Will Bernie Have An Impact Even If American Voters Elect A Status Quo Candidate?

Yesterday Bernie drew 43.6% at the polls in Pennsylvania and John Fetterman, the Senate candidate who had endorsed him and was running on his platform, drew a mere 19.3% of the vote (better than most polling had been predicting but still less than half of Bernie's voters). In Maryland Bernie took just 33.3% of the vote, while Donna Edwards only got 38.8%. Although Donna and Bernie were running on a similar progressive package of issues and values, she had endorsed Hillary. And Maryland was not one of the states that Schumer forbade Bernie to "interfere" with.

Although this is basically news being mostly-- though not entirely-- suppressed by the establishment media, Schumer threatened Bernie with the loss of the Senate Budget Committee chair if he did anything to help Fetterman, P.G. Sittenfeld in Ohio or Alan Grayson in Florida. Expect the story to go mainstream in the next couple of weeks... and, meanwhile, rejoice that you get your news here at DWT before the NY Times editors do. These are the presidential primary results from last night:

Connecticut: Hillary- 51.7%, Bernie- 46.5%
Delaware: Hillary- 59.8%, Bernie- 39.2%
Maryland: Hillary- 63.0%, Bernie- 33.3%
Pennsylvania: Hillary- 55.6%, Bernie- 43.6%
Rhode Island: Bernie- 55.0%, Hillary- 43.3%

Other significant results:

• PA-02- Scandal-soaked incumbent Chaka Fattah lost to Dwight Evans-- 42.2% to 34.5%.
• PA-07- In a stunning upset that caught the corrupt DC establishment off-guard, grassroots progressive Mary Ellen Balchunis slaughtered the DCCC candidate, Bill Golderer-- 73.8% to 26.2%
• MD-04- Progressive Joseline Pena-Melnyk was defeated by both establishment candidates, Anthony Brown (41.6%) and Glenn Ivey (34.1%), to her 19.0%.
• MD-08- The only great news out of Maryland was that progressive Jamie Raskin beat David Trone (27.4%)-- the rich beer seller who spent over $12 million of his own money on the race-- and Chris Matthews' lobbyist wife (23.8%) with 33.7%.

Monday I read Greg Sargent's Washington Post column about the possible impact of Bernie's revolution in light of changes in young voters detected by a newly released poll from Harvard's Institute of Politics. Let's go beyond the poll's findings that Bernie is the most popular politician among voting age Americans under thirty.

The Director of the Institute, Maggie Williams, pointed out that "millennials care deeply about their futures and in this election cycle they are laser-focused on issues like access to educational opportunity, women’s equality and the economy [and that the] survey reflects their passion, their worries and most importantly, a growing awareness that their voices have power."

In the Past Year, 18- to 29-Year-Olds Net Preference Nearly Doubled for Democrats to Maintain Control of White House. Young Americans prefer that a Democrat win the White House over a Republican in the 2016 presidential race. More than three in five (61%) prefer that a Democrat win the White House, while 33% prefer a Republican. The divide of 28 points is nearly double what it was in Spring 2015, when the divide was 15 percentage points (55% Democrat; 40% Republican). Among young white voters, Democrats now have a 2-percentage point advantage (-12: Spring 2015), among African American voters, that advantage grows to 78 percentage points (79: Spring 2015) and among Hispanics, the advantage is 55 points (41: Spring 2015).

...Sanders is Only Candidate with Net Positive Rating, Trump -20 With GOP.  Senator Bernie Sanders is the only one of the five candidates with a net positive favorability rating. 54% of 18- to 29-year-olds rate Sanders favorably and 31% view him unfavorably (+23 favorable: Net). On the other hand, Donald Trump’s net favorability rating is -57. Among young Republicans, 37% view him favorably and 57% view him unfavorably (-20 unfavorable: Net).

Men and Women Differ on Who Would Improve Women’s Lives the Most. When asked which of the five remaining presidential candidates would most improve the lives of women, Clinton leads 29% to 25% compared to Sanders, with 32% undecided. No Republican candidate received more than 5 percentage points (5%: Cruz; 4%: Trump; 2%: Kasich). Analyzing the results among men only, Clinton has an 11-point advantage over Sanders (32%: Clinton; 21%: Sanders). When we analyze the responses of women, identifying the candidate who would most improve women’s lives, Sanders edges Clinton (Sanders: 30%; Clinton: 26%).

Obama and Congressional Democrats Receive Highest Approval in 5 Years; 72% Believe President Should Fill SCOTUS Vacancy. Both President Obama and Democrats in Congress have seen their approval ratings increase by 5 percentage points since our last poll was released in Fall 2015. President Obama and Congressional Democrats received the highest approval rating since February 2011. President Obama’s approval rating improved in most major subgroups across the board, with the greatest increases on college campuses (61%: Spring 2016; 53%: Feb. 2011) and among African Americans (86%: Spring 2016; 78%: Feb. 2011).

72% of young Americans believe that President Obama should nominate a justice to fill the current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Only 23% say he should not nominate. Among Democrats, 89% say he should nominate and of those, 53% say he should nominate whomever he wants and 36% say he should nominate a consensus pick. 49% of Republicans say he should nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy and of those, 12% say he should nominate whomever he wants and 37% say he should nominate a consensus pick.

Sargent underlined a key finding-- that young people see a robust role for government in guaranteeing a right to a basic standard of living, and majorities of them see a large or moderate federal role in regulating the economy and access to health care and higher education.

• A plurality of these young voters agree by 48-21 that “basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide it.”

