Primaries-- Against Long Island Incumbents

Yesterday we took a look at some of the prospective 2020 Democratic congressional primaries in New York City, based on a NY Times piece by Shane Goldmacher. I promised to finish up today with a look at the two possible Long Island primaries. I'll describe both. NY-03 is the North Shore district that starts in Suffolk County around Kings Park and Commack, heads west through Huntington, and into Nassau County towns like Oyster Bay, Hicksville, Glen Cove and Great Neck, winding up in northeast Queens (Douglaston and Beechhurst) ending at Alexandria Ocasio's district. It's a pretty affluent district (3rd wealthiest in the country with a $101,695 medium income) and a D+1 PVI. Obama won twice and Hillary beat Trump 51.6% to 45.5%. The district is 73% white, 13% Asian, 9% Latino and 3% Black. It's Steve Israel's old district and the current congressman, Tom Suozzi, is the former Nassau County Executive.

In 2016, when Israel retired, Suozzi decisively won a crowded primary and went on to beat Republican Jack Martins 53-47%. In 2018, there was no primary challenger and Suozzi has no problem in the general, beating Republican Dan DeBono 157,456 (59%) to 109,514 (41%).

Unlike Israel, Suozzi didn't join the ultra-reactionary Blue Dogs. Instead he signed up with the less reactionary New Dems. Goldmacher highlights his membership in the "bipartisan [albeit misleadingly named] Problem Solvers Caucus," and explains that he "has angered progressive activists, including on immigration, after he went on Fox and Friends last summer to embrace 'some physical structures on the border' and defend the Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency. This is ironic, single Suozzi-- despite his conservatism some things, is pretty much considered a super-star when it comes to progressive immigration policy.

In 1994, as Mayor of Glen Cove, Suozzi created one of the first day laborer centers on the East Coast. When he was honored by the New York Immigration Coalition (for creating an environment of welcome and inclusion for immigrants in Nassau County) in 2011, he told the audience that "Those men who were standing on the street corner looking for work back in 1994 are the same men who now have their own businesses as landscapers and contractors. They have bought their own homes. Their children are now going to the same public schools as my children. They are living the American Dream... What ICE officials were doing [massive raids] was wrong. [He asked the audience to put themselves in the place of immigrant children] "who saw ICE come bursting through the door in the middle of the night, some of them carrying shotguns, to take away members of their family. Do you think that child will ever trust law enforcement again? This issue has become an excuse for racism in this country and we have to constantly work to persuade people that we are talking about human beings and their lives. We have a lot more work to do together. We have a lot of people to convince."

So... someone may want to primary Suozzi for being too conservative or not progressive enough... but immigration is the wrong issue. And so is anything to do with Climate Change. He quickly offered to co-sponsor AOC's GreenNewDeal resolution.

Goldmacher asserts that "some on the left have encouraged Robert Zimmerman, a D.N.C. member who lives in the district and once ran for Congress in the early 1980s, to challenge Mr. Suozzi from the left. Zimmerman, 64, did not rule out a run as he slammed Mr. Suozzi as a 'Trump sympathizer' in an interview. 'I understand it’s unusual,' Mr. Zimmerman said of a party official attacking his local congressman. 'It’s more unusual to have a member not stand up for mainstream Democratic principles.' Friends and relatives of mine in the district laughed at the idea of Zimmerman being encouraged by "some on the left." One told me that whatever I may think of Suozzi, Zimmerman is just an opportunist and careerist hack with nothing to offer.

South of Suozzi's district is Kathleen Rice's-- NY-04. It's where I grew up (Valley Stream and then Roosevelt) and it's entirely within Nassau County. It goes from Westbury, Garden City, Mineola and Floral Park through Hempstead, Freeport, Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and East Roackaway down to Jones Beach, Long Beach and the Five Towns. The PVI is D+4 and Obama and Hillary both won by low double digits. It's the 14th most affluent congressional district in America. Demographically it's 60.5% white, 17.7% Latino, 14% Black and 6% Asian.

Rice was always a very right-wing Democrat who made a career by prosecuting poor people. She's been a horrible careerist and Wall Street shill for her whole career and a nightmare New Dem in Congress. There are several Democrats considering primary challenges. Goldmacher wrote that "Kevan Abrahams, the Democratic leader in the Nassau County Legislature who lost a primary to Ms. Rice in 2014, is considering running again," but he's one of many.

Jay Jacobs, the incoming chairman of the New York Democratic Party, acknowledged that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s success had emboldened potential challengers. But he noted that the primary rules in New York have changed since 2018, when it was the only state in America to hold a separate state and congressional elections, driving down turnout to abysmal lows. Plus, incumbents won't be “caught sleeping.”

“It’s going to be a real fight,” Mr. Jacobs said. “And in a real fight, my money is with the incumbents.”

No doubt Jacobs' money is with the incumbents.

Holding Bad Democrats Accountable-- Long Island New Dem Kathleen Rice Has Earned A Primary

New Dem Kathleen Rice and progressive Siela Bynoe

Kathleen Rice was one of the key instigators in the New Dem mini-rebellion against Nancy Pelosi late in 2018. Seth Moulton gets almost all the blame but it really was Rice who acted the part of the poisonous viper slithering around hissing in peoples' ears. You've probably heard a lot about Moulton getting a primary challenge but much less about Rice's. Rice epitomizes the Wall Street Democrat. And that's not because her Long Island district is so close physically. This past cycle-- in which the GOP didn't bother fielding a serious candidate against her-- she raised $1,391,804 and her single biggest source of campaign cash was... Wall Street ($142,400). As you can see, from the Open Secrets chart below, the Finance Sector is, by far, her biggest source of funds. Predictably, as soon as she got to Congress she joined the New Dems. She serves on the Homeland Security Committee and will chair its Subcommittee on Transportation Security. Progressive Punch has graded her voting record an "F" and her crucial lifetime vote score is a dismal 62.93, not as terrible as Sean Patrick Maloney's, but far to the right of other New York Democrats'.

