Will Steve Sweeney Feel Bad If There's A School Gun Massacre In New Jersey This Month?

Who likes Van Drew more, the DCCC or the NRA?

-by Jersey Jim

On March 26, the New Jersey Assembly passed a package of six gun control bills that Gov. Phil Murphy had promised to sign. Each of the bills had at least 12 sponsors and co-sponsors in the Assembly, and several Democratic state Senators were eager to vote for them, too. But two months later, gun control legislation still hasn’t reached the governor’s desk. Why not?

The bills are stalled in the Senate. They’ve been passed by the appropriate Senate committees, but Senate President Steve Sweeney has refused to put them on the agenda of the full Senate until that body’s next meeting on June 7-- two days after the primary election.

Now is it beginning to make sense? It does if you know anything about the ultra-corrupt South Jersey Democratic machine headed by George Norcross.

With the retirement of Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo, there’s an open seat in NJ-02. The execrable Jeff Van Drew, the most conservative "Democrat" in the state legislature, is one of four candidates for that seat in the Democratic primary, and he enjoys the Norcross machine’s full support.

Van Drew is also the only one with a long history as an NRA ally-- a history he’s now trying to hide. He’s is so closely identified with the NRA that Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg cited him as an example of a Democrat who’s no better than a Republican.

If Van Drew votes against gun control, he risks offending Democratic primary voters who live in the Congressional district he seeks to represent, but not in LD-1, the legislative district he represents in the state Senate. LD-1 is more conservative than the rest of the Congressional district.

If he votes for any of those measures, he will certainly offend a substantial number of pro-gun voters in LD-1, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, without whose votes he might lose in November.

And if he fails to vote on those bills, he’ll offend everybody.

As Senate president, and as the Norcross Machine’s most important single asset in Trenton, Sweeney will do whatever Norcross wants; and DNC member Norcross, who used his clout to install his younger brother in the NJ-01 House seat after Rob Andrews resigned in disgrace in 2014, is all but obsessed with getting control of a second seat in Congress. That’s why Sweeney is delaying the final votes.

For all his flaws, Sweeney himself has a relatively good record on gun control, as do most of the legislators connected with the Norcross machine. In fact, several of them are sponsors or co-sponsors of the pending gun bills. But for Norcross and Sweeney, saving Jeff Van Drew from political embarrassment is apparently more important than saving lives.

Van Drew enjoys the support of the Democratic establishment in Washington, too. He’s not only on the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue list; he’s also been endorsed by both the New Dems and the Blue Dogs-- a corrupt Beltway establishment hat trick!

But will that be enough to get him into Congress?

A Van Drew mailer paid for by Patriot Majority USA, a dark money Democratic establishment group, boasts that Van Drew is "endorsed by every county Democratic party in the state." That wording is misleading. What they mean is not every county party, but every county executive committee. And in South Jersey, the membership of those committees consists almost entirely of insiders connected to the Norcross machine.

Beyond his current Senate district, consisting of Cape May County and a few neighboring communities in Atlantic and Cumberland Counties, Van Drew has little support among rank and file Democrats.

Even in LD-1, he probably couldn’t win a general election without the votes of gun-loving Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. In presidential, gubernatorial and US Senate elections, LD-1 usually goes Republican, while NJ-02 is less consistently Republican. In five of the last seven presidential elections, the Democratic candidates-- Clinton, Gore and Obama-- carried NJ-02. And Democrat Bill Hughes held that seat for 20 years before LoBiondo was first elected in 1994.

Trump won NJ-02 in 2016, but we’re already seeing the same kind of buyer’s remorse there that Trump supporters in Michigan and Wisconsin are feeling after 16 months of a Trump Administration. So Van Drew is no shoe-in in November.

But that doesn’t matter to corporate Democrats who would rather lose with a corrupt candidate of their own choosing than win with a progressive.

A Roll Call story last week reported how Blue Dog PAC co-chair Kurt Schrader approached Van Drew. When Van Drew complained about "having a tough time getting things done" in Trenton, Schrader told him he should run for Congress "because frankly, with Republicans in control, you’re going to find you’re going to have a lot more opportunity than you did back home," adding, "you’ll be the decision-maker, because you’ll be the swing vote."

Schrader must have known how unhappy Van Drew is about being pressured to soften some of his right-wing positions.

In January, Van Drew removed his name from Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 35, which proposes amending the state constitution to permit a law requiring parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion. (In 2000, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a 1999 parental notification law violated the state constitution.) Van Drew had been listed as a prime sponsor of that resolution in this and the two previous Legislatures, and was the only "Democrat" with his name on it each time.

Van Drew also reluctantly took his name off a bill (S-539) to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey.

Those capitulations have not gone unnoticed in right-wing circles. The Jersey Conservative web site noted his withdrawal of support for parental notification and the death penalty. And the Daily Caller ran a hit piece by Rick Trader, host of the obscure Conservative Commandos internet radio show (where Sharron Angle is sometimes his co-host!), calling Van Drew "one of the most fake conservative Democrats running for office in 2018."

With the organizational support of the Norcross machine, and with 6.5 times the war chest of his leading primary opponent-- not to mention the outside spending of "centrist" (read, "corporate") Democratic PAC’s-- Van Drew is almost certain to win the primary.

But November won’t be a cinch. He’ll need to hold on to all the Independents and Republicans who have supported him in his state legislative races. He’ll also have to turn out the kind of Democrats who usually don’t vote in the midterms. That will be hard, because conservatives like Van Drew don’t excite the base.

