Is There Still Any Push For Progressivism-- Even Inside The Corporate Democratic Party?

Last night we noted that the Dems have a plan for another bailout. Former Congressman Alan Grayson, who likes Pelosi, waded through hundreds of pages and called me and said-- word for word: "This is a horrendous strategic mistake. People are suffering terribly-- far worse than in 2008-- and they deserve to have someone on their side." I feel pretty certain Grayson would have been on their side and voted against it-- but that New Dem Darren Soto, who represents his old Orlando district, certainly won't. Krystal Ball explained how it's just another useless messaging bill-- which is basically what all the Democratic staffer are saying as well-- that will never pass that but that shows Pelosi's contempt and disdain for progressives. You should listen to Krystal in the clip above... kind of sad, although it helps explain why there's so much talk on the left about the formation of a non-establishment third party lately.

How about the Working Families Party? Ah... yeah, how about them? A conservative Republican pretending to be a Democrat, Wlla Street shill Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, and her Democratic establishment attorney (Martin Connor, who was used by Melinda Katz last year to steal the Queens District Attorney race from Tiffany Cabán) succeeded in getting AOC kicked off the Working Families Party ballot line. The official GOP line (Caruso-Cabrera speaking): "The AOC campaign is in shock. She has hurt working people of the Bronx and Queens with her votes and creates disunity within our party. Her own campaign spokesman ran away from her in March. No wonder why pro-union forces don’t want her and neither do our neighborhoods."

The hapless Working Families Party State, through their NY Director Sochie Nnaemeka: "The Working Families Party is unwavering in our support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and we believe the congresswoman is the leader her district and this country needs. Limits on petitioning due to coronavirus have led to numerous ballot challenges, including this one."

Back to the Pelosi proposal. She wouldn't go along with any of the progressive priorities, like temporary universal healthcare during the pandemic... nor recurring Universal Basic Income payments during the pandemic.. and, of course, no paycheck guarantee program to avoid further job losses, but she did give Hoyer what he most wanted most in the whole wide world: the lobbyist bailout. Lobbyists-- the most hated group in America by Democrats, Republicans and independents, but beloved by Stony Hoyer, the Representative of K Street! That's who Pelosi is bailing out? The thermometer on the right has candidates running in primaries against Pelosi's conservative incumbents. Please give them some support if you don't want to see the Democratic Party continue drifting ever rightward, ever more corporate and ever more corrupt.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has the leverage-- the numbers-- to force Pelosi's hand, right? The answer is yes, they have the numbers to make her rewrite it. But do they have the cohesiveness? Or the will? They seem reluctant to use their power (to put it mildly). If you didn't listen to Krystal... do it now.

Common Dreams ran a statement from the American Economic Liberties Project urging Democrats to get a spine and vote no.

"This bill delivers charity in place of justice, and Congress should vote it down," said Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller. "Without addressing corporate power, additional aid to the people will ultimately end up in the hands of banks, monopolies, and landlords. While the need for humanitarian assistance is urgent, fundamentally this bill is not a serious attempt to grapple with power. It includes important programs, such as aid to states and localities, unemployment insurance, nutrition assistance, and hazard pay, but doesn’t address the roll-up of power happening throughout the economy that results in systemic exploitation of workers, consumers, small businesses, taxpayers, and communities."

"The bill has no prohibition on corporate mergers. It bails out corporate lobbyists and corrupt mortgage servicers. It funnels money to monopolistic insurance company executives. And it has no constraints on private equity firms currently using public money from the Federal Reserve to cherry pick corporate assets on the cheap. Even some of the positive aspects, like a provision authorizing crackdowns on price gouging, are poorly conceived, for example allowing the corporate lobbyist-dominated Federal Trade Commission to block state officials from acting.

"We opposed the first CARES Act because it encouraged, rather than put the brakes on, the consolidation of corporate power. That bill was structured to support massive aid to the stock market, and a trickle of aid to the rest of us. Progressives should demand this bill address the injustices deriving from this consolidation of power in addition to humanitarian needs.

