Marco Rubio's Road To Socialism

Former male prostitute and current Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio sent out a fundraising letter yesterday filled with rote Republican slanders going back to the 1930s-- with much less backing up his accusation that conservative Democrat Joe Biden is some kind of socialist than my accusation that Rubio was arrested for selling his ass to older gay guys in Alice C. Wainwright Park in Coconut Grove (Miami's gayest neighborhood long before it was the setting for Meet the Fockers).

Because he is part of a racist and misogynist party, Rubio begins his attack with Kamala Harris. "Kamala Harris and Joe Biden," he wrote, "have a radical leftist agenda and can’t wait to take America along for the ride. They want to pass socialist healthcare, bow down to dangerous regimes like China and Iran, and destroy the Second Amendment."

None of that is true and Republicans have been screeching that Medicare and Social Security were "Socialist" and would harken the end of America since they were first introduced. Republicans like Little Marco-- reactionaries, not necessarily male prostitues (although Marco is infamous these days for selling himself to much richer older men like Sheldon Adelson, Larry Ellison, Norman Braman, Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, Paul Singer, Joe Ricketts, Charles Schwab, Ron Weiser, and the Koch brothers)-- have been working diligently to undermine Medicare and Social Security for decades and decades. To Marco and his ilk, that's socialism. All of this is.

Little Marco claims that Kamala and Biden "both have a record of surfing the Democrats’ leftward drift and appeasing their party’s radical wing. Kamala and Joe’s names may be on the ticket, but they represent socialists like Bernie Sanders and 'The Squad.' There are probably victims of Fox brainwashing who believe that, but progressive Democrats only wish it were true.

"I don’t think we can afford having Kamala Harris and Joe Biden leading our country," said Rubio, who isn't up for reelection until 2022, which is probably going to be a good election year for Republicans-- unless Biden actually does turn to a proactive, socialist-like agenda! "We need bold conservative leadership," the former male whore insists, "to chart a better course than the Democrats’ road to socialism." Presumably he's talking about the kind of "bold conservative leadership" that has been on display in the Senate for a decade.

And that brings him to his point: "Donate today to stop the radical Democratic agenda." Oh, what do you know... it was a hustle to raise money for himself even though, like I said, he isn't running for anything now. Here's another blatant lie: "My colleagues and I have worked to find real solutions to our problems and reform the tax code, healthcare, and much more." The only thing they ever try to do is lower taxes for the very rich and shift the border to the working class-- a particularly disgusting position for Rubio, who is from a working class family himself.

He threatens the kooks and Hate Talk Radio victims on his mailing list that "Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are raising millions of dollars to take over the Senate and crush our work. We need your help to push back against their efforts. Friend, I’m counting on you to help protect bold conservative leadership in the Senate."

Adam Christensen isn't running against Marco Rubio (yet). He's running to represent the north-central Florida congressional district that Ted Yoho is trying to bequeath to his chief of staff. This morning, Adam pointed out that "The 'radical left agenda' that Marco is talking about here is to the right of what Republicans wanted to do 100 years ago. There are two options here, 1. The man hasn’t cracked a history book since the 5th grade or 2. he is intentionally lying to people for money (If I was to bet, my money be in the latter). To claim that a Neo-liberal agenda is 'left' as opposed to moderate is a bold faced lie. Then again, Chris Christy showed in the 2016 debates that Marco is just an empty suit and when forced to think for himself... well the results are predictable." And Adam sent this video along-- a little reminder of who and what Little Marco is:

How Much Of The GOP Is Going Along With The Trump-McConnell Plan To Leave U.S. Elections Unprotected From Foreign Interference?

A couple of weeks ago we looked at what the group Republicans for the Rule of Law is and how they are targeting the pro-Putin agenda of #MoscowMitch. Tomorrow they will start running 30-second spots on Fox & Friends-- as well as on Fox News SundayM, on Meet the Press and in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri and South Carolina. The ads target McConnell and 4 of his Senate allies: Marco Rubio (R-FL), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and James Lankford (R-OK).

The goal in airing ads nationally and in the home states of the 5 Republican senators is to increase pressure on Moscow Mitch to stop blocking election security legislation and allow votes in the Senate. Now, if only the budget were $4 million instead of $400,000, they might even persuade some of these senators to do something! The ad up top is the one that will run in Florida and this is the South Carolina ad:

The board of Republicans for the Rule of Law includes William Kristol, which is why they usually sound exactly like the Bullwark website he edits, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, former New Jersey Gov. Christy Todd Whitman, former Congressman Bob Inglis (R-SC), Jennifer Horn (former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party), Sarah Longwell (past national chair of the Long Cabin Republicans), prominent dermatologist Andy Zwick, and Chris Gagin, former chair of the Belmont County (Ohio) Republican Party chair, who resigned over Trump's assessing incident with Putin in Helsinki.

These two are the original spots the group put together to turn up the heat on Moscow Mitch-- the only one of the targeted Republicans facing a live or die election challenge next year, and widely considered the main culprit in keeping the backdoor to the American election system open to the Russians:

Serious Question: Marco Rubio Knows EXACTLY What Trump Is-- Why Why Is His Head Still Up Trump's Ass?

You don't usually see major newspapers calling sitting senior senators in their own cities a "reliable sycophant" in an headline. But Sunday, the Miami Herald decided an editorial about Marco Rubio and Señor Trumpanzee needed just that: As Trump’s reliable sycophant, Rubio drags us further into the president’s swamp.

