Trump's Republic Of Mendacity

Trump is has been spending the 4th of July holiday with his divisive hate politics and doing what he does best: lying. Biden... hides out, hoping Trump keeps destroying himself and that no one pays any attention to him or his record. This may not be a great idea, since Trump will through tens of millions of dollars at him as we get closer to November. But instead of these two clowns, imagine if Bernie were a candidate. U like either of them, he's all about problem solving and policy solutions, sometimes grand-- like eliminating poverty-- and sometimes more mundane-- like making airlines behave so we're not taking our lives into our hands by getting on one. This is the letter he sent to the head of the Department of Transportation on Friday:

Basically he wants the government-- not the greed-driven airline companies (especially not American Airlines, the greediest ofthem all and the least concerned about the health of their customers)-- to require face masks for passengers and crew, to limit the capacity of flights (reasonable social distancing) and more cleaning during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Louis Menand, over at the New Yorker had some fantastic insights into what Señor Trumpanzee has been up to. "Today," he wrote yesterday, "is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain, and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity. The falsehoods never stop. No occasion is too minor. 'Pres. Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine. Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your lobstering and fishing! Make lots of money!' So tweeted the President on June 24th. As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported, the tweet is a lobster fib. Not that President Obama needs to get credit for it-- climate change, driving the lobsters north, was probably the reason-- but, in 2016, the last year of the Obama Administration, the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history, a hundred and thirty-two million pounds. Since then, it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds, largely because of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China, which caused certain American agricultural exports, including lobsters, to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff. China is not in a trade war with Canada, however, and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market. Over all, the value of the fishing catch in Maine, all species included, has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 (also a record) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019.

If lobstering is (or may be) “back,” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the cares Act-- the pandemic bailout-- to the lobster industry, which had previously been left off the list of most-favored businesses. Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way. The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins. Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need. She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote, and then ends up voting, most of the time, with her party. The Republicans want to keep her in office. As always, the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically. How else would it operate? It has no other principles to guide it.

Lobster fishing is a niche industry. About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters. And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie, more in the braggadocio category. But why insist on lying? Why lie even when the truth-- “We looked strongly into extending the cares Act to Maine’s beautiful lobstermen!”-- does the job perfectly well?

Speculation about this began on January 21, 2017, and it has not abated. One theory that has a certain elegance and simplicity is that Trump is a nitwit. Most of the time, he has no idea what he is talking about, and so he does what he has done all his life: he says whatever makes him look best. The kindest interpretation is that this is just good salesmanship. You always hype the product, and, in this case, the product is him. He is not exaggerating the truth-- he is not even lying, technically-- because he doesn’t know what the truth is. He assumes that the biggest whopper is the safest bet. Someone else can clean up the mess.

And the thing is, there always is someone else. It’s not hard to understand Trump. It is hard to understand the people in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation, who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous implications, and who parrot it dutifully. For the first two years of Trump’s Presidency, some of these people were known as “the adults in the room.” To an admittedly remote observer, those people looked indistinguishable from opportunists willing to suppress their opinions in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters. They were dreaming. All of them have departed with their reputations scarred.

No one will die because of Trump’s lobster tweet. But the stuff he makes up about the coronavirus is killing people. Those at risk are not limited to the small band who showed up in Tulsa. They are people in nursing homes and veterans’ hospitals; people with diabetes and heart conditions; people on Native American lands; people who will lose their jobs if they do not show up for work in spite of the danger to their health; people who may not think about Donald Trump from one end of the year to the next but who live in states whose governors, for fear of White House vilification, have adopted a policy of pandemic bravado, as though by putting on a big hat you can face down a pathogen.

Now those states are being ripped apart, and that is likely to restart the spread of the virus in states that have successfully flattened their curves. If that happens, the whole spring shutdown, with its economic pain unevenly distributed-- as everything in the United States now is unevenly distributed-- will have been wasted. The United States has a higher coronavirus mortality rate than Brazil. A quarter of the world’s covid-19 deaths have already happened here, in a country that has 4.25 per cent of the world’s population. And we are not nearly finished.

What is appalling is that this was predictable. A man who is incapable of not making things up about the crowd size at his Inauguration is not going to start suddenly caring about the science when he is confronted with a disease that he knows nothing about. He’s going to do what he has always done.

When Trump said, on March 6th, that he did not want sick passengers on a cruise ship brought ashore because it would raise the number of cases in the U.S., making him look bad, it was clear where this was headed. Republican senators knew it; Republican governors knew it; Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar knew it. But they let Trump dominate the Administration’s airtime on the pandemic and, when they finally talked him off the stage, they allowed him to put on a display of petulance that continues to suck up most of the coverage, and to undercut any governor who tried to shoulder a responsibility he has washed his hands of.

The federal government is not supposed to work this way. Its officials are not supposed to punt because the head of state is not up to the job. They are supposed to put aside political interests to attend to the public welfare. It is not as though there has been much leadership on the Democratic side, either. Congress gave the Administration a trillion dollars, with virtually no strings attached, to hand out as it saw fit, and it sent nearly $1.4 billion of it to dead people.

It is to the credit of the press that, even with silly tweets like the lobster fib, it holds Trump to account-- not that this has the slightest effect on him or the sanitation crew that cleans up after him. But the press cannot set guidelines, or distribute face masks, or perform testing, or do contact tracing. The public looks to government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, to insure its “Safety and Happiness.” We can guess what he would make of the current one.

#NeverTrump Republicans Will Likely Make A Real Contribution To Defeating Him And His Enablers

So far this year, some of my favorite campaign ads were done by the Lincoln Project, virulently anti-Trump Republicans who have lately turned their fire-power against vulnerable Trump enablers in the Senate, like Martha McSally (R-AZ) and Thom Tillis (R-NC). I'm hearing all kinds of buzz that they'll be turning their guns on Cory Gardner (R-CO), Susan Collins (R-ME), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Miss McConnell (R-KY), David Perdue (R-GA), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Steve Daines (R-MT). They're doing a noticeably better job than the DSCC!