Rice, a former Nassau County prosecutor, was elected to Congress in 2014 in NY's 4th congressional district (D+4, where Hillary beat Trump by about 10 points in 2016). The district includes most of southwest Nassau County, the inner suburbs my family moved to when I was 2 (first to Valley Stream and then to Roosevelt). It includes the storied Five Towns (actually only 4 of them now, Inwood having drifted west into NY-05), as well as Long Beach, Jones Beach, Freeport, Hempstead, Rockville Centre, Garden City, Floral Park, Mineola, Westbury and New Hyde Park. I went to college at Stony Brook and I think half the students came from NY-04. Rice always bragged how she was New York's toughest DWI prosecutor. She was also tough on students who cheated on exams and was a big anti-drug fanatic. Cuomo appointed her as one of the 3 chairs of the notorious Moreland Commission on Corruption, basically a vehicle to cover-up his own and his cronies' corruption. In 2010 she ran as the right-of-center Democrat for Attorney General. She was heavily pushed by EMILY's List, spent the most money by far and was defeated in the primary by the progressive in the race.

You may have noticed a passing reference to a primary above. But that's the reason for this morning's post. Rice has one coming this cycle. Well-liked Nassau County legislator Siela Bynoe, a progressive, is being recruited by activist and reform groups to run for the seat. Right now, she represents the heart of the congressional district in the county legislature-- Hempstead, Lakeview, Westbury, New Cassel, Uniondale, and Rockville Centre. This is a CrowdPac page recently created by the Young Progressives of Nassau County:

We are outraged that our Democratic Congresswoman Kathleen Rice (NY-4) has been working with the Republican Party to sabotage Nancy Pelosi from becoming Speaker of the House.

Rep. Rice has supported cutting Social Security benefits (by raising the retirement age), banning Syrian refugees, rolling back Obama regulations on Wall Street, and gutting the Americans with Disabilities Act. At the height of Trump’s racist birther campaign to delegitimize President Obama, Rice accepted $53,100 in campaign contributions from Donald Trump himself. Her spokesman Michael Aciman said, “Rice has no intention of returning these contributions.”

Let us call Rice what she is: a Trump-funded Democrat who has been collaborating with the Republican Party to dismantle President Obama’s legacy piece by piece. It’s time to replace her with a progressive Democrat who will fight for working families.

We, the Young Progressives of Nassau County, are drafting Nassau County Legislator Siela Bynoe to run for Congress in 2020. Bynoe has represented the communities of Hempstead, Lakeview, Westbury, New Cassel, Uniondale, and Rockville Centre in the Legislature since 2014. She has also been the Executive Director of Huntington Housing Authority since 2006. She has fought for a $15 minimum wage, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, clean water, public transit, and many other issues.

Siela Bynoe is a candidate who would truly champion the interests of working people of New York's 4th. Kathleen Rice, on the other hand, has failed to represent the residents of the 4th Congressional District, a district Clinton won by 10 points and Obama by 13 points. In addition to her abysmal political record, she hasn't held a town hall in nearly two years.

 Please chip in whatever you can to replace Rice with a true progressive. No corporate PACs. Only people power. Your card will only be charged if Siela Bynoe runs for Congress in NY-04.

Earlier this morning, Alex Kaufman, reporting for HuffPo, pointed out that "new polling shows older, suburban women in Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice’s Long Island district overwhelmingly support a Green New Deal" and that her opposition to it makes her vulnerable to a primary challenge. If Bynoe goes through with the primary, it will be Rice's first since being elected to Congress. Kaufman points out that Rice was endorsed by a handful of GOP officials in her district in 2016 and since then has voted with Trump around 30% of the time.

Her vulnerability to a challenge could speak to the changing nature of the Democratic electorate. Support for a Green New Deal unites disparate primary voters from the 2016 election. Among New York 4th Congressional District voters who picked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016, 55 percent said they would support a pro-Green New Deal candidate, compared to 8 percent who wouldn’t. Among voters who picked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary, support for a Green New Deal proponent hit 46 percent, compared to 19 percent who don’t.

The results mirror support for Ocasio-Cortez, whose surprise primary victory over the summer skyrocketed the 29-year-old to national fame. In Rice’s district, 52 percent of those polls viewed Ocasio-Cortez favorably, of which 56 percent said they’d support a Green New Deal proponent in a 2020 primary.

“Ocasio-Cortez has clearly broken through,” Sean McElwee, the co-founder of Data for Progress, said by phone. “People like Ocasio-Cortez are more than willing to primary a Democrat for not supporting a Green New Deal.”

But reaching a point where there’s enough “organic buzz” around a Green New Deal that it’s a “topic of discussion beyond the direct actions of a primary opponent,” will require a lot of work, said Jeff Hauser, a veteran progressive strategist.

...“It is seems more than plausible to me but rather very likely that if made salient to voters, opposition to a Green New Deal would be deeply dangerous for the primary chances of any incumbent Democrat,” Hauser said by email. “However the work of making it salient is no small task.”

Pelosi, The Fate Of The Democratic Party... Stuff Like That

When people ask about Republican gains in generic polls I always point to Republican losses in deep red legislative districts in Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Wisconsin...-- what Vanity Fair's Abigail Tracy reported as a potential harbinger of the legendary blue wave in the 2018 midterms that could rob of the G.O.P. of its majority in the House—and possibly, the Senate. Get ready for a big reversal of fortune next month. On Trump's electoral toxicity, she wrote that "since he ascended to the Oval Office, Donald Trump has maintained a vice-like grip on the base of the Republican Party. And yet, while Trump’s popularity has largely proven to be non-transferable, his flagging approval rating-- which, despite a recent uptick, is still hovering in the low 40s-- augurs suppressed Republican turnout and heightened energy on the left in the midterms. So Republican candidates are facing an impossible strategic choice, one that is to some degree independent of the president’s approval rating or any economic factor: tack toward Trump, and potentially lose the center, or forgo Trumpian red meat and watch the base stay home."

“What you do when you appeal to that 33 percent is you peel off another 50 percent of the voters who will go, ‘Fuck you, I will crawl over broken glass to vote against you because you are a goddamn Donald Trumper,’” Rick Wilson, a G.O.P. strategist and vocal Never Trumper, told me, adding that without Clinton, Trump “has to stand on his own two feet.” And although Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2018, every Republican candidate this fall will be viewed as a Trump proxy. Meanwhile, Democrats will have the luxury of focusing their energy elsewhere. “They get to do that because they’re out of power. That’s a big advantage to them,” the Republican strategist told me. “They let the national environment take care of it and they run on issues that are local and important.”