For all his huffing and puffing about Trump, Rubio rarely over votes against him. His Trump adhesion score is 90.9%, even higher than Rick Scott's! Besides Scott, Cory Gardner (R-CO), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Todd Young (R-FL), John Kennedy (R-LA), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Steve Daines (R-MT), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ben Sasse (R-NE), James Lankford (R-OK), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have all voted less in lockstep with Trump than Rubio has.

The editors of Rubio's hometown paper went to town on him because Rubio refused to denounce Trump as a racist for the barrage iff attacks he's been making against 4 congresswomen of color, AOC, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. They called his weak response "pathetic" and laughed at Time Magazine's long ago assertion that Rubio could be "The Savior of the Republican Party." The Herald editors wrote that "He was supposed to be a rising star who would help shake the party up after the disastrous election of 2012. The son of immigrants, he would help the party overcome its long-term demographic challenge as its older base shrinks and America becomes ever more diverse. But Rubio flamed out in the 2016 presidential election, among the last victims of Donald Trump’s brutal, degrading, slash-and-burn campaign-- though not before lowering himself by trying to beat Trump at his own game, ridiculing the size of his opponent’s hands, suggesting that it reflected on other aspects of Trump’s physiology."

Rubio tried to regain a bit of dignity when he left the race. “America needs a vibrant conservative movement,” he said. “But one that’s built on principles and ideals, not on fear, not on anger and not on preying on people’s frustrations.”


But during the first two-and-a-half years of Trump’s presidency, Rubio abandoned the pretense of idealism or principles, except, perhaps, in his on-target approach to the crisis in Venezuela. Otherwise, he has transformed from Trump critic to a sycophantic cheerleader-- derided by former adviser and Washington Post columnist Max Boot as a “Trump fan-boy”-- to the point that he’s willing to kill Obamacare even though his own state leads the nation in enrollment.

The Miami native who some, including us, thought could lead the Republican Party in finding a reasonable path on comprehensive immigration reform and help it broaden its appeal to minorities in America could not find the spine to do more than mildly criticize Trump after his blatantly racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen.

Trump told the women that they should “go back” to the countries they came from instead of complaining about his policies-- never mind that three of the women were born in America and the fourth has been a U.S. citizen longer than Trump’s own wife.

Rubio wouldn’t say if he thought Trump’s racist tweet was racist. He only conceded that, “The president shouldn’t have written that.”

Even after Trump whipped a crowd in Greensville, North Carolina, into a hateful froth against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar that erupted in chilling chants of “Send her back! Send her back!”-- Rubio couldn’t muster the courage to truly object to the horrifying display of blatant racism. He called the chant “grotesque,” which it was, but he reserved most of his vitriol for “left wing politicians and many in the media.”


How disappointing. Obviously, he was not the only Republican to punt or remain silent last week. But, Rubio, in particular, should know the dangers of this moment and the path down which Trump is taking his followers, his party and the nation. He should have a deeper understanding of America’s tortured racial history and comprehensive knowledge of the animosity once faced by Cuban immigrants like his parents. He can do better. It leads us to ask whether he thinks his Senate bill, filed Thursday, to extend TPS for Haitians is compensation for his timidity in the face of Trump’s “go back” tweets.

Rubio, far from the Republicans’ savior, seems just another slick politician with his finger in the wind-- pushing the party deeper into Trump’s swamp.

Instead of calling Trump to task, Rubio decided to call Democrats "self-righteousness," "political bullies" and "hypocrites." Republican Party strategist (and co-host of The View) Ana Navarro responded by pointing out that Rubio's probably should have been more offended by Trump's "go back where you came from" posture towards the 4 congresswomen since Rubio knows his own "parents came here, fleeing poverty [and] who represents a community where they were told, 'We won’t rent to Cubans, to blacks or to dogs ... you can’t drink from this water fountain'-- I have seen him try to justify this." These days are long gone:




The Democrats ran the weakest imaginable candidate against Rubio in 2016, spoiled, conservative nothing Patrick Murphy, and Rubio still managed to beat him 4,822,182 (52.0%) to 4,105,251 (44.3%). But in the two massive counties serviced by The Herald, Murphy beat Rubio in Miami-Dade (54.6% to 43.3%) and 63.8% to 34.1% in Broward. Democrats don't get another swing at Rubio until 2022, likely to be a good Republican year if the Democrats don't accomplish any fundamental change-- which is basically what their frontrunner, Status Quo Joe, has promised his donors.




Immigrants by Nancy Ohanian (Rubio's mother?)

Why Did Trump Suddenly Order U.S. Troops Out Of Syria?

Military Industrial Complex Republicans seem extremely-- existentially-- upset that Trump tweeted an insinuation that he's pulling the 2,0000 American troops out of Syria. Listen to Adam Kinzinger (above) talking with Jake Tapper on CNN a few hours ago. Or to Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio (below)-- a real two for one:



Many people just assumed Trump was doing his crazy Aderall-fueled early morning tweeting again and that his national security staff would talk him out of it. But... no he actually has ordered staff to execute the "full" and "rapid" withdrawal of US military from Syria, declaring that the U.S. has defeated ISIS. "The decision," reported CNN, "a sharp reversal from previously stated U.S. policy, surprised foreign allies and lawmakers, sparking rebukes, rebuttals and warnings of intensified congressional oversight, even as the White House said troops are already on their way home." It would be very hard for him to back down now and look weak, stupid and manipulated to his moron base, the 25-30% of Americans who still think he's something other than a congenital liar.