Yesterday Al Hunt wrote a piece for for The Hill, #NeverTrump Republicans-- Fringe Or A Force To Be Reckoned With?, speculation that #NeverTrump groups and politicians infuriate Señor T and "may gain traction in the election year." Unaware that MSNBC is crawling with anti-Trump Republicans, he suggests starting with the far less influential The Bulwark, which he described as "an online site and podcast directed by a Wisconsin conservative Charlie Sykes and including luminaries from the right like Bill Kristol, who was the editor of the Weekly Standard. It pummels the president's ineptitude and [lack of] integrity and his enablers."

The “Lincoln Project” brigade-- led by longtime Republicans like George Conway (his wife is Trump's counselor), Steve Schmidt, who once was a top aide to John McCain, and John Weaver, who was a top aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich-- have run mocking negative ads that went viral after infuriating Trump.

There have been no tougher critiques of the Trump presidency than those written by conservative columnists Michael Gerson, George Will, Max Boot and Pete Wehner.

Mind you, none of these critics on the right have become big government, wealth redistributing left wingers. If Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress were to be elected this November, most of these people will be among their most articulate critics.

But they know the traditional conservative values of limited government, free markets and global leadership aren't in this president's vocabulary. They resent that their philosophical mentor William F. Buckley has been replaced in Trump's Republican Party by Sean Hannity.

“We can see how his con works," Charlie Sykes told me, “how he manipulates conservative memes and exploits the worst and darkest elements of the right. We're the ones calling out his bullshit because we know it's bullshit.”

Sykes was a popular Wisconsin conservative radio talk show host and author until Trump was elected. He left and wrote a book, How the Right Lost its Mind. And he founded The Bulwark.

Bulwark isn't just headlines and quick hits-- most pieces are well documented and devastating. One of the lead writers is Tim Miller, who was Jeb Bush's communications director.

On March 25, Miller laid out the timeline of the president's handling of the pandemic. It documented how Trump ignored the early advice of experts-- Republicans-- to vastly expand testing and obtain hospital supplies which soon would be essential. This was one of the earliest and most comprehensive accounts of the massive failure.

Most recently Miller weighed in on the ludicrous “Obamagate” conspiracy hoax, Trump's charge that the former president and his top officials illicitly sought to fix the last presidential election and then to undermine Trump's presidency.

Exhibit A is Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom these conspirators claim was framed when he plead guilty-- on multiple occasions-- to lying to federal officials. William Barr, the attorney general of Trump's dreams, now seeks to drop all charges against Flynn.

A short reprise: Flynn got $45,000 from Russian state television, sat next to Vladimir Putin at a 2015 Moscow dinner and had an inappropriate conversation with the Russian ambassador at the end of the Obama presidency. Then-- when that call was revealed-- he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about it.

Why wouldn't the FBI want to interview him? They did, and he lied to them too.

Nobody forced Flynn to lie. Flynn is a serial liar.

The mere discussion of “Obamagate” is a travesty but, Miller notes, it's vintage Trump. His entire history in business and politics is to “create a preferred universe of convenient facts, then insist they are true, no matter what.”

It seems nearly certain that the children of Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be an issue going into November, and The Bulwark has gone there too.

These anti-Trump conservative activists are making their mark. What remains is whether former top Trump officials or Republican office-holders will enter the fray. If so, they could affect a few voters on the margins, like college educated white men, who went for Trump, 53 percent to 39 percent, last time.

The ex-Trump aides who've turned on him don't matter. One who might, though, is former Defense Secretary James Mattis. Several people who know him say he cringes at the notion of a second Trump term, but the four-star Marine general has resisted weighing in on presidential politics.

A few retired Republican office-holders, like conservative Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, will come out against Trump. Others, like former New Hampshire Governor and Senator Judd Gregg, are mortified by this president; in a recent column Gregg said Biden is the antithesis of Trump-- “decent, fair, substantive and well-informed.” But in an interview with me, Gregg suggested the Democratic nominee's leftward lurch concerns him.

The long-shot blockbuster would be George W. Bush.

It's no secret he and Trump have a mutual contempt for one another. If a former Republican president-- the head of an influential Republican brand for decades-- supports a Democratic candidate, it would send shock waves.

It's very unlikely-- but keep an eye on it.

My guess is that yesterday the Lincoln Project released this brand new clip on Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manger, to make Trumpanzee's ears and eyes bleed. It's a doozy, not so much for the general public as for Trump and his cronies and for #NeverTrumpers everywhere-- and for all times. This has got to be Steve Schmidt's work! Or maybe Schmidt and Weaver. They really want to get under his skin and make him do something idiotic. Would I love to be able to hear Trump's reaction when he sees this one!

Trump is sinking poll numbers for GOP senators and House members. Some of these people were never comfortable with him to begin with. Are they willing to see their careers flushed down the toilet now by backing them? Do they even have any choice? Imagine Maine Senator Susan Collins breaks with Trump. Democrats are unlikely to vote for her but the independent voters who have backed away from her could be wooed back. Probably some Republicans would stick with her but many on the right-- Trump and LePage partisans-- would abandon her. Take Lewiston. There are 23,937 registered voters-- 42.6% Democrats, 34.9% independent and 17.3% Republican. Denouncing Trump would be a good move there. Same in neighboring Auburn (15,463 registered voters-- 39.9% independents, 32.4% Dems, 23.3% Republicans). But what about Caribou and Presque Isle, the two biggest towns in Aroostook County? Caribou's voters are 38.1% independent, 29.9% Democrat and 29.7% Republican. Presque Isle's 6,524 registered voters are 35.5% independent, 31.1% Republican and 29.9% Democrat. The gamble could work there. And statewide? Pew reports that 47% of Maine's voters are Democrats (or independents who lean Democratic), 36% are Republicans and independents who lean Republican and that 17% are independents with no lean. Collins can't afford to lose any significant number of the Republicans, especially with more Democrats than Republicans going to the polls in Maine. Last year "nearly 42,000 more Democrats cast ballots in November than did Republicans-- roughly three times the gaps seen in 2010 and 2014."

