2018 In Review: Sex-Obsessed Hypocrite Edition-A Holiday Cornucopia Of Republican Wackos. The Whole World Is Watching, Part 10.

by Noah

Yesterday, I wrote about a handful of the Republican Party’s Nazi brethren. But, hey, enough of Republicans who worship Nazis and Nazis who worship republicans. The two are interchangeable anyway, so let’s proceed. How about some sex-crazed republicans? Republicans are always so obsessed with other people’s sex lives that they live by a “do as I say not as I do” “religious” creed. Their eager support of Judge Roy Moore for Senator and the attitudes they displayed during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings went even further than that. But then, what would we expect from 62 million people who voted for a sexual predator for president knowing exactly what he was. 55% of them will actually tell you that sexual assault is no biggie. And that’s just the ones that will say it publicly.

And so, without further ado, a small sample of Republicans who exemplify the rest of their party of hypocrites:

1. Dennis Hof – Kinda sounds like a Nazi already. I wonder if he liked to be addressed as Herr Hof. I used the past tense because Hof is dead. He has ceased to be! No matter though! Nevada Republicans voted for him for a position in their state Assembly anyway. It just didn’t matter. Neither did the fact that Hof, who considered himself a Trump protégé, was a pimp. Hof, discovered by porn star Ron Jeremy, enjoyed the backing of Trump associate Roger Stone and tax-cut activist Grover Norquist.

2. Ralph Shortey (R-OK) – Shortey, a former Oklahoma State Senator received his sentence for child sex trafficking in September, 15 years in the slammer followed by 10 years of supervised probation if he gets out alive. Shortey, 36, faced anywhere from 10 years to life. He was a prominent critic of Oklahoma’s anti-trans “bathroom bill” but, you guessed it, he was caught in a Super 8 Motel with a 17-year-old boy, an open box of condoms, and enough texts on his phone to put him away for life with Bubba.

3. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) – When Jim Jordan, a former Assistant Wrestling Coach at Ohio State was asked about claims that there was sexual abuse of some of the wrestlers during his time on the job and that Jordan had to have known about it, Jordan pulled a Nixon and said he didn’t recall any such thing. Funny about that: 8 former wrestlers said that Jordan had to have been aware but did nothing. Had republicans kept control of the House Of Representatives, Jordan was a likely republican choice for Speaker Of The House. Paul Ryan called him “a man of honesty and a man of integrity.” Now, THAT’S a character witness! Keep in mind that this is the Roy Morre/Brett Kavanaugh Republican Party.

4. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) – You know how repugs like to blame Obamacare for all of the world’s problems? Well, it seems that in the Republican Mind you can even blame sexual harassment on Obamacare. Meehan had been chosen to investigate sexual harassment in the House Of Representatives by none other than Speaker Paul Ryan who had placed him on the House Ethics Committee and assigned him that specific task. Republicans just have no sense of irony at all!

When Meehan harassed a member of his own staff and she rebuffed him, even citing her relationship with another man, Meehan just couldn’t deal with it. He lost his temper and lashed out. Things were so uncomfortable for her at the Meehan office that she began doing her work remotely rather than come to the office. When she filled a complaint, Meehan was removed from the Ethics Committee. After all, Republicans don’t mind being assholes; they just don’t want to look like assholes.

Meehan offered a novel excuse for his behavior. He said he was feeling tense due to strenuous discussions about Obamacare with his 7th District constituents. He even offered that he does, from time to time lash out at staffers and that sometimes “you go hardest at those that you care the most about.” Creepy!

Eventually a settlement was reached but Meehan does not deny using taxpayer funds to pay for the settlement.

5. Jim Knoblach – Minnesota 8 term Republican state representative abruptly ended his campaign for a 9th term this year after his 23-year-old daughter said that he had molested her for a 12 year period which began when she was 9. According to police reports, she had first made the accusations 2 years ago but says “My family threatened and coerced me into silence for almost 15 years.”

6. Tim Nolan – Former judge Nolan was Chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Kentucky. In February, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child sex trafficking. Too bad, maybe he could have been nominated to the Supreme Court.

7. Judge Ralph Strother – Just 3 weeks ago, Strother let former Baylor University fraternity president, Jacob Walter Anderson, skate after he was accused of raping a female student at the Christian university in Texas. A plea deal had Anderson pleading guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint. The accuser and her family found out about the deal when they read about it in the local newspaper. Strother and local law enforcement couldn’t even bother to let them know.

I suppose Strother is one of those “If it’s a legitimate rape” guys. Either that or he’s one of those “really no such thing as rape” guys. Strother has a past record of dealing with Baylor men accused of rape very leniently. He received both his bachelor and law degrees from Baylor. Speaks well of Baylor's style of Christianity doesn't it? Republicans probably consider Strother to be future Supreme Court material and, if Anderson were to attend law school and become a judge...

8. President Donald Trump – That Trump is a sadist is beyond discussion. He simply is, and he really has it in for people infected with HIV. He has a bad case of Republican “Fear The Gay Syndrome” so this is a reflection of that.

Trump has just quietly shut down research for a cure for HIV. Obviously, the republican attitude towards the LGBTQ community was a factor in his sadistic, judgmental decision. The action also pleases the religious right mightily. I’m guessing that Trump is so ignorant that he doesn’t know that you don’t have to be gay to get HIV.

9. Vice President Mike Pence – How could I possibly mention little Donnie Trump and his “Fear Of The Gay” without mentioning his sicko choice of VP? In January, Mr. Gay Conversion Therapy was sent to South Korea to represent our government at the Winter Olympics. Pence just couldn’t keep his tongue quiet though as he lashed out at a gay Olympic skater. I guess “Mother” was left at home, sitting in her rocker in the attic.

10. Rep. Matt Shea (R-WA) – Shea is a Republican state representative in Washington. This year Shea published his 4-page manifesto calling for Biblical Law (Think of it as Republican Christianity’s own version of Sharia Law), but, to Republicans, their version is just peachy. Among other twisted things, Shea calls for the usual outlawing of abortion and same sex marriage. He has added a little extra, though. Shea says that men who support gay marriage and abortion rights should be executed. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into this. Interestingly, he seems more concerned about men than women in his manifesto. Hmmm.

So much of Republican thought about sex is based in their twisted version of Christianity and its message of hate. Shea defends his manifesto while making insane claims that he is being persecuted and that the United States is really a Christian nation. This guy, like so many republicans, would make great fodder for a doctoral thesis for students of psychiatry.

Pennsylvania Ordered To Un-Gerrymander Before The Midterms (ie, Immediately)

Meehan will be the first Republican flushed away

As if things weren't bad enough for Chester the Molester, his gerrymandered district-- the only thing that has kept him in Congress-- is being wiped off the face of the map-- literally! Pat Meehan is done for... and he's not the only Pennsylvania Republican who is, either. He's been exposed for using tax payer money as hush money to quiet a woman staffer has his age he was molesting; Paul Ryan kicked him off the Ethics Committee. And how the most gerrymandered district in the country is going bye-bye... as he will soon be. As expected, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the contemptible congressional map as unconstitutional because it was drawn to drastically-- "clearly, plainly and palpably"-- benefit Republicans. The Justices ruled that the 2018 elections must be fought under new fairer boundaries.