The President's decision flew in the face of policy statements by administration officials just days earlier and military statements about the threat of ISIS, highlighting the continuing dysfunction at the most senior levels of Trump's administration.

Even though the US will continue to maintain troops in Iraq with the capability of launching strikes into Syria, many analysts said a withdrawal of ground forces will please US enemies by clearing the way in Syria for the Assad regime, Russia and Iran. A US departure could leave allies questioning Washington's commitment, reduce US awareness of dynamics on the ground and diminish Washington's influence in the region.

It is "extraordinarily shortsighted and naive," said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, who added that the decision will not only leave Iran hawks-- including lawmakers and Cabinet members such as national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo-- feeling "betrayed," but also plant the seeds for rebellion among Republican ranks.

"This is a specifically Trumpian decision, and one that will be deeply unpopular within the vast majority of the GOP's foreign policy machine," Lister said. "Whether it takes hours or months, we will see some serious resistance coming out of this."

The fallout for Iran policy will be significant, said Derek Chollet, a US assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration and now an executive vice president at the German Marshall Fund. "This drives a stake into the heart of the administration's Iran strategy."

The churn in the administration's foreign policy echoes-- and may be designed to distract from-- major upheaval on the domestic front, as Trump contends with criminal investigations into his campaign, transition, inaugural committee and presidency, the dissolution of his charity amid charges he used it to enrich himself and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn awaiting sentencing after lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.

While Trump repeatedly returned to the idea of pulling troops out of Syria on the campaign trail and in office, the move is hard to square with his other policy priorities or his past criticism of Obama.

"Trump himself said on the campaign trail that he may not have liked being in Iraq, but Obama ruined a lot by pulling out too early and not thinking about what would happen next," said David Adesnik, the director of research and a Syria analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Here he is ignoring precisely that lesson."

"Every indicator that would tell you this is a premature withdrawal is back again," Adesnik added.

Lister said it was "extraordinary to see (Trump) repeating the same mistake and I actually think this could be worse," as Syria is in far worse shape than Iraq had been.

US allies in the region [some combination of Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia since Trump had already gotten permission from Netanyahu] were blindsided by the announcement. Two diplomatic sources from two countries in the region said they had not been consulted or informed and that news of the planned withdrawal came as a "total surprise."

Tobias Ellwood, a minister in the British Ministry of Defense, said in a tweet that he "strongly" disagrees with Trump's comment on Wednesday that ISIS had been defeated. "It has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive," Ellwood wrote, while the Defense Ministry told CNN there would be no immediate change to its current operation in Syria.

According to a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, Trump informed Netanyahu on Monday of his decision. Netanyahu also had a conversation Tuesday with Pompeo. The two men reassured the Prime Minister that the US had "other ways of expressing their influence in the area," the statement added.

Iran is Israel's central concern. In September, Bolton said the United States wouldn't leave Syria as long as Iranian forces continued to operate there, directly linking any withdrawal of American troops to the departure of Iranian forces.

"We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias," Bolton said at the time.

Asked if Wednesday's announcement meant that threat no longer exists, a White House official who declined to be identified publicly told CNN, "US forces will continue the fight against ISIS. We will continue to use tools of national power, including economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, as leverage to press for the withdrawal of Iranian-backed forces."

But the administration's ability to push back on Iran-- a major foreign policy priority-- will take a hit because of Trump's decision, Adesnik said.

"It's a big reversal," he told CNN. "We have announced a policy of pushing back against Iran's nuclear violations and aggression in the region on every front. And Syria is an absolutely central front for Iran; for them it's an indispensable ally."

"You can't have a counter Iran strategy if you just hand Syria back to them," Adesnik said, "and it's not clear to me if this withdrawal in any way accounts for that."

Lister said it amounts to giving up "all leverage and as part of a regional strategy of containing Iran, all of that becomes a joke. We've just told Iran and all of our regional allies we don't believe in sticking it out to achieve our foreign policy objectives."

"Iran will take this as a huge vote of confidence," he said.

Republicans might be grousing today but Trump's #1 amigo sure isn't. Putin was oh so pleased his investment in Trump's election was paying off once again. Tass-- basically Putin's p.r. agency-- reported that Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Maria Zakharova said "A milestone story which might evolve from this decision is a real prospect for a political solution. Hope emerges that this location on the Syrian map will follow the example of Aleppo and other Syrian towns and villages which begin getting back to peaceful life. Once Americans were there, there was no such hope."

Medicare-- Progressives Want It To Be Available For Everyone; Republicans Want To Cut It Back So They Can Afford More Tax Cuts For The Rich

First the bad new-- courtesy of Newsweek-- Marco Rubio admited that the Republican tax cut plan, which benefits corporations and the wealthy, will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it.

To address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security, Rubio told reporters this week. Advocates for the elderly and the poor have warned that entitlement programs would be on the chopping block, but this is the first time a prominent Republican has backed their claims.

...Rubio's talk of structural change is vague but will likely include changing the rate and age of Social Security and Medicare payouts.