"Our economy is being restructured whether we like it or not, so we need structural solutions to our current predicament. At the very least, the House should pass a merger moratorium, which is supported by an overwhelming, bipartisan majority of Americans. And we encourage the House to pick up Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Senator Josh Hawley’s idea to have the government directly support payrolls," added Miller. Problematic provisions in the bill include:

• A Corporate Lobbyist Bailout: The bill makes Paycheck Protection Program funds available to 501(c)6 trade associations, which is the institutional vehicle for corporate lobbying.
• A Dark Money Group Bailout: The bill extends Paycheck Protection Program funds available to 501(c)4 trade associations, which is the institutional vehicle for dark money political spending.
• No Merger Prohibition: This bill has no mechanism to block or slow pandemic-related corporate mergers. Already, Amazon is rumored to buy AMC theaters, and Uber is in talks to buy Grubhub.
• Tax Cut for the Wealthy: This bill includes a repeal of the State and Local Tax Deduction, which primarily benefits the wealthy.
• Bailout of Mortgage Servicers: This bill extends Federal aid to mortgage servicers, who were the thinly capitalized entities at fault for the foreclosure crisis. These servicers have fought attempts at reform of their industry to make their business safer and are now demanding a no-strings-attached bailout.
• Subsidies for Health Insurance Monopolies: Rather than extending Medicare or Medicaid to the unemployed, this bill would fund COBRA, subsidizing health insurance monopolies and offering nothing to millions of Americans whose jobs never offered health insurance to begin with.

Who Owns Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, The Wall Street Shill Challenging AOC?

On Monday, we broke the story that one of Andrew Cuomo's top political operatives, Maggie Moran, is helping Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a corporate hack Wall Street is running against AOC, to raise money and find staff for the June 23 primary. Moran has been working surreptitiously but the cat is out of the bag now. [Note: Moran doesn't do anything without Cuomo's approval.]

On Wednesday, investigative journalist Lee Fang followed up at The Intercept by exposing Caruso-Cabrera's financial backers-- basically Wall Street titans who AOC has rubbed the wrong way by standing up for working families from her position on the House Financial Services Committee. "Disclosures," wrote Fang, "show that at least two dozen finance industry professionals, including several prominent private equity executives and investment bankers, made early donations to Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC contributor who is challenging Ocasio-Cortez. Caruso-Cabrera was a registered Republican until a few years ago and authored a 2010 book advocating for several conservative positions, including an end to Medicare and Social Security, which she called 'pyramid schemes.'" Fang didn't mention Cuomo or Moran, nor the role of the DCCC, which has forbidden Democratic operatives to work for candidates challenging incumbents-- although they seem to have made an exception for operatives who work against AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Among the big donors Fang found were major Cuomo backers like Glenn Hutchins, the billionaire co-founder of Silver Lake Partners (who gives to Dems), James Passin of Firebird Capital (who gives mostly to Republicans), Ken Langone, a Cuomo intimate and founder of Home Depot (who has given hundreds of thousands dollars to the NRCC), Bruce Schnitzer of Wand Partners (who gives mostly to Republicans), Steve Holzman Vantis Capital hedge fund manager (who gives mostly to Republicans), Jeffrey Rosen of Lazard (who gives mostly to Democrats), Bradley Seaman, managing partner of Parallel49 Equity (a Mitt Romney donor), scumbag lobbyist and former Dick Cheney staffer Ron Christie (who gives only to Republicans), Doug Cifu, CEO of Virtu Financial (who gives to crooked Democrats), Facundo Bacardi, an heir to the Bacardi fortune (who gives mostly to Republicans), Thaddeus Arroyo, a leading executive at AT&T (who gives to Republicans + Hillary Clinton), and Jeff Kwatinetz, a top entertainment industry promoter, business partner of Ice Cube's, crony of Steve Bannon's, big Mayo Pete donor and old friend of mine.

The Caruso-Cabrera campaign announced last week that it had collected nearly $1 million in fundraising over the first quarter of this year. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is funded by anonymous corporate donations and has spent tens of millions of dollars electing congressional Republicans, also said recently that it would mobilize business interests in support of Caruso-Cabrera.