In the House just 23 Republicans who are running for reelection have voted with Trump less than 90% of the time. These are them with their Trump scores-- the higher the number the more pro-Trump their voting records:

• Mike Gallagher (WI-08)- 89.9%
• Don Young (AK-al)- 89.8%
• Mo Brooks (AL-05)- 89.7%
• Warren Davidson (OH-08)- 89.7%
• Bill Posey (FL-08)- 89.2%
• Jim Jordan (OH-04)- 88.6%
• Lee Zeldin (NY-01)- 88.2%
• Tom McClintock (CA-04)- 87.3%
• Ken Buck (R-CO)- 87.2%
• Alex Mooney (WV-02)- 87.0%
• Trey Hollingworth (IN-09)- 86.8%
• Paul Gosar (AZ-04)- 86.1%
• Louie Gohmert (TX-01)- 85.7%
• Matt Gaetz (FL-01)- 84.6%
• Andy Biggs (AZ-05)- 82.1%
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03)- 81.6%
• Fred Upton (MI-06)- 81.5%
• Elise Stefanik (NY-21)- 78.1%
• John Katko (NY-24)- 75.8%
• Thomas Massie (KY-04)- 70.1%
• Chris Smith (NJ-04)- 67.9%
• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)- 64.7%
• Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02)- recently switched parties

I don't see any of these members with the guts to break with Trump. The only possibilities might be Massie, who Trump is already against, and Fitzpatrick, whose district is strongly anti-Trump. And remember, most of the 23 members above who have voted "against" Trump have done so because they are further right than Trump, not because they are mainstream conservatives, let alone moderates.

Maine Voters Are Starting To See Clearly The Republicans Are Their Enemy-- When Will They Realize Most Democratic Politicians Are Too?

Snake-Oil by Chip Proser

Like voters in every other state, Mainers trust their governor more than Señor Trumpanzee to respond to the pandemic. A fairly lame, tepid middle-of-the-road Democrat, Janet Mills, who was late on taking the necessary precautions-- but much better than Trump, of course-- saw a nice bump in her job approval ratings. Before the pandemic her approval was 47%. Now it's 60%-- a nice rise for someone who's just better than Trump and not much more.

The pandemic is now the #1 issue in Maine, as it is in most states. The Bangor Daily News reported that "Respondents overwhelmingly preferred Maine’s response to the coronavirus to that of the federal government with 74 percent of those surveyed saying they approved of the state’s response to the virus so far, compared to 44 percent for the federal government. While both Republicans and Democrats gave the state government’s response positive ratings so far, Democrats were more likely to say they trusted the state’s response. Seventy-four percent of Democrats said they trusted the state government compared to 50 percent of Republicans. On the other hand, 57 percent of Republicans said they trusted the federal government to respond to the virus compared to just 23 percent of Democrats."

Maine seems to thrive on political mediocrity and all their top politicians are a bunch of centrists. It amazed me in 2016 went Bernie beat Hillary there 64.3% to 35.5%. I guess Mainers are better than their politicians. This cycle the reverted to form and gave Status Quo Joe the most votes-- 68,396 (34.1%), as opposed to 65,894 for Bernie (32.9%). Elizabeth Warren played the spoiler with 31,514 votes (15.7%). Bloomberg was the only other candidate in double digits-- 24,131 (12.0%).

The poll showed a further drop in approval for Republican Sen. Susan Collins since last fall, from 42 percent to 37 percent, while the share of voters who disapproved of her performance climbed to 52 percent, though her approval rating with Republican voters continued to rise. Independent Sen. Angus King remained popular, with 59 percent of voters approving of his performance.

U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree of the 1st District and Jared Golden of the 2nd District, both Democrats, were above-water with constituents. Fifty-one percent of voters approved of Pingree while 19 percent disapproved. For Golden, a freshman, 42 percent of voters approved of his performance while 19 percent disapproved.

The DSCC found some crap moderate they're working to push into the nomination to face Collins, Sara Gideon, who stands for nothing and is nothing. The progressive in the race, Betsy Sweet, in running on a Bernie-like platform. You can contribute the her campaign here.

Fortunately, more and more Mainers are changing their behavior in response to the pandemic:

Trump And American Disunity

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies

If you were shocked to hear polling that indicated that a majority or plurality of Americans approved of how Trump was handling the pandemic, keep in mind that whenever there's a national calamity, Americans tend to rally round the flag. Sometimes that is short-lived though-- and in this case it was very short-lived. A new poll from Navigator shows most Americans have now regained their senses and see Trump as part of the problem, not part of the solution. When asked about Trump's erratic and self-serving handling of the pandemic, we see a 13-point swing in his net approval on this from 52% to 42% (+10) to 47% to 50% (-3). "Trump is wildly out of step with Americans with his new push to relax social distancing," concluded the pollster. "Only 5% say we should roll back precautions, even at the expense of economic losses, while 74% say we should wait however long it takes for public health experts to say it’s safe, including 70% of Republicans... Trump didn’t cause coronavirus, but his actions have made it worse-- and Americans are looking to others, from governors to health experts, to lead us out of this... Lives have been put at risk by Trump’s senseless delay on invoking his authority to produce more needed supplies like masks and ventilators."

One of my sisters is tucked away in self-imposed isolation at her home in Brooklyn, venturing out only rarely and only with her N-99 mask and latex gloves. The other-- who is married to a dyed-in-the-wool Trumpist-- has been incredibly hostile to the idea of precautions... until yesterday when her fearless leader announced he was considering some kind of a enforceable travel quarantine against New York and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, whatever that means. If Trump says it's real, in her mind, it's real.