...A string of Democratic upsets in conservative strongholds in special elections since the New Year have opened G.O.P. eyes to the challenge. Last month, Democrat Patty Schachtner secured a nine-point victory in a contentious battle for a state Senate seat in Wisconsin’s 10th District, which Mitt Romney and Trump won by 6 points and 17 points, respectively. Trygve Olson, a G.O.P. strategist who previously managed campaigns in the district, warned on Twitter, “A wave is coming . . . This a suburban-rural district. If the G.O.P. is losing WI-10 lookout!” Even Republican Governor Scott Walker took to Twitter to express his concern about the seat flip. “Senate District 10 special election win by a Democrat is a wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin,” he wrote.

Republicans were similarly rattled by the Democratic performance in two Missouri special election races. Democrat Mike Revis edged out his opponent by three points in Missouri’s 97th District, which Trump won by 28 points and Romney won by 12 points. Strategists have also noted a trio of elections for bellwether seats in Florida-- the state’s 40th Senate District in Miami-Dade, the St. Petersburg’s mayoral race, and Florida’s 72nd House District-- in which Democrats triumphed. “This is beyond a trend. The results are in. Republicans have a real problem in this state,” Tom Eldon, a Democratic pollster who surveyed the race, told Politico.

...While the political environment may seem primed for a blue wave in the fall, anti-Trump sentiment alone won’t be enough to flip the House. And, fortunately for Republicans, Democrats have struggled to coalesce around a party message. “The mood might help get a few points, but you still have to close the deal on things that are important in your own communities,” Schale said in reference to tight Congressional races, drawing on Jon Ossoff’s special congressional election loss in Georgia as evidence of the limits of anti-Trump enthusiasm on the left. “One of the reasons he lost was he was just another guy who happened to be a Democrat. . . . Ossoff, for all the money he raised, is still a young guy who didn’t have a lot of currency in the district and the race turned on national issues. That wasn’t good enough to close the deal.”

The Republicans are literally running millions of dollars of TV ads in southwest Pennsylvania against Conor Lamb. Lamb outraised Saccone $557,551 to $214,675 but that's chump change in this super-nationalized race. Trump's SuperPAC, Ryan's SuperPAC, the NRCC's SuperPAC and a couple of Dark Money neo-fascist operations-- 45 Cmte and Ending Spending-- financed by anti-American billionaires have flooded the airwave with ads trying to persuade PA-18 voters that Conor Lamb, an inept, nearly worthless Ossoff-like candidate is just Nancy Pelosi in a man's suit. The DCCC has already fled the field and not a single ad has run tying Saccone to the even more unpopular Paul Ryan.







Last week, writing for The Atlantic, Russell Berman asked if the GOP's successful demonization of Pelosi will be what prevents the Democrats from taking back the House. "[A] small group of restive Democrats is gunning for Pelosi," he wrote. "They’re maneuvering in public, and recruiting support behind the scenes, to force her departure. They want to set off a generational shift for Democrats that they believe is long overdue. And their efforts-- joined to the familiar attacks from Republicans, who have made them the linchpin of their bid to retain the House-- are calling Pelosi’s political future into question just as she sits on the cusp of regaining power... If Pelosi’s considerable talents and accomplishments are undeniable, so is her enduring unpopularity."

Pelosi has been a favorite piñata for Republicans from the moment she stepped onto the national stage. The formula of tying just about any Democratic congressional candidate to Pelosi’s record, words, or merely an unflattering image of her face may be stale, but that Republicans keep coming back to it election after election is evidence that it’s effective. Pelosi’s Democratic critics quickly blamed Jon Ossoff’s defeat in Georgia on that tried-and-true tactic. “Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost. But she certainly is one of the reasons,” Representative Filemon Vela of Texas said at the time.

And like an army gift-wrapping its battle plans and air-dropping them over enemy lines, Republicans have told Democrats exactly what’s coming this fall. Their ads against Conor Lamb, the candidate running in the next hotly contested House special election in Pennsylvania in March, have starred Pelosi-- despite the fact that Lamb has vowed not to vote for her. “She’s our secret weapon,” Trump let slip during a speech in Ohio, drawing knowing laughter from the crowd. “I just hope they don’t change her. There are a lot of people that want to run her out.”

Pelosi’s allies see a barely-concealed sexism in the Republican strategy, and they argue that it’s no more or less effective than any effort to demonize a political leader. As far back as 1980, Republicans ran ads targeting then-Speaker Tip O’Neill. Democrats did the same to Newt Gingrich, and they’re likely to try to take aim this fall at Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who polls show are just as widely reviled as Pelosi, if not more.

To a greater degree than presidential candidates, congressional leaders have their public image defined by their political opponents. Their job is less to inspire than to govern, to translate lofty promises into tough compromises. There are no gauzy ad campaigns on their behalf to counter the attack ads or tout their personal accomplishments; voters outside San Francisco rarely see Pelosi in soft focus, as a mother of five and a grandmother of six. “Maybe she should have launched a more aggressive personal public relations campaign to create an image,” Lawrence said. “But I don’t really think that’s important to her.”

In private, Pelosi tends to shrug off the attacks. She’ll flick at her shoulder as if swatting away a fly. “I’ve never seen her upset by it,” Lawrence told me. “She’s been in this business since she was in sundresses in grammar school. She understands the nature of this business. She’s very unsentimental about the business of politics.”

...There has been an undercurrent of Democratic discontent with Pelosi for years. When the party was in the majority, it generally came from Blue Dogs, who fretted that her liberal image was toxic in their conservative districts. Others chafed at her centralized leadership style. Now, however, the opposition is more generational, coming from a cadre of more vocal members-- Ryan, Moulton, Vela, and Kathleen Rice of New York, among others-- who are younger and in most cases newer to Congress and looking to advance. [Berman was probably unaware that they are also all conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, esp[ecially Long Island slime-bucket Kathleen Rice, one of the most venal Democrats in Congress.]