The justices gave the Republican-controlled Legislature until Feb. 9 to pass a replacement and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf until Feb. 15 to submit it to the court. Otherwise, the justices said they will adopt a plan in an effort to keep the May 15 primary election on track.

The decision comes amid a national tide of gerrymandering cases, including some that have reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Democrats cheered the decision to toss out a Republican-drawn map used in three general elections going back to 2012. The map, they say, gave Republicans crucial help in securing 13 of 18 seats in a state where registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans 5 to 4.

“We won the whole thing,” said David Gersch of the Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer law firm in Washington, D.C., which is helping represent the group of registered Democrats who filed the lawsuit last June.

The defendants-- top Republican lawmakers-- said they would ask the U.S. Supreme Court this week to step in and put the decision on hold. The state court’s decision lacks clarity, precedent and respect for the constitution and would introduce chaos into the state’s congressional races, they said.

The Senate’s top Republican lawyer, Drew Crompton, called the timeline to draw new districts “borderline unworkable,” but said Republicans will do everything they can to comply.

The decision has immediate implications for the 2018 election, meaning that 14 sitting members of Congress and dozens more people are planning to run in districts they may no longer live in. The deadline to file paperwork to run in primaries is March 6.

It also has implications for GOP control of Congress, since only Texas, California and Florida send more Republicans to the U.S. House than Pennsylvania.

Republicans who controlled Pennsylvania’s Legislature and governor’s office following the 2010 census broke decades of geographical precedent when redrawing the map, producing contorted shapes, including one dubbed “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.”

They shifted whole counties and cities into different districts in an effort to protect a Republican advantage in the congressional delegation. They succeeded, as Republicans in the delegation grew from 12 to 13, even as Pennsylvania lost a seat to account for the state’s relatively slow population growth.

...The nation’s high court has never struck down an electoral map as a partisan gerrymander. However, Monday’s decision in Pennsylvania could provide a new avenue to gerrymandering claims.

It is the first state court decision to throw out a congressional map because of partisan gerrymandering, said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Li said there isn’t a clear federal basis for the U.S. Supreme Court to step into the case, and that the state Supreme Court should have the final say in a case under state law.

“That’s a real long shot,” Li said, “but the stakes are high and it’s not surprising that (Republicans) would ask.”

Pennsylvania Republicans in the legislature packed Democrats into a few districts to divide a 50/50 state's 198 congressional district in such a way to guarantee the Republicans 13 seats. Other ridiculously-drawn districts besides Meehan's (PA-07), include PA-13 (Brendan Boyle's), PA-06 (Ryan Costello's), PA-16 (Lloyd Smucker's), PA-10 (Tom Marino's), PA-11 (Lou Barletta's), PA-12 (Keith Rothfus'), PA-18 (open) and PA-03 (Mike Kelly's). I asked state Sen. Daylin Leach who had gone to hear the oral arguments. He was overjoyed: "After fighting this battle for 15 years, I'm thrilled the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has chosen to strike down the obscene gerrymander we've been living under and make the voters relevant again."

Matt Cartwright, who represents Scranton, Wilkes Barre and Nazareth in a bizarrely carved out district in eastern PA, is one of the only sensible members of Congress from Pennsylvania. This morning he asked, "Tired of incessant bickering in Washington? Sick of Democrats and Republicans just talking past each other?  Fed up with Congress oscillating from hard-left to hard-right, depending on which side wins? Annoyed that vast amounts of Congressional time is taken up repealing or undoing whatever the last majority accomplished, instead of making steady, sensible, lasting bipartisan progress on the issues that really matter to people? If so, you should share my abiding dislike for partisan gerrymandering, which, with Citizens United, I regard as one of the twin cancers mortally threatening our American democracy. I applaud the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s brilliant decision yesterday. It is a bright, shining beacon of hope for our democracy, and an example to other States on how they can do their part in helping our nation find its way out of the morbid mess we’re in right now."

UPDATE: Today's Special Election-- Another Huge Swing Blue

House District 35 southeast of Pittsburgh-- the Monongahela Valley, McKeesport-- leans blue. Hillary beat Trump there 58-39%. Last November Marc Gergely (D) resigned after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges relating to an illegal gambling machine ring. He had just been reelected 62.5% to 37.5%. Democrat Austin Davis beat Republican Fawn Montgomery-- the same candidate Gergely had beaten in 2016 but he beat her by a massive 74-26%, primarily because disheartened Republicans didn't show up to vote and Democrats did. Turnout was slightly over 10%.

Why Is Paul Ryan Letting Pennsylvania Crook Pat Meehan Off So Lightly?

Pat "Chester the Molester" Meehan doesn't look so happy

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Keystone Progress, one of the most reliable progressive groups in Pennsylvania. They were demanding Republican Pat Meehan resign from his swing district seat in the Philly suburbs-- one of the 3 most gerrymandered seats in the whole country, PA-07, which includes parts of Delaware, Montgomery, Berks, (a tiny sliver of) Lancaster and Chester counties. The district went for Obama 53-46% in 2008, for Romney 50-49% in 2012 and for Hillary 49.3-47.0% in 2016. The PVI went from R+2 in 2015 to R+1 this year. The DCCC has managed to screw up the races every year since 2010 when Joe Sestak left the seat. The e-mail from Keystone Progress:

Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Cheltenham) settled a sexual harassment claim against himself using thousands in public dollars. Additionally, Meehan has been a "leader" in the effort by this congress to, ostensibly, investigate sexual harassment.

Meehan's conduct should be disqualifying of a congressperson.

Join us in calling for Pat Meehan's resignation, for conduct unbecoming of the office and for abuse of the public trust.

Every man should be held accountable when they violate a woman, including elected officials.

Pat Meehan can no longer serve the interests of his constituents, and we call on him to resign immediately. 

They forgot to mention that Meehan, a Ryan rubber stamp, is a member of the House Ethics Committee who worked hard to position himself as a leader in fighting sexual misconduct. Ken Vogel from the story Saturday in the NY Times noting that last year the staffer who accused him of making unwanted romantic overtures to her was decades younger than him and he grew hostile when she did not reciprocate and ruined her career.

Life in the office became untenable, so she initiated the complaint process, started working from home and ultimately left the job. She later reached a confidential agreement with Mr. Meehan’s office that included a settlement for an undisclosed amount to be paid from Mr. Meehan’s congressional office fund... The handling of that complaint-- which included an aggressive pushback by representatives from Mr. Meehan’s office and congressional lawyers, who suggested she had misinterpreted the congressman’s behavior-- demoralized the aide. It led to her estrangement from her colleagues, and isolation from friends, family and her boyfriend, according to the people in whom she confided. It set her back financially and professionally, as she continued to pay legal costs associated with the complaint even after leaving her job in Mr. Meehan’s office and struggling to find a new one. She moved back in with her parents and ultimately decided to start a new life abroad.

...After counseling and mediation sessions mandated by the Office of Compliance, the sides reached an agreement that included a settlement and a strict nondisclosure agreement, according to people familiar with the process.

The exact amount of the settlement could not be determined, partly because Mr. Meehan’s office paid it from a congressional office fund that allows such payments to be disguised as salary and reported months after they were made. But people familiar with the payout said it was thousands of dollars.