In her first year in office, Ocasio-Cortez has used her perch in Congress to eviscerate leading figures on Wall Street. During congressional hearings last April, she pushed JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon over whether bankers should have been criminally prosecuted over the 2008 financial crisis.

“I wasn’t sent here to safeguard and protect profit, I was sent here to safeguard and protect people,” said Ocasio-Cortez in November during a hearing over the conduct of the private equity industry and its role in downsizing companies.

Ocasio-Cortez has served as a lightning rod in the Democratic Party, attracting criticism from more business-friendly elements of the establishment over her outspoken support for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and her advocacy for policies such as Medicare for All.

The lurch towards that left has provoked some traditionally Republican interests, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to use the New York primary this summer as an opportunity to push back on the ideological shift represented by Ocasio-Cortez.

...Caruso-Cabrera does not have a policy page outlining her beliefs or positions on her campaign website. In recent radio interviews, she has positioned herself as a stalwart of the moderate faction of the Democratic Party, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Joe Biden. “I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-same sex marriage, I’m very pro-immigrant, I am centrist for sure,” Caruso-Cabrera said on New York’s AM 970.

But the candidate’s beliefs are explained in detail in a book she authored in 2010 titled, You Know I’m Right: More Prosperity, Less Government, which included a forward by Larry Kudlow, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s director of the National Economic Council.

In the book, Caruso-Cabrera calls Medicare and Social Security “the country’s biggest pyramid schemes,” and wrote that she would end both programs in favor of a privatized voucher system. Medicare, Caruso-Cabrera wrote, “is another pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme” that should be replaced with a health savings account that gives “seniors $1,000 or $2,000 a year to start.” Social Security, she notes, should be replaced with a private account system, in which Americans are incentivized to invest in the stock market.

Caruso-Cabrera devotes an entire chapter to the many policy successes of the Reagan administration, and writes that she favors tax cuts and deregulation, including eliminating entire federal agencies such as the Labor Department.

Some of the most strident language in the book is reserved for the Obama administration’s attempts to crack down on wealthy individuals who had taken advantage of offshore tax havens. The push to force Switzerland to hand over the names of U.S. nationals using secret bank accounts to dodge taxes, she wrote, put America on a “dangerous path” that would enable foreign dictatorships to similarly seize wealth kept abroad.

“Freedom and democracy are best secured when banking secrecy and tax havens exist,” Caruso-Cabrera wrote.

Please consider contributing to the AOC campaign by clicking on the Blue America Worthy Incumbents thermometer above. Oh, and I knew Jeff Kwatinetz before he was a major mogul. At the time, he managed Korn and they started a label which was distributed by Reprise. The first release was by Orgy. Remember this?

Who's Behind The Move To Wipe AOC's Congressional District Off The Map?

It came as no surprise that New York would be losing a congressional seat after the census. Speculation in Albany over a year ago was that NY-27, a large rural district in the western part of the state-- then held by crooked Trumpist Chris Collins--  would be divided up between NY-26 (Buffalo- D+11), NY-25 (Rochester- D+8) and NY-23 (Southern Tier- R+6). The move would make NY-26 and NY-25 slightly more competitive but still safely blue and make NY-23 much redder and much safer for a Republican. And it would get rid of Collins and a district with a shrinking population.

But Collins resigned and is going to prison and the New York Democratic Party bosses have switched their focus on another congress member they hate-- and fear-- even more than Collins: AOC. The scuttlebutt in Albany is that the dominant Republican-wing of the party, in a move to protect Schumer’s Senate reelection in 2022, wants to dismember NY-14. That'll teach 'em! And that will, the thinking goes, keep AOC, now old enough to run for the Senate (30), in her place! So wrong on so many levels!

There was a buried mention in Politico on Tuesday morning:

With New York likely to lose at least one congressional seat, the district held by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be broken up, forcing her to find a new winning coalition. There’s little love for the disruptive young upstart in Albany, and many state lawmakers would like nothing more than to redraw her out of office. Ocasio-Cortez seems aware of the threat, as she’s been promoting Census sign-ups in her district to ensure that her constituents are fully counted.

