Will Farmers Squeezed By Trump's Trade War Vote For Democrats On Tuesday?

No one ever accused the DCCC of being able to chew gum and walk at the same time. This cycle the catastrophic loser organization is totally obsessed with suburban districts and, generally speaking, ignoring rural voters. That's a shame, because many rural voters are open an alternative to Trump rubber stamps. Yesterday McClatchy reported that "many of those feeling the greatest pain from tariffs the United States and China have put on $50 billion of goods are rural Trump voters... Family farmers have lost billions in profits as a whole. They hate the tariffs," but many Trump supporters "don’t appear to be jumping ship. At least not yet." Not yet in deep red Missouri-- but in other areas people in the farm economy are figuring just how bad Trump and his policies and his enablers are for them and their families.

Progressive Democrat Audrey Denney has been working with farmers "one at a time," she told us, during her 10 month campaign in rural northeast California (CA-01 an R+11 Trump district that only gave Hillary 36% of its vote), "learning about how the administration's policies are harming them-- and what they need from a Representative. I’m confident a fair amount of the agricultural community will be casting their ballots for our campaign this November."

Yesterday she was endorsed by the conservative editorial board of the Chico Enterprise Record-- which "hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for Congress for decades, probably all the way back to conservative Democrat Buzz Johnson in the 1970s." The editors wrote that they "don’t take the endorsement lightly." This huge rural district, they feel, needs new representation in Washington:

We certainly hope LaMalfa realizes Trump is uninformed when he blames California wildfires on environmentalists and a lack of water. Does LaMalfa really think it would be good to raise Shasta Dam and displace homes, roads and bridges? He has no problem sending more north state water to the San Joaquin Valley at the expense of the delta? He doesn’t realize that Trump’s tariff war with China and other trade partners is hurting farmers right here? Or that Congress’ inability to enact any sort of immigration reform means some north state farmers can’t find workers to help harvest the crop? Or that it’s better to work with our neighbors in the Mexican government to secure our borders than to alienate them? Or that Trump’s racist dog whistles aimed at blacks, Hispanics and Muslims are offensive to people right here in his district?

Last night James Thompson, a progressive Democrat running in the Wichita area of Kansas, told us that "This Halloween, our soybean farmers are not getting any treats but they all are feeling tricked. One ag producer here in the fourth district of Kansas lost $200,000 because of the Trump tariffs, but will only recover $50,000 because of the bailout. Ag producers, particularly family farms, are feeling the effects of the disastrous tariffs. Unfortunately, many will still vote straight line Republican even though they are voting against there own interests in doing so. Fortunately, many in rural communities have had enough and are also crossing the aisle to vote for me. Ag producers, veterans, small business owners, teachers, and seniors should all be voting for Democrats because Republicans are hurting all of them."

Last year, the United States exported about $20 billion of agricultural products to China of which soybeans accounted for more than half of that amount.

Trump’s 25 percent tariffs are mainly aimed at curbing imports from China, but Beijing retaliated with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans and pork.

Soybean prices fell by about 20 percent after the tariffs were enacted, and have dropped from a high of $10 a bushel to about $8.50 today.

Trump insists he can save American jobs and factories by reworking trade deals. He’s making that case directly to sensitive farmers caught in the crossfire with Beijing during the final campaign stretch largely through corn and soybean country, including two stops in Missouri.

“Don’t forget, we’re the piggybank that everybody wants to steal from,” Trump told farmers attending the Future Farmers of America’s annual convention in Indianapolis on Saturday. “Everybody. We have all the cards, but nobody has ever chosen to use those cards. Honestly, nobody has ever known that we had the cards. They never got it. But we get it now.”

To ease the impact of the tariffs-- and keep the rural vote-- Trump announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers earlier this year. Trump will visit Columbia, Mo., on Thursday and Cape Girardeau next week where he’ll throw his support behind Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley in one of the most hotly contested Senate races. Trump sees the chance to defeat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill as one of the best opportunities to pick up a key Democratic seat.

But the tariffs are the wild card in this year’s election.

Only 28 percent of Missouri registered voters think the Trump tariffs and barriers to imports will protect American jobs and help the U.S. economy, according to a recent NBC News/Marist poll. Forty-four percent says it will hurt the U.S. economy and raise the cost of consumer goods.

Mix in other factors such as the absence of a farm bill and unpredictable weather-- Missouri experienced a long drought this year-- and farming is a high risk industry. Farm income has dropped more than 50 percent in the last five years, according to the American Farm Bureau.

“So farmers are getting squeezed on both sides,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade.

David Keith moved from New Jersey to Racine last year to manage Randy Bryce's congressional campaign. Neither he nor Randy is a farmer or part of the farm economy. David told us that, as an "ironworker who has spent the last 20 years making a living by literally working with his hands Randy feels a kinship with the people who work as hard and are as dedicated to the farmers he's met in the district." David told us that "Randy's seen what extremists' policies do to his bottom line and his ability to get by, take care of his family, and have a shot at staying in the middle class. Randy and the farming community in Southeast Wisconsin know that Washington DC-- Trump included-- is full of bullshit artists who put profit and politics ahead of people... just like Paul Ryan and Bryan Steil. Farmers and all working people alike will be coming together next Tuesday to make history, and elect a regular working person to Washington. All working families will benefit, rural and urban."

Mike Siegel, progressive Democrat challenging reactionary Congressman Michael McCaul in TX-10, told us this afternoon that "The Republicans are testing whether they can motivate rural voters with fear, even while Trump's policies cause the same constituents to go hungry. I am in seven rural counties offering a program of Medicare-for-All, a living wage, and infrastructure investment including high-speed Internet. My opponent, Michael McCaul, wants to talk about a couple thousand refugees who are thousands of miles away and may never even reach the US border. What remains to be seen is whether imaginary enemies are more persuasive than real-life needs. Regardless of the outcome of this election, Texas Democrats will need to continue to conduct rural outreach beyond November 6, to build on the amazing foundation laid by this election cycle. We have put in place relationships and infrastructure that will lead to lasting change in the years ahead, so long as we continue to do the detailed work of showing up, listening, and offering real solutions to the problems of rural America."

Leah Douglas, writing for Mother Jones last month noted how important the traditionally Republican farm vote is for Jess King in southern Pennsylvania. This is family farm country and the GOP hasn't been looking out for their interests.

Her campaign is built on a small army of volunteers who knock on doors, make calls, and engage with voters in person—an old-school effort in an age of PACs and polls. King’s supporters all say the same thing about the candidate: She listens to what people say they need, and builds those needs into her policy priorities. That level of attention is particularly meaningful to local farmers, who feel forgotten by federal policy and neglected by local officials. King is proud that her average campaign donation is $35, and claims that her campaign has mobilized more people than any other Democratic campaign in the district’s history.

