Trumpanzee And His GOP Enablers Would Rather Deport Latinos Than Get Serious About MS-13

Nancy Ohanian looks at Trumpanzee

Eliminating MS-13 and other violent criminal gangs should be a priority for law enforcement that all Americans should support. But that isn't what Barbara Comstock's Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act (H.R. 3697) is actually about. Her bill passed last week 233-175. Only one Republican, libertarian Justin Amash (MI), voted against it. 11 fake-Democrats took the bait and crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans. Now Ryan is running around claiming the bill passed with "bipartisan support."

The 11 Democrats who voted for it are the worst of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, primarily Blue Dogs and New Dems who consistently support the Republican Party policy agenda. Only one-- Ruben Kihuen-- hasn't earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch (and he has a "C"). These are the Democrats who gave Ryan and McCarthy the right to call the bill "bipartisan."

• Salud Carbajal (CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Ruben Kihuen (New Dem-NV)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Jacky Rosen (NV)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Kirsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)

The bill is not a crime-fighting bill or even an anti-gang bill. It's just a bill meant to label immigrants the GOP doesn't like as criminals. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said the bill could be easily used to target groups of people who aren't gangs-- religious organistions particularly. "This may seem reasonable until you look at the offenses listed," she said. "These offenses could sweep in many people that no reasonable person would think of as a gang member. That means that under this bill, a religious organization that aids undocumented immigrants could be a criminal gang." It was no surprise that Chicago patriot Luis Gutiérrez would be one of the leaders among Democrats in exposing the legislation for what it really is-- and isn't:

While the President is playing deal or no deal with the lives of DREAMers, Speaker Ryan is allowing House Republicans to vote on a bill that labels as many immigrant youth as possible as gang members and makes it easier to deport them. He could be moving the bipartisan DREAM Act forward, but instead, he wants to make it very clear that Republicans see Latinos and immigrants as a threat to the U.S., not an asset. Hundreds of thousands of doctors, teachers, nurses and soldiers are going to be yanked from the American economy if Speaker Ryan does not allow the DREAM Act to go forward in the next few weeks, but his priority is feeding red meat to the anti-immigration wing of his party and satisfying them with a big helping of ‘let’s label Latino youth as machete-wielding menaces.’” This is not a bill to curtail violence or make the country safer, it is a political bill to allow Republicans in the House to make speeches about urging Americans to fear young immigrants.

It is clear that Democrats and Republicans would prefer to be talking about the DREAM Act and showing the country that we can act in a bipartisan manner to resolve the status of DACA recipients and other immigrants who were raised in the U.S. I am committed to not exchanging the safety of DREAMers for more deportations or further restricting legal immigration so that there are no available legal avenues for immigrants who help feed us, build our communities and serve our country. But the priorities of House Republicans seem inconsistent with what the American people, the majority of House Members and their own voters want them to do.

Juan Vargas, a California New Dem, tried talking his New Dem colleagues out of voting for the bill-- and mostly succeeded. His point was that the "bill would result in the targeting of persons of faith, religious leaders, and faith-based organizations, who are compelled by their beliefs to open their doors to vulnerable migrants seeking safety and respite. For many in the faith community, this action is deeply rooted in religious expression and goes directly to the core of our American values as protected by First Amendment expression. The broad provisions of this bill, which purportedly targets gang members, would lead to attempts to criminalize religious groups across the country as gang members simply because they answered the call of their faith. As people of faith, we are called to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger. This bill would functionally criminalize individuals who aid undocumented immigrants as gang members under an expanded harboring statute.  The Catholic community has raised alarms over this statute in the past and is concerned that this bill could result in groups of nuns being classified as 'gangs.' There is no humanitarian exception provided in the bill and the federal government has a record of penalizing individuals who provide humanitarian relief to migrants."

He continued in a very personal way: "As a person of faith, my Catholic upbringing and time in the Jesuit order has impressed upon me the duty to speak for those less fortunate among us…for the oppressed, for the poor and for the voiceless. As leaders of this great nation, we must act in a way that reflects the best of our national values and that reflects the best of who we are as Americans. We should not contribute to a climate of fear by criminalizing humanitarian aid to undocumented immigrants. Matthew 25 gibes me, and others that believe as I do, clear direction on how we are to treat the least among us."

Trump, of course, loves the bill and it is going to the Senate now. Stephen Lendman of Global Research labeled it "a police state measure" which define "a criminal gang as a "group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of 1 or more of the following criminal offenses and the members of which engage, or have engaged within the past 5 years, in a continuing series of such offenses, or that has been designated as a criminal gang by the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, as meeting these criteria. The offenses described, whether in violation of Federal or State law or foreign law and regardless of whether the offenses occurred before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, are the following:”

▪ felony drug offenses;
▪ aiding unwanted immigrants;
violent offenses;
▪ obstructing justice;
▪ and other alleged violations of US laws, shifting responsibility to prove innocence on targeted individuals, not authorities as mandated under international and constitutional law.

And the bill is even worse than it appears at first glance.

Any immigrant suspected or alleged to be a gang member can be deported. US prisons are filled with wrongfully convicted men, women, youths, and children, mostly people of color.