And if he does win in November, it will be no victory for progressives.

Is Jeff Van Drew Really The Lesser Of Two Evils? Ask A Surviver Of Any NRA Gun Massacre

Jeff Van Drew, the personification of a 2018 DCCC recruit

It's hard to say which DCCC recruit will likely be the worst POS if he gets into Congress. But it's impossible to draw up a short list without including New Jersey Blue Dog/New Dem Jeff Van Drew. Van Drew has a record as a state legislature so we already know absolutely what a total turd he's going to be in Congress. And it's the reason why the DCCC selected him. They've been trying to recruit him for years but Van Drew is a notorious political coward and he refused to give up his safe state Senate seat until Frank LoBiondo announced he wasn't running again. NJ-02, which runs from Little Egg Harbor and Eagleswood Townships in the North, across to the Wilmington suburbs down through Atlantic City and all the way down to Cape May, has an R+1 PVI but voted for Obama-- with around 53%-- both times he ran. Trump beat Hillary 50.6% to 46.0%.

Thanks to the DCCC's efforts, he's likely to win the nomination and thanks to the blue wave he's likely to slither into Congress. As Matt Friedman reported in Politico over the weekend, "Van Drew has voted against raising the minimum wage and gay marriage. He often sides with industry on environmental issues and carries an A rating from the NRA... [T]he Democratic Party establishment-- at every level-- is throwing its collective weight behind Van Drew, leaving local progressives baffled, frustrated and more than a little angry." The DCCC is painting a false picture that only a Republican-lite reactionary like Van Drew could win the district. That's a completely false narrative. The wave would sweep any Democrat in. The problem-- backed up by history-- is that in the next midterm, 2022, Van Drew's Republican-lite voting record will turn off so many Democrats that his base won't be there for him and the GOP will capture the seat. 2006/2010 all over again-- a DCCC special.

The race is a showcase for whether the Democratic Party nationally will tolerate politicians like Van Drew, a state senator, in the name of winning the majority in the U.S. House for the first time since 2011. It highlights Democrats’ struggles to blend their stated ideals on issues like diversity and gun control with the political realities of a district, in this case a working-class bastion that voted for President Donald Trump by 4 points after twice voting for President Barack Obama.

Nationally, the Democratic Party has seen a surge of progressive activism in the wake of Trump’s election, and New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District is no exception. So liberal activists, who frequently gathered in front of LoBiondo’s office to demand a town hall meeting that never came, have turned their ire on Democratic leaders.

“It makes me feel a bit insulted and betrayed,” said Alison Arne, an Atlantic County activist who co-chairs the group Actions Together New Jersey Atlantic County.

Two other candidates for the Democratic nomination to replace LoBiondo fit the mold of 2018 Democrats.

Will Cunningham is an openly gay African-American attorney who grew up poor and despite being homeless at one point as a teen, went to an Ivy League university and became an Obama administration official, and an adviser to Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Tanzie Youngblood is a retired African-American teacher and military mom. And Nate Kleinman, a farmer who runs a nonprofit and was active in the Occupy movement, was dubbed the first “Occupy candidate” when he sought a House seat in Pennsylvania six years ago.

Democrats spent two decades struggling to recruit viable candidates to run in the district against LoBiondo, who first won the seat in 1994. Now, Van Drew will almost certainly win the primary and is heavily favored to win the seat in November.

“The DCCC needs to take a look at themselves in the mirror and make sure we’re reflective of who we’re sending to D.C.,” Cunningham said of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has all but officially thrown in with Van Drew after trying for at least a decade to recruit him to run there. “We as the Democratic Party, if we’re going to talk the talk, we’ve got to walk the walk.”

The anger has spilled out into public forums. At one, high school student Emily McGrath confronted Van Drew-- who had one day earlier told her class he did not accept donations from the NRA-- about a $1,000 donation she had discovered. The videotaped confrontation, in which McGrath said “Senator, you lied,” made headlines around the state.

But don’t look for a nail-biter primary like in Illinois, where conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski narrowly survived a primary challenge last month.

The 2nd District, New Jersey’s southernmost and largest geographically, includes Atlantic City’s gleaming casino towers, farmland and the poorest county in the state. It’s more working class than its New Jersey counterparts to the north, with the lowest percentage of college-educated residents in the state. And Van Drew has represented the district’s most Republican portion in the state Senate and Assembly for 16 years, comfortably winning reelection despite several major GOP efforts against him.

To have a Democratic candidate who’s already popular in the most conservative part of the congressional district is like a dream to Democrats more concerned with flipping a Republican House seat than with ideological purity. They point to Conor Lamb, the conservative Democrat who won a deep-red House district in Pennsylvania in March.

“I think it’s a lot of the same criticism you heard about that guy,“ said Atlantic County Democratic Chairman Michael Suleiman. “Do you want a guy who’s with you 70 percent of the time? Or do you want a Republican who’s with you 0 percent of the time?”

Meanwhile, there are some hints that Van Drew is moving leftward. Earlier this year, conservative websites pointed out that he quietly withdrew his sponsorship of bills to reinstate the death penalty and require parental notification for abortions.

“Candidly, I’m to the left of Jeff,” Suleiman said. “But I also want to win. Because I’ve been around long enough to know if there’s one thing Democrats are good at, it’s screwing up elections.”

Establishment Democrats stress that Van Drew has voted with the party on bread-and-butter priorities like paid sick leave and paid family leave.