The result is something of a local phenomenon. Diane House, a retired teacher who has lived in Lancaster for 30 years and is involved in the local Democratic party, says that there is more excitement for King than for any Democrat who’s ever run for Congress in the area. “She’s there for all of us,” House says. “It’s a kind of Jess movement.”

But the odds of her winning are still long. While Lancaster City, a town of some 60,000, is reliably Democratic, the surrounding rural areas are not. If King is to win, it will require a critical mass of farmers to break with tradition and embrace her upstart candidacy-- a shift that, for many, would be tantamount to assuming a new identity.

...[E]conomic strain has led some farmers to reconsider their vote as the midterms approach. “Farmers are feeling disillusioned with politicians,” says Mike Eby, a local dairy farmer and board chair of the National Dairy Producers Organization. He says they’ve “woken up to the reality” that major agriculture lobbies, and the Republican officials they fund, aren’t always working purely in the interest of the farmer.

“There’s been a lot of propaganda out there for many years” from Republicans who say they represent farmers, he says. “What they actually represent is Big Ag.” The current trend of low prices has driven him and other farmers to “start asking the real questions”-- including why Republicans aren’t challenging corporate control in dairy processing, or why they haven’t backed immigration policies that secure labor for the region’s farmers.

Those questions provide an opening for Jess King, whose candidacy is anything but conventional for Lancaster County. “I love blowing up paradigms as a progressive Mennonite running for Congress,” she said at the October event. A longtime advocate for small-business owners, King often says that both parties have sold out to corporate interests and that she aims to give voice to “average working folks.”

Her agricultural platform calls for stronger antitrust enforcement in the heavily consolidated dairy sector, streamlining agricultural regulations, and providing incentives for conservation efforts like cover cropping and farmland preservation. King says farmers have told her that their top issues are access to healthcare and retaining immigrant workers. Her platform supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants and Medicare for all.

...Smucker’s agricultural platform leans on policies-- such as repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s updated scope of the Clean Water Act and providing incentives for landowners to protect endangered species rather than relying on federal regulations-- that can seem out of step with the problems consuming farmers in his district. His platform doesn’t mention either the dairy-price crisis or the broader problem of low commodity prices. None of the 14 bills he has introduced since taking office are related to agricultural production.

Our Final Week's Get Out The Vote Ads In Heartland Districts The DCCC Is Ignoring

We asked Blue America members and DWT readers to vote on which districts they wanted us to add our new Get Out the Vote ads with the song Matthew Grimm wrote for us. So, right now, besides the ads running in WI-01 and NE-02, districts where Randy Bryce and Kara Eastman are running, we are also running ads in KS-04 (above) and IA-04 (below), where James Thompson and J.D. Scholten are campaigning with every ounce of energy they can muster.

These ads aren't really meant to try to persuade anyone to vote one way or the other. Basically, by using careful social media targetting, they are meant to urge local millennials who are already persuaded by the issues Randy, Kara, James and J.D. are running on, to get out and vote on Tuesday. These are all "red districts" with extraordinary Democratic challengers who are progressive stalwarts and where the DCCC refuses to help. I think most political junkies now understand that the corrupt conservative DCCC staffers would rather see a Republican reelected than see a progressive win a seat. If enough millennials do turn out to vote next week, we can thwart Trump, his GOP enablers and a DCCC hierarchy seeking to turn the Democratic Party even more in the direction of corporate corruption. Want to help put up another ad for another candidate? Here's the page for our independent expenditure committee.

If millennials vote Tuesday, it's game over for the GOP. And early voting patterns indicate that they will-- and in a very big way. Yesterday a town clerk in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin had a panic attack because over 1,700 absentee ballots-- primarily from University of Wisconsin Parkside students who "no one" expected to vote-- were dropped on her desk. Were any of these 1,700 voters polled? No. Do any of them have land-lines? No. Do any of them favor Medicare-For-All, legalized pot, free state colleges, Job Guarantee, student debt forgiveness? You bet they do-- and that's all part of Randy Bryce's platform.

The latest early voting numbers from Georgia and Texas for 18-29 year-olds is up a staggering 500% over 2014! You read that right... 500%. If that continues, no Republican seat is safe-- not anywhere, not even gerrymandered monstrosities, drawn to keep Republicans in power. Not even in R+11 districts like Steve King's.

Oops! Will Trump's Trade Wars Crash The Economy The First Week In November

Team Trumpanzee could have hardly timed their ill-advised trade war better-- for congressional Democrats. Yesterday, Ben White at Politico reported that Señor T's "trade battles are already triggering economic warnings-- and rising danger for Republicans just ahead of the midterm elections."

As fresh U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports take effect Monday, surveys show consumers growing increasingly worried about higher prices this fall. Giant retailers such as Walmart are warning of price increases for manufactured goods. And smaller businesses in swing states and districts from Washington state, to Iowa, to Tennessee are complaining bitterly about big hits to their exports.

The economic fallout from Trump’s skirmishes with China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union risk making an already tough cycle for Republicans even more brutal, giving Democrats a chance to peel away voters linked to influential industries-- like Washington state cherry farmers and Tennessee whiskey makers-- who have long supported business-friendly Republicans.

“Where you have real-world effects of the trade war, you see people’s opinions sour dramatically,” said Scott Lincicome, a trade lawyer and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute who is studying the links between public opinion and trade. “You look at places like Washington state where people are dependent on exporting cherries and apples, or Rust Belt states that border Canada, or Tennessee with auto and bourbon makers, and you are going to see close races where this is actually a decisive issue.”

The latest impact will begin to hit Monday as new 10 percent tariffs Trump slapped on over $200 billion in imports from China are scheduled to go into effect. That tariff rate is set to rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1 if the Chinese don’t capitulate to White House demands. Trump has also threatened to bump the total up to more than $500 billion in imports, which would hit nearly every product China exported to the U.S. last year.

Economists expect that to translate into higher prices for consumers across the country and special pain for low- to middle-income voters who make up much of Trump’s base-- and are least able to absorb increased costs for consumer goods such as air conditioners, clothing and furniture. Republicans are counting on getting Trump supporters to the polls in November to hold off projected Democratic gains in the House and potentially the Senate. Forcing consumers to pay higher prices could make that harder.

“If you are kind of in the middle- or lower-income groups, you are buying a lot of what economists call tradable goods and you’ll be hit a lot harder,” said Kyle Handley, assistant professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “This is basically the Trump voter who is going to see the biggest hit to their total spending.”