Republicans have long said that the growth generated from slashing corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 20 percent would make their tax cuts "revenue neutral," but there's no evidence they're right. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate tax plan would increase the U.S. deficit by $1.4 trillion over the next decade, and the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has said the plan will boost economic growth by only 0.8 percent over the next decade, leaving $1 billion in cuts unpaid for.

So where does that money come from?

The simple answer is Social Security and Medicare, which together make up 38 percent of the total federal budget, second only to military spending.

Other key Republicans have hinted that after the tax bill passes they’ll take on welfare and entitlement programs. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that he wants Republicans to reduce spending on government programs in 2018. Last month, President Donald Trump said that welfare reform will "take place right after taxes-- very soon, very shortly after taxes."

Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday that “liberal programs” for the poor were wasting Americans’ money. 

And now the good news. This week, one of Congress' most fervent progressives, Pramila Jayapal, who represents most of Seattle, started a new PAC, The Medicare for All PAC to, in her words, "support candidates and initiatives around the country that share the common conviction that health care is a human right. One of the best ways to ensure health care for all is to use the system that already exists for millions over the last half century: Medicare. It’s time for public officials around the country to stand with the American people, the majority of whom-- according to the latest polling-- believe Medicare For All is the best path forward. Now is the time to improve and expand Medicare to cover all Americans."

Salon interviewed Pramila about the PAC yesterday and she told them that she's "been advocating for a single-payer health care system since the Obamacare days, when I was not in Congress. I think that the Affordable Care Act really provided people with the realization that health care is a right and not a privilege, and I think it's been a huge step forward. But we are now at a place where the momentum is really strong across the country to have a real transformation of the system and to move to a Medicare for All system." This is the exact opposite of what the GOP is trying to do. Who's side are the American people on? It isn't even close:

"I'm a proud progressive, obviously. I'm the first vice chair of the progressive caucus," Jayapal explained. "But I think Medicare for All actually should be called a centrist idea. It's an idea that has been adopted by every industrialized nation in the world. It is an idea that serves the center of the country, if you really think about what 'centrist' should mean. It shouldn't be one fulcrum over on the edge of a ruler, it should be right in the center. And to me, that's what a universal health care system is. I believe it is an idea whose time is past due, and if we have a Blue Wave we are bringing in many candidates who have embraced this."

Jayapal also made it clear that the success of any Medicare for All bill will depend on Democrats winning control of the House. So long as they are in charge of that legislative chamber, she asserted, such a bill will never even reach a vote, let alone prevail.

76 members of Congress are listed as co-founders of the PAC. I asked some of the candidates likely to win seats in November if they would sign on and work with Pramila on this. Jesse King, running one of the most grassroots-oriented campaigns anywhere in the country told us that when she's elected to represent her Pennsylvania district she "would be excited to join the Medicare-For-All caucus. We need to pass Medicare-for-All and ensure that every American, no matter how rich or poor, has access to medical care. During my 20+ years of work in economic development, I saw again and again how our current system of privatized healthcare stifles innovation and entrepreneurship. The high cost and volatility of healthcare keeps would-be entrepreneurs tethered to employer-sponsored healthcare and pushes some small business owners to close up shop and work for someone else-- just because folks can’t live without health insurance. Guaranteeing quality healthcare to all Americans is both morally right and fiscally pragmatic."

Once the new Congress is sworn in, I expect a lot more members in the Medicare for All Caucus. Aside from conveners Pramila, Keith Ellison (MN) and Debbie Dingell (MI), these are the members so far:

Karen Bass (CA)
Joyce Beatty (OH)
Don Beyer (VA)
Earl Blumenauer (OR)
Suzanne Bonamici (OR)
Brendan Boyle (PA)
Anthony Brown (MD)
Andre Carson (IN)
Kathy Castor (FL)
Judy Chu (CA)
David Cicilline (RI)
Katherine Clark (MA)
Yvette Clarke (NY)
Lacy Clay (MO)
Steve Cohen (TN)
Pete DeFazio (OR)
Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA)
Mike Doyle (PA)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Adriano Espaillat (NY)
Dwight Evans (PA)
Lois Frankel (FL)
Marcia Fudge (OH)
Tulsi Gabbard (HI)
Ruben Gallego (AZ)
John Garamendi (CA)
Jimmy Gomez (CA)
Vicente Gonzalez (TX)
Al Green (TX)
Raúl Grijalva (AZ)
Alcee Hastings (FL)
Brian Higgins (NY)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Jared Huffman (CA)
Hank Johnson (GA)
Robin Kelly (IL)
Ro Khanna (CA)
Brenda Lawrence (MI)
Barbara Lee (CA)
John Lewis (GA)
Ted Lieu (CA)
Zoe Lofgren (CA)
Alan Lowenthal (CA)
Carolyn Maloney (NY)
Jim McGovern (MA)
Jerry McNerney (CA)
Grace Meng (NY)
Jerrold Nadler (NY)
Grace Napolitano (CA)
Richard Nolan (MN)
Chellie Pingree (ME)
Mark Pocan (WI)
Jared Polis (CO)
Jamie Raskin (MD)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA)
Tim Ryan (OH)
Jan Schakowsky (IL)
Bobby Scott (VA)
Jose Serrano (NY)
Albio Sires (NJ)
Adam Smith (WA)
Darren Soto (FL)
Mark Takano (CA)
Dina Titus (NV)
Paul Tonko (NY)
Marc Veasey (TX)
Nydia Velázquez (NY)
Maxine Waters (CA)
Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ)
Peter Welch (VT)
Frederica Wilson (FL)
John Yarmuth (KY)

Is your own member of Congress missing? Call them or write them and ask them why. Pelosi should be thinking about all these members before she goes forward with her crazy PAY-GO scheme, although I suppose if she loses 70 of so Democrats it'll be easy as pie to pick up enough Republicans to pass it, since it's a Republican plan anyway.