...The aide’s dealings with the Office of Compliance left her feeling as if the settlement was not worth the emotional distress the process had caused, said the friends and former colleagues. All spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because they were concerned that, if lawyers for Mr. Meehan or the House accused the woman of violating the nondisclosure agreement, her settlement could be withdrawn and her career prospects further damaged.

Other women who have endured the complaint process have suffered personal and professional consequences.

“I tried to get another job with another member of Congress, and I was blackballed. Nobody wanted to touch me,” said Marion Brown, who filed the complaint that led to Mr. Conyers’s resignation, and who was not speaking about the Meehan case. “And I’m still going through backlash, because he resigned without admitting doing anything wrong.”

Meehan is denying the charges and the woman's attorney called his statement "a desperate effort to preserve his career." It's worth mentioning that she had paid her own lawyers’ fees, and the settlement she reached was not enough to cover her legal and living expenses while she was out of work. Vogel ends his piece by mentioning that "one of the leading Democratic prospects, State Senator Daylin Leach, suspended his bid in December, after he was accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching."

What he didn't bother mentioning is that the one woman who came out publicly against Leach, a self-admitted Kirsten Gillibrand wannabe named Aubrey Montgomery accused Leach of telling dirty jokes in front on her a decade ago. She continued to donate to his campaigns for the next ten years and didn't suddenly turn on him until she became a finance consultant for another Democrat in the race, a sleazy character and carpetbagger named Dan Muroff, who had been pushing the story around for months before The Inquirer finally went with it.

Late Saturday afternoon Ryan kicked Meehan off the Ethics Committee and told him to repay taxpayer funds he used as hush money to cover up his unethical behavior. No one understands exactly why Ryan isn't asking Meehan to resign the way John Conyers, Trent Franks and Blake Farenthold were forced to, for the exact same behavior. Oh yeah... only Meehan has been a devoted Ryan rubber stamp. How could I forget?

I wonder if the poor wife knows

Better Than Electing More Backbenchers-- How About An Actual Leader? From Pennsylvania!

Suburban Philly's PA-07-- one of the country's most bizarrely gerrymandered districts-- was once the Delaware County district. Joe Sestak was the congressman. But Republicans cut out many of the African-American and minority neighborhoods and wound up drawing an embarrassing-looking hodgepodge that twists and turns from Valley Forge Park through Radnor, Wayne Marple Township, Springfield, Upper Providence and Chester Heights up and down and all around, avoiding as many Democrats as possible while heading out from Delaware and Montgomery counties into GOP bastions in Chester, Berks and even Lancaster County. It's a purple district that still has some swing to it but it leans Republican and the current congressman is a garden variety knee-jerk conservative, Pat Meehan. Many of the voters there, though, just unable to cast their ballots for Trump and Hillary won the district 49.3% to 47.0%, out-performing Obama when he faced Romney there in 2012.

After the DCCC decided to sabotage the progressive Democrat running there in 2016, Mary Ellen Balchunis-- who had had the temerity to beat their handpicked shill in a primary (74-26%)-- they basically just gave Meehan a free pass to reelection, a real class act by Pelosi and Lujan. He won 59.7% to 40.3%, outspending Balchunis $2,155,483 to $198,954.

This cycle, the DCCC is doing what they always do: search for wealthy Republican-lite, self-funders and "ex"-Republicans. They do this all over the country and they seem to be trying to hide their choices from Democratic activists so as to not draw the withering fire they know will follow. So far there are at least half a dozen Democrats running in what promises to be a fierce primary. It isn't clear who the DCCC supports but one, Elizabeth Moro, is an "ex"-Republican and she fits their profile. Most of the candidates son't live in the district and have nothing to do with it, like Dan Muroff, who was last seen running for a Philly congressional seat, which is where he lives. Other candidates include Paul-David Perry II, Molly Sheehan, John McGinty. Mary Ellen is thinking about running again and so is another sterling progressive, our old friend, state Senator Daylin Leach, who lives in the Montgomery County part of the district.

Last week, the Philadelphia News broke the story that Daylin may give it a shot. There are several people in the district-- and in Washington-- trying to recruit him to run. Jonathan Tamari announced to the paper's readers that "State Sen. Daylin Leach, an outspoken liberal who once called President Trump a 'fascist, loofah-faced, shit-gibbon' is considering challenging Republican Rep. Patrick Meehan next year, potentially setting up a clash of two well-known political figures as Democrats try to capitalize on the left’s anti-Trump fervor."

Daylin told me he's leaning towards a run and I gather he said the same thing to Tamari.

Leach said constituents had encouraged him to run as a check on the president.

“I was reluctant to take on that large of a project, frankly, but as things have unfolded I have become increasingly concerned that we are facing way beyond what is the normal angst that one feels when there’s a president of the other party,” Leach said. “We are actually facing an existential threat to many of the basic rights we enjoy in this country and to our way of life in a lot of ways.”

Leach, 55, said he wanted to be “thoughtful” about his decision and hoped to decide on a run by the first week of June.

“I still go back and forth, sort of on a daily basis,” he said.

Leach would join a crowded field. Five Democrats have already filed papers to run against the four-term Republican congressman, and even more have said they are considering jumping in, said David Landau, chairman of the Delaware County Democrats.

One, Philadelphia ward leader Dan Muroff, touted an endorsement last week by former Gov. Ed Rendell [something a normal Democrat might be embarrassed to share voluntarily].

Some Democrats immediately raised concerns about Leach’s potential candidacy. Several said they think the liberal senator-- who drew international attention when he tweeted the profane insult at Trump in February-- could win a primary, but struggle with a more moderate electorate in the general election. Republicans hold a voter registration advantage in the district, 49 percent to 36 percent, so any Democrat would likely need crossover votes.

Leach argued that voters will be more concerned with resisting Trump than typical conservative vs. liberal ideology.

“This is going to be an election about authenticity and about what kind of America you want to see-- not in terms of what the tax rate should be, but in terms of, ‘Do we have freedom of the press? Do we treat all religions the same? Do we adhere to the rule of law?’ ” he said.

Leach is exactly the kind of strong, principled, values-driven Democrat the party needs as a candidate. The DCCC usually shies away from candidates with records... but voters don't. His record in the state legislature is outstanding and he has been one of the Senate's most effective champions of women's rights. He has also fought hard for reform of the marijuana laws and for redistricting reform. He's going to be making up his mind in the next week or so but this morning he told me that "I've been saying for months that given the utter insanity of the Trump administration, we all have a moral obligation to do all we can to resist and rescue our country. The one thing we need more than anything is some actual checks and balances, which in this case means a Democratic Congress in 2018. I am giving careful thought to whether or not I am the best candidate for PA-07. If I conclude that I am, I will do everything I can to fight for the progressive values that are risk in so many ways today. If I run, it's because this is no time to abandon our battle against climate change, or our fight for free college, paid family leave, a $15 minimum wage and criminal justice reform. Our problems are too serious to take a vacation from addressing them while some narcissistic plutocrat destroys everything we've fought for."

Can Far Right GOP Crackpot Joe Gale Take Down Pat Meehan In A PA-07 Primary?