Evidence is piling up that consumers and businesses are growing increasingly nervous about Trump’s trade policy.

Consumer sentiment measured by the University of Michigan dropped last month to its lowest point in nearly a year, with the decline centered in lower-income households most sensitive to higher prices. The sentiment index ticked up again in preliminary results for September. But nearly a third of those surveyed cited concern over tariffs when assessing the economy.

A survey of chief financial officers unveiled last week by Deloitte found that 42 percent said business conditions would improve next year, the lowest in two years, with executives “overwhelmingly worried” about trade policy and tariffs.

Walmart recently warned it will need to raise prices on a huge swath of products imported from China. Other large consumer-product companies including Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Coca-Cola announced price increases over the summer, partly because of tariffs, and warned of more to come.

...While many U.S. consumers may be able to absorb the impact of the 10 percent levies, economists say that if the Chinese tariffs eventually expand beyond $500 billion and rise to 25 percent, the hit to overall consumer spending and sentiment will be significant.

“If you look at the tariffs that they put on washing machines, you’ve seen an increase in prices and a decline in consumer demand, and we should expect to see the same from these latest tariffs,” said Simona Mocuta, senior economist at State Street Global Advisors. “I get the sense that even President Trump is not that keen on going up to 25 percent. This is almost like a plea to get people to come to the table and talk.”

Democrats are seizing on the trade issue in close House and Senate races across the country, such as in Tennessee for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Bob Corker. Democratic nominee Phil Bredesen, that state's former governor, is locked in a tight race with GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn in what otherwise might be a safe seat for the party. Bredesen has hammered away at Trump’s tariffs, which are hitting the state’s large automotive, hog farming and bourbon industries.

Blackburn, a strong Trump supporter, has been critical of the president’s trade policies but stopped short of demanding that Congress take away Trump’s tariff authority. A newly formed pro-trade effort called Tariffs Hurt the Heartland held a town hall in Nashville last week to highlight what that campaign says is the negative impact of Trump’s policies on Tennessee businesses.

Democratic incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota recently ran an ad with soybean farmers talking about the “hundreds of millions” of dollars in lost sales to China. Democrats are also pressing the trade issue especially hard in competitive Senate races in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana and even Nebraska, generally viewed as a safe GOP seat, according to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The same holds true in House races in competitive districts that rely heavily on exports. In Washington state’s 8th District, which crosses the Cascade mountains, Democratic nominee Dr. Kim Schrier is ripping the tariff impact on the state’s apple and cherry farmers in the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Dave Reichert. Democrats have never won the seat.

“It’s just a huge issue here, and we are really feeling this heavily; nearly everything that Washington exports faces a 5 [percent] to 25 percent tariff,” said Katie Rodihan, communications director for Schrier. “Kim’s point is we really need comprehensive trade agreements and we should never be in this situation where we get spontaneous trade policy via tweet.”

The GOP nominee in the district, Dino Rossi, has walked a middle ground typical of pro-trade Republicans across the country, criticizing some specific Trump policies on trade but stopping short of strong rebukes that could alienate the president’s fervent supporters. In a statement this summer, Rossi said he has been “very open about my disagreements” with Trump on trade.

Beyond Washington state, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee cited competitive House races in California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Kentucky where the party is making Trump’s trade policies a central issue. A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which promotes GOP House candidates, did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of the trade issue.

...The Chamber’s latest list of states impacted the most include Alabama, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, where the state’s GOP Gov. Scott Walker trails Democratic nominee Tony Evers in recent polling. Retaliatory tariffs threaten a range of products exported from Wisconsin including cheese, whey and paper products, according to the Chamber.

“This is going to be like death by a thousand cuts hitting every consumer product once you broaden the tariffs out,” said Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation. “Taxing American consumers as a way of getting the Chinese to the table just doesn’t seem like the right tactic to us. If all of these tariffs on $500 billion-plus from China go into effect, prices will increase on everything that gets imported and that‘s going to be painful and real and unnecessary.”

Progressive Democrat James Thompson, once again being willfully ignored by the DCCC, told us that "the 4th District of Kansas is the hardest hit Congressional district in the United States because agriculture and manufacturing are the two biggest economic drivers here. Our farmers can’t sell their product and the increased cost of steel and alumninum make turning a profit nearly impossible for the makers of commercial planes here in Wichita. The worst hit are the agriculture manufacturers who make farm equipment like combines and tractors. Farmers can’t afford to buy the products because of the tariffs, and the equipment costs too much to make. The farmers here are being devastated. While some continue to maintain a cautious optimism for Trump’s trade war, the majority are sick of taking it on the chin for his misguided policies.  Worst yet is that our current Congressman, Ron Estes, lacks the courage and intestinal fortitude to stand up to Trump. He should be standing on the floor of Congress on a daily basis demanding these horrible trade policies be rescinded.  Instead he simply goes along with whatever he is told to do. Congress must begin reclaiming the power to impose tariffs, which it abdicated over the past 50 years. Tariffs should only be imposed after serious discussion and debate by our Congressional leaders in the House and Senate. We deserve better. We can do better, but only after we ourselves have the political courage to reject and throw off the proverbial yoke placed upon us by President Trumps tyrannical tariffs."

Mike Siegel is running in a very gerrymandered Texas district that meanders from north Houston to the far suburbs west of Houston. The DCCC is ignoring his race but voters there are grad to see a candidate talking sense about Trump's harmful trade wars. "Here in the Texas 10th," Mike told us, "we don't see any benefits from the tariffs, but we are certainly feeling the pain. Our largest exports are negatively impacted-- rice, sorghum, grain. And when you hurt a rice farmer in Colorado County, Texas, you are also hurting an entire ecosystem of interrelated businesses and families. Big picture, the President's action seems entirely arbitrary. At a recent town hall here, Beto O'Rourke said, 'When the United States goes to war, we go with a coalition of allies. Why are we challenging China on our own?' Trump's Twitter diplomacy is unilateral and ineffective, and it is only hurting the people on the ground."

A third progressive Democrat being willfully ignored by the DCCC is J.D. Scholten, who's running against Steve King in Iowa. His constituents are having many of the same problems with Trump's trade wars that Thompson's are. “Right now, we are borrowing money from China to give to our farmers to not sell our products to China. How much sense does that make? And when we lose these markets to South America, who is helping out those farmers? It’s the same multi-national companies that are in Iowa. There’s no loyalty. We need to end this trade war and we need to challenge corporate consolidation.”