HR 3697 is a vehicle for the manufacture of human and civil rights abuses, disgraceful legislation, its provisions no just society would tolerate.

It creates a sweeping new definition of “gang member,” giving authorities broad latitude to target social and political groups, clubs, even churches or other religious organizations.

It expands the use of mandatory, no-bond arbitrary detentions, a flagrant violation of international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits arbitrarily detaining anyone.

Refugees and asylum seekers will be deterred from seeking refuge in America.

It’ll subject law-abiding immigrants to flagrant abuses of power, including Fifth Amendment equal protection rights.

It’ll permit sweeping roundups of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers of color, mainly Latinos. Living in the wrong neighborhood would risk deportation.

So could wearing the wrong colored clothing or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) roundups are notoriously indiscriminate, many individuals guilty of nothing abusively detained under deplorable conditions and deported.

HR 3697 authorizes deportations if there’s “reason to believe” so-called gang affiliation or association, no credible proof required.

Expansive language permits sweeping up law-abiding people indiscriminately, children as vulnerable as adults.

DHS can target anyone based on secret evidence, classified evidence, no evidence or any pretext cited-- without due process, constitutional protections denied.

Humanitarian relief can be denied individuals fleeing persecution from designated countries.

No one was surprised when a Gutiérrez neighbor, Chicago's far right Blue Dog Dan Lipinski, stuck with Ryan and Trump and voted against the Democratic position-- and against the interests of his own IL-03 constituents. His progressive primary opponent, Marie Newman, told us that once again Lipinski showed "that he's perfectly aligned with President Trump and the Republicans on the issue of immigration. By voting for H.R. 3697, Lipinski voted to increase racial profiling and the arrest of people of color on the mere suspicion that they're involved in criminal activity. Democrats in Congress ought to be focused on protecting Dreamers and keeping families together, not satiating President Trump's absurd views on Latinos." If you agree with Marie on this, please help her repeal and replace Dan Lipinski here. Hers is one of the few races in the country where a credible progressive is challenging a fake Democrat in a race that's going to go down to the wire.

There are only two Republican-held Senate seats that Schumer's DSCC thinks it can probably win in 2018: Flake's seat in Arizona and Heller's seat in Nevada. Both of his very conservative, hand-picked recruits, Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Jacky Rosen (NV) were among the 11 rogue Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who supported this dreadful and deceptive legislation. Neither of these exceptionally bad candidates has any chance of winning without heavy Latino turnout. Neither is Latino in increasingly Latino-dominated states and in states where Latinos are becoming very cognizant of who their community's friends really are when push comes to shove. But these are the kinds of establishment GOP-lite candidates Schumer has always gravitated to for his entire career. Not just Arizona and Nevada, but all of America will suffer because of his inability to learn from his mistakes.

Once Again Sacramento Democrats Want To Send Their Most Corrupt Member To Congress

Corrupt legislators Isadore Hall and Henry Perea from the juice committee joined lobbyist Dennis Loper at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. Who picked up the tab?

A few years ago Democrats in the California state legislature, the Sacramento Democratic establishment and the state's labor bosses were incredibly eager to get rid of the worst state senator among them, corrupt conservative San Diego Democrat Juan Vargas. So they backed his bid for an open congressional seat! Let him become Washington's problem! Former Congressman Bob Filmer-- who had beaten Vargas in three primaries, and had given up his House seat to become mayor of San Diego-- endorsed Vargas for his old seat, despite having said about him:

While Juan has not yet been convicted of a crime, virtually everyone closest to him has been found guilty of something. Juan's former Chief-of Staff and handpicked successor on the San Diego City Council is now a convicted felon. Another of Juan's political cronies made millions off the poorest people in National City as a slumlord and recently, Juan's chief campaign consultant was convicted of a felony for misusing public money... If Juan truly didn't have any knowledge of the crimes his close associates have committed then he may well be the most clueless man in America.

ProgressivePunch grades Vargas' congressional career an "F," for consistently voting far more conservatively than one would expect from someone representing a his deep blue D+16 district. (Obama beat McCain 66-32% and then trounced Romney 69-29%.)

Some observers in Sacramento and the Los Angeles Democratic establishment have a sense of déjà vu in the race between Nanette Barragán and state Senator Isadore Hall to replace Janice Hahn in the South Bay's 44th Congressional District. The establishment is firmly behind Hall, one of the worst of the lobbyist-owned conservative Dems in Sacramento. His list of endorsements is gargantuan. Hahn herself, who is running for county supervisor and is counting on Hall to help deliver her votes from African-Americans, was the first to back him, even though she has been a stalwart progressive and he is far more conservative. No one was surprised when Juan Vargas, now a sleazy Wall Street-owned New Dem, also endorsed him.