Pennsylvania Republicans Gale and Meeham

Pat Meehan is a pretty ho-hum Republican member of Congress-- someone I'd call a back-bencher or, in a feistier mood, a knee-jerk GOP zombie. He's cautious not to freak out independent voters in his swingy ultra-gerrymandered suburban district outside of Philly, with pieces of Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Berks, and Lancaster counties. Obama beat McCain there and then Romney narrowly bested Obama 50-49%. Last year, the district swung back towards the Democrats as Hillary beat Trump 49.3% to 47.0%.

Patrick Meehan, a Bush-appointed US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ran for the congressional seat Joe Sestak (D) left in in 2010. Meehan beat state Rep Bryan Lentz 55% to 44% and has been winning ever since, beating George Badey (59.4-40.6%) in 2012, and Mary Ellen Balchunis in 2014 (62-38%) and again in 2016 (59.5% to 40.5%). It's a district the DCCC would like to win back but one of the districts that they continually botch-up in their dream of fielding a conservative self-funder.

Meanwhile, Meehan, who doesn't do much of anything in Congress has plenty of time ti go to local bake sales and Little League games. He's become popular. He's voted to repeal Obamacare dozens of times and, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, he blithely and without a second thought voted for TrumpCare before in turned into one of the most controversial and hated bills introduced in years. Eventually Meehan chickened out and when the final vote came, he voted NO, unable to explain why he had voted to repeal Obamacare around 50 times before and for this very bill in committee and then switching at the last moment.

Far right Republicans were infuriated. And one of southeast Pennsylvania's most deranged Trumpists, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Gale, a 27 year old crackpot, started talking about primarying Meehan. Gale, who still lives at home with his parents and has never held a real job, is even more detested by the Republican establishment in Pennsylvania than by Democrats, who mostly just laugh at him. Gale beat a Republican for the seat on the 3-person Montgomery County Commission when he exposed the other Republican as an active Planned Parenthood supporter.

The last time Meehan was primaried from the right, Gale's brother worked on the campaign of another right-wing nut, Stan Casacio, who Meehan pulverized in the Republican primary, 76.4% to 23.6%. That isn't stopping Joe Gale, who is driven by ambition and rage against the GOP establishment. In January the Philadelphia Inquirer summed up his first year on the board as stormy. Reporter Laura McCrystal didn't paint a very attractive picture-- at least not for normal people, but Republicans, especially the fringy ones who can tend to dominate primaries, love him. Like most normal people who have to interact with him regularly, his colleagues on the County Commission hate him but he hates them to and does all he can to impede the efficient functioning of government.

He lives with his parents in Plymouth Meeting and ran for county commissioner in 2015 without the backing of the county GOP.

Since taking office, he has not been afraid to speak out against Democratic Commissioners Valerie Arkoosh and Josh Shapiro, who is about to become the state's attorney general. They say his accusations amount to nothing more than political grandstanding and have, in turn, accused him of not participating in county government.

But Gale, who holds up President-elect Donald Trump as a role model, says he is not in Norristown to get along with everyone.

"A lot of times if it seems I'm upsetting the administration, I'm doing my job," he said.

A graduate of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School and Temple University, Gale said he has been attending local government meetings since he was about 16 and a teacher encouraged him to get involved in politics.

At age 20, Gale ran for Plymouth Township council. He lost, but he said he learned how to knock on doors and talk to people. After graduating from Temple with a degree in finance and real estate, he worked for the county recorder of deeds office for a year before getting a job as a loan specialist with a home-building company.

He left that job to run for commissioner.

During that 2015 campaign, the Republican Party chairman at the time called him a "liar" and a committeeman told him, "I'd like to slice your throat."

But he defeated a fellow Republican in the general election to become the county's minority commissioner. The law requires that the board have at least one Democrat and one Republican.

Now, Gale, said he keeps his party "at arm's length."

...Gale, meanwhile, says his lack of interest in becoming part of the political establishment aligns with Trump's approach. He says that he was the first Pennsylvania elected official to endorse Trump, and he ran his own radio advertisements promoting his candidacy and celebrating his victory.

"We were both outsiders, we challenged the establishment, went against the will of political party bosses and connected with the people in a grassroots fashion," Gale said. "And we were both successful."

If he runs against Meehan, he's told acquaintances, he's running to win, not to make a point, a tall order. A primary would prevent Meehan from distancing himself from Trump soon enough to help him in the general election, which is why the Pennsylvania Republican Machine is ready "to squash him like a bug," one highly connected Republican committeeman told me, if he goes through with his threats to run against Meehan, who could well get swept away in the anti-Trump tsunami that's building now, especially if the DCCC doesn't try to force one of their horrible recruits into the nomination. (There are at least half a dozen Democrats already running and there are rumors that state Senator and progressive icon Daylin Leach is being recruited by county officials.)

Mary Ellen Balchunis-- Ratf**ked And Hacked

America's most gerrymandered district-- drawn to protect Pat Meehan's career

DWT has obtained an advance copy of the introduction to progressive congressional candidate Mary Ellen Balchunis. We endorsed her in 2016 and we have urged her to run again in 2018. I want to share the introduction to her new book, Hacked And Rat**cked in the Presidential Election.

-by Mary Ellen Balchunis

In 2014, Congressman Bob Brady (D) and the Delaware County Democratic Party leaders came to me as a member of the PA Democratic State Committee and asked me to run against Congressman Pat Meehan (R) in PA 7th Congressional District. Congressman Brady was honest to me. He told me that I would be running in such a gerrymandered district, that I would not win. America Votes, a national, nonpartisan nonprofit, described the district: “Pennsylvania is the worst gerrymandered state in the nation, and PA-07 is the worst of the worst.” Congressman Brady advised me not to put any of my money into the campaign. Other leaders told me that if I ran in 2014, I would get name recognition; and if I ran again in 2016, it would be a Presidential election year when more Democrats come out and with Hillary on the ballot, there would be a record number of women coming out to the polls for this historic election. Of course, we know those things never happened. We didn’t count on FBI Director Comey. We saw Hillary up by 21% in our county before his statements. We also didn’t count on the Russians. Donald Trump won, Hillary lost and I lost. My race was part of the DNC hacked emails by the Russians and I was “rat**cked” by the “worst” gerrymandered district in the nation.

As a Political Science Professor, one of the classes that I taught was Congress. I know that it is difficult to beat a sitting incumbent, that members of Congress usually get re-elected by at least 90%. I know the incumbent have all of the advantages. I know that gerrymandering is wrong, drawing the district in an unusual way to insure that the incumbent wins. Taking blacks out of the district, and taking out thousands and thousands of Democrats to ensure your own victory is wrong. I also know that it is the law that elections should be fair, not manipulated by the sitting incumbents and state legislatures. Elected officials shouldn’t be able to pick their voters. The voters should be able to fairly pick their elected officials, not the other way around.

PA-07 was former Congressman Joe Sestak’s district. It was predominately Delaware County when Sestak held it. The state legislature with input from Congressman Pat Meehan turned PA-07 into five counties, Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Lancaster and Berks counties. As he has noted on his website, this was the district that he represented when he was U.S. Attorney. He neglected to say that it is the heaviest Republican parts of those counties. The district went from predominantly a working and middle class district to a district that includes parts of the wealthy main line, Amish Country, a very small area of poor Chester City, and mushroom farmers. You can see how the different needs of the constituents makes this district very unfair to the voters.

