to win California’s 7th district than any other race in the country. On Election Night, the race was too-close-to-call. But in the end, their right-wing cash was no match for your grassroots strength. Your donations and volunteer hours allowed us to reach out to key voters over 126,000 times-- and pull off a big victory!" The sad little man is in serious denial-- and because Pelosi gave him another undeserved leadership position, he's putting the Democratic Party in serious jeopardy. Obama won that California district both times he ran. It was so close because the wretched New Dem incumbent is utterly unqualified to be in Congress or to represent himself as a Democrat. His crap, tepid voting record-- a ProgressivePunch crucial lifetime progressive score of 51.54%-- inspired contempt from Republicans and confused resignation from Democrats.

Of course it wasn't just the discredited Israel-- discredited everywhere except in the minds of Pelosi's geriatric leadership clique-- who was sending out pitifully self-justifying e-mails. One DCCC staffer bragged about how they won races because they spent money on them. They also lost races-- far more-- that they spent money on. "Nearly half (47%) of the DCCC IE dollars were invested in races that House Democrats won," she wrote. Really? Well over half was spent on races they lost. And she's as excited as Israel is that of the 14 races too close to call on Election Night, Dems have won 13 so far and Republicans have won none. Is that some kind of a new benchmark we should be measuring success by? Races in blue districts that should never have been close to begin with wind up being won?

This morning, I was going through an old copy of The Nation from 2002, soon after the Republicans won a midterm and claimed a mandate. Jim Hightower-- remember a dozen years ago-- wrote about what the Beltway Democrats must do to regain the trust of grassroots voters-- "Only if the party gets a clue, gets a program and gets with the people." They didn't and they won't now either, not with the sad sacks running the DC party leadership.

PROGRAM: To get them, the party has to get a program, because (here's another wacky concept) people tend to vote when their self-interest is touched. So let's touch it, unabashedly and unequivocally, by offering a short to-do list that would include such measurable benefits as (1) a tax cut for working stiffs: remove the cap (now $85,000) on the grossly regressive payroll tax, reduce the percentage bite and spread the burden up to include the billionaires' club; (2) healthcare for all, provided by a single-payer system; (3) free education for everyone, preschool through higher ed, modeled after the enormously successful GI Bill; (4) energy independence for America through a ten-year moonshot project that'll put Americans to work building an oil-free future based on alternative technologies and systems; (5) public financing of all elections, so we can get our government back from the greedheads; and (6) [Add Your Favorite Here]. A six-pack is plenty. Stay focused.

PEOPLE: Get out of Washington, literally and figuratively. At present, progressive groups and funders direct probably 80 percent of our energy, talent and money toward DC, putting only 20 percent into the countryside. Yet our strength is not inside the Beltway but out here, where people are doing great things and wondering why the Democratic Party isn't with them. Reverse that ratio. Start by scrubbing McAuliffe's $28 million plan to upscale the party's headquarters, move the DNC's whole kit and caboodle into an abandoned, gone-to-China factory somewhere in the heartland and put the money into building a grassroots organization that communicates, organizes and mobilizes across America, block by block.

Politics can't be viewed as something that involves people only in the last thirty days of an election. Rather, to be a movement capable of governing, it has to be rooted in people's reality. In addition to high-tech outreach, we have to get back to a high-touch politics that physically, emotionally and soulfully connects with people's lives 365 days a year. Yes, talk issues. But through potluck suppers, block parties, festivals, salons and saloons. Fewer Meetings, More Fun. There's a bumper sticker.

Nothing's more fun than winning, and it's time to tell the Democratic jefes that winning in politics requires getting more people (not more money) than the other side gets. To get people, there has to be a long-term strategy of going to them with something of interest. As the fighting populist Fred Harris puts it: "You can't have a mass movement without the masses."

And another DCCC e-mail, this one from Ben Ray Luján, right after he announced he would keep the incompetent Executive Director and the entire incompetent, corrupt staff in place: "My name is Ben Ray Luján. I’m honored to be emailing you as the new Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. There’s so much I want to say, but right now we don’t have time for pleasantries." And then he asked everyone to sign a petition so the DCCC can harvest contact info they can monetize.

The 50 House Republicans Who Hate Poor People The Most

Republican in-fighting between conservatives and the neo-fascist radicals that have been challenging them, derailed the Farm Bill in 2012. This year Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy agreed to slash food stamps really badly and figured they would pass the bloated bill subsidizing wealthy farming operations (and scammers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan). They figured wrong. For too many of the extremists, slashing wasn't want they wanted. They want the program... well, drown in a bathtub.