Several other right-of-center New Dems did likewise, namely Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Greg Meeks (New Dem-NY, generally considered one of the dozen most corrupt politicians in Washington), Donald Beyer (New Dem-VA), Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA) and Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL). Other Democrats with shady Wall Street ties-- Joyce Beatty (OH), Julia Brownley (CA) and Carolyn Maloney (NY)-- have also jumped on board the Hall bandwagon, as have ambitious corporate whore Gavin Newsom and nearly the entire state legislature, starting with the retired Senate President Pro Tem, Darrell Sternberg, who had played such a key role in getting Vargas out of Sacramento by helping push him into DC. Hall has also been backed by slimy party bosses like LA County Democratic Party Chair Eric Bauman and by all the state legislators you read about who block progressive reforms, from Henry Perea, Jim Cooper, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas and Autumn Burke to Mike Gipson, Chris Holden and Reggie Jones-Sawyer. But most important to his campaign, Hall has the powerful lobbyists in Sacramento behind him, especially his pals involved with Big Oil.

Last week, Laurel Rosenhall, writing for CALmatters, blew the whistle on the corruption that has been the centerpiece of Hall's career in politics, in "The Juiciest Job in Sacramento." Keep in mind, we're talking about a guy who wears thousand-dollar belts and shoes on a modest legislator's salary.

Around the Capitol they’re known as “juice committees”-- those that oversee lucrative industries, allowing politicians to foster relationships they can squeeze for campaign cash.

These panels preside over business interests that fight obscure industry battles before the Legislature; think of lawyers vs. insurance companies, doctors vs. physical therapists, or card rooms vs. Indian casinos.

“These are non-visible issues that are of high interest to very wealthy groups," said Stacy Gordon Fisher, a political scientist who studied Sacramento's juice committee as a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

So those groups spend what it takes to get noticed, hiring lobbyists and pouring money into political campaigns.

One of the juiciest committees is responsible for regulating booze, cigarettes and gambling. It was called the "committee on public morals" back in the 1800s but now goes by the more innocuous name: the committee on government organization.

G.O., as the committee is known, is one of the Legislature’s biggest, with a total of 34 members of the Senate and Assembly. Its decisions impact profits for California's gambling factions, card rooms, racetracks and Indian tribes that run casinos. And now, those businesses are bankrolling the political ambitions of the committee's chairman, Sen. Isadore Hall (D-Compton).

Hall landed in the California Senate in December, following a special election in which just 7 percent of those registered turned out to vote. It was the latest in a long string of political victories for Hall, who advanced from the school board in Compton to its city council to the state Assembly. He represents one of California's poorer Senate districts, where about 20 percent of the people live in poverty.

Hall had served less than three months in the state Senate when he announced plans to run for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Janice Hahn (D-San Pedro), who endorsed him. Through June, he’s raised twice as much money as his closest opponent, attorney Nanette Barragan.

As Hall works to build a campaign war chest for what's likely to be a competitive election next year, about 8 percent of his donors have come from the district he seeks to represent.

Instead, the bulk of them reflect relationships he built as G.O. chairman. More than one-third of the $369,000 Hall raised in the first six months of the year came from people tied to a gambling business. Donors include:

• Former Assembly Speakers Fabian Núñez and Willie Brown, who have worked as consultants to casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in his fight against online poker-- an issue that has come before Hall’s committee for several years.

• Pornographer Larry Flynt, who owns the Hustler Casino in Hall's Senate district and pushed for a bill this year that would change a rule about casino ownership.

• Sacramento lobbyists David Quintana and Steve Cruz, who represent casino-owning Indian tribes, and Robyn Black, who represents Flynt and horse-racing interests. They routinely lobby bills in Hall’s committee and are forbidden by state law from contributing to a legislator’s state-level campaign. The law does not apply, however, to federal races.

• Las Vegas casino executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who company worked with a California tribe to plan a casino near Fresno with the help of a bill carried by Hall.

• Seven Indian tribes that run casinos, as well as owners of numerous card rooms and horse racing tracks.

They want to have access to him to have their position heard," said Gordon Fisher, the political scientist who wrote a book called Campaign Contributions and Legislative Voting.

"Over the long term they give him money, he hears them out. There's not necessarily a quid pro quo, but a relationship is built."

Asked about his fundraising, Hall said he didn't want to talk about it while inside the state Capitol. And then he did not respond to follow-up inquiries.

Card room owners are supporting Hall's congressional campaign because he's "a champion of the industry," whose support goes back to his experience in local government, said Jarhett Blonien, a lobbyist who represents several card rooms.

"It's not so much that they're looking for favors, it's that Isadore is their friend and they want to help him out," Blonien said.

Black, the horse-racing lobbyist who gave $500 to Hall's campaign, said her donation is unrelated to the business she has before him. She pointed out that she’s donated to several congressional campaigns across party lines. [With one exception, she has contributed entirely to right-wing Republicans on a federal level-- $2,300 to Romney, $3,000 to Kevin McCarthy, $500 to Mimi Walters and money to the National Republican Congressional Committee.]

"There are members that you get to know because you worked with them here in Sacramento and you just know they’re the kind of person you want representing our state,” Black said.

The message was the same from Quintana, the lobbyist for several casino-owning tribes, who gave $2,000 to Hall's campaign: "I’ve seen him operate in Sacramento… and I think he would make a great congressman."