I knew that this was going to be a tough race; I didn’t know how tough it would be. Former Pennsylvania Secretary of Planning and Policy for Gov. Wolf called me a “heroine” for running in this district. I heard Iraqi veteran, then Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, talk about the difference between war and politics. She said, “At least in war, you know who your enemies are.” This was so true and probably the hardest part of the campaign for me. Some of the people and organizations that I thought would help were not there. Remember, I was begged to run in 2014 so I expected that the party would be behind me; and for the most part, the local parties in all five counties were outstanding and very helpful as my primary numbers showed. However, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) was not. Many in the Committees sent numerous emails to the DCCC saying that they had a candidate, and I was there candidate. I had been involved with the Democratic Party since I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. I worked in the campaign andserved as an Assistant to Democratic Mayor Wilson Goode, the first African American Mayor in Philadelphia; and I went on to serve as Vice Chair of the Upper Darby Democrats and Vice Chair of the Delaware County Democrats. I attended seven Democratic National Conventions in various roles from Delegate, Alternate Delegate, Platform Committee and Special Guest. I was elected twice to serve as a member of PA Democratic State Committee. In addition, I was Faculty Moderator of the College Democrats at my university for 24 years, sending students to numerous internships in both parties, but in a heavily Democratic city, especially to Democratic campaigns and elected officials’ offices. I could not believe that the DCCC did not support me in the primary and not only did they not support me, but they put out the word not to donate to me and they put an opponent against me. In fact, the opponent didn’t even live in the district; and he had a terrible voting record. He did have money. However, even though he outspends me in the primary by hundreds of thousands of dollars, I won the primary, 74% - 26% or as Politics PA said I “crushed my opponent.” Even with this big victory, the DCCC still did not endorse me in the general election; and I understand that they supported few Democratic candidates who defeated their endorsed DCCC candidates in the primary.

I was very proud of the campaign that I was able to run and the impressive endorsements that I received. Endorsed early in the primary by the Congressional Progressive Caucus; I was also one of the 12 Congressional Campaigns endorsed by Democracy for America. I got more support from the Progressive community and Hillary, herself, than I did from the DCCC. The Congressional Progressive Caucus said that they liked my campaign because it was a “People Powered Campaign.” Needless to say, I was pleased to see Keith Ellison appointed as Deputy Democratic National Committee Chair because I believe the party needs his knowledge of grassroots politics and not the constant focus the DCCC has on fundraising. I was also thrilled to hear Sen. Sanders say that we need candidates from the middle class who understand the needs of the middle class and not wealthy candidates who fundraise.

I have known Hillary since 1992 when she spoke to my La Salle University students during her husband’s first Presidential campaign. I got to know her more when I lobbied with the students in my Women in Politics class on the Baby Bill to increase maternity stays to a minimum of 48 hours. When President Clinton was signing the bill, I was invited by the First Lady’s office to the signing of the Baby Bill. I really admire Hillary, her intelligence, life long dedication to public service, and her tenacity; yet, on the campaign trail, my policies were Bernie Sanders policies, the fight for $15, affordable college education, opposing TPP, climate change and equal pay for women. Of course, Hillary did end up adopting those policies toward the end of her campaign.

My campaign would make a great movie. My Campaign Manager who helped me with the big primary win when we were heavily outspent was arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Convention and taking floor, food and parking passes. My race was one of the dozen of congressional campaigns that were part of the DNC emails hacked by the Russians and released by WikiLeaks. It was the Russians effort to embarrass the DCC and describe my opponent as a weak candidate who they put up to “primary” me. Because of the Russian involvement in my race, I participated in the PA recount effort by Green Party Candidate Jill Stein; and I became Exhibit #10 in Jill Stein’s federal lawsuit for a recount in Pennsylvania.

PA has no women at the national and statewide levels. See the Pennsylvania Democratic Website and scroll down to see the pictures of the “Our Leaders.” You will see 13 pictures, all men! Hillary was supposed to easily win PA that is why I couldn’t believe during the debate that Donald Trump was saying if I don’t win PA, the election was “rigged.” Hillary lost PA. Katie McGinty who was running for U.S. Senate also lost. I lost and the other three Democratic women lost as well as the one Republican female candidate for Congress lost. Known as an all boys club, Pennsylvania’s federal delegation of 20 (two U.S. Senators, Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, and 18 Congressmen) is all male. During the campaign, we put out a picture of the women in the PA federal delegation, a picture of an empty Congress! It was one of our biggest fundraising email blasts.

During the campaign, we worked closely with the Hillary Coordinated Offices. Although, they focused primarily on Hillary, as one would expect, they did help other candidates like myself by making calls and distributing our literature along with Hillary’s literature. However, at the very end of the campaign, we were informed by several sources that one of Hillary’s staffer told the volunteers that they believed that my gerrymandering was too great for us to win. I wonder now if they saw the polls tightening. When my campaign manager expressed his outrage that we were promised help and we would have arranged other help if we knew that they were cutting us, our literature began to be carried again. As a political scientist, I thought it was a really stupid move to cut me to help the state representative candidates because if people did not vote for me and stopped with Hillary or our Senate candidate Katie McGinty, the chances of them continuing down the ballot to the state representative candidates were pretty slim. They were costing their state representative candidates votes more than me. The state representative candidates running with me in the 7th all lost.

In the end, in my very gerrymandered district, the vote was 59.4% for Meehan and 39.6% for me. My numbers were consistent with the previous Democratic Congressional candidate, my Penn classmate and Chairman George Badey, who ran in this congressional district in 2012. The 7th is known as the “Poster Child for Gerrymandering.” I was told that I got the “most that I could in the gerrymandered district.

When I kicked off my 2016 congressional campaign in April 2015, I did it with a Gerrymandered Tour of the five counties included in the 7th. I was told by many people to stop talking about gerrymandering, that people didn’t care about gerrymandering. Gerrymandering cost me a lot of money, I often heard during call time that I would like to give you money, but there is no way that you can win in that gerrymandered district. In 2014, we hired Celinda Lake, a national pollster who specialized in female candidates, to do our poll; and she said that if I could get my message out that people liked my background more than they liked Meehan’s background and they liked my issues more than they liked Meehan’s issues. Of course, getting your message out takes money and without money, we couldn’t afford TV.

This campaign wasn’t my first experience with gerrymandering. In 1991, Congressman Brady asked me if I would run for State Representative against a sitting State Representative. He told me that three of the four ward leaders were going to endorse me. I told him that I didn’t want to run against a female that there were so few females in office. He said to me that “Men run against men all of the time.” I said that I would think about it. Before I could think about it, I found out my entire condominium building, all 31 floors were taken out of the district. I called Speaker of the House Bob O’Donnell and asked him how this could happen. He said: “Before we begin redistricting, we ask the representatives whom they want in and whom they want out; and Rep. Babette Joseph’s wanted you out.”

My daughter, Lauren, told me about her friend’s dad, former St. Senator Bruce Marks, a Republican, who was involved in a campaign where his opponent was involved in “fraudulent” absentee ballots. His opponent, William Stinson, won the election, but Federal Court Judge Newcomer said Mark’s opponent’s actions were so egregious that the judge took the victory away and gave it to Marks. My daughter said: “What your opponent did by taking out all those Democrats and African Americans in your district was worst. You should bring a lawsuit.” Out of the mouth of babes comes brilliance, although, Lauren is a college honor student. She made me think. If an Olympic athlete is found to have cheated, they strip the award and give it to the next in line. Sen. Marks’ case made front page of the New York Times. With precedence, it certainly could be one way to handle gerrymandering. Independent commissions and computer models are other ways; but they would likely have to wait until the next redistricting in time for the 2022 congressional elections.