Who's Surprised The White House Is A Dysfunctional, Chaotic Mess?

What Would Freud Do? by Nancy Ohanian

Did anyone ever think a Trump White House wouldn't be the most dysfunctional hell hole in history? Putin sure made the best bet any Russia leader ever made! Monday morning everyone was talking about Omarosa-- what the fuck is that? Did that ever belong in a United States government? "A lowlife," as the asshole who hired her, called her!n She had just given NBC's Today show "an exclusive" on a secretly recorded tape of the former host of The Apprentice. It shows Putin's pick for "president" clueless and "having no idea that Newman had been dismissed by his Chief of Staff John Kelly."

“Omarosa? Omarosa what’s going on? I just saw on the news that you’re thinking about leaving? What happened?” Trump is heard saying on the tape, which Newman said was made one day after her termination in December 2017 when Trump called her.

Newman responds, “General Kelly-- General Kelly came to me and said that you guys wanted me to leave.”

“No…I, I, Nobody even told me about it,” Trump replies.

Newman then says, “Wow,” before Trump reiterates his shock.

“You know they run a big operation, but I didn’t know it,” Trump is heard saying on the tape. "I didn’t know that. Goddamn it. I don’t love you leaving at all.”

NBC News does not know what was said before or after that exchange. The White House had no comment when asked about the exchange between Trump and Newman.

Newman’s disclosure of the recording came just one day after she told NBC’s Meet the Press, in an exclusive interview, that she has personally heard a tape of Trump using the N-word during filming for NBC's The Apprentice-- a revelation she says "confirmed that he is truly a racist."

Like someone didn't know he is a racist?

It's Loony Toons time in the White House

As for his feigned shock at finding out Kelly had fired her? Give me a break. That's his tactic for pushing blame onto his subordinates. It's always a sign of a cowardly and pathetic executive, which is another Trump trait-- as much as his racism-- and another symptom of a dysfunctional, in this case, White House. She told the Today audience that he's a con. What a surprise! Here's Senator Marco Rubio in 2016-- "a con artist":



Here's Mike Bloomberg saying the same thing: "a con."



And here's the classic Mitt Romney 2016 speech pointing out that Trump is "a con man, a fake":



How about Ted Cruz? Republican voters heard it from their own elected politicians over and over and over. And they elected him president of the United States and ushered chaos and dysfunction into the White House:



Dysfunction? Chaos? Please read this OpEd in Politico from the uncle, a retired neuropsychologist, of the White House neo-Nazi, Stephen Miller, who is probably Trump's closest advisor. And is definitely his closest advisor when it comes to immigration policy.

Let me tell you a story about Stephen Miller and chain migration.

It begins at the turn of the 20th century in a dirt-floor shack in the village of Antopol, a shtetl of subsistence farmers in what is now Belarus. Beset by violent anti-Jewish pogroms and forced childhood conscription in the Czar’s army, the patriarch of the shack, Wolf-Leib Glosser, fled a village where his forebears had lived for centuries and took his chances in America.

He set foot on Ellis Island on January 7, 1903, with $8 to his name. Though fluent in Polish, Russian, and Yiddish he understood no English. An elder son, Nathan, soon followed. By street corner peddling and sweat-shop toil Wolf-Leib and Nathan sent enough money home to pay off debts and buy the immediate family’s passage to America in 1906. That group included young Sam Glosser, who with his family settled in the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown, a booming coal and steel town that was a magnet for other hard-working immigrants. The Glosser family quickly progressed from selling goods from a horse and wagon to owning a haberdashery in Johnstown run by Nathan and Wolf-Leib to a chain of supermarkets and discount department stores run by my grandfather, Sam, and the next generation of Glossers, including my dad, Izzy. It was big enough to be listed on the AMEX stock exchange and employed thousands of people over time. In the span of some 80 years and five decades, this family emerged from poverty in a hostile country to become a prosperous, educated clan of merchants, scholars, professionals, and, most important, American citizens.

What does this classically American tale have to do with Stephen Miller? Well, Izzy Glosser, is his maternal grandfather, and Stephen’s mother, Miriam, is my sister.

I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, who is an educated man and well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.

I shudder at the thought of what would have become of the Glossers had the same policies Stephen so coolly espouses— the travel ban, the radical decrease in refugees, the separation of children from their parents, and even talk of limiting citizenship for legal immigrants— been in effect when Wolf-Leib made his desperate bid for freedom. The Glossers came to the U.S. just a few years before the fear and prejudice of the “America First” nativists of the day closed U.S. borders to Jewish refugees. Had Wolf-Leib waited, his family would likely have been murdered by the Nazis along with all but seven of the 2,000 Jews who remained in Antopol. I would encourage Stephen to ask himself if the chanting, torch-bearing Nazis of Charlottesville, whose support his boss seems to court so cavalierly, do not envision a similar fate for him.

