Trump's Not Draining Any Swamps-- Any Chance Congress Will? Two Congressman Are Going To Try

Ro Khanna (l), Mike Gallagher (r)

You're not going to find many congressional freshmen working together who are as fundamentally different-- politically-- as dedicated progressive champion Ro Khanna (D-CA) and crackpot right-wing loon Mike Gallagher (R-WI). But the two of them did an OpEd this morning for USA Today that makes the point that the way to increase bipartisanship in Congress is to reduce the role of the wealthy special interests that call the shots for both political parties. It's a simple and very do-able 3-step plan. The bipartisanship around it though, I'm afraid, will be the bipartisanship of GOP leaders Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy joining forces with careerist Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Joe Crowley to kill the proposals if they show any sign of taking on a life of their own. This is not part of incumbent career protection and Congress never passes these kinds of reforms-- unless the public forces them to. Can two freshmen reformers get around their corrupted party leaders and appeal to the American public?

Two Congressmen Offer A Bipartisan Plan To "Drain The Swamp"
- by Mike Gallagher and Ro Khanna

You’d be hard-pressed to find two congressmen more dissimilar than us. We come from different parties, and we represent very different districts. One of us taught economics in the technology hub of Silicon Valley; the other is a Marine veteran from the dairy farming capital of the country. One of us campaigned against the Iraq War; the other served in it. Though we may not agree on everything, we do agree wholeheartedly on a key takeaway from our first few months as members of the U.S. House of Representatives: Congress is in critical need of reform to reduce corruption and diminish the power of special interests.

While the phrase “structural reform of Congress” often gets pushed aside to seemingly more urgent debates about domestic and foreign policy, we ignore this issue at our peril. The comedic newspaper The Onion ran an article in 2010 with the satirical headline “American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress.” We aren’t sure if people would even recognize that as satire anymore.

Whether in Cupertino or Green Bay, we have heard loud and clear that our constituents want a fairer system of government, less money in politics, more bipartisanship and fewer lobbyists in Washington. Each of us have core values on which we will never compromise, and our voting records reflect that. However, 83% of Americans believe that Congress should find common ground on issues in order to get things done.

If voters want us to work together to solve problems, then why the years of gridlock? Put simply, because the system supports the status quo and resists real change.

We are at a historic opportunity to change that and institute reforms that will reduce corruption in our government and the influence of money in politics. The new administration, whatever your views on it, came to power pledging to drain the swamp. Bernie Sanders, whose populist message inspired millions, agrees with that goal, if not the method. The current freshman class of House of Representatives, which includes 27 Democrats and 28 Republicans, is more receptive to these ideas than any before.

As two of those 55 new voices in the House, we are proposing a series of reforms that will diminish the influence of special interests in politics, as well as encourage new voices to embark on the path we have taken to public service.

• Nonpartisan redistricting is essential to ensure politicians aren’t allowed to gerrymander their districts and choose their own voters. The less competitive a district becomes, the more general elections become formalities. This practice is already at work in Arizona, California, and Iowa and having independent, nonpartisan commissions commonplace across the country will ensure our congressional districts are drawn by the people, not politicians.
• Congress should not be a career. The longer people stay in Congress, the more adept they become at making the system work for them and not their constituents. That is why we and a number of our fellow freshmen support legislation that would set term limits of 12 years for Representatives and Senators.
• People should also run for Congress to serve, not to profit. That is why we call for a five-year ban on lobbying after a member of Congress leaves office. We hope that our colleagues all have successful careers after they turn in their voting cards; however, that success should not come from the “revolving door” between the Capitol Hill and K Street.

This is just a modest start. We hope to talk to many of our constituents and colleagues from both sides of the aisle in the weeks and months ahead to gather more proposals to encourage a culture of reform in Washington. We want to challenge the administration to live up to its campaign promise about “draining the swamp.” We also want to challenge ourselves and our colleagues to put self-interest aside and start putting forth reforms that reduce the power of special interests.

And, most importantly, we want to challenge voters to demand that their elected representatives support these efforts, or else find others who will.

Draining the swamp is not enough. Unless you structurally change how the swamp is fed, it will fill right back up. So let’s start on that structural reform and lay a pathway for tomorrow’s leaders to unite the country and confront the problems of the 21st century in the only manner we have a chance at solving them: together.