Some of Trump's political allies-- the reactionary governors of Florida and Texas for example-- had already put up barriers against New Yorkers. And now the truly repulsive conservative governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, a pretend-Democrat, who has adamantly refused to issue shelter-in-place orders, announced Friday that "members of the National Guard, along with local law enforcement, would be going door-to-door in shore communities to look for people who have come here from New York. The troops will collect their contact information and work to enforce the 14-day quarantine. They will do their best to target homes where the state believes people may have come from New York, Raimondo said. People who violate quarantine orders would be subject to a fine at first, and prison time on subsequent offenses, Raimondo said." Her troops have been ordered to pull over cars with New York license plates... respectfully. Cuomo said he would sue her if she didn't roll back her diktat immediately. [Instead she just announced that the restriction apply to any non-Rhode Islander-- so she's giving the finger to the rest of the country. No comment.]

Raimondo is widely considered one of the most disgusting, puke-worthy governors of any state regardless of party. She told the media that "This is an emergency. What is constitutional in one scenario is different than in another. This is pinpointed, this is targeted, this is a state of emergency, this is limited in time, and it’s going to be enforced in a respectful way. And it’s a public health necessity." She said "Right now we have a pinpointed risk. That risk is called New York City."

He backed off today

Janet Mills, Maine's lame (Democratic) governor hasn't had the brains or spine to order Mainers to shelter in place either. Officials on the island of North Haven, Maine issued an order banning all visitors to the island-- even ones who own homes there.




Vox's Ian Millhiser noted the same thing and wondered how much this is going to weaken the union, "testing the very notion that the United States are united."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed an executive order on Thursday that would require travelers from some coronavirus hotspots to self-quarantine: It provides that “every person” who flies into Texas from “New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or the City of New Orleans, or in any other state or city as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time of entry into Texas or the duration of the person’s presence in Texas, whichever is shorter.”

Other states have imposed similar orders. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) imposed an order on Tuesday that requires anyone flying from New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut to self-isolate for 14 days. Alaska and Hawaii also imposed self-quarantine orders on people traveling from other states.

These orders implicate one of the fundamental premises of the union among the 50 states: the right of American citizens to travel among them freely.

As the Supreme Court recognized more than 170 years ago, “we are one people with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States, and as members of the same community must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own states.” The right of all US citizens to travel freely among the states, the Court later explained in United States v. Guest (1966), “was conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger union the Constitution created.”

If states can decide that some US citizens are not welcome within their borders, it may cease to be a union at all. This right to travel is implicit in the notion that citizens are Americans, and not simply Texans or New Yorkers.

But should that principle hold during a pandemic? Does the Constitution forbid states from taking drastic actions to slow the spread of a potentially deadly disease within their own borders?

Gov. Abbott’s order, at the very least, is probably carefully drafted enough to survive constitutional scrutiny. That order applies to “every person” who flies into Texas from the designated areas, regardless of whether that person is a resident of Texas or some other state. Read in that light, it does not discriminate against non-Texans.

But orders like Gov. Abbott’s do raise troubling constitutional questions. And they cut against the concept of a union of states that has prevailed in this country, especially since the New Deal.

The modern notion that every US citizen has the same rights, no matter where they travel within the nation, is rooted in a notion of nationwide solidarity that depends on a strong and competent federal government. And the Trump administration is not holding up its end of that bargain.

...But even if such travel bans are legal, they are still indicative of a greater rot within our constitutional system. The premise of our Constitution is that the states gave up some of their sovereign authority to the federal government, in return for mutual benefits such as collective national defense and free trade among the states. The premise of the post-New Deal order is that the federal government must take on additional obligations, including providing a basic social safety net.

And the evolution of the right to travel played a significant role in establishing this new order. The right to travel is fundamentally tied to our conception of what it means to be a citizen of a nation. We’ve spent most of the last century fleshing out our understanding of what obligations our nation owes to its citizens.

...The United States was one collective community, not 50 insular communities.

But Trump is slashing the safety net that holds this national community together. He spent much of the first three years of his presidency dismantling the federal government’s permanent infrastructure, that his predecessors set up to deal with a pandemic-- including ordering the White House National Security Council’s (NSC) entire global health security arm shut down. He’s repeatedly proposed budgets making sharp cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Trump abdicates his role as the custodian of a nationwide safety net. Indeed, he recently told a group of governors who needed ventilators to deal with the rise of coronavirus cases to “try getting it yourselves.”

Thursday night, after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) requested tens of thousands of ventilators to protect the lives of infected New Yorkers, Trump dismissed this request in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Trump claimed. “You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

Nor is Cuomo the only governor frustrated by the federal government’s inaction. After Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) sought much needed medical gear and equipment to protect the people in his state, the federal government provided only a fraction of what his state needed.

Moreover, as Pritzker wrote on Twitter, Trump’s inaction forces governors to compete with each other-- potentially even pushing them into a bidding war. “I have medical professionals and first responders begging for the things they need to keep them safe-- but so does” Cuomo. So does Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R). So does Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

Trump, meanwhile, was extraordinarily slow to use the Defense Production Act, a federal law that would allow the federal government to coordinate a national response among state and private industry. As Pritzker writes, “it’s the federal government’s job to make sure that a nurse being properly equipped in Illinois doesn’t come at the cost of a doctor being ready for work in California.”

If the Trump administration is unwilling or unable to uphold its end of the post-New Deal bargain, the implications are staggering. Trump’s inaction does not simply threaten to exacerbate a pandemic. It threatens the very concept of what it means to be the United States of America.

Could Putin have foreseen all this when he invested a measly few million dollars towards getting Trump elected in 2016? What an absolutely brilliant investment-- at least from a Russian perspective! Shrewdest foreign policy move in Russian history!

Want To See The Last Of Susan Collins? Help Betsy Sweet Win Maine's Senate Primary June 9

Just as he's done in Colorado, North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, etc, Brooklyn's Chuck Schumer has decided to choose who Maine's U.S. Senate nominee for the Susan Collins seat will be. This is bad on enough the face, but Schumer almost always gets it wrong. He picks losers and Republicans win seats-- the way Marco Rubio did in Florida when he wrecked Alan Grayson's campaign. And when he does manage to come up with someone who can win, they always turn out to be the worst members of the Senate, like Kyrsten Sinema and Jackie Rosen. He's decided he wants establishment hack Sara Gideon as the Maine candidate, someone who shies away from anything that ever rocks the boat and opposes Medicare for All and the Green New Deal just at a time of an existential tipping point for the country. The word "bold" is like a curse word for Gideon who has tried to present herself as similar to Susan Collins as she can without being Susan Collins.