Blue America has endorsed Nanette Barragán because of her own record as a progressive and an environmental activist willing to stand up to special interests that Hall champions... and to beat them. If you'd like to see her in Congress instead of Hall (and his despicable lobbyist buddies) you can contribute to her campaign here.

Eclipse Of The Blue Dogs?

Tuesday one of the 9 conservatives the Blue Dogs are trying to slip into the Democratic House caucus was defeated-- Arkansas state Rep. Clark Hall, who went down (and went down ugly) to Scott Ellington. There are 8 horrendous fake Democrats left: Leonard Bembry (FL), who still has a primary, Dave Crooks (IN), Pam Gulleson (ND) who had no opponent in her primary last night, Nick Lampson (TX), Brendan Mullen (IN), Hayden Rogers (NC), Rob Wallace (OK), who still has a primary, and Charlie Wilson (OH). With "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel in control, all 8 are being pushed by the DCCC-- Mullen, Crooks, Gulleson, Wilson and Lampson already on Red-to-Blue and Hayden Rogers, Leonard Bembry and Rob Wallace on the Emerging Races list.

The Blue Dog caucus lost half its members in the 2010 Great Blue Dog Apocalypse. Blue America helped that along by making sure Bobby Bright, the single worst Blue Dog-- who was advertising that he wouldn't vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker if he were reelected-- was defeated. This year a shitload more are retiring, including some of the worst of the worst: Heath Shuler (NC), Dan Boren (OK), Joe Donnelly (IN) and Mike Ross (AR). And the first Blue Dog with a serious primary, Tim Holden, was overwhelmingly defeated by Matt Cartwright, another race Blue America helped out in. Jason Altmire, another Pennsylvania Blue Dog was also defeated in his primary. But what's been happening is that the Blue Dogs have been migrating to a less understood caucus of conservative, pro-Big Business Democrats, the New Dems. All sorts of slimy Blue Dogs have infiltrated, from John Barrow (GA), Adam Schiff (CA) and Jim Cooper (TN) to Jason Altmire (PA), Loretta Sanchez (CA) and Mike McIntyre (NC). I suspect that Blue America will spend the rest of this election cycle fighting Republicans rather than Blue Dogs, not because we don't want to defeat Blue Dogs, just because there aren't any really good targets left. But we'll watch and see what presents itself. Meanwhile Mike Conrad did an excellent analysis of the Blue Dog disease infecting the DC Dems and I want to suggest anyone interested in exterminating Blue Dogs read the whole thing carefully. Below are some excerpts:

Blue Dogma-- The belief that the role elected conservaDems as we know them play in the Democratic Party is a necessary and productive one born of immutable laws of politics. This belief, built upon on a set of myths and misreadings promoted by those whose political relevance depends on them, keeps Democrats from clearly seeing the opportunities and challenges in front of us.

Admittedly, the proponents of the this belief have been pretty successful at getting influential Democrats to internalize their narrative. ConservaDems and their self-described “centrist” defenders go to great lengths to cast themselves as “realists” and “pragmatists” keeping the party tethered to the political mainstream. But if their claims were checked against the record, it would largely be on the grounds of realism and pragmatism that the decision would be made to stop propping Blue Dogs up. They have unrealistic ideas about elections, routinely overlooking fundamentals like economic security metrics and turnout. On the policy front they have little interest in doing what we know works if K Street or the right-wing object to it, as they always do. That conservaDems get away with doing this while laying claim to realism and pragmatism is a testament to the free ride they have received up until this point.

It’s natural to initially think that there must be a redeeming quality to elected Blue Dogs, otherwise they wouldn’t be the institution that they are. But the truth is that, for the most part, they owe their stature to a series of interlocking myths-- and organizations, first the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) and now Third Way, that champion these myths for their own ends.

...[T]he Democratic Party has a conservaDem problem that can no longer be ignored without major cost. In 2010, 16 years after the Blue Dog Caucus was founded, their ranks were decimated. Predictably, they claim the lesson from the debacle is that the party needs more of them. To paraphrase the often used line about movement conservatism: conservaDems cannot fail, they can only be failed.

The DLC acted as if the success of the party depended on its ability to secure the votes of conservative Southern voters. Their pitch seemed to be tailored to conservative white men in the South. This cohort was on its way to becoming a much less critical part of a winning Democratic coalition, but the DLC presented itself as the key to an all-important center that would determine the party’s fate. Third Way is the new DLC in the sense that they have their own conservative Southern voters: supposed “centrist” voters whose idea of a “centrist” matches up with the Beltway and who vote based on that alignment. If these voters actually exist outside of DC, there aren’t many of them, yet Third Way remains emphatic that the road to electoral victory lies through them.

...Blue Dogs are all about the deficit, except when they’re not — which is most of the time. Many of them supported the ideas that paved the way for the Great Recession and helped cripple efforts to get us out of it; they supported and continue to support the Bush tax rates for the most wealthy, some even going along with Grover Norquist’s fringe crusade to get rid of the estate tax; leading Blue Dogs endorsed the repatriation scheme; many of them supported the Iraq War; they’re far too close to AHIP and PhRMA to do anything positive about health care costs, the driver of any long-term deficit problem; and because of their fealty to Wall Street they won’t be supporting a financial transactions tax or serious efforts to reign in a decidedly reckless financial sector.