We asked Ro how he hopes to implement the reformist ideas he and Gallagher put forward in the OpEd. "Anyone watching the 2016 elections," he told us, "should have two takeaways. Most Americans are frustrated with the job politicians are doing and want a change from incumbency. Most are sick of the role of special interest money in politics. So you would think that term limits and banning corporate PAC and lobbyist money would have tremendous support. But it doesn't because too many people in the system have an incentive to keep it the way it is. The only way we get this change is if citizens across this country, regardless of party, start demanding it. We need to remember that those of us in Congress work for the people, and it's not the other way around! Hold us accountable. Force us to vote for basic reform."

Long after Gallagher buckles under to GOP threats, I expect we'll see Ro Khanna still fighting-- and looking for other allies in a battle the Establishment will viscerally hate him for waging.

Most Republicans In Congress Are Still Pretending They See Nothing All That Wrong With Trump's Fascist Behavior

Like most Republicans, GA-06 candidate Karen Handel is sticking with Trump

I checked this morning to see how many co-sponsors there were for Eric Swalwell's bill that would mandate a National Commission on Foreign Interference in the 2016 Election. Swalwell's bill would lead to an examination of "any attempts or activities by the Russian government... to influence, interfere with, or sow distrust in elections for public office held in the United States in 2016," the Protecting Democracy Act. It's up to 199 co-sponsores, the two most recent being principled conservativess Walter Jones (R-NC) and Justin Amash (R-MI). They're also the only Republicans on board so far.

Yesterday far right ex-Congressman Joe Walsh, currently a radio talk show host based in Chicago, tweeted that "it's time for a Special Prosecutor. It's way past time." McConnell and Ryan have both come out strongly against anything independent or anything non-partisan. They refuse to have any investigation that can't be ultimately controlled by the Republican Party. The only House Republicans beyond Jones and Amash who publicly favor the independent approach are 3 in very swingy districts-- Carlos Curbelo (FL), Erik Paulsen (MN) and Barbara Comstock (VA)-- where angry and concerned voters are likely to defeat anyone hampering an independent investigation.

You probably know how the whole Putin-Gate scandal is playing out from the left perspective. Historian Timothy Snyder, who recognizes Trump as a plutocratic authoritarian and a fascist, asserts it a coup in real time and that by firing Comey Trump as as much as admitting he is colluding with the Kremlin. He says that Trump's "The president’s decision to fire Comey is an enormous abuse of presidential authority. To all appearances, Trump is removing a threat posed by the person who is leading the investigation of his administration’s (and his campaign’s) possibly treasonous connections with Russia. Trump will now be able to appoint a political loyalist as Comey’s successor."

Like the leader of a banana republic or a Mafia boss, Trump has surrounded himself with a small group of advisers and confidantes comprised mainly of his family members. He has contempt for journalists and the concept of a free press. He leads a cult of personality, marketing himself as an autocratic who will protect and defend his “forgotten Americans” against all threats foreign and domestic. Trump has no respect for the standing norms of American democracy. He and his supporters evidently believe that the rule of law does not apply to him.

Authoritarians are paranoid by definition. To that end, they ruthlessly consolidate power and eliminate any threats to their power. In keeping with this script, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, in a hastily written letter of dismissal delivered to FBI headquarters by Keith Schiller, the leader of the president’s personal Praetorian Guard. Comey’s firing was also endorsed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a man who has no credibility after having been caught repeatedly lying about his own contacts with representatives of the Russian government.

Comey’s dismissal comes one day after Trump appeared to threaten former acting Attorney General Sally Yates before she gave testimony to the Senate about Vladimir Putin’s efforts to subvert American democracy and the dangers posed by likely Russian operative and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump’s dismissal of Comey came on the same day it was announced that a federal grand jury is investigating Flynn and his associates regarding their financial connections to Russian interests.

...Snyder also predicted: Donald Trump will stage his own version of Adolf Hitler’s Reichstag fire-- a manufactured crisis or some other type of political or social upheaval-- to enact a state of emergency or otherwise consolidate his power by subverting America’s political institutions.

Is Trump’s firing of Comey the next step in this direction? I corresponded with Snyder by email on Wednesday to learn his thoughts about this new development.

His “very first thought” on hearing the Comey news, Snyder wrote, “was that this was a far more open admission of collusion with Russia than even a confession would be.”

...In total, Trump’s firing of Comey, his hostility to an independent judiciary, his authoritarian behavior and his evident attempts to control or contain the investigation into his connections to Russia add up to a constitutional crisis. Unfortunately, Trump is being aided and abetted in his irresponsible, and perhaps even criminal behavior, by a Republican Party that, to this point, values power and partisan politics over loyalty to country and true patriotism. Trump’s supporters among the American people are deeply devoted to their leader, even if that means siding with Putin’s Russia and spitting in the face of American democracy. They are authoritarian lemmings.