The alternative to Collins and Gideon is progressive Democrat Betsy Sweet, who has been endorsed by Blue America.

"News of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States," Betsy told us this week, "has not only dominated the American news cycle but it has also remained a pivotal worry in the minds of millions of Americans. Each day, the fear grows greater that these hardworking Americans will contract the virus, left with no safety net to heal without concern. Most vividly, the coronavirus is showing the holes in our systems of care. It showcases the vulnerability of working families and single moms like me who have high deductibles that far surpass the testing costs for COVID-19 as well as those who have no insurance at all. People without insurance are not going to be able to get the care they desperately need until it is too late. We have to do better."

The coronavirus outbreak in the United States," she continued, "highlights two things most prominently-- the need for paid family leave and paid sick leave. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are actively advocating for Americans to stay home from their places of work, Americans need reassurance that their livelihoods aren’t threatened. Without paid family leave and paid sick leave, parents risk spreading the virus to their friends, their coworkers, their children. More so, we need a health care system that works for all Americans so that they have access to the care and treatment they need. By implementing Medicare for All, every single American would have access to the tests for COVID-19 without worrying about being unable to afford their rent and groceries."

We need representatives who recognize the urgency and gravity of the situation. What do we get instead? Trump refusing to acknowledge the reality of the rapid spread of coronavirus throughout the country. McConnell recessing Congress when a reasonable bill finally passes, Biden relying on private insurance companies to overcharge hardworking Americans and price gouge in a time of dire straits. Candidates like Sara Gideon, Schumer's candidate in Maine, who refuse to acknowledge that health care is a human right. Mainers deserve better. Americans deserve better.

Don't think for a moment that if Schumer pushes Gideon into the nomination, Collins would use all her shortcoming against her. Conservative outlet the Free Beacon, noted a couple of months ago that "Gideon is campaigning as a 'champion for the environment' but is also relying on oil executives to help finance her Senate run. Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, invited four millionaires from the oil industry to host her Jan. 10 fundraisers in Houston. These four Democratic megadonors already donated thousands of dollars to Gideon's campaign before the fundraiser. Gideon's state leadership PAC also collected thousands of dollars from fossil fuel companies, including from a firm that the PAC's treasurer lobbied for... Gideon's ties to the energy industry has not stopped her from attacking Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) for receiving donations from the 'Texas fossil fuel industry.'"

Gideon started building ties with the fossil fuel industry during her time in the state house. Her leadership PAC, launched in May 2014, employed Jay Nutting, a lobbyist for Emera Energy, as its treasurer. Emera Energy would donate nearly $2,000 to Gideon's leadership PAC, according to filings with the Maine Ethics Commission. In total, the PAC has received $7,000 from oil and gas companies.

While Gideon touts environmentalist positions on the campaign trail, she has avoided supporting bills that undermine the fossil fuel industry in the state house. She abstained from voting for both the Green New Deal and a 2017 bill that prohibited banks from supporting the Dakota Access Pipeline. She also pushed a bill through the legislature that relaxed rules around oil storage sites, a major win for fossil fuel companies.

"The Maine Democrat has raised $7.6 million for her Senate campaign. The impressive war chest, however, has drawn attention not only from her primary opponents but campaign finance watchdog groups. The state's ethics watchdog unanimously voted to fine Gideon's PAC after it was revealed that she used illegal means to reimburse donations.

Gideon is seen as the favorite to win the Democratic primary, which is slated to take place in June 2020. She faces an uphill climb in the general election. She trailed Collins by 14 points in a poll conducted last June.

That leaves one clear path forwards-- Maine needs a Senator who not only recognizes that direct, immediate action is needed to counter the spread of COVID-19 but who also pushes forward bold ideas like paid family leave, paid sick leave, and Medicare for All that ensure that Americans can safely continue their lives and heal from coronavirus without astronomical medical bills. Betsy Sweet is that candidate. If we want candidates like Betsy to prevail, we need to help. We need to donate so that Betsy can push forward these bold progressive policies on a national stage. That's what the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer is for. Please click on it and contribute what you can.

How The Hell Did Biden Win In Maine?-- A Guest Post By Laurie Dobson

Tuesday exit polling had very quickly predicted a Bernie win in Maine-- where he also won in 2016. (In fact, he beat Hillary 64.3% to 35.5%.) But... by the time all the votes were counted:

• Status Quo Joe- 34.1%
• Bernie- 32.9%
• Elizabeth- 15.7%
• Bloomberg- 12.0%
• Tulsi- 0.9%

How did that happen? We asked former Senate candidate (2008) Laurie Dobson. This is what she wrote:

My island town of Cranberry Isles, Maine ran out of ballots last night on Super Tuesday, March, 3, 2020. We had to call the Secretary of State to try to get more. Not everyone could stay and wait, while they sent us a photocopied ballot that we could copy, so we could have enough ballots for other people that were coming to vote.

Why did we run out? We should have had enough ballots. In our town on our island we had 26 Democrats and 22 Undeclared. Why were we only given 9 ballots? The last time we spoke to the State officials was at 5:30 PM. From 6 to 8 PM on election night, I could not get through at their election number (207) 624-7650 or (888) 868-3763. If I had come after 6 they were not answering the phones and I could not have gotten copies for myself and others to vote.

My vote matters to me. It aggravated me that there were 42 ballots available for Republicans but only nine for us Democrats. Islesford the island next to us had a few more voters registered and they got 12 Democratic ballots and had one left by 5:30, when I came to our election pulling location in the ladies aid building.

I wondered why our town clerk did not prepare for our having enough ballots. it turns out that she had called the day before the election and complained that they did not have enough and was told that she would have enough. She was not sent any more ballots but on Election Day she was told that she could photocopy a ballot sent by the Secretary of State who would give permission to get the ballots.