In interviews over the last several weeks, they acknowledged Pelosi’s strengths and accomplishments, conceding that she was not wholly to blame for the constant barrage of GOP attacks against her. But, these Democrats say, Pelosi sometimes makes it too easy for Republicans by bungling the party’s message or by making an offhand remark that goes awry. They winced when, during an appearance in November on Meet the Press, she referred to Representative John Conyers as “an icon” while the party was trying to get the long-serving Michigan Democrat to resign following allegations of sexual harassment. Rice said Pelosi’s comments “ceded the moral high ground” and set women and the Democratic Party back “decades.”

More recently, Republicans have mocked Pelosi’s arguably over-the-top rhetoric about their new tax law, which she compared to “Armageddon” in the days before it passed Congress. When Pelosi dismissed as “crumbs” the $1,000-plus bonuses and tax cuts going to the middle class, the GOP quickly put the comment in ads characterizing her as out-of-touch with working people.

 “Great leaders know when it’s time to step aside, and I obviously have been calling for her leadership team to step aside,” Rice told me. “I think it would be advantageous to us if that were made clear before the election.”

Pelosi, she told me, “has her reasons for staying, but at some point, it’s up to the caucus to decide.”

Privately, however, Pelosi’s critics in the caucus are far less diplomatic.

“For us to go into this election with her as our leader is absolute insanity,” one House Democrat told me on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Pelosi. “No one in their right mind would think this is a good idea. I just think she is putting her own personal interests in front of the caucus’s. And if we don’t win the House back, it is going to be because of her. These districts are hard enough to overcome, and to overcome with an anchor around our neck is political malpractice.”

In an effort to force the issue, this member of Congress is personally advising Democratic candidates to say that they won’t vote for Pelosi as speaker. If enough potential majority-makers rule out supporting her in the crucial first vote on the House floor, she would effectively have no path back to the speaker’s chair.

So far, however, just two Democratic candidates in competitive districts have done so: Lamb in Pennsylvania, and Paul Davis, a former gubernatorial nominee who is running for an open seat in Kansas.

Among more junior House Democrats, there is frustration not only with Pelosi but with the entire senior leadership team, including Hoyer, 78, and Clyburn, 77, who have blocked the paths of younger, ambitious members for more than a decade. Some of them are pushing for the party to join Republicans in adopting term limits for top committee slots, a sore spot for veterans in the Congressional Black Caucus for whom the color-blind seniority system was once the only assured way to accumulate power in Congress.

Pelosi’s allies tend to dismiss her internal critics as a small-but-vocal chorus of attention-seekers. But in the fall, a member of her leadership team broke ranks: Representative Linda Sanchez of California, who as vice chairwoman of the caucus is the fifth-ranking House Democrat. In an appearance on C-SPAN, she called for each of the top three-- Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn-- to transition out. “They are all of the same generation, and, again, their contributions to the Congress and the caucus are substantial,” Sanchez said. “But I think there comes a time when you need to pass that torch. And I think it’s time.”

Then there is the freighted question of who might replace Pelosi whenever she does step aside.

Hoyer, her former rival, has long wanted a shot at the top spot, and he has given no indication of having given up on that goal. He is well-regarded across the caucus and has defeated challengers before, but he’s a year older than Pelosi, more moderate politically, and would be an odd choice for a party that has grown more diverse and moved farther to the left in the last decade. In the event that Pelosi steps down, Democrats close to Hoyer view him as someone with the necessary experience to serve as a bridge to the next generation of party leaders, according to a Democrat familiar with those conversations. Whether the caucus would go along with that kind of transitional plan, however, is unclear.

The top contenders now figure to include Sanchez and Representative Joseph Crowley of New York, a Queens powerbroker who is chairman of the caucus. Both have made no secret of their desire to move up, and Crowley briefly considered challenging Pelosi in 2016. The same goes for Ryan and Moulton, who have also not ruled out long-shot bids for president in 2020. Representative Adam Schiff of California is another possibility, having used his post as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee to become the party’s leading voice on the Russia investigation and a fixture on cable news-- and drawing Trump’s ire in the process. Schiff also owes his newfound prominence almost entirely to Pelosi, who as party leader had sole discretion to elevate him on the committee.

Again, no mention that Crowley is the single most corrupt Democrat in Congress-- the conduit for Wall Street bribes to the caucus-- as well as the former leader of the right-wing New Dems. Adam Schiff, after his district was redrawn to include seriously left-wing parts of L.A. (Hollywood, Silverlake, West Hollywood and Los Feliz) gave up his membership in the Blue Dogs and became a nearly as conservative rotten New Dem. Members who serve with Moulton in committee tell me it's like serving with a Republican.

I've been very critical of Pelosi for a very long time. Is she better than Hoyer, Crowley, Rice, Moulton, Ryan, Schiff? Yes, a million times better. Why is it that the mainstream media always talks about garbage members as possible replacements? Why not Mark Pocan? Why not Ted Lieu? Why not Pramila Jayapal? Why not Ro Khanna? Who feeds these shitbag congressmembers to the media as the only choices if Pelosi retires? Thank God they at least stopped talking about Wasserman Schultz as an heir.

Gaius sometimes reads these posts before they get published. Now and then he suggests fixes to outrageous typos, Today he suggested something more important: "I would ask, why is it that none of the congressmembers named above is putting her or his name 'out there'-- in bold Sanders-like fashion-- as a caucus choice? Of course they won't win. But popular opinion can't coalesce around a hat that's never in the ring, that's always waiting for 'just the right time'? Worse, it makes these progressives seem compliant, or careerist, or frightened. Makes it look from the outside that 'bold progressives' may never think it's the right time to openly challenge for Party leadership. If people ever get that idea, support for them will fall."

If Pelosi Goes Who Would You Like To See As Leader, Crowley, Hoyer Or Wasserman Schultz?

The Dream Team-- for the GOP at least

I gradually stopped being a fan of Nancy Pelosi’s. I went from an admirer to a detractor primarily because of how she ran the DCCC-- an utter catastrophe for Democrats-- and because she imperiously declared an impeachment investigation of Bush was “off the table” after the Democrats won back the House. But my anger towards her has built slowly as the DCCC leaders she appointed went from bad to worse-- and lost more and more House seats. But, I’m not foolish enough to get onboard the train that is most eager to displace her-- the New Dem/Blue Dog choo choo-- i.e., the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- salivating at any prospect of kicking her and her progressive core values to the curb. She may be terrible, but everyone lined up to replace her is much, much, much worse. How many times do I have to say “much” to get the point across? K Street wants their man Steny Hoyer. Wall Street wants their man Joe Crowley. Those are the two most likely successors and Wall Street would as happily settle for Hoyer as K Street would for Crowley. Is there no one else? Not really… unless you want to rev up that ole Wasserman Schultz machine again-- a hopefully no one wants that, not even the members she’s still been funneling the dirty money to that she takes from all the wrong sources.