• A plurality of them agree by 45-20 that the “government should spend more to reduce poverty.”

• A plurality of them agree by 47-20 that “basic necessities, such as food and shelter, are a right that the government should provide to those unable to afford them.”

• A majority of them, 67 percent say the federal government should play a “large” (30) or “moderate” (37) role in the “regulation of Wall Street,” while only 28 percent say it should play little to no role.

• A majority of them, 66 percent, say the federal government should play a large (32) or moderate (34) role in the delivery of health care, while only 31 percent say it should play little to no role.

• A majority of them, 70 percent, say the federal government should play a large (35) or moderate (35) role in “providing access to higher education,” while only 27 percent say it should play little to no role.

• A majority of them, 69 percent, say the federal government should play a large (27) or moderate (42) role in “regulating the economy,” while only 27 percent say it should play little to no role.

Harvard’s polling director, John Della Volpe said that Bernie is "not moving a party to the left. He’s moving a generation to the left. Whether or not he’s winning or losing, it’s really that he’s impacting the way in which a generation-- the largest generation in the history of America-- thinks about politics."

Good News Out Of Maryland

Donna Edwards is giving up a safe congressional seat in a deep blue district (MD-04) in Prince George's County, where Obama won in 2012 with 78%, to run for the open Senate seat of one of her mentors, Barbara Mikulski. Last year Donna won her own reelection bid with 70%, the best of any incumbent in Maryland. But she's being challenged for the Senate seat by an establishment careerist heavily financed by the Wall Street banksters who are grateful for his assistance to their cause while serving as Ranking Member of the House Banking Committee and as the spectacularly failed DCCC chairman who handed the House over to the GOP, engineering the historic and catastrophic loss of over 60 seats-- Chris Van Hollen.

If Donna wins, she would be the first African American senator from Maryland and only the second African American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. If Van Hollen wins he'll be the 5 millionth crooked Wall Street-beholden white guy hack the banksters managed to buy an office for. Donna is a fierce and committed progressive. Van Hollen is a wishy-washy nothing who stands for nothing and is just looking out for himself and the people who finance his career. His term in Congress has been one of abject failure that wouldn't make anyone-- other than his cronies-- think he's earned a promotion. And that was reflected in a brand new poll from the Baltimore Sun this week that shows Donna beating him 34-28% in a field of 10 candidates and with a lot of voters who haven't made up their minds, although her lead increased to 10 points in a head-to-head match-up with Van Hollen. Donna is winning with women, African-Americans (67-16%) and voters in the Baltimore region.

Blue America has endorsed Donna-- as we have every single time she has run for office-- and you can contribute to her campaign here through ActBlue. Yesterday she published an oped on what the kind of real leadership she offers means to crucial parts of all of our lives like Social Security.

In the state of Maryland alone, over 763,000 individuals receive Social Security. Social Security lifts over 191,000 Marylanders out of poverty, and generates over $22.2 billion in economic output for our state. In my family and in yours, Social Security has been a promise from one generation to the next--  that we will look out for one another.

But Social Security has been under constant assault since its inception. Republicans have claimed that it’s an entitlement program our country cannot afford, and that it is bankrupting our country’s future.

The idea that a fund someone pays into for their entire working life would be considered an entitlement is proof of just how out of touch our Republican colleagues are with American workers. And unfortunately, every now and then they convince a Democrat to engage with them in this charade.

My opponent is one of those Democrats. He backed a plan that, if enacted, would have cut Social Security benefits and raised the retirement age for workers here in Maryland and all across our country. When his deal fell apart, he tried to walk back his support for the cuts. Then, upon entering this race for the Senate, my opponent signed onto legislation that would do the opposite: expand Social Security. We should be clear about why he made that decision--  political expediency.

From day one, I fought against the cuts he was willing to support in the Bowles-Simpson deal. From day one, I fought back against our own President when he proposed Social Security cuts in his own budget, leading letters with my colleagues in the House to oppose a cost of living adjustment that would have left our seniors with less in their monthly checks. My opponent sat on the sidelines. Now he and a majority of Congressional Democrats are standing with us.

I opposed the cuts because I understood what they would mean for real families. For so many retirees, Social Security is all they have. Pensions have all but disappeared, 401k plans have lost value because of Wall Street speculation, and it’s harder to save for retirement when you’re just trying to make ends meet. Those cuts supported by my opponent in order to get a budget deal would be catastrophic for elderly women and African Americans. 55% of beneficiaries are women, and almost 50% of unmarried, many widowed, senior women rely on Social Security for up to 90% of their income. The numbers are similar for African Americans: almost 50% of beneficiaries rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income. Cutting what for many is a sole source of income would leave millions out in the cold. And, after a lifetime of paying into the Social Security Trust Fund, the benefits they have earned should be there when it’s time, not bargaining chips for Washington politicians looking to cut a deal.

I’ve fought every day in Congress to stop cuts to Social Security, and to change the conversation to one about expanding benefits for seniors and working families who rely on this vital program for their retirement security. Leadership is about taking a bold, principled stance and convincing others to stand with you: I wasn’t afraid to speak up to stand with seniors and working families when others wanted me to be silent. Now, my opponent’s reversal proves that we were right from the beginning.

We owe it to generations of American seniors to allow them to retire with dignity. We can’t leave them without the benefits they’ve earned. In the Senate, you can trust that will always be my position, and that I will never waver.