So let's turn to the Weekly Standard to see how this crisis is playing out from a right-wing perspective. Stephen Hayes acknowledged that Señor Trumpanzee "fired James Comey just as the FBI director moved to expand and intensify the bureau's counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the possible collusion of Trump advisers in those efforts." And he's smart enough to warn that "that development alone ought to give pause to Republicans inclined to go to the barricades for the president. But there's more. The White House's after-the-fact explanations of the Comey firing were inconsistent and internally contradictory-- and even, at times, demonstrably untrue."

After Comey was fired, the Trump administration sought to portray the dismissal as something Trump acted upon but did not conceive. The White House released the letter Trump sent to Comey, along with letters from Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein laying out the case against Comey. Trump wrote Comey that he had "accepted their recommendation" to fire him. Hours after that letter was made public, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer held an impromptu press availability outside the White House. Spicer answered a few questions, but redirected many others to the Department of Justice because, he said, "they're the ones that made the recommendation." The next day, Vice President Mike Pence defended "the president's decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove Director Comey." But this is not, in fact, what happened. As White House sources told the Weekly Standard at the time, and as Trump later made explicit in an interview with NBC News, the president was "going to fire [Comey] regardless of the recommendation." By Trump's own telling, he would have fired Comey even if Sessions and Rosenstein had recommended keeping him-- a direct contradiction of the White House line of the previous two days.

The pace of the inconsistencies was dizzying. One day before firing Comey, Trump tweeted: "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax. [W]hen will this taxpayer funded charade end?" On Tuesday, shortly after Comey's termination, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared: "It's time to move on." But in the aftermath of copious reporting that Comey's termination came because of Trump's frustration with the FBI's Russia probe-- not the Hillary Clinton email investigation-- White House officials did another 180. By Thursday Sanders was saying, about Trump's view of the Russia investigation: "I think he would love nothing more than [for] this investigation to continue to its completion."

On it went all week-- one Trumpian argument after another falling apart. And yet Republican officeholders mostly stuck by their president. Some of them praised Trump. Others avoided comment. Still others focused exclusively-- reflexively, predictably-- on the (very real) inconsistency of Democrats.

...[T]here are times, when the stakes are high, that self-respecting officeholders need to lead, even if it's politically risky, rather than circle the wagons.

One who did last week was Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI). He expressed his unease, fittingly, in a series of tweets on May 10:

Like many Americans, I have serious concerns and unanswered questions about the timing of Director Comey's dismissal. It is imperative that both Congressional and FBI investigations into Russian interference in our country continue unimpeded and unaltered. As I've discussed, Russia is no friend to the US. Its malicious activities here and abroad must not go unanswered. As we continue these critical investigations, we must ruthlessly pursue the [truth], wherever it may lead. We must put the sanctity of our democracy far, far above partisan interest. This goes for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The American people deserve the truth, not politically-driven talking points. The next steps from the President, the Department of Justice, and the Attorney General will say a great deal. What we need now is a fearless, strong, and independent Director for the FBI. We must keep the faith with the American people. Americans deserve a full, fair, and honest account of what happened. They deserve the confidence that their government is telling the truth. We cannot afford any lingering questions. The legitimacy of our democracy and the sanctity of the rule of law is too important.

He's right. It's worth noting that Gallagher is a freshman member of the House, 33 years old. Where are the senior statesmen among congressional Republicans?

Where indeed. Politico led yesterday with a sad statement about Republicans refusing to consider an independent, non-partisan investigation that could lead towards impeachment. "Democrats who thought the sudden dismissal of FBI Director James Comey would finally jolt Republicans to back a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign are going to be sorely disappointed. Even Republicans who’ve criticized the timing behind the abrupt firing aren’t yet willing to trigger a confrontation with the Trump administration by demanding an independent counsel." Lindsey Graham and John McCain seem to be for an independent investigation-- more or less-- but no other Senate Republicans are backing that somewhat amorphous call, not even people who have grown to detest Trump, like Jeff Flake, Joni Ernst and Ben Sasse, each of whom has indicated in the past they recognize him as a threat to the country. And when it comes to congenital cowards like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz... crickets-- or worse, support for Trump's indefensible, ever-changing positions.