Please consider contributing to James', Mike's and J.D.'s campaigns-- and to the other progressives the DCCC is boycotting-- by clicking on the Blue America "Abandoned by the DCCC" thermometer above. These are the kind of candidates who are going to make the difference between a Democratic Congress that basically does nothing at all for two years and one that goes all in on a progressive vision with a platform with fighting for.

The Connection Between Impeachment And The Midterms

Closing In by Nancy Ohanian

NBC News has released polling numbers from 9 key states-- eight of which Trump won-- showing that, among other things, that the anti-red wave is going to sweep away a lot of Republicans in November. National numbers show trends but state numbers are closer to reality-- and the reality doesn't look good for the GOP-- despite the hundreds of millions of corporate dollars they are spending smearing Democrats in every single contested seat in the country.

Yesterday, the imbecilic, senile, illegitimate "president" tweeted more of his bullshit:

What polls? The ones Ivanka and Kushner-in-law make up and read him to calm him down before bedtime? These are the congressional preference numbers in states the GOP absolute must hold onto to keep the midterms from being a rout. Every one of them other than Texas now has a Democratic preference (and Texas is trending away from the GOP in all the key districts around Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio:

• Texas- R+7
• Florida- D+3
• Ohio- D+3
• Arizona- D+4
• Pennsylvania- D+6
• Wisconsin- D+8
• Michigan- D+9
• Minnesota- D+12
• Illinois- D+14

How could this turn around so rapidly? We're not looking at numbers that factor in heavily Democratic states like California, New York and Massachusetts. These are the states Russia used to put Trump into the White House. The numbers have a lot to do with revulsion for Trump among 3 key groups: suburbanites, women and white with college degrees. The suburbs in all 9 states have turned away from Trump. These are his approval/disapproval numbers:

It's even worse for him among women, who have traditionally protected their children (and the species) from existential danger. And that's what they sense Trump and his Republican enablers are. I've never seen numbers like this among women for an incumbent president. The understand their children are in danger. They are going to vote in drove in November-- like their lives and their children's lives depend on it-- even in Texas and Florida!

Whites with college degrees have been the traditional backstop for the Republican Party. They see what Trump is and what the Republican Party has turned into. And they're not happy about it.

It's now become laughable when pundits say "but the election is a long way off and anything could happen between now and then." Yeah-- but what has been happening as the months tick down is that Trump has gotten crazier and crazier and the Republicans have horrified more and more people by showing themselves as pathetic rubber stamps. IN all likelihood what will happen between now and the midterms will be that Trump makes it even worse for the GOP, not better.

Thursday, Time published a piece by Martin London, I Was a Lawyer for Spiro Agnew. President Trump Should Consider Resigning.

This is half-time. We do not know what the Mueller investigation knows, what it has learned from Flynn, Popadopoulous, Gates, Van der Swan, Pinedo-- who have all pleaded guilty. Nor do we know what, if anything, Michael Cohen has already told investigators. Or what White House counsel Don McGahn said in 30 hours of interviews with them. Or what Mueller’s team has learned from what we can sure is the scores, if not hundreds, of other witnesses they have interviewed. And, of course, there are the millions of tapes, computer files and documents seized in the Cohen raid, along with those handed over by Trump’s former lawyers.

Mueller can and likely will name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator on any case he brings going forward, if he abides by Department of Justice guidelines and does not indict a sitting president. And Trump needs to worry about his criminal liability (and that of his son and son-in-law) when he leaves office.

Impeachment aside, given all that the President now faces, does anyone in his camp have the courage to discuss a so-far unmentionable strategy? Do what we did for Spiro Agnew, and the country. Negotiate a deal: You end the Mueller investigation, and I’ll send out of a tweet: “No collusion, I did nothing wrong, rigged witch hunt, but this is bad for the country, and I am a patriot. So I hereby resign. Sad.”

Good theory. But it won't work in real life. Trump is not-- not even remotely-- a patriot. He doesn't care about this country. He only cares about himself. Yesterday the Wall Steet Journal reported that the Trump Organization long-time CFO Allen Weisselberg, who has already testified for a grand jury, was granted immunity. This actually could be curtains for the Trumps. And it sure isn't going to help Trump enablers in tight reelection battles for their political lives. What do people like Ron Estes in Wichita, Mimi Walters in Orange County, Michael McCaul in the Austin-Houston corridor or Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Spokane do now? These are all members of Congress who have attached their political fortunes to Trump and who rubber-stamp everything he does and everything he stands for.

Mike Siegel is a progressive Texas Democrat who won his primary and was promptly abandoned by the DCCC. That just makes him work harder to defeat reactionary Republican Michael McCaul in an Austin/Houston area district. He just told us that "McCaul votes with Trump 98.9% of the time, as loyal as any Texas Republican. At the same time, the president is eroding his base in the Texas 10th: hurting rice and sorghum farmers with a foolish Trade War, sabotaging Affordable Care Act health insurance policies, even insulting law enforcement officials in his zeal to attack Michael Cohen as a 'flipper.' No matter what Trump does, you can count on McCaul to let it happen. As I knock on doors across the district, I keep hearing from Democrats, but also from Republicans and independents, that folks want a real system of checks and balances. When they vote this November, if they want real Congressional oversight, they have to vote blue."

Yesterday, Lisa Brown, the progressive Democrat who resigned as chancellor of Washington State University to oust McMorris Rodgers and her detrimental agenda from Congress told me that McMorris Rodgers is "doubling down on the Trump administration, bringing Kellyanne Conway in for a fundraising event just a few weeks after a closed door lunch with Devin Nunes. She announced that Ben Carson will be next."

James Thompson, the progressive taking on Ron Estes in Kansas, is on the same page. "Instead of acting like a congressman and waiting to see what the evidence shows," he told us, "Ron Estes is simply doubling down on his support of President Trump. He is not concerned with guilt or innocence, right or wrong. Estes is only concerned with maintaining power for his political bosses and corporate donors.  Without seeing any evidence, or hearing any testimony, Ron Estes simply choosing the politically expedient course of action and supports Trump come hell or high water. As a congressman, Estes should be doing what is best for the country, rather than what is simply best for his career and party."

The decision by prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office to grant immunity to Mr. Weisselberg escalates the pressure on Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Weisselberg has served for decades as executive vice president as well as CFO for the Trump Organization. After Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg.

...The Journal couldn’t determine whether Mr. Weisselberg told prosecutors that Mr. Trump had knowledge of the payments.

Last year, Mr. Weisselberg arranged for the Trump Organization to reimburse Mr. Cohen, who had in October 2016 made a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, a former adult-film actress who claimed she had sex with Mr. Trump a decade earlier, in exchange for her silence about the alleged affair. A person familiar with Mr. Weisselberg’s thinking said he didn’t know that money was intended to pay Ms. Clifford, who goes professionally by Stormy Daniels, when he agreed in January 2017 to a $35,000 monthly retainer for Mr. Cohen.