The other piece of good news is not unrelated. Blue America has endorsed the only candidate running to replace Donna who would be as progressive and as effective as Donna has been, state legislator Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who you can watch being interviewed by Marianne Williamson in the video above. This weekend, unexpectedly, the Washington Post abandoned the dull establishment shills in the race they would normally endorse and went with the bold choice, Joseline, who they asserted is "the best of them, by a good margin"and a "doer with a knack for making things happen."

Ms. Peña-Melnyk, a former federal prosecutor who has served as a state lawmaker since 2007, lacks the name recognition of her main rivals for the nomination, former lieutenant governor Anthony G. Brown and former Prince George’s state’s attorney Glenn Ivey. For that, she more than compensates with preternatural endowments of energy, grit and determination.

Those qualities have drawn rave notices practically from the moment she arrived in Annapolis, representing a district in Prince George’s, as a freshman legislator. They account both for her impressive legislative record and for her tireless service to constituents. By a variety of accounts, no one in the state legislature works harder.

That matters in a race in which the most viable candidates, liberals in one of the nation’s most left-leaning congressional districts, are nearly indistinguishable in terms of policy and ideology. All favor expanding an array of government programs and services; none has a detailed explanation of how to pay for it. Any would make a plausible successor to the incumbent, Rep. Donna Edwards, who is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. senator.

Ms. Peña-Melnyk, born in the Dominican Republic, grew up in an impoverished immigrant household and had the pluck to make her way through college and law school. She won a seat in the legislature without the support of Prince George’s local Democratic bigwigs, but quickly made a mark as a driven, detail-oriented workhorse, pushing through a variety of substantive bills and impressing colleagues who regarded her as an outsider.

She played a key role in patient-friendly legislation requiring the digitization of medical records in Maryland, the first state to enact such a mandate, which was initially opposed by insurance companies. And she was largely responsible for a fair-minded bill that protects the rights of urban areas of the state by designating prison inmates according to their home addresses, not the location of the facilities where they serve time.

Both women face the voters April 26-- as does another Blue America congressional candidate in Maryland, Jamie Raskin. A new poll, commissioned by Kathleen Matthews' campaign, and released this morning shows Jamie leading a long list of primary opponents, including Chris Matthews big-spending, conservative lobbyist wife, the de facto Republican in a district that has no plausible Republicans (just corporate Democrats like Matthews who are every bit as bad). Raskin leads Matthews 31-28% and the Trump-character of the race, multimillionaire David Trone, is at 13%. Edwards, Peña-Melnyk and Raskin can be found on the page that pops up when you tap this thermometer: 

Blue America Will Match Your Giving Tuesday Money To Stand With Planned Parenthood

As we've been writing all weekend, the Republican candidates-- on all levels, presidential, congressional-- are running their campaigns by inciting their supporters, some of whom are, by definition, not very stable, to violence. As Eric Kingson, the Blue America-endorsed candidate running for the House in a Syracuse, NY-based district points out, "the harsh rhetoric of Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz who called Planned Parenthood 'an ongoing criminal enterprise' and Mike Huckabee who called for the U.S. Department of Justice to 'criminally prosecute Planned Parenthood' invites intolerance. It also offers aid and comfort to those willing to act outside the law of the land and the norms of human decency. The inflamatory rhetoric of Cruz, Huckabee and other anti-choice activists diminishes the dignity of all and assaults the right of every woman to make intensely personal decisions free from coercion about whether to bring a pregnancy to term. And sometimes worse..."

Lou Vince, our candidate in CA-25, running against a complete NRA shill who uses the same kind of inflammatory language about women's health clinics, Tea Party psycho Steve Knight. made a similar point:

The horrendous act of terrorism committed in Colorado against the Planned Parenthood clinic illustrates why this election is so critical. We must stand up for a woman's right to choose and her right to control her own body, a right that Republicans like Steve Knight want to take away. Secondly, we must stand up to the NRA and stop putting up with their woefully misguided lobbying efforts that ultimately contribute to so much violence. As a cop, I know a thing or two about guns and enough is enough, we need sensible gun control reforms. Unfortunately, these things will never happen with Steve Knight in Congress. It's time for him to go.

PG Sittenfeld, who is running for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat against two of the worst NRA-backers in the country, conservaDem Ted Strickland and right-wing Republican Rob Portman, has been campaigning on curbing the NRA corrosive-- and murderous-- political power. After the shooting he told us that "The devoted people who work for and support Planned Parenthood, and who are unwavering in their support for a woman's right to choose, will not be scared or intimidated by the threats of bullies and the violence a psychotics. In the U.S. Senate, I will continue to stand up for women's health as well as boldly advocate for common sense gun safety reforms to set our country on a different path."

We decided to spend out Giving Tuesday asking for contributions from our members for our pro-choice/pro-gun safety candidates and to match all contributions up to $1,000 with a check from the Blue America PAC to Planned Parenthood. If you're not a Blue America member you probably didn't see the letter Digby wrote yesterday. In reading it, keep in mind what Maryland Delegate an congressional candidate Joseline Peña-Melnyk said after the right-wing terrorist was apprehended. I think she spoke for all Americans when she said "It saddens me to see more innocent Americans dead because our nation refuses to address the flood of guns that are easily available to unstable people. Those who oppose all reasonable gun controls should be ashamed. They have trapped us in this cycle of repetitive violence."

Digby:

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday having become something of an orgy of over-indulgence, somebody somewhere came up with the idea that the Tuesday after Thanksgiving should usher in the benevolent side of the holiday with a call to give back. They are calling it Giving Tuesday and it seems as though it might be refreshing reset from the endless eating and shopping of the long holiday week-end.