Late Wednesday afternoon two consecutive Politico pieces, one by John Bresnahan at 4pm and then another by Gabe Debenedetti at 5:30, raised the spectre of a revolt against Pelosi’s leadership over Ossoff’s loss. Before we get into them, I just want to remind everyone when House Dems whined and fulminated last year about how the caucus wanted to take control of the DCCC from Pelosi she granted them two concessions. First was that the DCCC chair would be elected not appointed. And second that 5 DCCC regional vice chairs would be elected by members.

So here’s what happened. Pelosi nominated the hapless and worthless failure who had been trained by the vile Steve Israel and had already proven himself absolutely incompetent and a detriment to Democrats ever winning anything. No one ran against him and he was unanimously reelected. I don’t think any of the DCCC regional vice chair seats were contested and the 5 members were elected: Joe Kennedy (Northeast), Don McEachin (South), Betty McCollum (Midwest), Jared Polis (Central), Ted Lieu (West Coast). From what I can tell the only one taking the job seriously is, predictably, Ted Lieu. I spoke with one of the other Vice Chairs and he confided in me that he doesn’t know why he ran and doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. I tried going over some of the live races in his area and he was unaware of any of them. When I call a candidate in California, even really long-shot candidates in non-targeted districts, they tell me they’ve already had conversations with Ted Lieu or with his chief of staff. When I call candidates in crucial states like Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York they mostly say they never heard of a DCCC Regional Vice Chair. “What do they do?” Good question. But "nothing"-- other than in Ted's case-- would be a likely answer.

If the fish rots from the head, in the case of the House Democratic Caucus, the rot has spread really deeply… really, really deeply. The leadership is sclerotic; so is much of the membership. “There's a lot of grumbling by rank-and-file members, but no leadership change is imminent, wrote Bresnahan. “There is no challenge to Pelosi’s leadership, and none is going to happen at this point, said numerous Democrats. But it’s clear frustration is growing with the longtime Democratic leader following the extensive losses Democrats have suffered over the past half-decade. And the fact that Republicans spent millions of dollars on TV ads tying Democratic hopeful Jon Ossoff to Pelosi-- and the brand of progressive policies she represents-- shows that she will once again be an issue for Democratic challengers in the very districts that the party needs to win to make her speaker again.” Bresnahan, of course, doesn’t put who the members he quotes into any kind of real context. For example, his first quote is from ultra-conservative/ultra-corrupt Texas Blue Dog, Fielmon Vela, who has an ugly “F” rating from ProgressivePunch and who votes against progressive legislation more frequently than he supports anything worthwhile. The only Texans with (marginally) worse voting records are fellow Blue Dogs Vicente González and Henry Cuellar-- and in the current session Vela’s record is worse than González’s. He generally votes for whatever he’s paid to vote for and he doesn’t belong in Congress (or the Democratic Party) but here’s what he told Politico: “I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top… Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost. But she certainly is one of the reasons.” (It’s unimaginable to someone like Vela that Ossoff could have lost because he failed to embrace a progressive narrative once he had sucked millions and millions or dollars from the grassroots vaguely pretending to be progressive when he launched his campaign.) Bresnahan found other garbage-crats to give him quotes too, like Long Island Wall Street shill, New Dem Kathleen Rice.

“There comes a time when every leader has to say, ‘For the good of the order and for the betterment of the party, it’s time for me to step aside.’ And I wish that that would happen right now,” Rice said in an interview. “This is not a personal thing. I want to get back in the majority.”

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who challenged Pelosi for minority leader in November, wouldn’t comment directly whether she should step down, saying only, “My position hasn’t changed.”

“I think it’s very concerning that that tactic still has some punch,” Ryan said. “Again, it’s part of the broader national brand that average people don’t feel connected to the Democratic Party. Walk up the street and ask 10 people what the Democrats stand for, you’ll get 10 different answers. That’s no way to build a national party.”

There was even a little anti-Pelosi cabal that Rice put together with fellow conservaDem Seth Moulton (D-MA) on Thursday. Louisiana New Dem Cedric Richmond, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, was one of the dozen attendees. Progressives aren't breaking from Pelosi... it's really just the very corrupted Republican wing of the party. Debendetti started by quoting a spokesperson for MoveOn: “There are definitely some real lessons to be taken from this: Democrats are going to have to do better and improve on things a lot in order to take advantage of the opportunity presented by 2018. It doesn't matter how much money you have if it's not clear to people what you stand for, and if what you stand for isn't change.”

But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee doesn’t believe it erred in the Georgia race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Karen Handell, or in its spending decisions in the surprisingly competitive South Carolina special election that also took place Tuesday. After all, each of those districts-- like those in Kansas and Montana special elections earlier this year-- swung aggressively toward Democrats, and the group has been testing messages and tactics for 2018 within those races.

In a memo to staff and lawmakers on Wednesday, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Ben Ray Lujan even declared for the first time that the House is in play.

But the morning was otherwise marked by finger-pointing reflecting some of the biggest divisions in the party-- including some that have been festering since the 2016 presidential primary. To many progressives, Ossoff’s loss was a symptom of the party’s insistence on running moderate candidates who try to appeal too much to Republicans who dislike Trump.

"So far this cycle, we've seen an underfunded, authentic candidate with a message lose and we've seen a well-funded candidate with D.C. talking points lose. Now it's time to focus on putting real resources behind candidates who can inspire progressives and give folks a clear vision for the future," said longtime Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz, referring respectively to Rob Quist in Montana and Ossoff. "Democrats have to stop focusing all our energy on winning over Romney voters and start figuring out how to bring more progressive independents into the fold.”

Ossoff’s closing message in a district that routinely goes for GOP candidates by at least 20 points was largely about fiscal responsibility, rather than opposition to Trump or the offer of a broad economic plan. That kind of message is anathema to many liberal lawmakers and strategists.