That month, according to charging documents filed Tuesday, Mr. Cohen gave executives at the Trump Organization a copy of the bank statement from his bank account for Essential Consultants LLC, the company he used to pay Ms. Clifford the previous fall. The statement reflected Mr. Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Ms. Clifford, as well as an additional $50,000 that Mr. Cohen added in handwriting was for “tech services.”

Executives at the Trump Organization “ ‘grossed up’ for tax purposes” Mr. Cohen’s requested reimbursement, doubling it to $360,000, and added a $60,000 bonus, the document said. The next month, one executive at the company asked another executive to pay Mr. Cohen’s monthly retainer “from the trust” and to “post to legal expenses.”

At the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump was known for being meticulous about payments the company made. Mr. Weisselberg would bring Mr. Trump checks to sign for the company on a daily basis, according to a person close to the company. Mr. Trump would routinely ask questions about the checks and what they were for, at times requesting Mr. Weisselberg hold off on specific payments, the person said.

“He would say, ‘That’s too much,’ ” the person said.

Democratic candidates really should be doing a lot more of this kind of campaigning. Democratic voters and independent voters know what Trump is and know what the congressional Republicans are and they want leaders with the guts to oppose it. Democratic candidates who think they're going to offend Republican voters need to understand that Republican voters aren't going to vote for them anyway-- other than the few Republican voters who agree with this kind of sentiment:

DCCC Still Refusing To Back Progressive Primary Winners

Last Tuesday one of the most promising candidates running for governor, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, lost his race. I tweeted that he ran a great campaign but that it was now time to get behind Gretchen Whitmer and help her defeat Trump's hand-picked extremist candidate Bill Schuette. One of the first people to "like" my tweet was Abdul. Whitmer might not be my kind of candidate-- nor his-- but she's the legitimately nominated Democrat-- and the only way to stop Schuette.

After the congressional races on the same day, the DCCC added some of the winners to their Red-to-Blue page... but not the progressives who won. This is outrageous. On Tuesday, James Thompson won an astounding 65.3% in his Wichita-based district, a nearly two-to-one victory. He congratulated his opponent on a well-run campaign and she did likewise and now Democrats in the 4th district are united and working towards defeating Ron Estes. Although not with the DCCC, who is, once again, refusing to recognize Thompson as a candidate.

Likewise in southwest Michigan, the progressive in the race, Matt Longjohn, came in a strong first in a 4-way race. He beat the establishment fave, wealthy lobbyist George Franklin, 37% to 29% with the other progressive in the race, Dave Benac, taking 21%. Democrats in MI-06 are unified now in their determination to defeat Fred Upton-- but not the DCCC. Longjohn was recognized by President Obama as one of America's best physicians and called him one of the "top healthcare innovators in America." Not good enough for the DCCC, which is still pouting that a wealthy conservative lobbyist like Franklin didn't win.

This isn't new to the DCCC. Rahm Emanuel inserted it into their DNA when he was chairman and he was infamous for undercutting progressives who won primaries and refusing to back them in the general election. Many of them would go on to win without his help, making them independent of the corrupt Democratic establishment, a boon to them and to their constituents and to all of America.

As you probably know, Blue America has a page for progressive primary winners who the DCCC refuses to back. I just want to point out that one of the candidates on it is J.D. Scholten, who is going up against America's most vile bigot, Steve King in Iowa's 4th congressional district. He was in a tough 3-way primary over two months ago. He won over 50% of the vote. But the DCCC has still refused to get behind his campaign.

One pundit in Iowa told me there was more to it than just how much the DCCC hates progressives. "They make money off King," she told me on Thursday. "Every time he says something racist or insane, they send out a fundraising letter. They'd rather see him stay in Congress as a cash-cow for themselves than see someone actually defeat him." She told me that staffers at the DCCC were actually disappointed that small donors were contributing to J.D. so heavily and that as of the June 30 reporting deadline he had outraised King significantly-- $755,973 to $505,775. Let's help keep that ball rolling for J.D. and the other progressive candidates the DCCC is still ignoring. Please click on the Blue America 2018 congressional thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to all the candidates. These men and women are working so hard every day and finding no support from their own party officials, though plenty from their own party grassroots. Every Democrat we help elect without help from the DCCC and the corrupt DC establishment is another independent who owes them nothing at all. These are all men and women who will be listening to their own constituents when subjects like Medicare-For-All and Job Guarantee come up-- not to status quo "leaders" like Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Joe Crowley.

Señor Trumpanzee Wants A Place In History

In ancient Egypt there were a few times when a pharaoh and a Pharaonic regime was considered so awful by the successor that all traces of him were wiped away. Even his name was chiseled off tablets and monuments... or hers. Hatshepsut was the only female pharaoh and she was very successful but her successor, Thutmose III, claimed all her achievements for himself and completely erased her from the history of Egypt, even destroying her statues mentions of her on temple walls, etc. Here are 9 other people who were erased from history Trump seems to think that building the Great Wall of Trump across the southern border will preserve his name in history. Because, let's face it-- nothing else will... except as an example of America's illegitimate "president," worst "president" and "president" installed by a foe.

So Sunday he was, once again, threatening to shut down the government in September if he doesn't get the money for the wall, a honey put for kleptocracy, by the way. He's blaming the Democrats.

Trump has previously floated the possibility of a government shutdown over border security and immigration, and on Sunday he made his threat explicit, saying he would do so unless Congress funds his proposed wall, which he promised Mexico would pay for, and puts in place his preferred immigration policies.

In May, Trump suggested "closing up the country for a while" if he did not get his wall.

"They don't want the wall," Trump said. "But we're going to get the wall, even if we have to think about closing up the country for a while."

Sunday's shutdown threat from Trump also echoed a remark he made in February when he said "I'd love to see a shutdown" if the government did not agree to address immigration.

Congress ultimately passed a spending bill in March that funded the government through September. Trump threatened at the time to veto the spending agreement, but eventually signed the bill while expressing his displeasure with Congress.

"I said to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again," Trump said in March.

Randy Bryce, a union iron worker running for Congress in Wisconsin, sees right through Trump's farce: "As soon as I heard Trump make a campaign promise that Mexico would pay for his stupid wall I knew that if it got built, WE would be the ones paying for it. Trump has a very clear history of stiffing those who do the work. It’s ridiculous that billions can be spent on a wall but the same people claim it costs too much to let us see a doctor."