Unfortunately, this past Thanksgiving holiday was not just marked by the usual Walmart brawls and long lines waiting for Best Buy to open. This year we had to endure an act of terrorism perpetrated on our own soil: a man gunned down 12 people, killing three, in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. Afterwards, he was said to have declared "no more baby parts." Those two words-- "baby parts"-- are used by Republican demagogues to describe the practice of life-saving scientific research which uses fetal tissue. It refers to some hoax videos circulated by anti-choice zealots in furtherance of their cause.

It is inflammatory incitement and it did its job this last week-end.

The GOP presidential candidates were all very slow to condemn this murderous attack. And when they did, it was in the most grudging terms possible. Carly Fiorina, the candidate who blatantly lied before 25 million people in the GOP presidential debate, describing something that never happened in lurid, graphic detail even went so far as to cast blame on the left for even bringing up the possibility that rhetoric such as theirs may have contributed to this atrocity.

All Blue America candidates are crystal clear on where they stand, both in support for Planned Parenthood and against the NRA which makes it possible for zealots to easily acquire the firearms they use to carry out their deadly missions. This statement from state Senator Jamie Raskin, candidate for Maryland's 8th Congressional District speaks for all of us:

"The nightmare in Colorado Springs brought together two lethal threats to the American people: the epidemic of gun violence made possible by lax gun laws and the NRA, and the relentless attacks by right-wing fanatics on Planned Parenthood and the right of American women to access basic reproductive health services. Let this outbreak of homegrown terror in Colorado give us the resolve we need to impose civilized gun safety laws in our country and to stop all of the appalling efforts to defund and destroy Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of reproductive health services in the U.S."

In the spirit of Giving Tuesday, Blue America has decided to match the first $1,000 we collect for any candidates on this page and donate it to Planned Parenthood. We want to help the organization in every way we can and that means giving directly but it also means electing leaders to congress who will stand up and fight for women's rights. It is imperative that we do both.

We are at a critical time in American politics. Please consider spending some of your "Giving Tuesday" dollars by donating to the Blue America candidates of your choice and we will double the effort by matching it with a donation to Planned Parenthood.

The Republican Debate Over Deporting Millions Of Our Neighbors

Last month, People For the American Way ran Donald Trump ads on Spanish language radio in northern Virginia to help progressive Democrat Jeremy McPike win a crucial state Senate seat. It worked; McPike beat right-wing sociopath, Manassas Mayor Harry “Hal” Parrish II. People for the American Way's work was meant to help register Latinos to vote, not just for Pike but in preparation for the 2016 elections as well and they felt Trump's racism and xenophobia would be a boost among Americans who are revolted by how he has dragged the GOP into the ugly divisiveness that is at the center of his brand. As Heidi Przybyla wrote in USA Today, "The first signs of a major U.S. Latino voter mobilization are forming, and it’s Republicans turbocharging an effort likely to help Hillary Clinton."

Last night's Republican debate came just after the RNC had announced-- under pressure from some of the candidates-- that they were canceling the scheduled Telemundo debate, something, as RH Reality Check's Tina Vasquez explained, is likely to cost Republicans even more Latino votes-- because of the failures in building trust and making investments in the community-- than just what's been lost because of the outbreak of Trumpoid xenophobia and racism. On the most basic level, dissing Telemundo means the GOP is disrespecting American Hispanics. Of course one of the flashpoints in the debate was over immigration policy-- or more specifically, over Trump's racist deportation craziness. Writing right afterwards for the NY Times, Jonathan Martin and Patrick Healy noted that Kasich and Bush tried to "energize their campaigns by heaping scorn on Donald J. Trump’s plan to deport unauthorized immigrants."

In the most substantive Republican debate so far, Mr. Kasich and Mr. Bush, who have been fading in polls, presented themselves as experienced chief executives who had practical solutions to deal with national challenges like immigration. Yet Mr. Trump and another candidate, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, inveighed against what they called amnesty and argued that undocumented workers were driving down Americans’ wages.

...While several other candidates, like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, received a pass from the moderators on immigration, Mr. Kasich took on the issue directly after Mr. Trump defended his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border and to identify and deport some 11 million people.

“Think about the families; think about the children,” Mr. Kasich said. “Come on, folks, we know you can’t pick them up and ship them across the border. It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument.”

Mr. Trump, whose counterpunches were a memorable part of his early debate performances, replied coolly at first, citing President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s approach to deporting immigrants in the 1950s.

“You don’t get nicer; you don’t get friendlier,” Mr. Trump said. “We have no choice. We have no choice.”

But Mr. Kasich stayed on the attack. “Little false little things, sir, they really don’t work when it comes to the truth,” he said.

Mr. Bush then tried to pounce. He twitted Mr. Trump, his longtime rival in the race, for suggesting that Mr. Bush be allowed to speak-- “What a generous man you are”-- and warned that Mr. Trump’s harsh proposals would drive Hispanic voters to support the Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this,” Mr. Bush said.

We asked 3 of the Blue America candidates what they thought about all the hatefulness on display last night. Joseline Pena-Melnyk is the progressive candidate running for the seat Donna Edwards is giving up in Maryland. She told us that, "We need a humane solution for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the US. To leave them in the shadows risks creating an underclass that feels permanently alienated and never becomes 'American.' I support President Obama’s plan for a path for them to earn a green card and eventually citizenship. The indiscriminate deportation policy that Republicans favor would break up families and create more problems for America. Parents would be deported while their US-born children could be left behind and dependent on public support."