It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that Blue Dogs are either clueless about the very issue that is their self-proclaimed reason for existing, or much like elected Republicans they don’t really care about the deficit as much as they like to use it as an all-purpose excuse, often an incoherent one. You could approach Heath Shuler with a proposal that is broadly popular good policy that happens to reduce the long-term deficit, but if K Street objected he would oppose it, alluding to “the deficit” and “the center” as his reason for doing so.

What They Really Do

Prevent Results

Again, persuadable voters respond to results or lack thereof. Making legislation less effective, as Blue Dogs in Congress have done, enables the conditions that push swing voters to the other party. Catering to economically irresponsible Blue Dogs leads to Democrats losing winnable elections.

Cycle of Self-Fulfilling Doom

Blue Dogs are always going to be vulnerable. When they freak out and lurch to the far-right they fail to help themselves, if not making things worse by turning the fundamentals against them, while hurting Democrats in majority-making districts. Blue Dogs have shown themselves to be unwilling to recognize, let alone break, this cycle. When a lot of Blue Dogs lose, as they did in 2010, they blame their nominal party’s lack of complete devotion to propping them up (under the guise of “the deficit” and the “the center”), but they show little interest in getting the right answer to not very difficult question of why so many of them lost.

Undermine Our Coalition

Just a brief list:

Heath Shuler partnered with Tom Tancredo on extreme anti-immigration legislation.

Blue Dogs helped block long overdue labor law reform, which on top of being a big problem from a policy perspective, did major damage to the Democratic coalition in Midwest swing states like Ohio and Wisconsin.

ConservaDems dragged out the health care reform process for so long that it turned voters against the finished product. ConservaDems also watered down the legislation (note the considerable group of voters who oppose the bill because it doesn’t go far enough). To finish the political malpractice trifecta, “deficit hawks” pushed back the implementation timeline.

Blue Dogs signed on to the right’s attacks on women’s health.

...Elected conservaDems, through their contributions to the ongoing Great Recession, their decision to take part in the obstruction of things Democrats have campaigned on for a long time, and their painfully apparent detachment from core Democratic values, encourage disaffected progressives to disengage from electoral politics. Among the “nowhere to go” doctrine’s many flaws is the assumption that those on the receiving end of it will remain invested in electoral politics.

You'll never find a Blue Dog-- we learned the hard way-- on the Blue America list... nor even someone who might be a stealth Blue Dog the way Chris Carney and Patrick Murphy were. We avoid supporting New Dems, who are mostly a bunch of Blue Dogs without the KKK sheets and burning crosses. And one of the main things the Blue Dogs and New Dems have in common is slavish devotion to institutionalized Beltway corruption. Both are financed by Big Business in an effort to have people inside the Democratic Party to water down initiatives that are pro-consumer, pro-environment, pro-worker, and most of all, pro-regulation of predatory business practices.

One of the slimiest and most corrupt members of the California legislature, putative Democrat Juan Vargas-- who I predict will eventually switch parties-- is running for Congress... and will win. A water carrier for Big Insurance, he's been embraced and endorsed, predictably, by the New Dems. Labor and revolting Sacramento Establishment Democrats were so eager to get him out of the state, that they actually backed him in his House race! And he's doing all he can to make sure he has no viable opposition. Yesterday Christopher Cadelago at the San Diego Union-Tribune and Mehrad Yazdi at Republic Reports had the whole story.

Democratic state Sen. Juan Vargas used some of the $630,000 he spent running for Congress in the primary election on an unusual but ultimately fruitful cause-- direct mailers promoting a Republican rival, his preferred opponent in November.

California’s new primary system lets the top two vote getters advance to the November election regardless of party affiliations. In Vargas’ heavily Democratic district, the odds of two Democrats ending up in the top two positions were significant. Running against a Republican in the general election would be a safer bet. So Vargas’s campaign decided to promote one of his Republican challengers, Michael Crimmins, a wounded war veteran:

They planned to mail comparison pieces to likely Republican voters that would continue to criticize Ducheny, place Vargas in a neutral-to-favorable light, and raise the name identification of one of the three Republicans on the ballot…In all, Vargas spent at least eight times more promoting Crimmins than the Republican spent on his own campaign. If the plan didn’t work, Vargas was almost certain to square off with [likely Democratic challenger] Ducheny.

Crimmins was not even the choice of the local Republican Party, which instead backed businesswoman Xanthi Gionis. Crimmins had even been ousted from the local GOP central committee. Crimmins ended up beating Ducheny and Gionis and will face off against his admirer Vargas in the runoff election in November.

Vargas is well-funded thanks in part to his chummy relationship with the banking industry. As the chairman of the California State Senate Banking Committee, he killed a foreclosure mitigation bill that would have helped consumers better understand and hold accountable the mortgage market. Soon after, he dined with Bank of America lobbyists. He’s received tens of thousands of dollars from the banking industry to fund his current race.