Last summer, when Trump was whining about his wall and congressional Republicans were going along with him, James Thompson, the progressive candidate in Wichita told us that "Congress agreed to spend $1.6 billion on a wall between the United States and Mexico. This wall is a sleight of hand trick by Republicans in Congress and President Trump who want to distract Americans from healthcare and the Russia investigations. As they dangle this wall in front of our eyes, they hope to repeal healthcare and slip the Russia investigations under the rug. How many children would that feed? How many houses, roads or bridges would that build? How many school loans would this pay off? How many small business would this help? How much health care would this provide? At a time, when our country is sinking further into debt, our infrastructure is decimated, our access to healthcare is in doubt, and our education system is in shambles, President Trump wants to build a wall. This wall will not result in fewer drugs coming into our country. It will not result in fewer undocumented workers. This wall will not guarantee us security. The only thing this 30 foot high wall will guarantee is that 31 foot tall ladders and shovels will go on sale in Mexico."

Politico reported on Sunday that some of Trump's advisers think a shutdown would be a good base-rallying tactic leading into the midterms. OK, but... "Republican leaders have been telling us for months that they think they’ve convinced Trump a shutdown is a bad idea. Clearly they have not. In fact, Trump seems to be broadening his demands. He is signaling he’ll demand immigration changes as part of the government funding bill. Government funding runs out 37 days before Election Day.

Turning Kansas Blue? Nah... Just The Two Biggest Cities-- Alexandria And Bernie In The Sunflower State

Jim Thompson with Bernie and Alexandria in Wichita

Hillary Clinton didn't campaign in Kansas. 427,005 people voted for her there anyway (36%). She won the Kansas City area-- Douglas County 31,195 (62.28%) to 14,688 (29.32%) and Wyandotte County 30,146 (61.80%) to 15,806 (32.40%) in landslides and did well enough in Johnson and Shawnee, respectively 129,852 (44.76%) to 137,490 (47.40%) and 33,926 (44.99%) to 35,934 (47.65%). She took the 3rd congressional district up there 47-46%. Sedgwick County (Wichita) was a bummer for her though-- 69,627 (36.88%) to 104,353 (55.28%). For whatever reasons, Clinton wasn't a popular political figure in Kansas. The state primary caucuses saws Bernie beat her in every district and his statewide total was an astonishing 67.7% to 32.3%. Bernie is very popular in Kansas. Who'da thunk?

The Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the corporatists-- had a convention last week in Columbus Ohio to plot out a way to prevent Bernie and Elizabeth Warren from winning the 2020 presidential nomination. The same wing of the party and their media shills have been spending more time smearing Alexandria Ocasio than on defeating Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan since she defeated one of their own, corrupt New Dem powerhouse Joe Crowley, a few weeks ago in a primary. Bernie and Alexandria were in Kansas City and Wichita Friday, campaigning for progressives Brent Wilders and James Thompson.

Reporting for The Intercept yesterday, Briahna Gray wrote that "the gestalt of the day’s remarks was something bigger than any one race. The speeches-- particularly Sanders’-- announced a unifying theme that felt too coherent to have been thrown together for a House primary or two. Individually, the remarks were compelling. Together, they comprised an unabashed declaration of post-partisan movement building-- a rebuke to those in power who fetishize every identity-based division in order to diffuse the largest coalition in the country: the working class."

In the 3rd district (Kansas City), Welder has a primary from a heavy-funded EMILY's List moderate and some very right-wing Democrat coming up before he can get to Trump rubber-stamp Republican Kevin Yoder. In the 4th district (Wichita), "Thompson is an even better opportunity to prove the Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez case. Thompson is looking to fill the Wichita seat-- home of Koch Industries-- once held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Thompson made waves last year when he came close to defeating Republican Ron Estes in a special election in a solidly red district, falling seven points short ahead of this year’s rematch. A civil rights attorney with no prior electoral experience, his near-win is evidence, to some, that Sanders’s platform is as pragmatic as it is progressive. “They say we should be more centrist,” Thompson said to supportive boos before arguing that if Kansans wanted a moderate, or a 'Republican-lite,' they would’ve voted for Clinton in 2016."

Where electoral battles have long been viewed as a struggle over red states and blue states-- an effort to dominate the map like advancing armies, on Friday, that partisan dichotomy was evoked only to be dismissed in favor of a narrative that highlights the universal struggles shared by residents in locales as diverse as Kansas and Vermont and the Bronx. Yes: Trump is a racist. Critiques of his immigration policy and calls for criminal justice reform received enthusiastic applause. And yes: Kansas went red in 2016. But Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Thompson each emphasized that the enemy was not a color-- not red or blue, nor black or white. It was the 1 percent, people like the three families who, as Sanders pointed out, have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans.

Where there are working-class people, exhorted Ocasio-Cortez, there is hope for the progressive movement. Later, Thompson echoed that sentiment. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats, he said, but about working people coming together.

Thousands showed up in Wichita and the venue had to be moved to a bigger space to accommodate everyone. You can help Jim Thompson win his race against far right Republican Ron Estes here. There were around 4,000 in the middle of a workday. To Welder, Thompson, Ocasio and Bernie, politics is all about a strategy for economic-justice that is firmly rooted in a commitment to working-class empowerment. When they talk about Medicare-For-All, Job Guarantee and free public universities, that's what they're talking about-- and that's what it means to be a progressive in 2018. Watch... please:

Pick A Side: Joe Lieberman Or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Conservatives want members of Congress to look like the mug on the right, never like the young woman on the left

Connecticut Democratic primary voters basically kicked Joe Lieberman out of the party by denying him the 2006 Democratic nomination for the Senate seat he had held since 1994. He ran on the Connecticut for Lieberman Party that year. He would like to see Joe Crowley, who lost the Democratic renomination bid on June 26, do the same thing. Crowley outspent his progressive opponent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez $1,410,228 to $30,94, but she worked harder and smarter and beat him 15,897 (57.48%) to 11,761 (42.52%). Ever since her inspiring victory over an avatar of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment, the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment and their media lapdogs have gone on the attack against her and other progressive reformers working to displace other incumbents associated with the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. So, no one should be surprised that Joe Lieberman, now a lobbyist working for the ultimate grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment law firm, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, who's best known client is... Don the Con, the illegitimate "president." Lieberman is also the co-chair of the American Internationalism Project, part of the far right American Enterprise Institute.