Tom McClintock Represents A Largely Rural, Blood Red District In Northern California-- But Trump's Stink Is Sticking To Him Already

California's 4th Congressional district is a sprawling, mostly empty area east of Sacramento. Most of the people live in a tiny corner of the district in the suburbs north of Sacramento, a triangle encompassed by Roseville, Placerville and Auburn. There are 10 counties but almost 90% of the voters live in suburban Placer and El Dorado counties. The largely rural district includes Yosemite Valley, most of Lake Tahoe and lots of national forests, national wildernesses, national parks and more senior citizens than most California districts. It's one of the most Republican districts in the state-- with a PVI of R+10. In 2012 Romney took 58% of the votes to Obama's 39%. The past November Hillary won that same 39%... but Trump was somewhat off from Romney's big win-- just 54%. Voters in Placer gave him 52.5% and voters in El Dorado 53.4%. Romney won Placer with 59% and El Dorado with 58%.

The local congressman is far-right, but often libertarian-leaning, Tom McClintock. After a series of unsuccessful statewide bids-- for Controller, Lt. Governor and Governor-- McClintock was first elected to Congress in 2008, right on the heels of corrupt Republican John Doolittle being driven from office when he was caught up in a festering mess of financial scandals. The Democrats don't bother contesting the district and McClintock never has to break a sweat in his reelection bids. This cycle he beat Bob Derlet 196,613 (62.8%) to 116,541 (37.2%); having outspent Derlet better than 9 to 1. (When local progressive hero Charlie Brown challenged him in 2008, the DCCC essentially ignored the race-- not wanting a progressive to win-- and McClintock took it with 185,790 votes to Brown's 183,990, less than a 2,000 vote margin, 50.2% to 49.8%. What a great DCCC Pelosi has saddled with!

Anyway, Saturday McClintock had a downhill meeting in the biggest town in the district, Roseville. It was a pretty contentious, raucous scene. Keep in mind, 3 months ago Trump took 54% of the vote and McClintock took 63%. Now it looks like Trump's stink is sticking to McClintock, something Republican congressmembers all over the country are worried about.

Facing a packed auditorium and raucous crowd, Republican Rep. Tom McClintock on Saturday defended his party’s national agenda and voiced strong support for President Donald Trump’s controversial executive actions to scale back Obamacare, ban visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries and build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Vote him out,” hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the Tower Theatre in downtown Roseville, the Republican-heavy population center of McClintock’s sprawling congressional district. Inside the theater, more than 200 people gathered for a town-hall event hosted by McClintock.

Attendees, some carrying signs that read “Resist,” “Dump Tom McTrump” and “Climate change is real,” pressed McClintock to denounce Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, acknowledge the science supporting the human causes of climate change, and oppose Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting refugee admissions to the U.S.




“I believe that order is constitutional,” said McClintock, one of several comments that elicited boos at the hourlong event.

McClintock’s visit drew hundreds of people, most of whom had come to express opposition to the new administration. Many identified themselves as liberal Democrats and progressives, while party registration in McClintock’s district-- which incorporates all or part of 10 counties spanning from Tahoe to Yosemite-- is solidly Republican.

“This is really all about resisting the Trump agenda,” said Wendy Wood, chairwoman of Indivisible Sierra Nevada, a local chapter of a political organization formed in response to the election. “Most of us have never participated in political activism of any sort. Something is happening here, and people here are not happy with (Trump) and McClintock. We’re here to vote them out.”

Roseville police and fire officials capped attendance inside the theater at roughly 200 people. Those left outside voiced frustration about being locked out of the theater, some saying they had driven for hours simply to see McClintock face to face.

“We just wanted to be able to ask questions of our representative and share our thoughts on key issues,” wrote Lauren Lake in an email. “I drove hours over a snowy pass to be there … we were told that the venue was at capacity and no one else would be allowed in.”

Inside the theater, McClintock took about a dozen audience questions. Some of the most passionate comments came from people who said they feared losing access to health care if Republicans press forward to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a clear replacement.

“What do you expect seniors and people with disabilities with low income to do if you take away our Medicare and Medicaid that we rely on to literally stay alive?” asked Amanda Barnes, who said she was paralyzed from her waist down after a hit-and-run accident in a crosswalk five years ago.

McClintock said his party did not yet have a replacement plan, but that there were several Republican-backed proposals still taking shape.

“The answer is a comprehensive bill that rescinds Obamacare in its entirety, and replaces it with reforms that put the patient back in charge of their own decisions, and give them the widest possible range of choices,” McClintock said. “And assure it’s within financial reach for the majority of Americans.”

The response drew shouts of disappointment, as did his comments on climate change.