So on Thursday, Boehner and crew passed the bill without a single Democratic vote, not even from the worst, most right-wing mangy Blue Dogs and New Dems. Even "Democrats" like Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Bill Owens (New Dem-NY), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), John Barrow (New Dem/Blue Dog-GA), Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ), Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Mike McIntyre (New Dem/Blue Dog-NC)-- whose default positions are to vote Republican-- abandoned Boehner and Cantor on this one. Not even the corrupt servant of the AgriBusiness lobbyists, Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), could bring himself to vote for this monstrosity.

The bill failed on June 20th-- 195-234-- because 62 Republicans refused top vote for it. Thursday only 12 voted against it. So 50 switched their votes because they preferred a version with NO food stamps over the earlier version which just severely cut back the food stamps program. These are the animals who voted NO on June 20th and YES on Thursday:

• Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
• Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
• Kevin Brady (R-TX)
• Jim Bridenstine (R-OK)
• Paul Broun (R-Pit of Hell)
• Steve Chabot (R-OH)
• Mike Coffman (R-CO)
• Doug Collins (R-GA)
• Tom Cotton (R-AR)
• John Culberson (R-TX)
• Jeff Duncan (R-SC)
• John Fleming (R-LA)
• Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
• Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
• Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
• Trey Gowdy (R-SC)
• Tom Graves (R-GA)
• Joe Heck (R-NV)
• Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
• Robert Hurt (R-VA)
• Jim Jordan (R-OH)
• Raul Labrador (R-ID)
• Doug Lamborn (R-OK)
• Leonard Lance (R-NJ)
• Tom Massie (R-KY)
• Pat Meehan (R-PA)
• Jeff Miller (R-FL)
• Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)
• Scott Perry (R-PA)
• Robert Pittenger (R-NC)
• Joe Pitts (R-PA)
• Mike Pompeo (R-Koch)
• Bill Posey (R-FL)
• Tom Price (R-GA)
• Trey Radel (R-FL)
• Scott Rigell (R-VA)
• Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
• Keith Rothfus (R-PA)
• Ed Royce (R-CA)
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)
• Steve Scalise (R-LA)
• David Schweikert (R-AZ)
• Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
• Bill Shuster (R-PA)
• Chris Smith (R-NJ)
• Steve Stockman (R-TX)
• Marlin Stutzman (R-IN)
• Brad Wenstrup (R-OH)
• Frank Wolf (R-VA)
• Don Young (R-AK)

Surprised to find Paul Ryan on that list? Jim Hightower wouldn't be: "The GOP’s budget demigod in the U.S. House, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), expressed this dogma in a fanciful homily deriding America’s safety net as "a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” This from a guy whose family’s wealth was gained from government contacts and who has spent practically all of his adult life in the sweet-swaying hammock of congressional privilege, presently drawing $174,000 a year from Old Uncle Sugar."

Behind this faux-philosophical push are the smiling barons of corporate America. Without jobless payments, you see, desperate millions will be forced to whatever low-wage, no-benefit, dead-end jobs the barons design.

What’s at work here is a profoundly awful ethical phenomenon that has seeped into the top strata of American society: Our nation’s corporate and political elites have developed an immunity to shame.

It has become morally acceptable in those lofty circles to enrich themselves while turning their backs on the rest of us. Even more damning, they feel free to slash America’s already tattered safety net, leaving more holes than net for the workaday majority of Americans who’ve been knocked down by an ongoing economic disaster created by these very elites.

Odd that the U.S. announced a $116.5 billion monthly surplus Thursday, just before the GOP decided to try to end the food stamps program. Maybe they want to save that money for another war soon. Meanwhile, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) released a joint statement after the grotesque vote.

“The bill passed today will increase hunger in America. The removal of the nutrition provisions from the bill will make life harder for working Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to feed their families. Republicans have cleared dinner tables around the country before our children have a chance to eat.

“America’s farmers, who will benefit the most from this bill, are against it because they know we shouldn’t have to choose between our farming neighbors and the hungry. The SNAP program provides 47 million people with the assistance they need to buy the food our farmers grow.

“Millions of working families are getting by on less and less, but Republicans continue to introduce bills that make it harder to get by in America. The bill passed today makes going hungry a real possibility for too many families. Feeding your children should never be a question in the richest nation in the world.”