California, the Democratic Party (at least for now) and America are stuck with this worthless and corrupt wheeler-dealer. We'll probably never get rid of him until his greed gets the best of him and he's caught breaking even the almost nonexistent rules Congress has made for itself. Even Steve Israel and the DCCC can't bear to be publicly associated with him! And this video the Indiana GOP is running against Joe Donnelly, a reactionary Blue Dog who wants to be a senator, is a perfect example of why Blue Dogs and other conflicted, confused conservaDems make abysmal, ineffective candidates and always come across as inauthentic. More often then not, voters who want what politicians like Joe Donnelly are selling, are happy to vote for a Republican.

Unions Always Side With The 99%, Right? Ummm...

Labor unions built the middle class. Period. Like any human endeavor there are times when they haven't been perfect but they have pretty much always been the bulwark against plutocracy. Union bureaucrats in DC, however, are something else entirely... like the rest of Washington. You know how I feel about Washington, right? Too many of these union bureaucrats seem more interested in careerism and the cocktail circuit and chummy friendships among the liberal elite than doing the right thing for the men and women paying their dues and getting the short end of the stick from Lewiston to Kalamazoo to Denver, Seattle, L.A. and back to Baltimore. We've often featured inspiring, hard-hitting speeches by Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Leo Gerard of the Steelworkers and the former SEIU president Andy Stern.

But I've been in too many meeting with too many DC union bureaucrats for my own comfort. I'll never forget one chiming in during a debate about endorsing Ilya Sheyman not that his union would endorse the conservative Democrat the DCCC was pushing down unions' throats, but that they were thinking (seriously) about endorsing the Republican. He wasn't joking. Unions have endorsed some of the most hideous Blue Dogs in the country who vote month after month and after month in lockstep with the Republicans against working families. And when the DCCC demands they help out with anti-worker candidates, many political directors just want to go along and get along. Unions have endorsed anti-working family shills like Marty Chavez against labor champion Eric Griego and I've heard from dozens of local unionists that the bosses in the state had been pressured by DC to go for someone who just broke their hearts to have to endorse.

Since 1989 the Building Trades Unions-- the biggest donors and often the most transactional and conservative-- have doled out $123,961,998 in campaign contributions. The third biggest recipient is arch-conservative Tim Holden, a Blue Dog from Pennsylvania ($562,594). Holden's default position is to vote with the Republican Party. He's virulently anti-Choice and was one of the loudest Democratic voices singing from Boehner and Cantor's hymn book about why health care reform would be a disaster. He voted for the Stupak Amendment and against the health care bill. Other Blue Dogs who scored the heaviest from this group of unions include Loretta Sanchez (CA-$521,400), Baron Hill (IN-$460,550), Leonard Boswell (IA-$455,550), Earl Pomeroy (ND-$409,500), Adam Schiff (CA-$359,000), Joe Donnelly (IN-$342,450), Nick Lampson (TX-$325,800), Dennis Moore (KS-$304,750), Mike Ross (AR-$280,500)... that's a list of grotesque Blue Dogs, many of whom line up against working families as faithfully as Republicans. This year, among the biggest recipients of Building Trades Unions cash are the usual array of right-wing Blue Dogs (Joe Donnelly, for example, is #2) and corporate shills in the party leadership like Hoyer, Wasserman Schultz and Crowley but also, coming in in the Top 10 of all members of Congress, Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Steven LaTourette (R-OH), Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY).

Let me tell you a little about one of the most hideously corrupt and conservative members of the California legislature, Juan Vargas down in San Diego. Back in 2010 when Insurance Industry shill Juan Vargas was trying to reclaim a seat in the state legislature, labor waged one of the most expensive campaigns in state Senate history to keep him out-- and almost succeeded.

Click so you can see who valiantly opposed Juan Vargas in 2010

The 40th State Senate District-- currently represented by termed-out Democratic Senator Denise Ducheny-- includes the South Bay of San Diego (with cities like Coronado and Imperial Beach), and then spans inland to encompass Riverside and Imperial Counties. With a large Latino population, the race is between State Assemblywoman Mary Salas of Chula Vista-- and Juan Vargas, who represented the same Assembly District until 2006.

Salas is clearly labor’s favorite-- with endorsements by the California Labor Federation, SEIU, UFCW, the Nurses Association and the California Federation of Teachers. She’s also the choice of the League of Conservation Voters and Equality California. Sixteen of the State Senate’s 25 Democrats (including President Darrell Steinberg) have endorsed her, along with 32 of the 48 Democrats in the State Assembly. Most of the Democratic clubs in the San Diego area have endorsed her, as did the California Democratic Party.

...But the big story in San Diego is not who’s endorsed Vargas-- but who has been funding the attacks on Salas. Insurance companies have thrown their weight around in this June election (over $17 million statewide), and the 40th State Senate District is one of a handful of races they have focused on. That’s because Vargas was their “go-to” legislator in the Assembly. ... CJAC is playing a starring role in this race. They have set up two campaign committees-- “Californians for Balance and Fairness” and “California Back to Work”-- which poured in $257,000 and $721,000 respectively on behalf of Vargas in this race.