I was told by our election workers that there were other problems in other towns. Somebody heard that Deering High School in Portland ran out of ballots and that this was a widespread problem in Maine.

On my Facebook page I asked if anyone else had this problem in their towns I learned that across the board there were towns that ran out of ballots. Everyone was aghast, with angry emojis being the popular response. I counted large and small towns and wondered how many voters were affected.

When I learned that Bernie Sanders was not ahead in Maine, a state which was highly enthused by his campaign last election, I became suspicious. He was ahead by a large degree in the expected results.

As I write this the election result is still undecided in Maine, too close to call.

As a caucus captain and Bernie candidate for State Rep in 2016, I saw that Bernie was not supported by the by the Democratic Party State officials, and this played out in prejudicial practices towards my campaign and also during the town caucuses. I took a video of a man who was angry that his registration was not brought by the town clerk to the voting place all registrations from A to G somehow did not arrive and those people had to take provisional ballots and were not assured that their votes would count.

When I followed Bernie across New Hampshire in the week prior to his primary there, I saw the treatment of him by the media particularly MSNBC. Because there were so many oppositional reports about him by these media persons, I expected to see some practices continuing against Bernie in Maine in 2020.

When I arrived at the voting place and was told there was no ballot for me to vote on that evening it confirmed my worst suspicions. Since we changed over to a primary from a caucus this year, just like Minnesota, another state Bernie was expected to win, officials were not used to running a primary; the last one was in 2000.

I did expect that officials would be prepared for a high turnout since that's what everyone's been hearing now for weeks. Ryder Kessler who I spoke with today, is the Voter Protection Director of the Maine Democratic Party. He said it was a “very active election day with 64% turn out. It did not go as smoothly as you'd prefer.”

I explained to him that I had been in touch with the Maine Bureau of Corporations Elections and Commissions, and had spoken to Anne Boucher, the ‘Customer Service Representative Specialist’. She told me that this problem with smoothness apparently happened in all 500 municipalities in Maine. It did not just happen with our town or a few other towns. Ballots ran out all across Maine, from large towns such as Portland, to small town such as Waite, Maine (an apt moniker), and included Camden, Freeport, Union, Scarborough, Saco, and our five- island town.

Anne told me that “anytime there is a problem, you could email to the drop box or stay on hold to get someone who could send photocopies of ballots. Some people were on hold 20 minutes,” she said, and she said that our town should have called them.

I defended our town clerk and said that she had tried to call the day before without result. Anne checked and saw that we had received 25 absentee Republican ballots and 10 absentee Democratic ballots, although she did not tell me how many regular ones we got, but that must have been a total of about 21 between our two islands, which was not enough to cover our registered voters.

She said people were faxing them and could not get through, but said we could have used a drop box to give the information (but admitted that they were so busy they could not get to it although they were able to get to the fax machine) and they worked 15 and a half hours non-stop, without a break.

“It was crazy,” she said. “It wasn’t just your town, it was 500 municipalities.” All of them? I asked her. “every single one was…just about…mmn hmmn. A lot of (people) were unenrolled and didn’t have enough to cover them. A lot wanted to enroll last minute on election day or even before that. That was the problem,” she said. “We sent like 60% of what we had (for registered voters) and it still wasn’t enough. It was a problem in large towns and small towns.

She went on to say that “people have had 30 days to vote and could have voted absentee but they chose not to. There was ample time to vote; that’s why we have it, for that reason.”

She defended absentee voting further by saying that “you don’t need a reason to vote absentee until the last three days prior to the election. People have a choice.”

I said that it was all over the news that it would be a big election. Why would people think that they had to vote absentee? How would anyone know that?

She said that they did not know it would be a large election. “Nobody knew, and we had no idea. We can’t predict the future. Nobody should have been without ballots. Most towns knew to call, email or copy. That way, they have it just in case.”

I still wasn’t accepting the idea that it was the voters, or town’s faults that they did not get enough ballots, since in our case, our clerk tried to get them and was not able to. It is the Secretary of State who has to allow more ballots and they just assured us that we could copy them if it came to that. In other words, when you run out, we will send you more.

I was thinking that this was absurd. It would be like a drug store saying they are out of a vital needed medicine, but hold on, we will send it to you, eventually.

She said that they had no control over the possibility that they “might send too much (ballots)-- no idea, no control over that scenario.”

I was trying to make the case for better too much than too little, because people were not always able to stick around. After 6 pm, until they closed at 8pm, they were not even answering the phone, the calls were being dropped. People were not able to get any new (approved) ballots if they ran out.

It seemed to me that the problem stemmed from the Deputy Sec. of State, Julie Flynn, did not provide enough ballots to the towns to account for overflow and thought it could be handled on a town by town basis. Too little, too late and too many people disenfranchised in the process. Why couldn’t they see that this was a terrible way to run an important Presidential Primary election? It could come down to a few hundred votes and it could come down to the votes people were unable to cast, because it was inconvenient for the Secretary of State’s office to ensure an adequate amount.

I tried to go into some of this reasoning and she said to send an email and they would forward it to Julie Flynn. The dropbox # is cec.officials@maine.gov. She said, “put your concern and Julie will handle it.”

Sure, I thought to myself. The same way she (mis)handled my ballots when I ran for US Senate as an Independent back in 2008. (That’s another story.) I did feel bad that she said it was so bad they didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom, but I tried not to picture the scene.

I was unhappy. I called the Democratic Party Voter Hotline, and I must admit, I vented a bit on the answering machine. They called back. It was a DC number and a legal intern, Buddy Norton, wanted to learn my location and who I talked to.

Buddy said he would report the issue in Maine thru a software program. When I told him that I had the number of The “Voter Protection Director” at the Maine Dem Party (I had just found his number by calling Julie Browne, the Executive Director of the Maine Senate Democrats, he admitted that he was the person I could speak to.

So coming full circle, now, back to Ryder Kessler, at the Maine Dems, and telling him what I had learned about the voters losing ballots to vote on all across Maine and not just in our town (and we were able to eventually get some, as did some other towns), he was “very sorry to hear about it.”