I decided to run a quick Twitter poll to see if there is any kind of consensus around the importance of AOC’s political career. There is. The polling started strong for her:

And admiration for Ocasio-Cortez ended strong as well. 89 people participated in the poll-- one for each freshman!-- and 92% indicated they think AOC is the most consequential and most important new addition to Congress. Go Twitter! The New York (and DC) political establishments would be on the losing end of this battle, of that I'm certain.

As you know, AOC doesn’t take campaign contributions from any of the crooks who make the wheels turn in DC-- and Albany-- but she has still managed to raise $3,381,334.59 as of September 30, significantly more than any of the notorious New York whores who sit on the phone all day begging special interests for money:

• Max Rose - $2,139,582.51
• Antonio Delgado (D)- $2,063,246.39
• Hakeem Jeffries- $2,048,723.08
• Lee Zeldin (R)- $1,867,986.14
• Anthony Brindisi- $1,417,403.05
• Elise Stefanik (R)- $1,330,918.47
• Tom Reed (R)- $1,264,624.41
• John Katko (R)- $1,182,074.69
• Carolyn Maloney- $1,016,483.16
• Sean Patrick Maloney- $841,739.78
• Greg Meeks- $643,895.51
• Eliot Engel- $566,230.84
• Brian Higgins- $514,347.20
• Kathleen Rice- $334,379.20

Someone in Schumer’s operation denied that his boss-- who has raised $1,526,081.84 so far for his 2022 reelection campaign-- was behind the anti-AOC move and told me the impetus was from the Queens party machine. That is run by one of the most corrupt members of Congress, Gregory Meeks, a Wall Street-owned and operated slime ball New Dem (and Schumer ally). I spoke with Shan Chowdhury, the progressive Democrat challenging Meeks on his him turf and a former AOC campaign worker, what he though about this. "Would any of us be surprised if my opponent, the corrupt Gregory Meeks, is behind the anti-AOC movement? I sure am not! Meeks is only about himself and his special interest donors that keeps him in office. He’s anti-labor, anti-movement, and anti-people. As the Queens Democratic County Chair, he is doing everything in his power to keep the movement outside of the county democratic process. If he’s unwilling to make a system that’s fairer and just for all, is he a real Democrat at all? Working families deserve better. Our country deserves better. The movement deserves better. I will be his most competitive challenger he’s ever had. Let’s vote him out and vote me in because I will work for and with the people. We will make New York bluer. Happy New Year!

Is Fernando Cabrera The Best They Could Do To Find An Opponent To Run Against AOC?

Fernando Cabrera-- I wonder if he ever bought his coke from Antoine Tucker

I don't know a lot about Fernando Cabrera, other than that he calls himself a doctor because he has graduate degrees from some fake colleges, one of which is Liberty and the other, Argosy, which the federal government shut down in March for scamming students. The other stuff I know about Cabrera is that he's a notorious coke freak, a anti-LGBTQ bigot, and a has a reputation for being the most crooked member of the New York City Council. In 2009, with Bronx machine help, Cabrera defeated Maria Baez for a Bronx City Council seat (district 14-- Claremont Village, Fordham, Kingsbridge, Marble Hill, Morris Heights, Mount Eden, Mount Hope and University Heights). 55 years old, he's a pastor at New Life Outreach International in Knightsbridge. He was reelected to his City Council seat in 2013 and the following year (and again in 2016) primaried state Senator Gustavo Rivera (a progressive), who beat him handily both times. Cabrera was reelected to his City Council seat again in 2017. This week he filed papers to run for Congress against AOC.

A "former" Republican, he's still adamantly anti-Choice and his campaigns are supported by the viciously anti-gay Family Research Council, a hate group. Whenever he loses elections, he blames the media for... basically reporting his positions and his record.

Cabrera joins anther right-wing Democrat running against AOC, James Dillon, plus an identity politics nothing named Badrun Khan and 8 or 9 crackpot Republicans, one of whom, Antoine Tucker, advertises himself, as "a former drug dealer" who "survived failed liberal policies." If you'd like to help AOC keep her seat and continue doing the most important work of nearly anyone in Washington, please contribute to her campaign by clicking on the 2020 Worthy Incumbents thermometer on the right. And if you've been following this race, you might be wondering what happened with Crowley's cousin, Elizabeth Crowley. She withdrew her name from contention. So now right-wing Democrats have to choose between Cabrera and Dillon.