Lieberman represents a very special kind of bipartisanship-- the opposite of the kind of bipartisanship practiced by legislators like Alan Grayson, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu and Karen Bass (entailing working across the aisle to find issues that both parties can support for the good of their constituents)-- and instead can be defined as selling out your own party's values and principles and embracing those of the other party. That, in fact, sums up Joe Lieberman's entire political career. Example: while actual Democrats were trying to stop the confirmation of anti-education extremist Betsy DeVos of Secretary of Education, it was Lieberman who introduced her to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee. A high ranking staffer for one of the committee members-- hint: not Doug Jones (D-AL)-- told me that members were revolted when Lieberman came into their offices and even more revolted when Trump announced he was likely to replace James Comey as FBI Director with Lieberman.

No one was surprised when Lieberman, writing for the conservative Wall Street Journal-- of which Grason quipped, "the Wall Street Journal: you can always tell whom they fear by whom they smear"-- a couple of days ago went on a vicious, McCarthyite attack against Ocasio-Cortez. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hurts the party, Congress and even America," he wrote. What he meant by "the party" isn't open to the reader's interpretation, although it should be since the Democratic Party now has the most inspiring weapon in politics since Bernie Sanders-- something that petrifies both of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment parties. Lieberman, 76 and... tired, defines the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment as "the mainstream," so he isn't reaching when he writes that "Ocasio-Cortez advocates [policies] so far from the mainstream, her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems." He didn't acknowledge the dysfunctional state of Congress today, not the role Joe Crowley-- not to mention his own decades-long role-- has played in that dysfunction.

He then went on to try to make a case for Crowley doing what he did-- running as an independent in the general. "On Election Day, his name will be on the ballot as the endorsed candidate of the Working Families Party. But for Mr. Crowley to have a chance at getting re-elected, he will have to decide if he wants to remain an active candidate. I hope he does." The Working Families Party" has pleaded with him not to further disgrace them by running against Ocasio-Cortez. The heart of Lieberman's OpEd, was his attack on policies that benefit anyone other than the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. Keep in mind, Lieberman was one of the most anti-Bernie "Democrats" in the country during the 2016 election cycle. Here he was on Fox News:

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic. Her dreams of new federal spending would bankrupt the country [wrong] or require very large tax increases [wrong], including on the working class [wrong]. Her approach foresees government ownership of many private companies, which would decimate the economy and put millions out of work.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t speak much about foreign policy during the primary, but when she did, it was from the DSA policy book-- meaning support for socialist governments, even if they are dictatorial and corrupt (Venezuela), opposition to American leadership in the world, even to alleviate humanitarian disasters (Syria), and reflexive criticism of one of America’s great democratic allies (Israel).

She has received the most attention for calling to “Abolish ICE,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This makes no sense unless you no longer want any rules on immigration or customs to be enforced. I have not heard anyone say that. Nonetheless, at least three credible candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination rushed to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s position.

Republicans are calling Ms. Ocasio-Cortez the “new face” of the Democratic Party. That’s why Nancy Pelosi has tried to put distance between Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and House Democrats. “They made a choice in one district,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else.” She knows that if Democrats are to regain a majority, it will be by winning swing districts with sensible, mainstream candidates. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is making that task harder across America.

Joe Crowley’s re-election would be evidence that Democrats are capable of governing again. His voting record shows that Mr. Crowley is a progressive [laughably wrong]. I know him as a bridge builder and problem solver, which is exactly what Congress needs more of in both parties.

Crowley has refused to remove his name from the Working Families Party ballot slot, despite the Working Families Party asking him to. We asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates for their perspectives on this. First to respond was Tom Guild who is running on very similar all-American, working family issues that Ocasio ran on-- in Oklahoma City. They work as well among voters there than they work in the Bronx and Queens. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a breath of fresh air," he told me. "She prevailed against big money and is not responsible for the problems that others have created-- paralysis, placing our democracy at risk by coveting and hoarding big donor money, and selling out working people and the middle class by doing the bidding of the modern moneychangers in the American political temple. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Crowley is the same old, same old and a charter member of the DC Swamp. Progressive change will make things better for people who are struggling to survive and throw the corrupt moneychangers out of the temple. Alexandria beat the tired and failed political establishment playing by their rules, and may be able (with a little help from her friends) to shake up Washington and get the country moving in a positive direction. Experience makes it crystal clear that for many years Lieberman and Crowley made a functioning national government dysfunctional. Why would we want to go back to that future?

Kansas Democrat James Thompson made an addition after the post was completed: "My first thought is who cares what Lieberman thinks? He is a corporate crony owned by the establishment in both parties. If Ocasio is the breath of fresh air then Lieberman is the dying breath of a decaying establishment that can’t see past its next Corporate PAC endorsement." And then there's this nice video, nice message from the Sanders Institute. I bet you can guess why we're running it here, right?

What Will Progressives Who Get Elected To Congress This Time Do Differently

For most candidates for Congress-- and incumbents-- the economics of politics is about how to access money to keep their careers moving ahead. For the new breed of Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the economics of politics has more to do with how to finance the Bernie policies they're espousing and that their supporters are clamoring for. Getting the new breed Dems all on-message with that kind of economics would be huge. If you don’t know what you’re capable of achieving, you can’t advocate for it. A bold, progressive agenda demands a complementary economic framework. Yesterday Ocasio sent this message to her supporters in the Bronx and Queens and across the country:

When we want to spend trillions of dollars on a foreign war, Republicans find money for it.

When we want to subsidize oil and fossil fuel companies with billions of dollars, Republicans find money for it.

When we want to give a 1.5 trillion dollar tax break that disproportionately helps the wealthy elite, Republicans find money for it.

Meanwhile...

Medicare for All can’t happen because we can’t find the money to pay for it. We can’t have tuition-free college because it’s too expensive. A federal jobs guarantee could never happen because it just costs too much.

Time to dispel that narrative, because here’s the reality-- we can afford to give working people the quality of life they deserve. It’s not about cost, it’s about what we choose to prioritize.

...You know what’s even more absurd? The implication that these programs don’t create far more value than their cost anyway. Investing in our working and middle class communities has incredible returns.

Helping everyone access higher education gets us the workforce we need to compete in the 21st century. By almost every measure, Medicare for All would reduce the total amount our country spends on it’s privatized alternative. A Green New Deal would create hundreds of thousands of new, high-paying jobs too!

The real formula for economic growth has been known for decades-- we get it by investing in everyone, not by giving more money to the top 1% and big corporations, which only exacerbates economic inequality nationwide.

It’s not about cost-- it was never about cost. It’s always been about protecting the status of the wealthy elite in our nation.

It’s time that the rest of us got our fair share.