“In any scientific arena, you are seeing a very vigorous debate over the extent to which man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming,” McClintock said. “Whether or not we destroy our economy for our children, our planet is going to continue to warm and cool as it has for billions of years.”

Many in attendance expressed general disappointment with Trump and called on McClintock to distance himself from recent executive actions, including Trump’s orders scaling back bank regulations and temporarily restricting U.S. entry for refugees as well as visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

“I am terrified about Mr. Trump’s behavior. I literally haven’t slept,” said Jill Ruffman, 58, of Granite Bay. She criticized McClintock and Trump for supporting a House vote to undo an Obama administration rule that required the Social Security Administration to disclose information about disabled recipients with mental illness to the national gun background check system.

“I understand you do not like Donald Trump,” McClintock told the crowd at one point. “I sympathize with you. There have been elections where our side has lost... Just a word of friendly advice: Remember that there were many people in America who disagreed and feared Barack Obama just as vigorously as you disagree with and fear Donald Trump.”

Several times he thanked the audience for the discourse, even if they disagreed.

...McClintock left the theater at 11 a.m., immediately after the town hall concluded, escorted by police as he waded through a thick crowd of protesters who trailed him, shouting, “This is what Democracy looks like.”

When dull, oafish right-wing Florida Congressman Gus Bilirakis asked his constituents to come share their thoughts on the future of health care at a town hall meeting he figured he had nothing to worry about. FL-12 is a safely red R+7 district north of Tampa. In 2012, Romney had beaten Obama 53-45.5% and this year Trump had done even better against Clinton-- 57.4% to 38.8%. Bilirakis, who most people still think is his father, their former congressman, beat his opponent by nearly 140,000 votes-- 68.6% to 31.4%. Why worry? Saturday there was an over-capacity crowd at the Palm Harbor community center-- and they were as pissed off as McClintock's constituents. Bilikakis doesn't have a deft mind and isn't capable of veering away from stale Paul Ryan talking points. His constituents noticed.

Some of his constituents showed up Saturday emboldened by recent demonstrations at airports and on the National Mall. One waved a rainbow flag. Another held a cardboard cutout of the Statue of Liberty.

The crowd got rowdy, booing a 77-year-old speaker who said former President Barack Obama played politics to ram the Affordable Care Act through Congress in 2010.

"Facts, not Fox!" one woman yelled.

Bilirakis took fire from the crowd, too, particularly when he criticized Obamacare.

"I've been hearing from my constituents for several years and they're not happy," he said.

"We are your constituents!" someone shot back.

...[W]hen asked if his thoughts had changed on the Affordable Care Act, the congressman turned to familiar talking points.

"We need to repeal because we need to do it right and expand health care," he said. "Right now, 73 percent of the counties only have one provider. It's too expensive. The premiums are too high. The deductibles are too high."

He plans to hold another listening session next Saturday in New Port Richey.

Sunday morning, halfway across the country, Wisconsin Republican freshman Mike Gallagher-- in a district Trump won 56.2% to 38.6%-- tweeted, uncomfortably, in response to Trump's unhinged comments about the U.S. and Russia on Bill O'Reilly's show, that there is "no moral equivalence between America-- leader of the free world/greatest country on Earth-- and Putin's violent, autocratic, and corrupt Russia." It's going to get harder and harder for Republicans to defend Trump while navigating the tumultuous environment he's creating for them in the lead-up to 2018.

CA-04 doesn't fit into the DCCC's criteria for a challenge and they're not trying to recruit a candidate to run against him. (I suspect the same about Gallagher's district in Wisconsin and Bilirakis' in Florida.) In California, local Democratic activists hate the DCCC as much as they hate Trump, McClintock and the Republican Party and plan on finding their own champion to run against McClintock-- and against the transpartisan establishment that has failed them so miserably-- in 2018. Nationally, Republican congressmembers are starting to feel the pressure of defending a toxic agenda being promulgated by Trump and Ryan. Believe me, it isn't just Gallagher and McClintock sweating today. It will be less than year before they're all panic-stricken and thinking about jumping off tall buildings. (Tepid establishment Democrats like Adam Schiff should try wrapping their heads around this before they get swept up too.)

Meanwhile, opposition to Trump's visit to the U.K. is so strong and widespread that House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has barred so-called President Trumpanzee from being admitted to the House of Commons for an address to Parliament, citing "opposition to racism and sexism" and his anti-refugee Executive Order. He was cheered loudly by both sides of the aisle. Perhaps all the Trump supporters were out fox hunting at the time of the speech.