Nanette Barragán is also running in a solid blue district, although she faces a very corrupt and very conservative primary opponent, a non-Hispanic in a Hispanic-majority district. "For the party that claims to be family friendly," she told us this morning, "it’s shocking to see how committed Republicans are to dividing families instead of keeping them together. Last night, Donald Trump continued to tout his disastrous plan to deport 11 million people and build a wall, and Marco Rubio said nothing. For years families have suffered as a result of our broken immigration system, and that's unacceptable. In Congress, I will fight against the campaign of hate directed at immigrant families like the one in which I was raised. And I will advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that will keep families together and recognize the contributions that immigrants make to our communities and economy."

Ruben Kihuen is one of the most trusted progressive leaders in the Nevada legislature and he's running for a blue-leaning seat currently held by a weak and conflicted Republican freshman, Cresent Hardy, who would like to deport everyone but is too scared to agree with his GOP compatriots too loudly. Ruben has no problem expressing his sentiments loud and clear: "I am a proud immigrant to this country. My family moved here when I was eight years old with little more than the clothes on our back and today I am a State Senator and candidate for U.S. Congress. That's the American Dream. If Donald Trump wants to make America great again, he needs to end his racist, impractical and inhumane proposal to round up and deport 11 million people. Even the so called moderates of the GOP field like Bush seem to only oppose Trump's proposal for political purposes, saying it would give the election to Democrats. I can't tell which is worst but it's clear the Republican field is out of touch with working class Americans who want to fix our broken immigration system."

Watch Fox News' interpretation of the Republican immigration debate from last night on the video clip above above. This morning morning, the right-wing Washington Times had a headline: Jeb Bush, John Kasich seal their fates by pandering to illegal immigrants.

As if Jeb Bush’s campaign were not already finished, the candidate drilled several additional screws into his own coffin during Tuesday night’s debate here.

“Even having this conversation sends a powerful signal,” he whined as real estate mogul and presidential front-runner Donald Trump tangled with the Democratic wing of the Republican Party over the insanity of allowing 12 million illegal aliens to roam free in America without the slightest concern that our country’s laws might just apply to them.

Outside the debate hall, protesters beat drums and screamed for amnesty. One man with a bullhorn kept repeating over and over again that justice is not possible in America. And every third time or so he accused Mr. Trump of being a “racist” for vowing to enforce America’s immigration laws. No word on whether he was a plant, paid for by the Bush campaign.

On stage inside the debate hall, Mr. Trump stuck to his guns and said that immigration laws passed by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and approved by presidents from both parties should simply be enforced. That is all he is saying.

Yet Mr. Bush not only thinks these laws should be summarily dismissed, he said during the debate that even having a discussion about enforcing our immigration laws is a terrible thing. We should dismiss these laws and there should not even be a debate about it.

“They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this,” Mr. Bush said.

Wow. Truly astonishing. Not only does Mr. Bush not belong in the White House or the Republican Party, he should just be deported. Perhaps to Mexico, where he might be happier and find greater success in politics.

Astonishingly, Mr. Bush was not alone on the Republican stage. “Think about the families!” cried Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “C’mon, folks!”

These people really have no clue how desperately frustrated and estranged American voters in both parties are over this issue of rampant illegal immigration and Washington’s absolute refusal to take simple, common sense measures to fix the problem.

John Kasich should be deported right behind Jeb Bush.

Trump's dramatic interpretation of Eisenhower's "Operation Wetback" was very sugar-coated-- and filled with incorrect information as is Trump's standard operating procedure. For one thing, "[t]he one-million-deported figure that Trump cites was the one that [Attorney General Herbert] Brownell trumpeted a year after Operation Wetback’s implementation, but researchers say that number is highly exaggerated." And Trump's 1 million figure isn't 11 million or 14 million or however many people he says he'll round up and deport now. Kind of embarrassing for Rubio to have to tip-toe around Trump's ugly xenophobic fantasy that is meant to solve nothing, just (momentarily) placate the worst elements of the Know Nothing Republican base.

This morning Univision analyst Javier Maza told host Satcha Pretto that Trump once again lead the rest of the Republicans down a tragic rabbit hole:

"Los analistas tenemos que ver no sólo las cosas que se dicen, sino las cosas que no se dicen. Marco Rubio y Ted Cruz se callaron la boca al momento de que se hablaban de deportar a los 11 millones de indocumentados. Es decir que son hispanos de origen, pero republicanos de corazón. Y eso va a ser un problema para ellos siempre cuando se trata de representar el interés y lo que realmente los hispanos queremos en este país."

"We commentators need to observe not only what they say but what they don’t say. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz kept their mouth shut in the moment [during the debate] when deporting the 11 million undocumented immigrants was discussed. That is to say that they are Hispanics by origin but Republican at heart. And that is always going to be a problem for them when it’s time to represent the interests and what we hispanics really want for the country."

Steely Dan Contest Ends With The Weekend

Sunday is the last day of our Blue America giveaway for the rare and collectible RIAA-certified Steely Dan platinum award. We want very much to make sure that when Donna Edwards leaves her House seat-- MD-04, primarily DC suburbs in Prince George's County-- for the Senate, her successor is another committed and capable progressive. That's why we're trying to help state legislator Joseline Peña-Melnyk raise the funds she needs to compete against a bevy of corporate careerist political hacks-- from conservative Derrick Davis and Donna-antagonist Glenn Ivey to failed gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown-- who are far from a progressive vision of where Maryland and the U.S. should be heading.