Ryder agreed that it was “a massive problem, all across the state. We want to do better and push back so it won’t happen again. We are watchdogs for the process.” He said that the Sec. of State decided that 60% was the threshold of what everyone voted in recent years and said that 60% is more than enough of active voters in each municipality. It’s a subset under registered. That’s how it works. The number of registered is higher than the number of active. He said he guessed that 8 registered voters represented 60% of those who voted in recent elections in our town, on our island of Great Cranberry.

In the last Presidential Primary that we had, 25 to 30% was the turnout. We thought maybe there would be more, but, yes, he admitted. They ran out everywhere. Higher than expected.

Kessler believed the issue to be that a lot of people requested absentee and when their candidate dropped out, they tore up their ballot and then came in, to the polling location to get another, therefore, two printed ballots were used up. This sounded contrived to me, but he was stretching for an explanation. After all, his boss, the Democratic Party, could have just helped to elect the wrong candidate.

(Update: 6pm March 4, 2020): I was just told that our combined island vote in Cranberry Isles was Bernie with 22 people (38.6%) over Biden 14 people (24.6%.) Warren got 11(19.3.) Bloomberg got 3(5.3%), Steyer got 6(10.5%) and Buttegieg got 1(1.8%). The statewide total, according to today’s Bangor Daily News, is Biden at 34.3% and Sanders at 32.9%. However, when you consider all the people that were either turned away or did not go because of the lack of ballots at 500 places across the state, it seems understandable that the election was a muck up as bad as Iowa. We can assume that older and more moderate voters who are not looking for a change candidate would be likely to vote earlier in daylight hours, not coming back from work, not picking up kids, not making dinner.

We lost one young voter, because she had duties and couldn’t stick around while the Sec. of State decided to send more ballots at her convenience. How many have we thoroughly disillusioned to the process of voting? More than we can afford, in Maine. If this was the case in Minnesota, or elsewhere, is anyone else even noticing?

Ryder said that they must be much better prepared and have overinclusion. They tried hard, he said, and were talking to clerks and wardens past 8pm and doing a lot of triaging. Larger towns got addressed first, with faster prioritizing.

But why should it even come to this? I wanted to know who bore the responsibility. He said it was split- towns and clerks have discretion over the towns, and the Sec. of State prints, distributes and allows the photocopying of ballots. The Primary is run by the State Party, not election officials, however, he said. That means that there is no clear blame that can be laid on anyone, since the Legislature elects the Sec. of State, who is a constitutional official and not the employee of the State Party.

“If you want to empower local clerks, then the Sec. of State is the one to be lobbying to and sharing your concerns with,” Kessler said. Meanwhile they will work on having more ballots and overcome the shortages. They will try to deal with issues in order to advocate on the state level.

This really did not satisfy me. Why isn’t the solution to have enough ballots at the start of the election? Is this just crooked partisan politics at work, trying to keep people from a representative and inclusive vote? I am thinking of all those frustrated people looking forward all day to voting and having to go home without an “I Voted Today” sticker.

“Our State looks like it got a black eye,” I told him. You can’t really influence or dictate to the Sec. of State, you can just share your concerns with these decision makers. Or share your opinion. Or something else you can comfort yourself with as they steal your right to vote from you.

Kessler kept trying. “My position is to fight for every eligible voter to get a ballot and push for better solutions and better outcomes.” That’s what his Party, the Democratic Party, has taught him to say and he is so earnest, I want to believe him… and he isn’t done.

He wants me to know that he “did not witness any bad faith actors, that everyone was operating in good faith for it to go as smoothly as possible.” I had to let it go. This is not my first election rodeo and I keep saying that it will be my last, every time I witness these monstrosities.

Hope dies last, they say. It’s especially so when it comes to voting, the one thing we all continue to agree, that makes us feel like first class citizens. I think it is time to crack some heads, personally. This gets old.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Look at the smug contempt in that face. Just look at it! Imagine the level of disrespect for the law and the contempt for America and its citizens that motivates Susan Collins in order for her to say what she said about the madmanTrump learning his lesson. She has obviously tapped into the same level of disrespect for the law and contempt for America that those who vote for her and cretins like her also possess.

Susan Collins's idol, Donald Trump, has sure learned his lesson, just like you claim, hasn't he, Susan? He's learned that you and your Republican colleagues in the $enate have given him carte blanche to break any law he wants to with impunity. He has learned, thanks to willing enablers like you and others like you who pretended to take your oath to the Constitution and your decision to acquit your boy seriously. I'm referring specifically to colleagues such as such as $enator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and $enator Cory Gardner of Colorado, who put on a big show of sincere deliberation before they backed the idea that the American judicial system is nothing but Trump's toy, his to play with. You did what you did along with an equally corrupt Errand Boy/Political Operative/Attorney General named William Barr, who now wants to impede investigations of himself and the president, not to mention dirtbags and dirtbag worshipers like you. You and your colleagues have decided that the judicial system is Trump's to use for any evil purpose including to ruin the lives of Americans whose only crime in your sick viewpoint was to obey the laws of the land.

Yes, Susan, how dare some people obey their oath of office! How dare some people take the Constitution seriously! You, Susan Collins have nothing but contempt for those people and you've shown it so many times. You don't even have to open your mouth anymore. It just shows up on your face. Voting to confirm Kavanaugh and Barr were just two recent examples of the depth of your contempt for America but you felt compelled to top even those despicable votes.

Susan Collins, it's time for you to learn your lesson. It's time for you be put on an ice flow so we can watch you float out to sea as it slowly melts. I dream! I long to watch you in the distance through my binoculars as you scream but I can't hear you because you're so far away. In a just world, your state of Maine has learned their lesson about you, but, given that they once elected teabagger Paul LePage for Governor, who knows? In a more just world...

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Susan Collins' whole life is an upside down pyramid of ever-growing shamelessness and duplicity. It's easy to see what she must have been like as a child, since she must have chosen her path early to get to the monumental point where she is today.

It's All The Rage For Candidates To Say They Won't Take Corporate Cash-- While Taking It

Would you guess this came from Gideon or Collins? Or one of their corporately-funded super-PACs?