This has been the message of MMT, a message that Bernie's chief economics advisor Stephanie Kelton has been explaining for years, to a largely confused and uncomprehending Democratic Party establishment. Perhaps that new breed of Democrats-- once they get into Congress-- can help them understand it. As Ryan Grim wrote Monday morning, Ocasio-Cortez "is exploring forming a 'sub-caucus' of progressives in the House that would be willing to vote as a bloc to leverage their power, she said in a recent podcast interview. Progressives in Congress have been watching Ocasio-Cortez closely for clues as to how she’ll navigate the unwieldy chamber that is the House of Representatives, where she is expected to arrive after the November election. The interest in her includes the personal-- Will she endorse a primary challenge against me?-- as well as the institutional. Progressive Democrats are excited to have a telegenic spokesperson carrying their message, but some have expressed private concerns that she may look to organize a bloc of Democrats who could eclipse the Congressional Progressive Caucus in prominence."

The co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mark Pocan, whipped-- aggressively and sometimes quite dishonestly-- against Ocasio during the election. He's moved the CPC in a very, very New Dem direction, even endorsing middle of the road New Dem politicians against progressives in primary battles. Most of the members of the CPC are the best members of Congress, but the caucus itself has become... less than it was. Maybe Ocasio and other new hard-fighting progressives can counter the slide. That said, Grim points out that "Ocasio-Cortez has been insistent that she has no intention of burning the party to the ground or stoking needless internal rifts, preferring instead to persuade her colleagues to move in a more aggressively populist direction.“'As unapologetic and strong as I am in my messaging and my beliefs, my style is that I’m a consensus-builder,' she said on the podcast. But she is at bottom an organizer, and if persuasion doesn’t work, and the caucus isn’t maximizing its influence, she has made clear that she is aware of the tools at her disposal."

In a recent interview on Jacobin’s podcast, recorded after the election, Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea of a bloc of progressives who would stick together to demand stronger legislation.

The current CPC, made up of 78 members, is too amorphous to act as a united bloc, which saps it of its strength, Ocasio-Cortez argued. It’s the same rationale that conservatives who built the powerful Freedom Caucus three years ago used when they broke away from the larger Republican Study Committee, the GOP equivalent of the progressive caucus.

“The thing that gives the caucus power is that you can operate as a bloc vote in order to get things done,” Ocasio-Cortez told Daniel Denvir, host of Jacobin’s “The Dig.” “Even if you can carve out a sub-portion, a sub-caucus of the progressive caucus, even if you could carve out that, even a smaller bloc, but one that operates as a bloc, then you could generate real power.”

  If Democrats wind up holding a slim majority in future Congresses, a progressive sub-caucus wouldn’t need many members to tip the balance, since leadership would need all of them on board to move forward. “If you can even carve out a caucus of 10, 30 people it does not take a lot, if you operate as a bloc vote, to really make strong demands on things,” she said.

What Ocasio-Cortez is floating-- a progressive mirroring of the Freedom Caucus-- has been flirted with in the past in Congress. Congressional Black Caucus members have at times voted as a bloc and extracted concessions, but the CPC has been much quicker to blink.

The problem-- if it can be called one-- is that progressives, even those at the edge of the party’s spectrum, are much less willing to shoot the hostage than ultra-conservatives, a point made by multiple members of the CPC who The Intercept spoke to about the Ocasio-Cortez idea. Ideologically, conservatives who broadly oppose government spending, or the government in general-- it is, according to Ronald Reagan, “the problem”-- have less of an issue with shutting down the government or rejecting legislation. Republicans tend to look to roll things back, while Democrats, in the ideal, are trying to build things up. And very few Democrats are willing to reject a small amount of progress because it isn’t enough.

...The number of Democrats who might be willing to take a firm stand and credibly threaten to oppose legislation if it’s not strong enough is small, likely fewer than 10 at the moment, including progressives such as Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, or Jamie Raskin. But more Democrats will be arriving next year who may take a more aggressive tact.

Rashida Tlaib, who is running to replace Rep. John Conyers Jr. in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, could be one of those. “What’s clear is that a label, like ‘Democrat’ or ‘progressive,’ doesn’t speak nearly as loudly as actions, and that we cannot give folks a pass when they have the right label but aren’t taking action to make the lives of working families better,” said Andy Goddeeris, a spokesperson for Tlaib, when asked about the Ocasio-Cortez plan. “When we send Rashida to Congress, she’s not going to be afraid to tell the folks in her own caucuses when they’re selling out the people. But I think she would ideally like to see a consensus built among progressive legislators. Standing together in support of bold, unapologetic policy in service of working-class people is what’s necessary to fight back against the right wing.”

So I'm guessing, based on policy agendas, that the bloc Ocasio is hoping to help put together would include more than just her and Rashida Tlaib and include men and women who have already won primaries, like Kara Eastman, J.D. Scholten (IA), Randy Bryce (WI) and Jess King (PA), as well as progressives still fighting to win primaries, like Kaniela Ing (HI), James Thompson (KS), Brent Wilder (KS), and Matt Haggman (FL). I might as well mention at this point, that no matter how many progressives get elected, the DCCC has fixed the primaries so severely-- with no push-back from the Progressive Caucus-- that, overall, the new Democratic conference will be much more conservative than the current one. The DCCC has made sure that there will be lots more Blue Dogs and New Dems-- from Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Max Rose and Anthony Brindisi in New York to Cathy Manning and Dan McCready in North Carolina, from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, working furiously to counter anything progressives like Ocasio and Tlaib try to do.

Bernie and Alexandria are doing a United For America rally in Wichita for James Thompson on Friday. Wonder why? I was talking with him the other day. There's little chance you'll something like this from a garden variety congressional Democrat: "One thing is clear," said Thompson: "we must revamp our broken immigration system to reflect our country's values. ICE is currently operating under the guidelines and policies of the Trump administration. Congress has failed to provide proper guidance in handling immigration in the United States, which allowed President Trump to step in and fill that void with his own racist and inhumane policy interpretations. Here in my district in Wichita, Kansas, ICE is allowed to operate without any apparent oversight because they lease privately owned property. Public officials are not allowed in and protesters are prevented by the police from protesting at the sight because of the lessor’s ownership interests. The government will not even admit that ICE uses the facility as a detention center despite people being released from there once their ICE bond is paid and released. Unless those within ICE find the political courage to say enough is enough and we will no longer follow immoral and inhumane orders, ICE will need to be disbanded in favor of a completely new immigration system. Otherwise we run the risk of renaming an organization with the same organizational culture that does nothing to prevent the atrocities we are seeing. We, as a society, are in danger of losing fundamental virtues that made us quintessentially American such as compassion, empathy and dignity. WE CAN DO BETTER. WE MUST DO BETTER."