Like other immigrants, our family’s welcome to the USA was not always a warm one, but we largely had the protection of the law, there was no state sponsored violence against us, no kidnapping of our male children, and we enjoyed good relations with our neighbors. True, Jews were excluded from many occupations, couldn’t buy homes in some towns, couldn’t join certain organizations or attend certain schools or universities, but life was good. As in past generations there were hate mongers who regarded the most recent groups of poor immigrants as scum, rapists, gangsters, drunks and terrorists, but largely the Glosser family was left alone to live our lives and build the American dream. Children were born, synagogues founded, and we thrived. This was the miracle of America.

Acting for so long in the theater of right wing politics, Stephen and Trump may have become numb to the resultant human tragedy and blind to the hypocrisy of their policy decisions. After all, Stephen’s is not the only family with a chain immigration story in the Trump administration. Trump's grandfather is reported to have been a German migrant on the run from military conscription to a new life in the USA and his mother fled the poverty of rural Scotland for the economic possibilities of New York City. (Trump’s in-laws just became citizens on the strength of his wife’s own citizenship.)

These facts are important not only for their grim historical irony but because vulnerable people are being hurt. They are real people, not the ghoulish caricatures portrayed by Trump. When confronted by the deaths and suffering of thousands our senses are overwhelmed, and the victims become statistics rather than people. I meet these statistics one at a time through my volunteer service as a neuropsychologist for HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), the global non-profit agency that protects refugees and helped my family more than 100 years ago. I will share the story of one such man I have met in the hope that my nephew might recognize elements of our shared heritage.

In the early 2000s, Joseph (not his real name) was conscripted at the age of 14 to be a soldier in Eritrea and sent to a remote desert military camp. Officers there discovered a Bible under his pillow which aroused their suspicion that he might belong to a foreign evangelical sect that would claim his loyalty and sap his will to fight. Joseph was actually a member of the state-approved Coptic church but was nonetheless immediately subjected to torture. “They smashed my face into the ground, tied my hands and feet together behind my back, stomped on me, and hung me from a tree by my bonds while they beat me with batons for the others to see.”

Joseph was tortured for 20 consecutive days before being taken to a military prison and crammed into a dark unventilated cell with 36 other men, little food and no proper hygiene. Some died, and in time Joseph was stricken with dysentery. When he was too weak to stand he was taken to a civilian clinic where he was fed by the medical staff. Upon regaining his strength he escaped to a nearby road where a sympathetic driver took him north through the night to a camp in Sudan where he joined other refugees. Joseph was on the first leg of a journey that would cover thousands of miles and almost 10 years.

Before Donald Trump had started his political ascent promulgating the false story that Barack Obama was a foreign-born Muslim, while my nephew, Stephen, was famously recovering from the hardships of his high school cafeteria in Santa Monica, Joseph was a child on his own in Sudan in fear of being deported back to Eritrea to face execution for desertion. He worked any job he could get, saved his money and made his way through Sudan. He endured arrest and extortion in Libya. He returned to Sudan, then kept moving to Dubai, Brazil, and eventually to a southern border crossing into Texas, where he sought asylum. In all of the countries he traveled through during his ordeal, he was vulnerable, exploited and his status was “illegal.” But in the United States he had a chance to acquire the protection of a documented immigrant.

Today, at 30, Joseph lives in Pennsylvania and has a wife and child. He is a smart, warm, humble man of great character who is grateful for every day of his freedom and safety. He bears emotional scars from not seeing his parents or siblings since he was 14. He still trembles, cries and struggles for breath when describing his torture, and he bears physical scars as well. He hopes to become a citizen, return to work and make his contribution to America. His story, though unique in its particulars, is by no means unusual. I have met Central Americans fleeing corrupt governments, violence and criminal extortion; a Yemeni woman unable to return to her war-ravaged home country and fearing sexual mutilation if she goes back to her Saudi husband; and an escaped kidnap-bride from central Asia.

President Trump wants to make us believe that these desperate migrants are an existential threat to the United States; the most powerful nation in world history and a nation made strong by immigrants. Trump and my nephew both know their immigrant and refugee roots. Yet, they repeat the insults and false accusations of earlier generations against these refugees to make them seem less than human. Trump publicly parades the grieving families of people hurt or killed by migrants, just as the early Nazis dredged up Jewish criminals to frighten and enrage their political base to justify persecution of all Jews. Almost every American family has an immigration story of its own based on flight from war, poverty, famine, persecution, fear or hopelessness. These immigrants became the workers, entrepreneurs, scientists and soldiers of America.

Most damning is the administration's evident intent to make policy that specifically disadvantages people based on their ethnicity, country of origin, and religion. No matter what opinion is held about immigration, any government that specifically enacts law or policy on that basis must be recognized as a threat to all of us. Laws bereft of justice are the gateway to tyranny. Today others may be the target, but tomorrow it might just as easily be you or me. History will be the judge, but in the meanwhile the normalization of these policies is rapidly eroding the collective conscience of America. Immigration reform is a complex issue that will require compassion and wisdom to bring the nation to a just solution, but the politicians who have based their political and professional identity on ethnic demonization and exclusion cannot be trusted to do so. As free Americans, and the descendants of immigrants and refugees, we have the obligation to exercise our conscience by voting for candidates who will stand up for our highest national values and not succumb to our lowest fears.