“We need a bolder economic platform, our party needs to be for good jobs and better wages, [and] we have to have some bold economic ideas that are going to convince people that we get it,” said Rep. Ro Khanna of California. “There’s still a ways to go. The challenge is not simply a messaging issue or a branding issue, the challenge is a vision issue.”

Any wonder Ro Khanna is the very first member of Congress from anywhere in the country to endorse Randy Bryce for Congress? "We need leaders connected to the community who can speak with authenticity about the need for universal healthcare, better wages, and good jobs," said Ro. "Randy has a bold vision that is rooted in his life experience. It's heartening to see people like Randy step up to serve. That is what our founders envisioned."

Yeah, Pelosi's Got To Be Replaced-- But It Should Be By Someone Better Than Her... And Better Than Tim Ryan

Given: Nancy Pelosi needs to be replaced as House Democratic Leader. In any Parliamentary democracy she would have been replaced within days of the 2010 electoral catastrophe she oversaw. The premise for keeping her-- especially inside her own circle of supporters-- has always been that Hoyer, a creature of K Street, is far worse. And he is. Pelosi will be 77 in March. Three months later Hoyer will turn 78. And the #3 ranking Democratic Leader, Jim Clyburn, turns 77 the month after that. I guess they could save money and have a joint birthday party-- and then all announce they much-overdue retirements.

Replacing Pelosi shouldn't mean replacing her with someone worse and less capable than she is, a description that could easily be assigned to either Hoyer or Clyburn. Or, I'm afraid, Tim Ryan, the one Democrat with the courage and temerity to have stepped up so far to formally challenge her.

I don't hate Ryan-- not Tim Ryan. We've been covering him since he left the Ohio state Senate in 2002 to run for a northeast Ohio congressional seat when his boss, corrupt conservaDem Joim Traficant was forced to resign in disgrace. Ryan is not corrupt and he's not a right-winger, although he ran with the NRA's endorsement and has been very supportive of their bloodthirsty agenda. He's also not a progressive and not someone who has shown, at least 'til now, any leadership skills. I've been talking with his staff for over a decade about his "impending" announcement that he was finally switching from being an anti-Choice throwback to supporting women's rights to make up their own minds on their health issues. He was always just about to do it-- and they didn't. I hear now that he actually has officially become pro-Choice. I wouldn't want to count on him if I was a gal in need of someone to fend off the other Ryan... and Pence.

As for Ryan and guns, I recall him being out on the hustings with Hillary when she was attacking Bernie as a gun nut. I found it odd, in as much as Bernie never was and the Clinton surrogate by her side certainly is. Ryan, I wrote at the time, has a good record on trade and some other economic issues. There are some issues though, where he and Hillary haven't been in sync. She would love the primary to be about how much better she is than Bernie on gun safety. Her score from the NRA is an admirable F. Bernie is an admirable D-minus. Ryan is no where near as good on guns as Hillary-- or Bernie. He got an A from the Buckeye Firearms Association and, although he's been better lately, as recently as 2009 the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave Ryan (Tim, not Paul) a ZERO score. The NRA has given him an A and the last rating I could find from them for him was an 83% in 2012."

A much-read article about Ryan in New York Magazine by Marin Cogin last year, The Congressman on a Quest to Make America More Zen, showed him in a very different light than a gun-worshipping anti-Choicer. She seems impressed that he's been in Congress "penning books on the power of meditation and what he calls 'the real food revolution,' advocating for yoga, meditation, and unplugging from the internet as a salve to the stresses of modern existence... He’s introduced bills to add holistic and alternative-medicine programs for the treatment of veterans, to teach schoolchildren social and emotional skills through better self-awareness, to fund 'integrated nutrition curricula' in medical schools-- and that’s just in the last Congress. In 2009, he secured funding for a program that teaches mindfulness at schools in his district; students there instruct each other to take deep breaths when they’re upset, or visit the peace corner to take a break from classroom stress. He’s also trying to introduce his quiet revolution to Capitol Hill, organizing a weekly staff meditation session when Congress is in town, which he estimates is usually attended by 20 to 40 staffers, and a members-only session in the House chapel, which is less well attended."

Were he to become Democratic Leader, probably more people would attend. He's so committed to a higher lifestyle that he once unsuccessfully hit on attractive spiritual guru Marianne Williamson and has a reputation, though married with 3 kids, as a serial womanizer, something Pelosi supporters are "quietly" buzzing about now. He was also arrested drunk outside of some Joe Crowley event in Virginia. It takes a lot of yang to balance all the alcoholic yin.

His first public supporter couldn't be a worse omen of what faction of Democrats are backing him-- corrupt Wall Street hack Kathleen Rice, a pretty vile conservative New Dem from Nassau County on Long Island. Both Ryan and Rice have voting records graded "F" by ProgressivePunch, though her F (a 62.0 crucial vote score) is much worse than his F (78.06).

So, yeah, the House Democrats should get new leadership-- not just by getting rid of Pelosi but Hoyer and Clyburn as well-- AND they should be upgading not downgrading. Smarter, better leaders than Pelosi or Tim Ryan? Barbara Lee, Ted Lieu, Mark Pocan, Raul Grijalva... and if that's all too outsidery, they can try Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus and the 4th highest ranking member of the current leadership, a charismatic speaker and even a bit of a progressive.

Why Would A Right Wing Extremist Like Steve Knight Vote To Give Obama Unlimited Power Through Fast Track Authority?

No one should have expected anything good coming from conservative New Dem Kathleen Rice when she joined the Republicans and other conservative Democrats to try to pass Fast Track authorization. John MacArthur, writing Friday for Harper's, said, "Rice last week reversed her opposition to fast-track the TPP. If history repeats itself she won’t be the only member of Congress to betray her working class and labor-union supporters."

The vote buying to pass fast-track authority in the House of Representatives-- legislation that will speed up secret negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement so dear to President Obama and his Wall Street and corporate allies-- has evidently begun in earnest. The latest recipient of White House largesse, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D., N.Y.) last week reversed her opposition to fast-track, already approved by the Senate, and if history repeats itself she won’t be the only member of Congress to betray her working class and labor-union supporters.