In PA, a nonprofit group called Fair Districts has been holding informational meetings on gerrymandering. They are getting standing room only audiences. Upper Dublin in Montgomery County just had 750 people turn up to hear about gerrymandering. An article just came out entitled: “How Gerrymandering Got Sexy? I wish it was sexy when I was running, but I am glad people are paying attention now.

In this book, you will see emails about my race that the Russians hacked from the DNC and were released by Wiki Leaks. You will also see how difficult, if not impossible, it is to win in a gerrymandered district. Gerrymandering is not good for the constituents; when the elected officials have safe seats, they don’t have to meet with their opponents, constituents or hold town hall meeting. Congressman Meehan never met with me in the 2014 campaign. The Delaware County League of Women Voters called me to set up a debate with the Congressman. She wanted me to send a representative to negotiate the debate. I was on the Philadelphia Board of the League of Women Voters and helped write the Mayor’s Debate Briefing Book. When Meehan heard this, he cancelled the debate. He sent his campaign staffer, Caitlin, to sit with me at community forums, and she was not allowed to speak for the Congressman. It was bizarre. I said that I was not sitting with her in 2016. I asked for a debate in 2016. I got a list of requirements that I had to sign off on including no press and no rebuttals to meet him at a senior retirement community. The Congressman didn’t even have his issues posted on his campaign website, so much for transparency. Gerrymandering is also very bad for governing, and it explains why we are at such a partisan stalemate. When you select the extremes in your district, it is difficult to make compromises. Hacked by the Russians and Ratf**ked by gerrymandering, it was a campaign a Political Scientist and a political junkie could really appreciate; but legislators and good government activists should work to avoid at all cost in the future.

Note from Mary Ellen: "RATF**KED is the title of David Daley’s book, Rat F**ked, The True Story Behind The Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy; and it is a term used for Political Sabotage. It was widely used during Watergate. In the summer of 2015, David Daley followed me as I traveled through my gerrymandered district.

Planned Parenthood Support Much Bigger Than Trump Support In Key GOP-Held Districts

Polling for the runoff in the GA-06 race to replace Tom Price is very tight-- incredible for such a red district-- and Jon Ossoff is slightly ahead of radical right Republican Karen Handel-- 48-47%. Republican outside groups-- primarily the NRCC, the Chamber of Commerce and Ryan's shady, corporately-financed SuperPAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund have already spent over $7 million tearing Ossoff down and trying to bolster Handel. Friday Trump was in Atlanta raising $750,000 for Handel's campaign.

I don't think the new PPP surveys have been made public, but they conducted polls in 13 Republican-held districts for Planned Parenthood, all districts where Trump did poorly, 12 of which he lost to Clinton (all but NY-19, where he won narrowly):

• AZ-02 (McSally) 44.7%
• CA-21 (Valadao) 39.7%
• CA-49 (Issa) 43.2%
• CO-06 (Coffman) 41.3%
• FL-26 (Curbelo) 40.6%
• FL-27 (Ros-Lehtinen) 38.9%
• IL-06 (Roskam) 43.2%
• KS-03 (Yoder) 46.0%
• MN-03 (Paulsen) 41.4%
• NJ-07 (Lance) 47.5%
• NY-19 (Faso) 50.8%
• PA-07 (Meehan) 47.0%
• VA-10 (Comstock) 42.2%

Taken as a whole, the voters in the 13 districts-- remember all represented by Republicans-- oppose defunding Planned Parenthood-- 59% to 35%. The poll also shows that the majority of voters in those districts support ObamaCare, 53% to 36%. TrumpCare includes a provision to defund Planned Parenthood. PPP's director, Tom Jensen: "These results make it clear that targeting Planned Parenthood-- or trying to replace the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act more generally-- is politically perilous for these swing district Republican members of Congress. Voters in these districts like Planned Parenthood, they like the Affordable Care Act, and efforts to hurt those things will imperil the Republicans in these districts as they look toward reelection next year."



Furthermore 54% of respondents said that they're less likely to vote for their Republican congressman if they vote to defund Planned Parenthood, compared to 30% who said they would be more likely to support them. Planned Parenthood plans to target Curbelo, Meehan, McSally, Issa, Coffman and Roskam with a TV ad campaign.

Mary Ellen Balchunis is the progressive Democrat who ran against Pat Meehan in 2016. The DCCC didn’t just not support her (in a district Hillary won); they actually sabotaged her campaign after she beat their preferred Wall Street-friendly candidate in a primary— a primary she won with 74% of the vote, despite the DCCC spending $200,000 to bolster her opponent. With Steve Israel finally gone, perhaps the DCCC won’t try screwing her over again in 2018, when she is once again likely to run against Meehan. We checked in with her today about his TrumpCare shenanigans. “In the first vote in committee, Congressman Meehan voted with Trump to defund Planned Parenthood, push what amounted to an Elderly Tax, and drop protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. I helped Planned Parenthood organize a ‘Pop-up Rally’ outside his district office before the vote was pulled. Meehan refused to say how he would vote. It wasn't until AFTER it was pulled that he said he wouldn't have voted for it. He is a Master Politician! He was campaign manager to Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Rick Santorum; and, of course, he was the master-mind in the drawing of PA-07 congressional district, considered the ‘poster child for gerrymandering.’ America Votes has said it is the ‘worst’ gerrymandered district in the nation. It is not surprising that Meehan is now saying that he will not vote to defund Planned Parenthood, now that the polls are showing that there is not support to defund. He is not a friend of Planned Parenthood or the many low income women who use the services. I don't trust him; Meehan, or as I say MEANhan, has been voting with Trump 92.2% of the time.”

And today's last minute development: another House Republican leadership scam. Greg Sargent hit the nail on the head:

With multiple media reports suggesting that the drive to repeal Obamacare may be on life-support, House Republicans are rolling out a last-ditch effort to salvage their repeal-and-replace bill before support for it collapses once again. They plan to introduce a new amendment that is designed to give moderates a way to pretend that the GOP bill won’t harm people with preexisting conditions-- and thus, a way to support the bill in the numbers needed to pass it.

In reality, the new amendment is unlikely to insulate moderate and vulnerable Republicans from potent political attacks if they do support the bill, since it will be pretty much just as cruel in human terms-- on multiple levels-- as the current one is. Unfortunately, with moderates under all kinds of other pressures to support the bill, the possibility of this working with just enough of them can’t be ruled out.

The new amendment, which is being championed by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)-- who made a huge splash by opposing the bill yesterday-- would essentially add $8 billion of funding in addition to the so-called high-risk pools, which are supposed to function as a safety net for people with preexisting conditions who lose coverage as a result of the GOP bill. The Republican plan would gut protections for people with preexisting ailments, because it would allow states to waive the prohibition on insurers from jacking up premiums for them-- a prohibition that’s called “community rating”-- which could lead to soaring costs and many of them getting priced out of the market entirely.