Crazy chaos boy wants some attention this morning! And... she's in his ahead (and in control)

Putin-Gate Continues To Plague Trump As He Goes To Meet His Master In Helsinki

Yesterday Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) penned an OpEd for USAToday sure to infuriate Trumpanzee if he gets wind of it over in Scotland, where he's being boo-ed everywhere he goes. Next stop is Helsinki, where he'll be meeting with the man who put him in the White House. As Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, we'll be meeting with allies in Washington to show Russia its plans to divide and attack us won't work.

The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report last week concurring with the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a massive influence campaign aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The attack included the targeting of election infrastructure, email hacks, weaponized leaks, overt propaganda and a covert, large-scale disinformation effort on social media feeds like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

In many ways, this threat is not new. The Kremlin has been conducting information warfare or “active measures” against the West for decades. What is new, however, are social media tools with the reach and power to magnify propaganda and false information with a scale and precision that would have been unimaginable back in the days of the Berlin Wall.

The Soviet Politburo could only have dreamed of the capability Russia now has to target voters directly in the U.S., Europe and other democracies with propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. Twenty-first century social media tools have the potential to further erode public confidence in western institutions and undermine the shared sense of facts that is supposed to be the foundation of honest political debate.

In 2016, we were taken by surprise. In 2018, there are no excuses. We must be ready.

Message to Russia as Trump meets Putin

That is why we are teaming up with legislators from Canada and Europe to sound the alarm. Following this week’s NATO summit, parliamentarians from across Europe and North America will meet Monday in Washington, D.C., the same day President Donald Trump and Putin meet in Helsinki.

Our goal must be to demonstrate to the world that the community of democratic nations does not intend to accede to Putin’s or any other authoritarian’s view of the world. We will resist Russia’s aggression. As legislators, we have a responsibility to address that threat-- particularly on social media.

First, as elected officials, we have a duty to use our positions to shine a light on Russia’s actions and capabilities. Utilizing our investigative tools and public platforms, legislators must expose the full scale and scope of Russia’s schemes to weaken democracies.

The two of us are currently engaged in a bipartisan effort in the Senate Intelligence Committee to uncover Russia’s activities during the 2016 elections and publicly detail its array of asymmetric capabilities. Similarly, our colleagues in the British Parliament, led by Damian Collins, are conducting an inquiry on “fake news” and how it was used by both foreign and domestic actors to influence the Brexit vote.

But it is not enough simply to shine a bright light on Russian aggression. As legislators, we also are responsible for crafting and passing laws to protect our democracy while also preserving freedom of expression.

This is the summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's initial findings, a committee controlled by Republicans. The members are Chair Richard Burr (R-NC), James Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Susan Collins (R-ME), Roy Blunt (R-MO), James Lankford (R-OK), Tom Cotton (R-AR), John Cornyn (R-TX), Vice Chair Mark Warner, (D-VA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Angus King (I-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kamala Harris (D-CA).

The Committee finds that the Intelligence Community met President Obama’s tasking and that the ICA is a sound intelligence product. While the Committee had to rely on agencies that the sensitive information and accesses had been accurately reported, as part of our inquiry the Committee reviewed analytic procedures, interviewed senior intelligence officers well-versed with the information, and based our findings on the entire body of intelligence reporting included in the ICA.

The Committee finds the difference in confidence levels between the NSA and the CIA and FBI on the assessment that "Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances" appropriately represents analytic differences and was reached in a professional and transparent manner.

In all the interviews of those who drafted and prepared the ICA, the Committee heard consistently that analysts were under no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions. All analysts expressed that they were free to debate, object to content, and assess confidence levels, as is normal and proper for the analytic process.

As the inquiry has progressed since January 2017, the Committee has seen additional examples of Russia's attempts to sow discord, undermine democratic institutions, and interfere in U.S. elections and those of our allies.

Russian Efforts to Influence the 2016 Election

The ICA states that:

Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operation.

• The Committee found that this judgment was supported by the evidence presented in the ICA. Since its publication, further details have come to light that bolster the assessment.

• The ICA pointed to initial evidence of Russian activities against multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards. Since the ICA was published, the Committee has learned more about Russian attempts to infiltrate state election infrastructure, as outlined in the findings and recommendations the Committee issued in March 2018.

• While the ICA briefly discussed the activities of the Internet Research Agency, the Committee's investigation has exposed a far more extensive Russian effort to manipulate social media outlets to sow discord and to interfere in the 2016 election and American society.

Russian Leader Intentions

The ICA states that:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S . presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump

• The Committee found that the ICA provided a range of all-source reporting to support these assessments.
• The Committee concurs with intelligence and open-source assessments that this influence campaign was approved by President Putin.

• Further, a body of reporting, to include different intelligence disciplines, open source reporting on Russian leadership policy preferences, and Russian media content, showed that Moscow sought to denigrate Secretary Clinton.

• The ICA relies on public Russian leadership commentary, Russian state media reports, public examples of where Russian interests would have aligned with candidates' policy statements, and a body of intelligence reporting to support the assessment that Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for Trump.

The ICA also states that:


We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.

It May Be Difficult Not To, But Trump Shouldn't Be Obsessed Over-- Leave That To Mueller's Team

Jeff Flake (R-AZ) was on Meet the Press yesterday dancing on the head of a pin held up to the camera by Chuck Todd: "I do hope that somebody runs on the Republican side other than the president, if nothing else than simply to remind Republicans what conservatism is and what Republicans have traditionally stood for." Traditionally.