So how does the plaque (below) wind up on your wall? These awards are never sold. This particular one was given to me by the band when I was president of Reprise. It celebrated a million sales of Two Against Nature and the four Grammy awards Steely Dan won in 2001, including Album of the Year. Only a small number of these plaques were made, a dozen or so. What Blue America is doing is randomly selecting one contributor to Joseline's campaign and, as a thank you, sending that person the plaque.

The "contest" is over Sunday just before midnight. The winner isn't the person who contributes the most. Any amount goes. In fact, if you don't have any cash to spare at the moment and want a chance to win anyway, just send a postcard to Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027, and you'll have the same chance as anyone else. Otherwise... just enter here on this ActBlue page.

Walls, Walls Between Us, And A Chance For Steely Dan History

Walls. Wasn’t the Republican hero Ronald Reagan famous for tearing down walls? Now another famous Republican would like to build his version of the Great Wall of China on America’s southern border. Competing for the spotlight and citing "legitimate concerns" about security at the Canadian border, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, before cutting and running, said he'd consider another wall up north. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans aren't walls, but you could place them in the category of "giant moats." They provide us with distance from the conflicts in Europe and Asia, a kind of "free security" courtesy of geography and plate tectonics.

Continents drift, collide and pile up against each other and make their own walls; and we give them names. Once Denali, then Mount McKinley, and then back to Denali-- to name just one artifact of continental collision in the news recently. People drift too, though a bit faster. They are fleeing wars, violent drug cartels, crushing poverty, radical and murderous extremists, intolerance and oppression. The drifting people are also given names: refugees, undocumented immigrants, migrants, illegals, aliens, wetbacks. Some Republicans would call them rapists, criminals and anchor babies.

What does it mean to progressives that Mr. Trump leads the Republican field? I expect that we are not surprised that many Republicans identify with his divisive and hate-filled message. What should surprise and alarm us is that 39% of voters today identify as Independents, up from 30% in 2004 according to the Pew Research Center. Although 48% of those Independents lean Democratic and 39% of the Independents lean Republican, the overall increase in the number of Independents means that progressives and Democrats must do a much better job in helping the average voter to see compelling differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Is there something we can learn about America from the refugee and migrant crisis gripping Europe, Africa and the Middle East? The first lesson might be that it takes extraordinary circumstances for people to uproot and leave the familiar to travel hundreds of miles across deserts and open seas. How many people do you know who would willingly pay their last dollars to a Mexican "coyote" to be jammed into the back of a truck or to a Libyan smuggler to board a crowded inflatable raft to cross the Mediterranean Sea?

The second lesson is that however tranquil and orderly America appears on most days, fear and deep resentment boil beneath the surface. Mr. Trump knows this. His immigrant attacks have adroitly tapped into a receptive audience. Progressives see another pot boiling when we look at street protests in Ferguson and riots in Baltimore. That is a different pot of poor people, largely African American, who don’t see a place set for them at the American table.

Progressives should worry that people struggling for a small slice of the American pie know instinctively that the Democrats care for them more than a party obsessed with keeping taxes low for America’s top 1%. But they doubt that the Democrats can actually deliver with jobs and the other things they need. Many who we think should be Democrats believe that Republicans have the skill to manage government and create growth and opportunities.

Progressives have heart, and progressive ideas are smart. We know it, but we’ll only win when we convince independents that progressives care about them, that we’re not in the pocket of big business, that we know how to govern better and that our ideas make sense and will get working families ahead.

Joseline Peña-Melnyk is a progressive with heart and smarts. She’s the true progressive running for Maryland’s 4th Congressional District to replace Donna Edwards. Born in the Caribbean and fluent in Spanish, she is equally at home with the district’s growing Latino population and its longstanding African American majority. She preaches unity, not division.

Joseline is a doer. As a former prosecutor and defense lawyer, she saw that minorities are overrepresented in prison. Thanks to her, a new Maryland law taking effect soon will help remove bias by requiring police lineup administrators to be "blind"-- that is, the administrator will not know the identity of the suspect or, if he knows the identity of the suspect, the administrator should not know which lineup member is being viewed by the eyewitness. Research shows that in lineups today eyewitnesses often take cues from the lineup administrator and feel pressure to make a selection. The result of this law should be fewer wrongful convictions and more confidence in the justice system.

Progressives can be practical too. Joseline led Maryland into the adoption of digital medical records. With doctors sharing a database of patient information there are fewer mistakes, fewer duplicative tests and less unnecessary expensive care. When a constituent came to her with a family tragedy-- the suicide of a teenage daughter-- Joseline was the motivator behind "Lauryn's Law" to ensure that school counselors have training in recognizing teen suicide risk factors.

Immigrant students with limited English-language skills were failing in Maryland schools. Only 55% percent of these students graduate high school, as compared with 77% of the general population. Joseline worked closely with the schools administrations to establish two new high school programs funded in part with $3 million in seed money from a Carnegie Corporation grant to target this achievement gap. She did it because we all win if the next generation is prepared to take their place in our society.

In Congress, Joseline will continue pushing smart progressive ideas. She'll support creating jobs by rebuilding the nation's failing roads, bridges and sewer and water systems; she'll keep fighting for affordable education; and she'll keep protecting the civil rights of the people on the margins and keep working to get them a fairer piece of the pie.