This is a major reason that so many moderates oppose the GOP bill. Even though the bill also requires states that waive those protections to set up some sort of mechanism for people with preexisting conditions-- such as high-risk pools-- history has shown that they are traditionally underfunded, hit sick people with massive premiums (since only sick people are in the risk pools), and, as a result, leave many uncovered.

Thus the new $8 billion amendment. The Associated Press reports that this $8 billion would be allotted to helping some of those people cover some of those costs so that fewer go without coverage. But as the AP notes, the sum is a paltry addition relative to what is currently in the bill, and that sum is already being derided as woefully inadequate-- so it’s hard to see how this $8 billion changes much.

...And let’s not forget the crucial larger context here. Though the discussion is heavily focused on preexisting conditions, the GOP bill would also cut $800 billion in spending on Medicaid, which could leave 14 million fewer people covered by that program, even as it delivers an enormous tax cut to the rich. So, even with this amendment-- which itself would probably do little to mitigate the harm to people with preexisting conditions-- the bill is still a massively regressive rollback of the ACA’s historic expansion of coverage. Many GOP moderates who opposed the first and most recent version of the bill cited this, too, as a crucial reason for opposing it. So it’s hard to see why this amendment should make a difference, in moral and substantive terms.

Of course, many of these moderates are probably looking for some way to get to Yes, and some may grab on to any kind of “change” to pretend that the bill’s cruel and regressive dimensions have somehow been mitigated. But if so, this could still constitute an enormous political risk. According to the New York Times’ whip count, a large number of House Republicans who currently oppose the GOP bill or are undecided are either moderates, or come from districts won by Hillary Clinton, or both. It’s very hard to see how this $8 billion addition will somehow insulate them from attacks, since the bill still guts protections for people with preexisting conditions and rolls back health coverage for millions and millions of poor people.

Key to understanding the politics here: Meadows and his vehemently anti-healthcare Freedom Caucus refused to vote for the bill unless it allowed insurance companies to charge whatever they like to cover people with pre-existing conditions. By agreeing to Upton's amendment, the Freedom Caucus has signaled that Upton isn't doing anything substantive to interfere with their jihad against healthcare for poor people. Even with Upton's amendment TrumpCare would still gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions and  end coverage for millions of poor people with the express purpose of giving a huge tax cut to multimillionaires and billionaires. And that is always something Fred Upton, hereditary scion of Whirlpool, has been in favor of. It steals $880 billion from Medicaid to further enrich the political donor class. And, according to the CBO, premiums rise by 20%. This is what "mainstream" Republicans are willing to vote for?

The Philly Suburbs Can Stop Trump AND Make Congress More Progressive And More Productive

I woke up yesterday to the news that Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize for Literature and that the Trump campaign, looking at it's internal polling numbers in Virginia-- numbers that show Clinton far ahead of him with the gap growing-- decided to end their efforts in the state entirely withdrawing all resources, including scheduled advertising. A few minutes later I saw the PPP polling memo showing that Hillary's lead in New Hampshire had grown to 11 points and that she now leads him 48-37%. Numbers like this spill over into congressional races. Its good news for Democratic challengers Maggie Hassan and Carol Shea-Porter. It's especially good news for Shea-Porter because the feedback from New Hampshire voters was that they wanted real action on gun safety, a signature issue for Shea-Porter that contrasts her perfectly with her NRA-puppet opponent Frank Guinta.

Over 100,000 people have already voted in each of several key states: Florida, Iowa, and Michigan and by Monday there will be over 100,000 votes cast in Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin and Ohio as well. The early voting period has been marked by huge polling drops for Trump. There's been no early voting in Pennsylvania yet at all. But the polling there has been dismal for Trump and very good for Clinton. So good for Clinton, in fact, that it is likely to impact down-ballot races as well. BloombergPolitics reported yesterday that she holds a commanding 9-point lead statewide. That's good. Even better, though, is that she's "trouncing him in the Philadelphia suburbs." Bloomberg examined 4 key counties around Philly: Delaware, Montgomery, Chester and Bucks. We've been talking about 3 of them all cycle because of Blue America-backed candidate Mary Ellen Balchunis, the political science professor who beat a Wall Street-friendly DCCC hack in the primary 74-26%, only to see the increasingly senile Pelosi to order the DCCC to abandon the very winnable district. Last week Hillary visited Mary Ellen in Haverford, her hometown and they campaigned together. Two days later she was campaigning with Bernie Sanders. A personal friend of Clinton's Mary Ellen describes herself as being from "the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party," something that drives corrupt conservaDems like Steve Israel insane and makes them froth at the mouth.

Clinton has 51 percent to Trump’s 42 percent in a two-way race statewide, with her margin swelling to 28 percentage points in four suburban counties that were once reliably Republican, according to a Bloomberg Politics poll conducted Friday through Tuesday after the video’s release.

Clinton’s suburban advantage is 18 points larger than President Barack Obama’s winning margin there in 2012, meaning that to match Clinton’s strength in those counties and in urban areas, Trump would have to dramatically improve on his 11-point lead in the rest of the state. Losing Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes would sharply curtail his paths to the White House.

In a contest that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate, Democrat Katie McGinty is roughly even with Republican incumbent Pat Toomey, 47 percent to 45 percent, and, like Clinton, is doing better in the suburbs than statewide.

“Hillary Clinton’s strength in the Philadelphia suburbs may clinch the state for her,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “It’s possible she will carry McGinty to a win over Toomey in the U.S. Senate race.”

While Clinton’s strength was long assured in the urban Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, her fight with Trump would typically be expected to be more competitive in these four suburban counties, which accounted for 22 percent of the state’s vote in 2012. Instead, she carries almost every demographic group tested there, including women 67 percent to 24 percent in the two-way race.

Clinton has been seeking to drive up her numbers with those women, who often play a decisive role in presidential elections, as a way to counter Trump’s strength with white, working-class men. While white men have been the core of Trump’s support, Clinton is even performing about the same as Trump with that group in the suburbs.

  “That’s a signal of her ability to cut through in these suburbs,” Selzer said.

Mary Ellen's race in PA-07, primarily Delaware County, with chunks of Montgomery and Chester (with a small piece of Berks and a tiny spec of Lancaster counties), has been hitting every note that's now shown up in the polls as decisive for suburban voters, especially on infrastructure, Social Security, jobs, consumer protection, the environment and-- most ominously for Meehan-- gun safety, which was her top agenda item for months. (Please consider contributing to her very grassroots campaign's get out the vote effort by tapping on the thermometer on the right. The DCCC is still refusing it give her any assistance, cutting off their noses to spite their faces, still furious that she beat their conservative recruit in the primary.) Republican backbencher Pat Meehan is a lock-step NRA ally, who has taken more money from gun manufacturing lobbyists than almost any other member of Congress in the northeast United States-- while this has been featured prominently on Mary Ellen's campaign website:

And, yes, Meehan is still peeing in his pants about Trump, unable to denounce him, unable to full support him-- infuriating Trump supporters and normal voters with his cowardly attitude. While Mary Ellen was proudly campaigning with Hillary and with Bernie last week, Meehan was laying low and praying that the DCCC's sabotage of her campaign would win him his reelection.