While Van Drew doesn’t have the kind of voting record that generally plays well in a Democratic primary, he has some things that his challengers lack: organization and money. He‘s backed by the local Democratic organization in all eight counties in the district, which gives him advantageous placement on the ballot. And the three candidates running to his left threaten to dilute the progressive vote.

Then there’s the issue of money. Before LoBiondo’s retirement announcement, when Youngblood and Sean Thom-- who has since dropped out-- were the only candidates in the race, DCCC staff helped prep Youngblood for her campaign launch, and she attended its candidate week in October.

But national Democrats were left unimpressed with her anemic fundraising in a district that includes the Philadelphia media market-- one of the most expensive in the country. As of the end of last year, Youngblood had raised only about $50,000-- almost half of which came from her own pocket. Van Drew raised only about $80,000, but a campaign source said his next filing will show about $400,000 raised.

Cunningham and Kleinman entered the race after Van Drew.

“Sen. Van Drew has built the strongest Democratic campaign this district has seen in more than two decades,” said DCCC spokeman Evan Lukaske. “In addition to earning the unanimous backing of local Democrats, Van Drew has an unmatched record of service to this community, deep ties to grass-roots supporters and a proven ability to win tough races.“

But Arne, the activist, said she felt Democrats didn’t take the opportunity for a pickup in the district seriously until LoBiondo retired. Once that happened, even before Van Drew formally declared his campaign, all of South Jersey’s Democratic Party leaders rallied around him.

“Last year for the 2017 state legislative races, we really stood up and did a lot of work to get the local communities more engaged,” Arne said. “So when they turned it around like this on us, it’s like they didn’t listen and they don’t really care.”

There are 6 gun-rights bills pending in the New Jersey legislature-- but they won't be voted on until after New Jersey's June primary, making it a lot easier for Van Drew to avoid the topic. Incredibly corrupt and machine-bossed Jersey Senate President, Stephen Sweeney, set it up that way for Van Drew, just as George Norcross instructed him to. Van Drew has a 100% vote score from the NRA-- which is even worse than a 90% or 99%.


UPDATE: A Progressive Candidate Against Van Drew

This is a note I got from Emily McGrath, a high school student in NJ-02, a short time after the post went up:

My name is Emily and I am a senior at Egg Harbor Township High School. After the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, I confronted Senator Jeff Van Drew about his A-rating from the NRA.

I called him out after he lied to me and my classmates as to whether he’d ever accepted money from the NRA.  Our conversation went viral and people are finally realizing that Senator Van Drew is the wrong choice for South Jersey.

Until my peers and I are old enough to run for office, we deserve champions in Congress who will make our lives and well-being a #1 priority.

Will Cunningham will be the champion we deserve. After hearing his riveting speech at the March for Our Lives rally I joined Will’s campaign as a volunteer because I truly believe he’s the fighter our district needs in Congress. We need someone who will stand up to the NRA to pass common sense gun safety measures.

The fact is, we don't elect leaders to offer thoughts and prayers-- we elect them to take action... The Second District is full of both responsible gun owners and parents who fear saying goodbye to their kids each morning. Surely, we can come together to support sensible steps to prevent gun violence.

New Contender For Worst DCCC Recruit Of The Cycle: Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02)

Once Frank LoBiondo announced he wouldn't be running for reelection, no one doubted that grotesquely corrupt right-wing Democrat Jeff Van Drew would jump into the race. He's the perfect DCCC candidate-- disgustingly bigoted, Republican-lite, corrupt as you can be without going to prison... when the DCCC chieftains see Van Drew they think they're looking right into a mirror. And, of course, imagine voters will be clamoring to elect him. Van Drew is a sordid piece of crap-- exactly what makes the Democratic Party-- at the very best-- the lesser of two evils.

NJ-02, the southern 5th of the state, stretches down the coast from Little Egg Harbor through Atlantic City to Cape May and west through Millville and into the exurbs south of Philly and east of Wilmington. Obama beat McCain there 53-45% and beat Romney 54-46%. It was the wrong kind of district for Hillary though-- and Trump beat her 50.6% to 46.0%. The 2015 PVI of D+1 slipped to a less friendly, but very winnable, R+1. The DCCC has been screwing up NJ-02 since 1994 when Democrat Bill Hughes retired and Frank LoBiondo won the seat. In 2014 Hughes' son, Bill Jr. ran and lost 62-37%. The DCCC ignored the race and LoBiondo outspent him $2,425,940 to $756,354. Last year the DCCC ignored the district again and let Dave Cole die on the vine. He spent $127,386 to LoBiondo's $1,627,038 and got the same 37% of the vote. But the DCCC-- along with George Norcross, the fount aof all corruption in South Jersey-- has been hoping all along to recruit state Senator Van Drew. He was described accurately by NJ.com as "one of the most conservative Democrats in the state Legislature. He's an NRA fanatic and an anti-gay zealot who was one of the few Democrats in the legislature to vote against marriage equality. That's the stinking pile of crap the DCCC recruits. Would they recruit an anti-Black candidate to win seat? An anti-Semite? We already know they're completely comfortable recruiting anti-Choice candidates.

Van Drew is the Vice Chair of New Jersey's Senate Environment Committee. In 2013 he was one of the only Democrats in the state legislature with a lower environmental ranking from the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters other than the execrable Donald Norcross-- a crooked Machine pol whose first vote after being elevated to the House was to back the Keystone XL Pipeline. Norcross' score was 59% and Van Drew's was 68%. Clean Water Action rated Van Drew a 22%, lowest of any New Jersey state Senator.