DO YOUR PART, AND YOU MAY WIN A BONUS

Please help get Joseline Peña-Melnyk in Congress where she belongs through your Blue America contribution and maybe you'll luck out and win a very special and very rare Steely Dan platinum album award as a bonus. Rolling Stone has called Steely Dan-- Walter Becker and Donald Fagen-- "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies." Maybe that’s like Reagan being the antihero to Trump. I don’t know. But Steely Dan is a complex blend of jazz and rock that is simultaneously intellectually challenging and spiritually, emotionally and physically uplifting.

The band sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. The particular platinum record we’ll be giving away to one lucky randomly selected contributor is a super-rare collector's edition for Two Against Nature which commemorates RIAA platinum sales certification (1 million albums) and four Grammy Awards in 2001, including Album of the Year. Only a few were made for the band and their associates. This particular one was awarded to yours truly, then president of Reprise Records. You can help Joseline win a crowded primary and take a chance on a memorable piece of music history.

The "contest rules" are simple. Just contribute any amount to Joseline Peña-Melnyk's campaign on this page. We're not Republicans, so the winner isn't the person who contributes the most. Any amount goes. In fact, if you don't have any cash to spare at the moment and want a chance to win anyway, just send  a postcard to Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027 and you'll have the same chance as anyone else. But do it quickly. The contest is over next Sunday night at 11:59pm PT.

While The DCCC Sabotages Progressive Candidates, Joseline Peña-Melnyk Explains The Importance Of The PCCC Candidate Training

Maryand's 4th Congressional District is as blue as they come. The PVI is D+26 and Obama beat McCain 77-22% and four years later beat Romney 78-21%. The current congresswoman, Donna Edwards, has one of the best records on Capitol Hill and last year the district's voters gave her 70% of the vote. She won 77% of the vote in the last presidential year, beating out the other 7 Maryland incumbents. 

But with Donna running for the U.S. Senate, it's crucial that the next rep from MD-04 be as stalwart and effective a progressive as she's been. That's why Blue America endorsed Joseline Peña-Melnyk for Donna's seat. She's up against a slew of better-financed and far more conservative Democrats, as many as a dozen of them, including ex-Lt. Governor and failed gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown and corporate-oriented Donna antagonist Glenn Ivey. You can help Joseline beat back the challenges here. Meanwhile we asked her to tell us why she was so excited to join the other great candidates who took part in the PPP candidate training last week. Her guest post:

Progressive Boot Camp Invigorates the Party’s New Blood
by General Assembly Delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk

The Tea Party and their radical conservative agenda have taken America by storm. These opponents of progress are energetic, organized, focused on their cause, adept at attracting media attention and effective at appealing to donors and raising money. As a result of their efforts, Congress is paralyzed and important work has been delayed. In this environment, being a Progressive can sometimes feel lonely.

But Progressives are energetic, creative and resourceful too. That much was clear last week at a Washington, D.C. boot camp hosted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC). I was there with over 200 Progressive candidates from all corners of the U.S. who gathered for four days of intensive training. This group of new leaders is not about to cede Congress to the Tea Party right. We are building a strong team to take Congress back.

Elizabeth Warren welcomed us with a message about Progressive values and what drove her into politics. Progressives believe in basic fairness. We care about the small, struggling people in society and advocate for basic rights and needs. We don’t believe in trickle down, but in building people up. Elizabeth Warren shares our view that America’s middle class is in a tailspin. Our emphasis on access to affordable healthcare, sustaining wages, job training, affordable and debt-free higher education, defending social security, and closing corporate tax loopholes is not a random wish list, but a prescription for re-invigorating the American middle class.

In her work as a law professor researching and teaching about consumer law and bankruptcy, Warren learned that most bankruptcies affected middle class families that had experienced a financial setback through divorce, job loss, or illness that wiped out their savings. That led Warren to question the impact of the law on middle class families and to various positions overseeing banks, the bank bailout after the collapse in 2009, and in helping to design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

And it’s here where the law of unintended consequences took hold. Only after Warren’s nomination by President Obama to head the CFPB in 2011 was rejected, largely due to Republican opposition, did Warren turn her energy towards politics and a run for the Senate. And in that new role Warren has become a powerful voice for Progressive change and a much worse problem for Republicans than she would have been at the CFPB. Progressives have rallied behind Warren’s ideas and have been drawn to her charisma, and the Democratic Party has new life.

If Warren’s address to the crowd at the P trip C boot camp provided the inspiration of a Marine drill sergeant screaming in our faces to run farther and do another push up, the majority of the weekend was more in the nature of the nuts and bolts of effective campaigning, like learning how to disassemble your rifle, clean it, and put the pieces back together in under a minute. We focused on fundraising and working the donors, of course, and internet tools, effective organizing, strategies for collecting endorsements, dealing with the media, and estimating the right "win number." There was role playing and hands-on practice too. We learned how to walk into a room, how to speak and how to stand in front of an audience, and how to present ourselves to an editorial board. We even were recorded on camera and heard a critique of our presentation skills.

Like a unit of new Marine recruits, we gradually formed a band of brothers (or sisters). I was able to mentor two young Latinas, from Georgia and California, and we’ll likely stay in touch after they return home and get their campaigns underway. I think I can speak for all the aspiring Progressive candidates there that we feel that our movement is building and we’re comforted in knowing that we’re not alone. We came home with more power and determination to win-- and more skills to boot. It feels good to be a part of a movement that will turn around politics in Washington and make America a fairer place for the people on the margins, without money and power.

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You can help keep MD-04 inspirationally progressive and not just meaninglessly blue... right here.