Who is CJAC? Donations (often in six figures) to these campaign committees include: (1) Jobs-PAC, which is the California Chamber of Commerce’s political arm, (2) Farm-PAC, which represents agribusiness interests, (3) Mercury Auto Insurance, while it’s not spending millions to pass Prop 17, (4) Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy, who represents Safeway, Blue Cross and a who’s who of the largest corporations in America.

Wanna know how much the landlords love Vargas? The California Apartment Association has-- to date-- spent over $103,000 in the past month alone in independent expenditures on his behalf.

Vargas has been as horrible in office as the unions feared (and as the insurance companies hoped) so what are the unions doing today? Backing him for a seat in the U.S. Congress-- because they want to get him out of Sacramento. See all those unions opposing Vargas two years ago? Today he has been endorsed-- against two more progressive opponents-- by the California Democratic Party, the San Diego and Imperial Counties' Labor Council, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Association of Firefighters, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the United Association: Union of Plumbers, Fitters, Welders, and HVAC Service Techs, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-AFL-CIO, the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, the SD International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 569, the Laborers' International Union of North America, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Federation of Teachers, the California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers, and, in case you missed the point, the California Labor Federation. And almost all the Sacramento political leaders who opposed him a year and a half ago. If Californians are wondering why our state failed to enact single payer health care legislation with such big Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature. They might want to ask the unions who are backing Juan Vargas, who refused to vote for it.

Is there a bright side to this dismal story? Well, kind of. A friend of mine running for Congress was asked to sign a pledge from a labor union. This is the pledge:

Southern California District Council Labor Pledge

I, __________ pledge to the following if elected:
(Candidate)

• I will unflinchingly support organized labor, collective bargaining and workers' rights.

• I will not support the subcontracting of public services.

• I will support public education and not support "Public School Choice."

• I will support a new model for infrastructure repair.

• I will protect SOCIAL SECURITY.

• I will work for the removal of the funding cap on SOCIAL SECURITY.

I will work for:

• Single payer healthcare and the protection of MEDICARE

• A pre-school subsidy for single parents.

• The restoration of HEAD START

I will work for:

• A progressive income tax structure, corporations paying their fair share of taxes and a penalty tax for corporations that offshore American jobs.

• A green jobs initiative, funding and research for alternative fuels and a national priority for green programs.

I will keep an open mind on U.S. and international human rights issues, the right to choice in marriage, affirmative action and religious freedom.

I will support a woman's right to reproductive choice.

Now think about all the "Democrats" being pushed by corrupt Beltway party hacks Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Joe Crowley who could never in a million years be endorsed by these unions, locals that really do stand for the legitimate aspirations of working families, not Beltway fatcats on the cocktail party circuit.


UPDATE: Oh Yuck!

I was just going through Paul Ryan's FEC report and came across something that made me really sick. The Carpenters and Joiners Union was one of his top 5 contributors this cycle, right up there with Goldman Scahs and all the other plutocrats financing the reinstitution of slavery in America. Go unions! Especially in Wisconsin!

Vargas Coronation By Democrats Points To Doom For Working Families

California Democrats can't come up with something better than this dreck... for Congress?

On Monday evening, perhaps you all saw our teaser on the coronation of State Senator Vargas to replace Bob Filner a longtime champion of progressive causes. Filner who has faced Vargas countless times in primaries once described his possible successor:

"While Juan has not yet been convicted of a crime, virtually everyone closest to him has been found guilty of something. Juan's former Chief-of Staff and handpicked successor on the San Diego City Council is now a convicted felon. Another of Juan's political cronies made millions off the poorest people in National City as a slumlord and recently, Juan's chief campaign consultant was convicted of a felony for misusing public money... If Juan truly didn't have any knowledge of the crimes his close associates have committed then he may well be the most clueless man in America."

Filber is referring to “StripperGate” where Vargas’s former Chief of Staff was convicted of taking bribes from a Strip club owner. Inzunza had this to say after first being convicted:

"I believe that what I did was all within the law," he continued. "It was all within the political structure that we have here in San Diego, here in California and here in the United States of America."

Frickin' Filner

When Congressman Filner was asked about the possibility of longtime foe Vargas taking his seat recently, you can see the reality set in on Filner’s face. While he appears apologetic to the people of the 51st District, maybe he is just scared of Juan’s campaign staff’s hands on approach to campaigning, which he witnessed firsthand. Watch:



Either way we are faced with possibly sending California's worst DINO in history to Congress. Let’s take a quick look at how this Vargasauras Rex was hatched and nurtured on the teat of Insurance companies.

Vargas accused of buying Vice-Chair seat

Fellow former Assembly member Canciamilla implied that he lost his prominent position on a legislative committee because he did not contribute as much money to the California Democratic Party. While Vargas refuted this point, the facts do evidence a conspicuously large contribution to the party, followed by a freshmen being appointed Vice-Chair of a major committee.

“…countered Assemblyman Juan Vargas of Chula Vista, a fellow moderate caucus member who won a chairmanship, of the Insurance Committee, despite his politics…Vargas…contributed in excess of $230,000 to the party and its candidates.”