And Van Drew has more right-wing tendencies than just being a kiss-up for developers and other anti-environment special interests. He was the only Democrat in the New Jersey state legislature, for example, to get an A from the NRA, outscoring a pack of Republicans. This is the record of this "Democrat," seen by the DCCC as a reason to recruit him for higher office:

• In 2010, Van Drew sponsored a bill to allow residents to carry handguns.


• In 2011, he appeared with Steve Lonegan (who was there in his capacity as State Director of Americans for Prosperity) to rally support for a bill to repeal cap and trade, and expressed his support for nuclear power and fossil fuels. Also in 2011, Van Drew sponsored a bill to abolish the seven-day waiting period before shelter animals could be killed. And of course, he was one of those Christiecrats who voted to cut public workers’ pensions and benefits.

• In 2013, he broke with the Democratic leadership on gun control and marriage equality.

There's also an African-American progressive woman, a union member, running-- Tanzie Youngblood. Naturally, the DCCC is ignoring her. When they look at her they don't see themselves in the mirror.

Another House Republican Sees The Writing On The Wall: LoBiondo Calls It Quits

My sister just moved to southern New Jersey, to the large swing district that takes up the bottom 5th of the state, NJ-02, the seat the Democrats always shoulda/coulda/woulda won-- but never do. It stretches from Little Egg Harbor Township south through Atlantic City down to Cape May and west through Millville to the Wilmington suburbs and Philly exurbs along the Delaware River. There are 8 counties in the district but most of the votes come from Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Gloucester counties. Obama beat McCain 53-45% and beat Romney 54-46%. But Frank LoBiondo, a mainstream conservative, has held the district since 1994. He just announced he's not running for reelection. This is an interesting and unexpected development since he's already raised $367,141 this cycle and doesn't have any strong competition. The 2 Democrats who have declared ate Tanzie Youngblood and Sean Thom. He beat last year's Democratic candidate, Dave Cole, 176,338 (59.2%) to 110,838 (37.2%). LoBiondo spent $1,627,038 to Cole's $127,386. The DCCC refused to help Cole-- par for the course.

Trump won the district last year, beating the establishment Democrat who was perceived as having nothing to offer working families but more of the same 50.6% to 46.0%, a gigantic drop-off from Obama's performance. In 2015 the district's PVI was D+1 but it slipped this year into slight red territory (R+1). Most prognosticators viewed LoBiondo as pretty safe, even in a wave year. In announcing his impending retirement he told that media that "I always looked for solutions that produce real world results built upon cooperation and partnerships. Regrettably, our nation is now consumed by increasing political polarization; there is no longer middle ground to honestly debate issues and put forward solutions. Furthermore, as some of my closest colleagues have also come to realize, those of us who came to Congress to change Washington for the better through good governance are now the outliers. A vocal and obstinate minority within both parties has hijacked good legislation in pursuit of no legislation." Trump and Bannon and the increasingly dominant neo-fascist wing of the GOP will be happy to see him go.

Last year, LoBiondo, 71, crossed party lines and voted with a majority of Democrats against a majority of Republicans 16.9 percent of the time, putting him ninth among all House GOP lawmakers, according to Congressional Quarterly.

This year, he was one of only nine House Republicans to oppose repealing regulations on coal companies in order to protect streams and drinking water supplies.

He also fought President Donald Trump's proposals that could lead to offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean and was one of 24 House Republicans who introduced a resolution in March calling for actions to combat climate change, which the president has called a Chinese hoax.

"With LoBiondo retiring, New Jersey is losing one of the last of our moderate-on-the-environment Republicans," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "Pro-environment and climate-change-protection Republicans have become an endangered species."

LoBiondo also was a strong supporter of organized labor.

He received $335,000 in contributions from unions in 2016, more than any other House member running for re-election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

He was one of only three House Republicans who earlier this year opposed repealing a regulation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration making it easier to track workplace injuries.

With the popular LoBiondo out, the DCCC is being handed this seat on a silver platter. I wonder if they manage to blow it again like they always do. Losing NJ-02 is part of their muscle memory.

And Ted Poe-- Another One Bites The Dust

Tuesday evening Ted Poe, first elected to a Houston area district in 2004, is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, announced he'll be the third senior Texas Republican this week to be calling it quits. He won't be running for another term. He's a religionist nut and far right crackpot. Even before he announced he would be retiring after the current term, there were at least half a dozen Democrats vying got the nomination. His district is pretty red but Hillary did a lot better than Obama and Trumpanzee did a lot worse than Romney. In 2012, Romney beat Obama 62.9% to 35.6%. Last year, Trump beat Hillary 52.4% to 43.1%. The district still has a PVI of R+11 but if we had a good DCCC-- we don't-- they would run a strong candidate this cycle with the idea of bring the district home in 2020. But the DCCC doesn't think in terms of anything beyond the next meal time.

Trump Allies Targeting Paul Ryan Again

In January 2013 every Democrat-- but far right Tennessee Blue Dog Jim Cooper-- joined 49 Republicans to pass aid for the New York and New Jersey victims of Hurricane Sandy. A lot has been made lately of the hypocrisy of Texas Republicans who voted against it-- like Blake Farenthold, Randy Weber, Lamar Smith, Pete Sessions, Joe Barton, Louie Gohmert, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Olson, Ted Poe, Mike McCaul...-- and who are now clamoring for aid to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Farenthold's, Weber's, Poe's, McCaul's and Olson's constituents are in real need of the same kind of federal help now that they opposed 4 years ago.