Over the last week I've had a running argument with some centrist Democrats about the bullshit pledge-- bullshit in some cases, heartfelt in others-- Democratic candidates routinely take to eschew corporate PAC money. Why bullshit? Three reasons:

1- corporate PACs tend to spend on incumbents, not challengers, especially not Democratic challengers.
2- when the challengers get to Congress-- especially the ones who join the New Dems or the Blue Dog caucus, they forget they ever took the pledge.
3- corporate PACs gives loads of money to leadership PACs which then use it to buy loyalty from candidates by laundering the corporate cash into their campaigns.

Although the Democratic Party establishment grifter/sham/scam outfit, End Citizens United, makes excuses for the practice, candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party benefit from corporate cash by getting it via the DCCC and from leadership PACs run by corrupt Democrats like Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer and other corporate shills.

Late last year Open Secrets took a deeper dive into the sneaky way centrist candidates get around the pledge. The report is by Karl Evers-Hillstrom, who focused on the Senate. "The top Democratic challengers," he wrote, "want voters and donors alike to know they are rejecting corporate PACs. It’s a central talking point for Democrats in competitive races like Sara Gideon in Maine, Mark Kelly in Arizona and John Hickenlooper in Colorado. 'I am not taking a dime in corporate PAC money during this campaign, because it will always be clear who I’m working for in the U.S. Senate,' Gideon, currently speaker of the Maine House, says in a campaign ad.

For non-incumbents, the pledge to reject corporate PACs is a largely symbolic gesture to indicate a candidate wants to get big money out of politics. The pledge doesn’t become a sacrifice until they’re elected to Congress, as corporate PACs give almost all of their money to incumbents to curry favor with lawmakers. [And notice Gideon's sleazy wording, "during this campaign," a good example of why Schumer likes her so much.]

Symbolic as it might have been in 2018, the pledge may have helped land dozens of Democrats crucial House wins. After getting thwacked by those no-PAC Democrats last year, Republicans intend to portray Democratic Senate hopefuls as hypocritical and dishonest with voters on the subject of corporate PACs in 2020, according to a GOP official familiar with the party’s plans.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) aired an advertisement [below] last month attacking Gideon over her pledge to reject corporate PACs. The ad notes that Gideon’s state-level PAC received money directly from major corporations and corporate PACs. The ad also says that her Senate campaign receives money from Democratic leadership PACs that accept money from corporate PACs.





Gideon has not taken money from corporate PACs. But she has received $53,500 from leadership PACs that take money from PACs associated with major corporations.

Some of the largest checks, $10,000 each, came from leadership PACs affiliated with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) both of which receive roughly half of their money from corporate PACs.

Top Democrats, like Republicans, fund their leadership PACs partly from PACs representing powerful corporations. One-third of money going to Democratic leadership PACs comes from business PACs associated with corporations, trade associations and other business interests.

Four out of the top five most generous corporate PACs to Democratic leadership PACs, Honeywell International ($179,000), Lockheed Martin ($137,000), General Dynamics ($122,000) and Northrop Grumman ($107,000), are major defense contractors.

End Citizens United, the political group that encourages Democrats to reject corporate PACs, says leadership PAC contributions don’t violate the spirit of the pledge.

“Corporate lobbyists and c-suite executives decide where corporate PAC contributions go and corporate PACs give money to gain access and influence in the halls of power in Washington,” said Patrick Burgwinkle, the group’s communications director. “Leadership PACs give money to help elect more Democrats or Republicans to Congress and the decision on who to donate to resides solely with the member of Congress affiliated with the leadership PAC.”

Major corporations’ PACs regularly give to members of Congress or their less-scrutinized leadership PACs as they push their preferred policies to lawmakers. If a contribution from a corporate PAC to a leadership PAC was meant to be routed to a specific candidate, it would have to be marked as so in FEC filings.

Gideon’s campaign told the Bangor Daily News that the difference in PAC money between the two candidates is one of the “clear differences” in the race. Collins has raised $1.4 million from PACs associated with corporations, businesses and trade groups. That’s compared to one $5,000 contribution to Gideon from PACs labeled “business” by OpenSecrets, the American Association for Justice.

Democrats are hoping Theresa Greenfield can take down Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), pouring $186,000 into her campaign from leadership PACs. Greenfield, a real estate executive, was endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee right after announcing her bid.

Senate Democrats also threw their weight behind Mark Kelly, an astronaut and gun control activists who is the husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Having raised an unprecedented $13.9 million through September, Kelly has a huge cash advantage over Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ).

Business PACs give upwards of 90 percent of their money to incumbents, so these Democratic challengers aren’t losing much of anything by rejecting their checks. Still, their incumbent opponents certainly have an advantage by being entrenched lawmakers.

In Colorado, Sen. Cory Gardner’s campaign has received a stunning $2.6 million from business PACs, just behind Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for the top spot. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is right behind him with $2.4 million as he engages in a big money battle with Democrat Cal Cunningham.

The incumbent advantage goes for some Democrats too. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Mark Warner (D-VA), both top targets of Republicans, each received more than $1.8 million from business PACs. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) has taken in nearly $2.6 million from PACs, half of which comes from business PACs.

By End Citizens United’s count, 47 House Democrats and 11 Democratic senators have taken the no-corporate PAC pledge.

That growing list includes some incumbent senators facing reelection in 2020, including Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) as well as Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and his primary challenger Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA).

And many of the House candidates who rejected corporate PACs in 2018 are now incumbents, meaning they are passing up hundreds of thousands of dollars to stick by their pledge. Many of them are top recipients of leadership PAC money, including California Reps. TJ Cox ($104,300) and Katie Porter ($101,105), who face hungry Republican challengers in 2020.

So far this cycle, Democrats overall have taken $7.2 million from leadership PACs, compared to $9.2 million for Republicans. That’s a closer margin than in previous cycles where Republicans have historically given far more through their leadership PACs.

Everyone knows Trump hates dogs-- except Blue Dogs like Jeff Van Drew