–Contra Costa Times, November 8, 2005

I am sure that is exactly what the hard working tax paying citizens had in mind when they made donations to his campaign. What’s it called when someone makes a donation to one candidate and that candidate gives it to another candidate?

Just plain Juan

As Vargas was finishing his Assembly term in office, he swore he would not seek an insurance position in the third house. “In April, Vargas was asked whether he would take an insurance job if he lost the election. “I'm not going into insurance or finance,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘I'm just not interested.’”

However, following his tenure, Vargas immediately accepted a position as the new Vice-President of California External Affairs for Safeco. “During his campaign for Congress, Juan Vargas was harshly criticized for accepting $335,000 in campaign contributions from insurers and frequently taking their side while chairman of the Assembly Insurance Committee.“

Juan’s response? “I'm really excited about the job. It's a great opportunity for me and the community.” Yeah, especially the community.

Insured to Fail

"While he was chairman he often sided with the industry and now we know why," Heller said. "He saw a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The revolving door between industry and government, it couldn’t get any more efficient and insidious than this."

In three campaigns for the Assembly and an unsuccessful run this year for Congress, Vargas received more than $354,000 in donations from various insurance companies and industry groups, including $9,700 from Safeco, according to campaign finance reports. In a press release posted on its Web site, Safeco said Vargas would lead the company’s public policy strategy in California and serve as a liaison with California state officials, community leaders and other businesses and associations.

In a spin that would make most vomit in their mouth, Vargas' Wikipedia page (obviously written by a staff member) describes his job like this: “After serving in the State Assembly until 2006, Juan took a job with a home, auto and small business insurance company and was tasked with creating jobs and outreach in diverse San Diego Communities as part of the company's diversity initiative.”

This sounds familiar, Insurance Industry goon turned job creator.

Get the fuck out

Must be what Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is thinking. This isn't the first time people in state government backed a reprehensible candidate for a job in DC just to get them out of the state. Why else would he give a junior State Senator, who no longer lives in his district, and is running for Congress a budget to hire 13 14 staff members?

Thanks Darrell for passing the buck, you couldn’t just tough it out another two years?

With Juan’s 2010 Senate campaign still in the hole for over $375,000.00 I guess there wasn’t anything left to take. I wonder how Vargas will retire all that debt?

Insert place holder here

To keep up the charade of this being an election the Democratic Party propped up perennial rubber stamp Denise Ducheny against Vargas, and then quickly took her out at the knees.

Denise doesn’t mind, she still gets to fundraise for the campaign and that tends to work out well for her husband. They tried to bill her as the “progressive” in the race, you know the kind of progressive that takes money from the NRA, Big Tobacco, Indian Gaming and screws over union workers. Oh and then for good measure hits up Big Tobacco again after she is out of office for another $12,000.00.

Where did they find this such a progressive candidate? Well she was keeping herself busy working 14 days a year…

“One of the frequently targeted panels is the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $128,109 annually to review challenges. The board met 14 times in 2010, mostly starting at 10:30 a.m. The minutes of the meetings do not report adjournment times. All five positions are held by former lawmakers..."

It can’t be that bad, can it?

“It’s one of the choicest plums at the fruit stand,” said Steve Maviglio, former Gov. Gray Davis’ press secretary, now a Democratic consultant and, thanks to Davis, a member of the board for one year. “It’s a job that requires really no experience in the field, pays well and you can do it from the comfort of the home office.”

“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.”--Gertrude Stein

You may recall Duchess Ducheny from when she earned the highly coveted “Triple Crown Award” for finishing first in spending among State Senate Members.

“Regarding the legislative year ending November 30, 2009, Ducheny spent more than any other legislator on office budgets, salaries, and miscellaneous expenditures.

#1 in total office budget ($1,274,117)

#1 in total Staff salaries & benefits ($1,108,429)

#1(tied) in the Per Diem payments ($38,042).

During this time, Ducheny was also the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, which had the highest operational budget.

The separate budget for her Senate Budget Committee’s operation was another $1,508,442, and that ranked-- WAIT FOR IT-- # 1 among the 23 state Senate standing committees!

Her Per Diem came to an average of $173 a day, factoring in the days the legislature was partially active. Many of those days included half days where attendance was all the participation required.”

Hey California was only in debt $42 Billion in 2009 what’s another $173 dollars a day for lunch?

Calling John Brooks

Our country is pretty much fucked with the prospect of Vargas and Ducheny being the top two vote getters in the primary. But with the new open primary system here in Cali I am holding out hope. There seems to be another candidate in the race that could have an impact. From what I understand he is walking the district every day talking to voters but isn’t getting any coverage. From the looks of it he is taking this seriously, but seems to be taking his sweet ass time getting his website up. He has an ActBlue page. When I reached out to him, I got an interesting quote back about his top issue.

"The path to rebuilding prosperity and pride in the 51st district is created through Education. We must involve and empower everyone in our family from the youngest to the oldest giving them the tools to succeed. Community involved Education will create more Jobs now and provide the opportunities for our children to become the architects and engineers needed to build our future."

You can check him out further at to Brooksforcongress.org.