Derrick Crowe, the progressive Democrat running for the central Texas seat currently occupied by climate change denier Lamar Smith told us that "Natural disasters and the growing climate emergency require us to pull together as a nation to deal with challenges that one region could never shoulder on their own. That's what we mean by 'one nation, indivisible.' Lamar Smith's grandstanding on his extreme version of conservatism endangers his constituents and Texans generally by undermining people's willingness to support our area when it's our turn to need help. In fact, this whole attitude extends to his larger stance on issues like health care. When you add the fact that Smith has consistently opposed real action on climate change, it's clear that Smith's reactionary politics are a liability to the people of this district. Consider that just a few weeks ago, Smith wrote an op-ed where he said global warming and 'carbon enrichment' have great upsides for which we should be thankful. Tell that to the victims of Hurricane Harvey, who had to suffer unprecedented rainfall, of which up to 30 percent could be attributed to human-caused global warming."

Yesterday, Erik Wasson, writing for Bloomberg pointed out that the GOP "has been divided in the past over whether disaster spending needs to be offset by other domestic spending cuts, a debate that could return over Harvey response funding." Texas Republicans are desperate for aid-- and Democrats are ready to help-- but some of the far right of the party are balking. Costs could reach something between $30 and $100 billion but Trump is far more interested in getting his hands on that for his Great Wall boondoggle than in helping Texas.

But a staffer in New Jersey Congressman Frank LoBiondo's office told me that he thinks yesterday's tweet storm by his boss about this (above) wasn't just aimed at the Texas hypocrites but at the whole Republican caucus and, in particular, at the leadership, namely Paul Ryan. Ryan also voted against the Hurricane Sandy aid legislation. He tries passing himself off as a principled conservative rather than as the partisan hack and extremist ideologue his record shows him to be. Today he's doing back flips to come up with the right talking points when Congress passes an aide package for the Texas and Louisiana victims of Hurricane Harvey. I doubt he'll use the one that Eminem used Saturday night at the Reading MusicFestival in Glasgow:



And while he is, he has to face the murderous winds of a Hurricane Bannon aimed relentlessly at his own reelection. Over the weekend, Breitbart attacked him again-- this time for throwing in with leftists against Señor Trumpanzee in the matter of the Arpaio pardon. Ryan's very mild disagreement-- through a spokesman-- with the pardon turned into a virtual assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sofie for the fringe right. All Ryan's flack, Doug Andres, said was basically what everyone in the country except hardcore neo-Nazi Trump supporters think-- "The speaker does not agree with the decision. Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon." Not a word of Señor Trumpanzee, of course. Here's the Bannon spin:

This comes after Ryan similarly threw in with leftists to criticize President Trump’s response to Charlottesville, running to leftist media outlet CNN to say in a town hall that the president “messed up” during his press conference at Trump Tower in New York City earlier this month when he bashed the media and violent leftists as well as neo-Nazis and the KKK.

Ryan’s decision to continue undermining the president in key moments of his presidency matches his behavior during the campaign. Ryan is not someone who has ever been supportive of the president. He actually, as Breitbart News reported earlier this year, encouraged fellow Republicans to abandon the president’s campaign against failed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton in October of last year in the home stretch.

“I am not going to defend Donald Trump-- not now, not in the future,” Ryan said in a conference call with House Republicans, audio of which was published by Breitbart News this spring.

Ryan has a brutal to-do-list in September, with government funding bills, debt ceiling legislation, Obamacare repeal rejuvenation, and the beginning of tax reform coming up. It remains to be seen if he can prove he has the legislative chops necessary for governing. But for now he seems more focused on virtue-signaling to the left and the media that he does not stand with the president and will follow through on his October 2016 promise to not defend Trump “not now, not in the future.”

So when will neo-Nazi Suffolk County billionaire Robert Mercer write a 6-figure check to Ryan's primary opponent, Paul Nehlen, who is running around southeast Wisconsin promoting the popular fringe right conspiracy theory, manufactured by the Kremlin, that Hillary Clinton was operating a child sex ring out of a DC pizzeria. Nehlen's most recent line of attack on Ryan is that he failed to attack the leftists who the neo-Nazis claim were at fault for Charlottesville. "Paul Ryan," he said over the weekend, "is a coward. What he is doing is working to further divide the country so that he can keep his hands on the levers of power. People aren’t buying what Ryan is selling in terms of this fake narrative that there is only one side to the violence... We are waking up. And it is imperative that we, as the voice of true conservative values, don’t back down one inch on exposing the PC Marxists in our midst for what they are."

The Bannon-Mercer interpretation doesn't fit with the exposed online chats between the neo-Nazis and Klan members plotting violence in the lead up to Charlottesville.

Well before a white nationalist “Unite the Right” demonstration turned deadly in Charlottesville this month, attendees were planning for violence, according to leaked online chats. In private chat channels, they shared advice on weaponry and tactics, including repeatedly broaching the idea of driving vehicles through opposition crowds. After the vehicular attack which killed counterprotestor Heather Heyer, users of the channel celebrated the event.

The discussions took place on a private channel created using Discord, a service primarily intended for gamers. Hundreds of screenshots of the exchanges were released this week by Unicorn Riot, a left-wing activist group, which said they were shared by an anonymous source. The records also included audio recordings of planning meetings.