Joseline Peña-Melnyk-- Passionate Progressive In Maryland

Donna Edwards, one of the sharpest and most effective progressive leaders in Washington, is leaving the House to run for the Senate seat left open by the retirement of Barbara Milulski. There's a danger that her district (MD-04-- Prince George's County and the area around Severna) will fall back into the hands of a corrupt conservative Establishment type, like Al Wynn, who represented it so badly before Donna primaried him and retired him to K Street. There are as many as a dozen candidates who have declared or are mulling over the race, including ex-Lt Governor Anthony Brown, who just ran a catastrophic campaign for governor and lost to a Republican in one of the bluest states in America; Glenn Ivy, who was twice AIPAC's unsuccessful primary candidate "to put Donna in her place"; Derrick Davis, a conservative state Delegate; and the most progressive candidate in the field-- endorsed by Blue America-- state Delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk. 

There are a lot of reasons to back Joseline, and most of them are out front, clearly displayed in her record. We remember back in 2006, when we were struggling against the entire Democratic Establishment to help Donna win the congressional seat. Joseline was one of only two state legislators to jump in and campaign on Donna's behalf.

Last cycle we found an effective state legislator in California accomplishing amazing things, Ted Lieu, and helped him, in some small way, win a House seat. We get a similar vibe from Joseline. Her passion for progressive causes is an inseparable part of her character. As a child she emigrated from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. with her single mother, who worked in New York’s garment industry. There was a time when the family was on welfare, because her father wasn’t paying child support. But Joseline struggled to learn English and get ahead through a good education. She was an Equal Opportunity Program scholar and the first in her family to attend college. "When I look back on it now, I see how much I benefited from programs to open doors for minority students."

We spoke with Joseline this week, and she told us that for a long time she has made basic fairness for people on the margins of society her passion. One summer during law school she worked in Alabama with Bryan Stevenson to represent prisoners on Death Row. Another summer she was in Ohio farm country visiting migrant farm workers and fighting for basic living conditions, a safe work environment, and fair wages. When Joseline got her law degree she hung out a shingle and took court appointments to represent abused and neglected children, and to provide criminal defense for the poor. Later, she joined Eric Holder’s U.S. Attorney’s office and prosecuted crimes, building cases by working closely with police officers and the witnesses and victims in the community.

When she and her husband had a son and then twin girls, Joseline paused to be a mom. "But," she told us, "the call to stay involved in the community would not go away."  She served on the board of Casa de Maryland, a community social service organization focused on Latino immigrant issues, and she ran for, and won, a seat on the College Park City Council.

What followed was a key moment that established her political outlook. She ran a long-shot grassroots campaign for Maryland’s General Assembly. She challenged the political kingmakers and campaigned relentlessly with the help of dedicated volunteers and the modest contributions of ordinary people. And when she won, a marvelous thing happened. "I felt genuinely free (and responsible) to represent those same ordinary people in Annapolis and I felt free to vote my conscience and to disregard pressure put on me by the political establishment and party leadership."

Joseline's record since then shows that she's committed to making Maryland stronger, fairer, and more inclusive. She co-sponsored a bill to protect the transgender community by prohibiting discrimination based on "gender identity" in public accommodations, labor and employment, and housing (HB1265). As the "floor leader," she defended the bill from conservative challengers during a vigorous four-hour floor debate. She also supported the controversial gay marriage bill and was influential in convincing her legislative colleagues to support it too.

Joseline knows that working families need help. She co-sponsored legislation to increase the minimum wage, expand opportunities for minority businesses, broaden the Maryland Consumer Protection Act, crack down on mortgage fraud, and create state apprenticeship and workforce development programs in our secondary schools and community colleges.

Like Ted Lieu, she is known to roll up her sleeves and do the heavy lifting. Joseline and her staff have stepped in to help many families save their homes from foreclosure. She also was among very few legislators with the backbone to vote against casino gambling, because she felt strongly that Maryland should not impose the damaging social effects of problem gambling on our communities.

She has been a leader on health issues. Her legislation to digitize medical records in Maryland is improving health care delivery and lowering costs. And she has moved many bills into law dealing with women and children’s health, including bills on family planning, mammograms, childhood obesity and suicide prevention.

"The Baltimore riots," she told us, "illustrate the need to improve our criminal justice system and policing practices. And, in the larger context, the riots are a commentary on the need to create more paths to success for all our citizens." Joseline is one of ten Delegates on the Workgroup on Public Safety and Policing Practices established after the riots. But she has a strong record on these issues that predates the riots. Her bill made Maryland the first state to count inmates of state prisons in the place where they lived when arrested, which helps boost representation for the poor communities that have the most problems and the most incarcerated citizens. She co-sponsored repeal of the death penalty (HB 0295, 2013), and, to improve employment options for people with criminal convictions and reduce recidivism, she supported "ban the box" on state employment forms. And she has pushed for police accountability, including ending race-based traffic stops and promoting legislation for an independent state prosecutor to investigate law-enforcement-involved deaths.

She has supported public campaign financing to limit the corrosive effects of large contributions and constant fundraising on our democracy. She believes that a truly progressive agenda requires unity among African Americans and Hispanics, a demographic that is growing each year.

The fingers on my hand are all different, but they work together. There is no choice but for black and brown to work together to make America better. Hispanics are about 16% and African Americans are about 13% of the US population, and our numbers are growing each year. Divided, we will be ignored. But unified, engaged, registered to vote and activated, we cannot be stopped!

If you'd like to make sure Maryland voters replace Donna Edwards with another hard-working, dedicated progressive, please consider contributing to Joseline Peña-Melnyk's campaign here.