We can’t yet know what was promised to Rice, since the political deals that grease the way for unpopular legislation aren’t ordinarily announced in press releases or high-minded op-eds. The nasty facts tend to come out later, after the damage has been done. Nevertheless, we can assume that something is rotten in Rice’s district.

...I can just imagine what these “brokers” have been telling her, since the same sort of “conversations” went on during Bill Clinton’s wild and woolly campaign to round up votes for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. Back then, the House’s Democratic leadership, under the tutelage of Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, was conning itself that NAFTA could be used to improve the environment along the Rio Grande and raise living standards and wages south of the border to a level closer to America’s.

Gephardt had set the tone of naïveté-- or cynicism, if you prefer-- when, at the first President Bush’s behest, he supported fast-track for NAFTA and smoothed its passage in 1991. At the time, the St. Louis congressman thought he could become president, so to appear more worthy of corporate campaign contributions, he “negotiated” with the elder Bush to insert labor and environment standards into future negotiations with Mexico and Canada.

Bush’s people were prepared to agree, since the negotiating would be done in secret and nothing enforceable would come of an “agreement” with Gephardt anyway. The whole point of moving production to Mexico is to take advantage of low wages and lax environmental rules.

Gephardt got nothing but lip service in exchange for his crucial vote. By the time President Clinton took over the NAFTA portfolio, opposition to the agreement within the Democratic Party had been weakened by Gephardt’s foolish gambit. But Clinton also faced right-wing Republican opposition, as well as that of Ross Perot, the billionaire independent who, when he ran for president in 1992, got 19 percent of the popular vote. Clinton had to purchase “peelable” Democratic votes to put NAFTA over the finish line.

Assisted by his chief lobbyists, Mickey Kantor, William Daley and Rahm Emmanuel, he bought members of the Florida delegation by committing the National School Lunch Program to buy more Florida tomatoes and corn; he bought the vote of Rep. Esteban Torres (D., Calif.) by creating the North American Development Bank, supposedly to fund infrastructure projects on the border; and he bought the vote of Rep. Bill Brewster (D., Okla.) by agreeing to go duck hunting with him and have their picture taken.

Like Gephardt, Kathleen Rice seems to think she’s onto something new: The Senate’s TPP legislation “outlines unprecedented requirements to address the worker-protection problems of NAFTA. It sets high labor and environmental standards, and ensures that trade sanctions can be imposed on any country that fails to meet these marks.”

I wish I knew the going rate for such nonsense.

"Such nonsense" is not appealing to Democrats. P.G. Sittenfeld is the progressive Democrat running for the Ohio Senate seat held by pro-TPP Republican Rob Portman. "The TPP is bad enough," said Sittenfeld, "but Fast Track is even worse, and I would vote against both if I were in the Senate."

In my view, giving this president-- or any future president-- a six-year blank check to negotiate trade deals that can only be voted up or down is an abdication of Congressional responsibility. I’ve got no problem whatsoever with presidents negotiating trade or other international agreements, since they obviously can’t be negotiated by 535 members of Congress. But once agreements are struck, the only real power Congress has is the power to amend. Once that is given up, presidents run the show and Congress has no power or authority at all.

Let me be crystal clear. In the Senate, I will work with anyone from either party to get the best trade deals possible for Ohio workers. Given a fair chance and a level playing field, I believe Ohioans can outwork, outproduce and outcompete anyone on the face of the planet. But free trade must also be fair trade.

One of the worst of the Republicans on this is freshman Congressman Steve Knight, who has been getting a lot of pushback from Republican extremists like himself who are disappointed he's "gone soft" since being elected. His official congressional website ran an article from the libertarian Cato Institute apologizing for the GOP position giving Obama unlimited Fast Track authority over trade.

Trade opponents characterize TPA as an executive power-grab, a legislative capitulation, and a blank check from Congress that entitles the president to negotiate trade deals in secret without any congressional input except the right to vote “yea” or “nay” on an unalterable, unamendable, completed and signed agreement. But the truth is that TPA does not cede any authority from one branch to the other, but makes exercise of that authority more practicable for both branches.

Under the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Congress is given the authority to “regulate commerce with foreign nations” and to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.” While the president has no specific constitutional authority over trade, Article II grants the president power to make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. Accordingly, the formulation, negotiation, and implementation of trade agreements require the involvement and cooperation of both branches.

TPA allows the executive branch to negotiate trade deals with foreign governments on the basis of guidance from Congress, to be approved or not, under expedited legislative procedure by a subsequent up-or-down congressional vote on legislation to implement the agreement after it has been completed. That guidance includes articulation of Congress’s trade policy objectives, specific parameters, and other conditions that it expects the executive branch to meet in order for completed trade deals to receive the fast-track treatment of guaranteed, timely, up-or-down votes in both chambers without scope for amendments or filibusters. In other words, Congress does not relinquish its authority. It reiterates its authority by setting boundaries for the president.

Touchy, touchy... but that doesn't do anything to answer the question about why Steve Knight voted to steal $700 million from Medicare to grease the skids for the TPP, pissing off seniors, Democrats and his Tea Party base. Over at The Nation, John Nichols agreed, though, that the TPP battle wasn't about Obama... but not for the same reasons Knight and Cato think so.

The fight over Trade Promotion Authority was never about Barack Obama, despite the best efforts of the White House and many in the media to portray it as such. The president's effort to obtain congressional consent to "fast track" a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which failed Friday amid a complex flurry of House votes, fell apart because of something that runs far deeper: frustration on the part of Americans with race-to-the-bottom trade policies as defined by the North American Free Trade Agreement and extended across ensuing agreements.

...The free-trade model that has been promoted for decades by Democratic and Republican presidents, along with Wall Street interests and multinational corporations, has failed American workers and communities-- and millions of Americans who were part of the president's winning coalitions in 2008 and in 2012 recognize this.

...It wasn't that the Democrats wanted to deal Obama a defeat, as the vapid headlines suggested Friday afternoon. This wasn't the personality contest that pundits so enjoy. Many of the "no" votes came from the president's earliest and most sincere allies: House members such as Michigan's John Conyers, Minnesota's Keith Ellison, and California's Barbara Lee. The issue was trade policy, and most Democrats in the House share the view of labor, farm, environmental, and human-rights groups that believe our trade policies must be radically altered.