While much of the discussion centered on flags, chants, and other forms of speech, the leaked exchanges also included advice on weapon construction. “You want something designed for longitudinal stress,” wrote one poster. “[Three] whacks and that thing is breaking.” Other topics included body armor and shield design.

Users also shared memes alluding to using vehicles against opponents.

...The records could also have implications for future efforts to organize white supremacist events. While the First Amendment protects the right to speech and assembly for even the most heinous groups and ideas, it does not protect speech if it calls for and is likely to lead to “imminent lawless action.” According to legal experts speaking to Wired, signs of “preparation for illegal activity” could make it more likely that future events organized by related groups could be legally restricted.

Following the protest and attack, Discord suspended the group's private chat channel.

Jeff Van Drew-- More Dysfunctional Recruiting From The DCCC

Norcross, Christie, Van Drew

The new Quinnipiac Poll of likely Iowa caucus goers shows New Jersey Governor Chris Christie falling behind in the dust with just 3% support. In New Hampshire, the new WMUR poll released this morning shows Christie's support at the same embarrassing 3%-- in the state he's counting on to turn it all around for him! As New Hampshire voters have gotten to know him better, his standing has sunk from 9 to 3%. Even Trump and Fiorina have more support-- although Christie still leads Santorum, Jindal, Graham and Pataki. 

And a new poll from Monmouth University of New Jersey voters shows that the people who know him best do not believe he has the right temperament to be president. "In a hypothetical match-up with Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie trails the Democrat 53% to 30% among registered voters in the Garden State. Christie also trails his fellow Republican contenders as a preferred candidate. More New Jersey voters believe Jeb Bush (42%) would make a better president than Chris Christie (27%). Similarly, more Garden State voters believe Scott Walker (34%) would make a better president than Christie (24%)." Christie's support in his own state has essentially evaporated since February. 2016 may be a very good year for New Jersey Democratic candidates up and down the ticket.

Of New Jersey's 12 congressional districts, 6 are held by Democrats and 6 by Republicans. However, of the 6 held by Republicans, 2 are swing districts. Obama beat both McCain and Romney in all the Democratic districts and in NJ-02 (LoBiondo) and NJ-03 (MacArthur). Cook rates NJ-02 a D+1 and NJ-03 an R+1. Either seat could be flippable. Unfortunately, the DCCC (and the DSCC) are poor advocates for congressional Democrats. Both committees are run from an apologist perspective of what it means to even be a Democrat. Both committees actively recruit corrupt conservatives with tenuous connections to the values behind the Democratic Party. For that vulnerable LoBiondo seat the DCCC has managed to lose and lose and lose, and they've settled on this year's losing strategy again: recruit someone almost as conservative as the Republican and see if Hillary Clinton voters just vote for the candidate anyway. The DCCC wants state Senator Jeff Van Drew, about as bad as you can find in Democratic politics, even in South Jersey.

Van Drew is the Vice Chair of New Jersey's Senate Environment Committee. In 2013 he was one of the only Democrats in the state legislature with a lower environmental ranking from the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters other than the execrable Donald Norcross-- a crooked Machine pol whose first vote after being elevated to the House was to back the Keystone XL Pipeline. Norcross' score was 59% and Van Drew's was 68%. Clean Water Action rated Van Drew a 22%, lowest of any New Jersey state Senator.

And Van Drew has more right-wing tendencies than just being a kiss-up for developers and other anti-environment special interests. He was the only Democrat in the New Jersey state legislature, for example, to get an A from the NRA, outscoring a pack of Republicans. This is the record of this "Democrat," seen by the DCCC as a reason to recruit him for higher office:

• In 2010, Van Drew sponsored a bill to allow residents to carry handguns.


• In 2011, he appeared with Steve Lonegan (who was there in his capacity as State Director of Americans for Prosperity) to rally support for a bill to repeal cap and trade, and expressed his support for nuclear power and fossil fuels. Also in 2011, Van Drew sponsored a bill to abolish the seven-day waiting period before shelter animals could be killed. And of course, he was one of those Christiecrats who voted to cut public workers’ pensions and benefits.

• In 2013, he broke with the Democratic leadership on gun control and marriage equality.

Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen, Steve Israel (plus the current Steve Israel sock puppet) have utterly ruined the DCCC. It's a loser organization and one that is chipping away at the Democratic brand in a way that Republicans never could. They really are recruiting garbage candidates all across the country-- like Jeff Van Drew.

State Senator Jeff Van Drew (D-1) is being seriously pursued by the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to run against incumbent Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-2), a national Democratic source based in Washington, D.C. has told PolitickerNJ.

“The DCCC is actively recruiting Jeff Van Drew to run against Frank LoBiondo,” the Democratic source said, “Staff from the DCCC met with Van Drew in his [legislative] district in New Jersey.”

LoBiondo, who has represented New Jersey’s Second Congressional District since 1995, decisively defeated his Democratic challenger, Bill Hughes, Jr., by a wide 61 percent to 37 percent margin in 2014. Hughes, Jr. is the son of respected former U.S. Rep. Bill Hughes, who held the CD 2 seat for 20 years. But several Democratic county chairs in the South Jersey-based Congressional district held back from endorsing Hughes, Jr. until after Van Drew publicly declared that he would not run for Congress.

“If LoBiondo retired, the field in South Jersey might clear for Van Drew,” said a South Jersey Democratic operative. “The question is if Van Drew is serious about running.”