Does The Democratic Party Still Stand For Working Families? That Depends How You Define "Democratic Party"

Many of us are watching the clock tick down to November 8, election day. But millions of American workers have their eyes set a few weeks further down the calendar to December 1 when a Department of Labor rule kicks in that will double the salary threshold-- from from $23,660 to $47,476-- at which workers get overtime pay for overtime work. Republicans, of course, are up in arms. But so is the Democratic wing of the Republicans Party. Four of the worst Blue Dogs, ringleader Kurt Schrader (OR) and fellow conservatives, Henry Cuellar (TX), Collin Peterson (MN) and Jim Cooper (TN), all of whom are reliable supporters of Paul Ryan's reactionary austerity agenda, introduced a bill, H.R. 5813, to postpone the rule, stretching out the help the bill offers workers until December, 2019. 5 conservative co-sponsors signed on last week, Blue Dog Gwen Graham (FL) and 4 Republicans, Jeff Fortenberry (NE), Tom Emmer (MN), Jeff Miller (FL) and David Jolly (FL).

The bill is now with John Kline's Committee on Education and the Workforce, where we can count on progressive committee members Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Mark Takano (D-CA) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) to put up a massive fight. But they are outnumbered by 22 extremely anti-worker Republicans who very smoothly align with the Blue Dogs and New Dems. Schrader announced that his opposition to the new rule stems from having "heard from business owners and their employees who are worried about implementing this increase overnight. Without sufficient time to plan for the increase, cuts and demotions will become inevitable, and workers will actually end up making less than they made before. It’s long past time we strengthen overtime pay protections for American workers in a meaningful and effective way." Typical textbook Republican scare tactics that are always puked up any time there's a proposal made to lessen the economic burdens on working families.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, what Big Business and the corporate world like so much about Schrader's approach is that it would eliminate the rule’s indexation of the threshold, which would raise it automatically every three years, as wages for salaried workers rise, reproducing "the very disaster for working people the Department of Labor is seeking to prevent: an inevitable and significant loss of guaranteed overtime coverage due to inflation and wage growth."

Failure to adequately update the salary threshold over 1975–2015 caused the share of the salaried workforce that was guaranteed overtime pay to fall from 49.6 percent to just 9.5 percent in 2015. Had 49.6 percent coverage been maintained, some 26.6 million workers would have been covered, rather than the scant 5.1 million who actually were covered in 2015. Raising the salary threshold to $913 per week in 2015 would have allowed 17.6 million employees to enjoy overtime protection (12.5 million of whom would have newly obtained protection), but it would not restore the level of protection provided in 1975.

...[I]ndexing the salary threshold, as provided by DOL’s new rule, allows the share of salaried workers enjoying overtime protection to remain at or near 32.7 percent. The number of workers protected increases as the salaried workforce grows, rising to 20.5 million by 2035. Without indexation, however, the share of the salaried workforce guaranteed overtime pay would decline each year, falling to 23.1 percent in 2025 and just 16.1 percent by 2035. If Rep. Schrader’s bill were enacted, by 2035 there would be 10.4 million fewer salaried workers covered by overtime protection because of the failure to index the salary threshold. Lack of indexation would cut in half the share of the salaried workforce provided overtime protection, which would fall from 32.7 percent to just 16.1 percent (20.4 million versus 10.1 million).

So who's this Kurt Schrader fellow? The head of the Blue Dogs and a member of the New Dems, we talked about Schrader quite a bit last spring when he was being primaried by Berniecrat Dave McTeague back in Oregon. As we pointed out at the time, Schrader went even further than many Republicans care to go in his zeal to wreck Social Security and Medicare. Back in early 2013, Schrader offered an amendment to accept the Simpson Bowles proposals that do just cut Social Security and Medicare benefits and raise the retirement age. 54 disgraceful excuses for Democrats-- mostly New Dems and Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- went along. Schrader's amendment failed 75-348.

Schrader represents a solidly blue district which Obama won 53-44% in 2008 and 50-47% in 2012. There are 7 counties in the district and in the Oregon primary in May, Bernie won all 7. These were Bernie's wins by county:

• Benton- 61.2%
• Clackamas- 51.5%
• Lincoln- 53.7%
• Marion- 53.0%
• Multnomah- 57.0%
• Polk- 54.5%
• Tillamook- 53.8%

On the same day, Berniecrat Dave McTeague, a former state legislator, went up against Schrader. The huge Bernie support just didn't bother to vote or didn't bother to vote for McTeague. Schrader win 67,124 (72.6%) to 25,289 (27.4%). There's no excuse for that. For a Bernie voter, Kurt Schrader has no saving graces on any level.

By the way, among the supporters of Schrader's amendment to gut Social Security and Medicare were many of the usual scum always looking for chances to lick the asses of the corporate campaign donors, including several Blue Dogs and New Dems up on the ballot in November, like Loretta Sanchez, who's running for California's open Senate seat, Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic candidate for Maryland senator, as well as recently defeated conservaDems trying to weasel their ways back into Congress-- Colleen Hanabusa (HI), Joe Garcia (FL) and Pete Gallego (TX). Electing more of these garbage-Democrats is the last thing we should be doing, but the DCCC and the California Democratic Party are delighted to be backing Lou Correa, a former state legislator who was widely considered the most right-wing Democrat in Sacramento (and one of the most corrupt). The progressive mayor of Garden Grove, Bao Nguyen, also made it through the primary and will be duking it out with Correa in a Dem vs Dem election November 8-- one real progressive Democrat against one from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. A few minutes ago he told us that "These corporate Blue Dog Democrats are eagerly pumping money into my opponent Lou Correa's campaign. We certainly have every reason to expect that my opponent will do the bidding of corporations in Congress if elected, as he has done in the past as a state legislator. What we really need is someone in Congress who will protect the pro-worker agenda that so many of us in the labor and progressive movement have fought so hard to achieve. I've been that champion for working families as Mayor of Garden Grove and as a labor organizer. If the people of the 46th Congressional District elect me in November, one of the first laws I would vote against is anything that would compromise or threaten Obama's overtime rule for salaried workers."

Only 21 Republicans voted for the Blue Dog anti-Social Security amendment, including Pat Meehan from the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Funny, he doesn't tell the voters in PA-07 that he voted to raise the retirement age and cut their benefits. Mary Ellen Balchunis, the progressive Democrat running against him this year, expected nothing more from Meehan. "I wasn't surprised when Pat Meehan voted to support cuts to Social Security and Medicare because he told us he would do that when he ran as a Tea Party candidate in 2010. Pat Meehan thinks that if he says he is a moderate enough times, the voters will believe it, but votes like this tell the truth. The real Pat Meehan has also voted to cut taxes for the wealthiest of Americans, to cut healthcare and cancer screenings for women, and end Medicare as we know it. If Pat Meehan was a true moderate he would stop prioritizing tax breaks for the rich and start looking out for seniors."

Please help replace Meehan with Mary Ellen and help keep Correa out of Congress-- he did enough damage to working families when he was in Sacramento-- by electing Bao Nguyen instead of him. You'll find them both by tapping the thermometer below:

UPDATE: Certain States...

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin are suing the government to stop the overtime rule. What do all these states have in common? No, they weren't all former slave-holding states that started the Civil War-- though most of the former slave-holding states that started the Civil War signed on to the suit. This list is a list of states that have Republican governors. Don't people in these states want to get overtime pay for overtime work?