It was this understanding, not some antipathy toward Obama, that led 144 House Democrats to bolt on the critical vote, despite a last-minute appeal by the president to House Democratic Caucus members. Only 40 of Obama's partisan allies voted for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) component of the package. The president won the support of twice as many Republicans as Democrats on the TAA vote, which had been packaged with the fast-track legislation. A vote against either measure doomed the final package. (Speaker John Boehner has indicated that he wants to bring the TAA issue up again next week in a last-ditch effort to pull all the pieces together, but that will only happen if a lot of Democratic votes flip.)

In an essentially symbolic test on fast track Friday, which came just after the TAA defeat, only 28 Democrats sided with the 191 Republicans who voted "yes."

The Democrats who voted against the legislation did not do so to hurt the president, and the Republicans who voted for the legislation weren't trying to help the president. The Republicans cast entirely predictable votes for a trade agenda that benefits the Wall Street interests that influence both parties, but that tend to carry the most sway with the GOP.

One of the steadiest critics of the president, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan, worked feverishly for weeks to secure support for Trade Promotional Authority, under which Congress would have granted Obama the so-called fast-track authority to close the deal on sweeping new trade agreements such as the TPP. Ryan's enthusiastic lobbying provided essential backing for Obama's effort to get Congress to cede its oversight and amendment powers over trade deals.

But Ryan was not providing that support because of any change of heart regarding Obama. He was providing that support because he invariably aligns with Wall Street in fights over economic issues. And he had an added incentive for doing so: If fast track had been approved Friday (or if it is eventually approved), Obama would not be the only president who gets the freedom to negotiate deals with limited congressional oversight. His successor, potentially a Republican, would get the same authority.

...The president will, undoubtedly, continue to advocate for trade agreements, but he cannot succeed merely with the support of Wall Street, Paul Ryan, and ALEC. He needs to renew his coalition, in Washington and in the states. And the way to do that is not with fast-track authority, secret negotiations, and the old "free trade" model. The way to succeed is with a fair-trade model that puts workers, farmers, the environment, human rights, and democracy ahead of the corporate interests that want only a race to the bottom.

And the progressive Democrat running against Knight up in the Santa Clarita region (CA-25), Lou Vince, disagrees fundamentally with Knight's approach. "On the TPP," he responded to a question from a voter recently, "I think we can again learn a lot from recent history. NAFTA has allowed Americans to purchase trillions of dollars of goods and services from other countries and I find it unlikely that those other countries have bought an equal amount of goods and services from Americans. The TPP, in my opinion, was an agreement negotiated on behalf of large corporations by governments in an effort to divide up how the corporations were going to make money. Just based on discussion I’ve heard, it seems to me that countries without sufficient labor regulations and poor or non-existent environmental regulations would also be rewarded. We need something that protects American jobs and the middle class, but TPP sure doesn’t sound like it does that to me. Sounds like we are digging a hole in direct violation of the first rule of holes- when you are in a hole, stop digging. I oppose the TPP."

If you'd like to help Lou replace Knight, here's the page for you.

Will Democratic Constituency Groups Finally Start Holding Conservative Democrats In Congress Accountable For Their Bad Votes? Ask Kathleen Rice

I was born in NYC and my parents moved to Nassau County when I was a kid so they could raise me and my sisters in the suburbs. That's a typical story for folks who live in Nassau County today. My folks moved to Valley Stream first and then out to Roosevelt, both of which are in NY-04, the Nassau County district represented by conservative New Dem Kathleen Rice. And Rice, a former Nassau County District Attorney, has a similar story. Her NYC family moved out to Long Island when she was a child as well.

Rice, who had just run as the conservaDem against progressive Eric Schneiderman for New York Attorney General, was hand-picked by Steve Israel to run for the seat Carolyn McCarthy was giving up. The district runs from New Hyde Park and Westbury in the north down through Hempstead, Franklin Square, Uniondale, Baldwin, Rockville Centre and Wantagh to the Five Towns and Long Beach in the south. The PVI is D+3 and Obama beat McCain 55-44% in 2008 and then beat Romney 56-43% in 2012. Last year Rice beat her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, 85,294 (52.7%) to 76,515 (47.3%).

NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed her to the scandal-plagued Moreland Commission that was created to whitewash his own egregious corruption. Just the kind of Democrat shady Establishment types crave! So it should surprise no one that Rice has come out in favor of the job-destroying TPP and Fast Track. The New Dem Caucus is ground zero for Fast Track support among Democrats, and last week it was Rice and fellow wishy-washy New Dem Suzan DelBene (WA) who "buckled under pressure" and flip-flopped, going over to the Wall Street position. The AFL-CIO started running an ad in Nassau County (above) that asks, "Why should we ever trust Kathleen Rice again?"

Maybe a better question the AFL-CIO should be asking itself is why did it ever trust Kathleen Rice to begin with? Or any Blue Dogs or New Dems. These Wall Street-backed DINOs are not the friends of working families, and unions should stop propping them up entirely. Rice's ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is an unsatisfactory 72.72, one of the worst scores of any New York Democrat; it has earned her an "F" rating. The AFL-CIO and other Democratic constituency groups that identify with a progressive agenda should just stop backing transactional conservatives like Rice when they first run. Once they get into Congress, even the AFL-CIO can't hold them accountable for voting with Boehner and McCarthy. You'll never find a Wall Street-oriented Democrat like Rice on the Blue America page of endorsed House candidates.

It's satisfying to see unions finally stepping up and slamming conservative Democrats who back GOP policies that harm the financial security of their own members-- the way they did with New Dem shithead Ami Bera last week. (Blue America is planning a similar approach to reactionary Blue Dog Jim Costa if he goes through with his pledge to vote for Fast Track.)

The AFL-CIO is spending over $100,000 on TV-- which started yesterday-- to make sure working families in Nassau County know about Rice's perfidy. And next Monday evening union members, Working Families Party members, MoveOn activists and Sierra Club and Food and Water Watch members are planning protests in front of Rice's district office, just the way progressive groups rallied against TPP and Pelosi's push to shove it down Democrats' throats

today. Meanwhile, The Hill is keeping a whip count of which Congressmembers are on Wall Street's side and which are siding with working families and their own constituents.