The D.C.-based Democratic source added that Democratic President Barack Obama won New Jersey’s Second Congressional District with more 54 percent of the vote in 2012.

“LoBiondo had weak fundraising so far this year,” the national Democratic source said. “He raised only $77,000 in the first quarter of 2015.”

Van Drew, confirming that he has met with DCCC staff, told PolitickerNJ that he is flattered by the national party attention, but is still focused on local races.

”I’m focusing on the assembly race,” Van Drew told PolitickerNJ. “I’m honored they would consider me, but right now I’m focused on the business at hand.”

Meet Dave Cole-- Progressive Congressional Candidate In South Jersey

This week, several of the Blue America candidates were at the PCCC training in Washington. Some of them called me and e-mailed me and told me they were really impressed with a smart young guy we hadn't been writing about, Dave Cole, the progressive who wants to take on Frank LoBiondo. So I called Dave and started the conservation. I can see why everyone is so impressed. He's a software engineer and former technology advisor at the Obama White House. Within a minute of beginning a conversation you can see he's a knowledgeable and committed progressive, motivated by, as he puts it, "a desire to fix our broken economic system, make investments in education and infrastructure, and ensure the middle class dream for working families in South Jersey."

He struck me as a different kind of "tech guy," not a Ro Khanna corporate shill trying to represent the big, gigantically wealthy tech corporations, but a "people's tech guy." Wired, in covering his campaign, mentioned that he had downplayed his experience in the coding world but that his "experience came shining through when Cole released his political platform on the popular software development site GitHub."

GitHub is a place where coders can easily collaborate on a piece of software, and Cole hopes that his constituents will collaborate on his political policies in similar ways. On GitHub, they can readily comment on and even edit his policies. But that’s only a start. Cole’s bigger vision is that all sorts of political work-- from campaigns to the bills proposed by elected officials-- will be handled in a similar fashion.

…Of course, citizens have long had ways of communicating with candidates and politicians. They could write or call or send emails. But the technology that underpins sites like GitHub provides a new way to actually evaluate, track, and integrate public suggestions into policy documents. It’s not just that anyone can instantly suggest changes to Cole’s platform. Each suggestion can also be discussed, in much the same way you can discuss a Facebook status update. Cole can then sift through the suggestions and discussions, automatically incorporating any change he and his staff think is beneficial. GitHub also makes it easy to navigate old versions of documents, making all changes transparent and making it easy to revert to old versions if necessary.

I asked him to write a guest post introducing himself to DWT readers.

A Fresh Start for South Jersey
by Dave Cole

I come from an incredibly beautiful and unique part of New Jersey-- the garden of the garden state. I grew up amidst family farms and endless peach orchards, and we spent our summer weekends down the shore, at family-friendly beaches along the Atlantic.

  South Jersey is where my parents settled down to raise our family. My dad was a union factory worker from Northeast Philadelphia and my mom, a real estate agent-turned-entrepreneur, from the South Jersey suburbs.

From first grade through college, I attended New Jersey's public schools. At an early age, I developed an interest in computers and technology. I have a distinct memory of going to a computer fair at the old race track and picking out an anonymous beige box we affectionately called an IBM Clone. It didn't have internet access or much memory, but it opened me to an entirely new world. I learned science and engineering from educational video games, wrote stories and made posters, and eventually got brave enough to start pulling out the pieces, reassembling them, and writing code. I was having fun, but what I didn't realize at the time was that this experience would open up so many opportunities.

Slightly before this time, when I was just five, my father was laid off from his job. A take over company had come in to trim what it saw as fat at the independent baking factory. My father was singled out most likely because he had the good sense to start up his own non-competing side business making blended flavors as well as the unfortunate courtesy to tell his bosses about it and secure their blessings.

My mother wasn't working at the time, following the birth of my sister, who was still less than a year old. My father doubled down on setting up his new business, and to cut costs, they considered dropping their life insurance policy which would pay off the mortgage in the event of the unthinkable.

The unthinkable happened two months later. My father passed away suddenly due to liver failure. It's at this darkest point in my family's story that I began to see a bright light that would become my guide.

In addition to returning to work, my mother, Patti, went back to school, and took business courses at the local community college. She used the experience to build her own company selling medical equipment. This gave her the resources and flexibility she needed to be there for my sister and me. It would be years before I could fully realize the strength this took, to rise up from losing a partner at such a young age, and with two young children to support. Her strength drives me and shapes my world view.

In college I studied computer engineering, but eventually moved to political science and history, and I looked for ways to use my technical background to help the larger cause of social progress.

I was an early volunteer on President Obama's first campaign, and was honored to join his White House as a founding member of the New Media team and a senior advisor for technology. I served at the White House for half of the first term, building projects like WhiteHouse.gov, including the first-ever online disclosure of White House staff and visitor logs, and the "We the People" petitioning platform. I also worked with other agencies and departments to help them modernize their websites and engagement tools.

After serving in government, I joined a new company called Mapbox, which my team and I grew into a successful small business hiring dozens of new employees and growing even during a difficult economy.

Growing up in South Jersey gave me the education and opportunity I needed to succeed. When I was a kid, a middle class life meant you could get by even when the worst happened. Public schools and higher education were affordable ways to build a better life. But that middle class dream is slipping away for far too many people.