Meanwhile Marco Rubio was on This week demonstrating once again that he is always open to voting against Trump's trespasses against decency, the constitution and humanity-- until Trumpanzee barks at him. Little Marco votes with Señor T 97.2% of the time. Only 7 Senate Republicans have adhered more faithfully to Trump's vile and unconstitutional agenda-- and all of them have adhesion scores of 97.3%. Rubio sounded like a ruffled toy poodle when he told Martha Raddatz that he had seen "no evidence" of Trump's whacked out Spy-Gate charges and that the FBI was focussing on "individuals with a history of links to Russia that were concerning... As far as what I have seen to date, it appears that there was an investigation not of the campaign, but of certain individuals who have a history that we should be suspicious of, that predate the presidential campaign of 2015, 2016. And when individuals like that are in the orbit of a major political campaign in America, the FBI, who is in charge of counterintelligence investigations, should look at people like that," said Rubio, a puffed up member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And Trump wasn't on TV. He never goes on any programs where he could be asked questions. Instead he was locked in his nursery, diapers unchanged and reeking of shit, tweeting up a storm of nonsense.

Whose reputation is in tatters? Rudy Giuliani's more than anyone's. Yesterday he was on CNN's State of the Union embarrassing himself that Mueller's investigation is part of Trumpanzee's Spy-Gate fantasy. Politico offered an alternative interpretation of who twittery Trump was referring to as having their reputations in tatters.

Trump has repeatedly called special counsel Mueller's probe a "witch hunt," a charge that in recent weeks has been coupled with renewed calls from his allies to end the probe soon. Some House lawmakers have gone even further, arguing that reports stating a confidential FBI informant met with Trump campaign officials means the investigation is irrevocably tainted.

"With Spies, or “Informants” as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign," Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday, "even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or “Justice” contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?"

It's unclear who Trump is referring to when he says individuals have "went back home in tatters." A score of former campaign aides have reportedly met with Mueller's team along with congressional investigators-- racking up significant legal bills in the process.

Mueller has so far secured at least five guilty pleas, including from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, and former campaign aide Rick Gates. Papadopoulos' conversation with an Australian diplomat about getting "dirt" on Hillary Clinton has been reported to be the impetus for the FBI's original investigation into the president's campaign that has become the Mueller probe.

The president has attacked the investigation throughout Memorial Day weekend, returning to some of his favorite line of attacks including the political affiliations of Mueller's team and claiming that the question of Russian interference was made up by Democrats after losing the 2016 campaign. Some of those attacks were echoed by attorney Rudy Giuliani, who told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union that there was no justification for the Mueller probe to continue.

What Trump doesn't want is for Democrats and independents to ignore his tomfoolery and outrageous viciousness and talk directly to voters about what voters are interested in talking about. Randy Bryce spent the weekend, not obsessing over Trump's childish and incoherent tweets but on staying focussed on his own message:

I've worked minimum wage jobs in the past, so I know what every other working person knows: no one can survive on $7.25.

It's been eleven years since Congress raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour-- but it's still not enough. Everyone, no matter what they do for work, deserves dignity and no one who works full time should ever be forced to live in poverty. Period.

That's why I'm fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 and support all working families.

Working folks all across the country are struggling just to make ends meet while multi-millionaire, lifelong politicians are busy putting corporations and special interests first in Washington, D.C.

Just last September, Paul Ryan was asked at a New York Times Times Talk, "What's the minimum wage in Wisconsin?" And guess what? He didn't know-- someone had to shout out the answer from the audience. And Bryan Steil, Ryan's handpicked replacement and a corporate lawyer who helped outsource jobs, will only carry on Ryan's tradition of ignoring the problems working people face.

It's long past time for working families like mine to have someone fighting for us in Congress. So when I get to Congress, that's what I'm going to do. Fight. For all of us.

Another Blue America-endorsed congressional candidate, Paul Clements, who didn't mention Trump in his Memorial Day message to supporters, Paul Clements (MI-06), instead talked about gun sanity instead. "Of course, I was frustrated hearing about the middle school shooting in Indiana yesterday," he wrote. We all grow more frustrated with each occasion of tragic news in our nation's schools--and in other public spaces that are supposed to be safe. As I posted on Twitter yesterday, although my thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the shooting, I agree with our nation's rising and energetic students: thoughts and prayers are not enough. When I get to Congress, I will stand up to the National Rifle Association. The NRA's extremism has created unhealthy political conversations and dangerous public spaces. Nobody is is trying to take all our guns away. Universal background checks and limiting military-style weapons are common-sense safety measures I will fight for in Congress... Please join me in rejecting the NRA and taking real action to protect our nation's schools and other public spaces."

And yesterday Jared Golden sent an e-mail telling his supporters why they wouldn't be hearing from his campaign today-- and it had decidedly NOTHING whatsoever to do with Trump. "I wanted to let you know that you won't be hearing from me or my campaign at all tomorrow-- in person, on the phone, or online. I won't be actively campaigning on Memorial Day. It's a day to remember, and to give thanks. To all of the men and women who have given their lives in service to America, and to their family members, thank you with all my heart. Tomorrow, I'll be thinking about and honoring the men I served with who didn't come home with us, and praying for their families. We won't ever forget your sacrifice."