Across New Jersey's 2nd district, 12.8% of our people are unemployed. Many more are adjusting to stagnant or shrinking wages, and less hours on the job. Without any meaningful action on climate change, we remain vulnerable to more powerful super storms like Sandy, and rising sea levels that could swallow the beaches of our childhood memories. People of all ages from our seniors to students are facing mounting costs and little assistance. We're at risk of losing entire generations as that once prosperous middle class lifestyle is slipping away and our youth leave for opportunities elsewhere.

After 20 years of the same excuses and inaction from our Congressman, Frank LoBiondo, we need new ideas and new leadership for South Jersey. At best, Congressman LoBiondo is a fair-weather friend to working families. He plays a moderate on safe issues, but when we really need him, he's nowhere to be found. He's not interested in creating jobs through new investments in infrastructure and education, but instead prefers to support the misplaced priorities of Paul Ryan's austerity budget. He's relentless in opposing common-sense reforms to our healthcare system, to the point of shutting down the entire federal government, only to sheepishly seek to re-open it days after the damage has been done. Our economic system is broken, and to fix it, we need to be bold, not benign.

I'm an engineer with experience growing business in the private sector and modernizing government as a public servant, and I'm running to bring a fresh start to South Jersey. It's time for new ideas to jumpstart our economy, like establishing a National Infrastructure Bank to ensure reliable funding is ready to expand and repair our roads, bridges, railways, schools, and high-speed internet (fiber optic) networks. And it's long past time to take care of our people first by raising the minimum wage out of poverty, renewing unemployment benefits, protecting and expanding social security benefits, and strengthening medicare by giving it the power to negotiate for the best prices on prescription drugs.

We need progress. We can win back our seat in Congress with a bold vision for the future that once again makes South Jersey the perfect place to raise a family. We won't get there with feigned moderation on the Republican or Democratic side. In this election, I face a primary challenger-- a son of a former Congressman-- who has considerable resources and connections, but lacks conviction. While I've had my policy platform publicly available on my website, my primary opponent, a self-described "moderate with conservative leanings," has yet to publish a word about for what or whom he stands. We won't move forward by leaning toward the past.

This is why I'm running for Congress. We're running this campaign on a platform of ideas, not a rolodex of connections. We're even running this campaign in new ways, like inviting public discussion about our ideas, which Wired.com described as, "a glimpse into the future of politics." I'm doing this because I recognize that the best ideas come from collaboration. That's how we build movements. Will you join me in this movement to bring a fresh start for South Jersey? Please sign on at http://ColeForCongress.com.

Focus… Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)

Former Congressman William Hughes with son, Bill, Jr.

Why bother focussing on LoBiondo? There are many districts in red-leaning and even solidly red congressional districts in the hands of Democrats. There are almost no Republicans in blue districts. In California Gary Miller and David Valadao both won because of failed DCCC recruiting and both will probably lose their seats in 2014. Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Chris Gibson (R-NY) are in D+1 districts and both are under intense attack, Coffman from the former Speaker of Colorado's House of Representatives, Andrew Romanoff, and will probably lose and Gibson, if he survives, will survive because of the DCCC's atrocious recruitment of a carpetbagger billionaire. That leaves one Republican in blue territory, LoBiondo, safely, it always seemed, entrenched in NJ-02 (since 1994. He represents the South Shore including Atlantic City where Obama beat McCain and Romney handily-- with 53% against McCain and 54% against Romney. LoBiondo has always won in landslides-- until last year, when Cassandra Shober, with no help from the DCCC whatsoever, held him to 58%, his lowest margin in 2 decades.

He spent $1,336,918 and, because the DCCC wouldn't back her, Shober only managed to raise $55,144. LoBiondo won all eight counties in the district, even while Obama won all but Cape May and Ocean counties. This cycle LoBiondo isn't going to have it as easy. He's been touted as one of the Republicans who could be in jeopardy of losing his seat over the government shutdown he supported and the MoveOn/PPP poll shows a very tight race when LoBiondo is pitted against a generic Democrat. He won't be running against a generic Democrat though. Attorney and former federal prosecutor Bill Hughes, Jr, son of ex-Congressman William Hughes, just declared his candidacy. And it appears the DCCC will get behind him.

Hughes resides in Northfield, Atlantic County, and has spent the last 12 years as an attorney for Cooper Levenson. In a statement announcing his 2014 campaign, he said he was committed to “ending the irresponsible gridlock in Washington” and finding solutions that bring more jobs to the region.

“New Jersey residents are tired of the irresponsible brinksmanship in Washington that brought on the reckless government shutdown and continues to threaten jobs,” Hughes said. “Our community can’t afford to be represented by someone who continues to oppose any reasonable solutions and keeps repeating the same failed policies that are hurting our economy. New Jersey needs a new and responsible leader who will work to protect and grow our middle class, create new jobs and spur our local economy. That’s why I am running for Congress.”

He made his announcementThursday in Atlantic City at Kennedy Plaza and told supporters and the media that “The days of low accomplishments and low expectations in South Jersey is over. Change begins today. We have seen the best of what LoBiondo has to offer in 20 years. … It’s time for a change.” This seems to take some steam out of the potential candidacy of state Senator Jeff Van Drew of Cape May, who everyone had assumed would challenge LoBiondo next year. I spent a long time on the phone with Hughes yesterday and he seemed fine on the social issues-- like Choice and equality-- and fair-minded on economic justice issues. He professed a great admiration for both "moderate" Rob Andrews and progressive Rush Holt. And he's a huge fan of Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Green Day.