Bonus Track: Impeach Dees Nutz

Pick A Side: Joe Lieberman Or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Conservatives want members of Congress to look like the mug on the right, never like the young woman on the left

Connecticut Democratic primary voters basically kicked Joe Lieberman out of the party by denying him the 2006 Democratic nomination for the Senate seat he had held since 1994. He ran on the Connecticut for Lieberman Party that year. He would like to see Joe Crowley, who lost the Democratic renomination bid on June 26, do the same thing. Crowley outspent his progressive opponent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez $1,410,228 to $30,94, but she worked harder and smarter and beat him 15,897 (57.48%) to 11,761 (42.52%). Ever since her inspiring victory over an avatar of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment, the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment and their media lapdogs have gone on the attack against her and other progressive reformers working to displace other incumbents associated with the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. So, no one should be surprised that Joe Lieberman, now a lobbyist working for the ultimate grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment law firm, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, who's best known client is... Don the Con, the illegitimate "president." Lieberman is also the co-chair of the American Internationalism Project, part of the far right American Enterprise Institute.

Lieberman represents a very special kind of bipartisanship-- the opposite of the kind of bipartisanship practiced by legislators like Alan Grayson, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu and Karen Bass (entailing working across the aisle to find issues that both parties can support for the good of their constituents)-- and instead can be defined as selling out your own party's values and principles and embracing those of the other party. That, in fact, sums up Joe Lieberman's entire political career. Example: while actual Democrats were trying to stop the confirmation of anti-education extremist Betsy DeVos of Secretary of Education, it was Lieberman who introduced her to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee. A high ranking staffer for one of the committee members-- hint: not Doug Jones (D-AL)-- told me that members were revolted when Lieberman came into their offices and even more revolted when Trump announced he was likely to replace James Comey as FBI Director with Lieberman.

No one was surprised when Lieberman, writing for the conservative Wall Street Journal-- of which Grason quipped, "the Wall Street Journal: you can always tell whom they fear by whom they smear"-- a couple of days ago went on a vicious, McCarthyite attack against Ocasio-Cortez. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hurts the party, Congress and even America," he wrote. What he meant by "the party" isn't open to the reader's interpretation, although it should be since the Democratic Party now has the most inspiring weapon in politics since Bernie Sanders-- something that petrifies both of the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment parties. Lieberman, 76 and... tired, defines the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment as "the mainstream," so he isn't reaching when he writes that "Ocasio-Cortez advocates [policies] so far from the mainstream, her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems." He didn't acknowledge the dysfunctional state of Congress today, not the role Joe Crowley-- not to mention his own decades-long role-- has played in that dysfunction.

He then went on to try to make a case for Crowley doing what he did-- running as an independent in the general. "On Election Day, his name will be on the ballot as the endorsed candidate of the Working Families Party. But for Mr. Crowley to have a chance at getting re-elected, he will have to decide if he wants to remain an active candidate. I hope he does." The Working Families Party" has pleaded with him not to further disgrace them by running against Ocasio-Cortez. The heart of Lieberman's OpEd, was his attack on policies that benefit anyone other than the grotesquely corrupt status quo establishment. Keep in mind, Lieberman was one of the most anti-Bernie "Democrats" in the country during the 2016 election cycle. Here he was on Fox News:

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic. Her dreams of new federal spending would bankrupt the country [wrong] or require very large tax increases [wrong], including on the working class [wrong]. Her approach foresees government ownership of many private companies, which would decimate the economy and put millions out of work.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t speak much about foreign policy during the primary, but when she did, it was from the DSA policy book-- meaning support for socialist governments, even if they are dictatorial and corrupt (Venezuela), opposition to American leadership in the world, even to alleviate humanitarian disasters (Syria), and reflexive criticism of one of America’s great democratic allies (Israel).

She has received the most attention for calling to “Abolish ICE,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This makes no sense unless you no longer want any rules on immigration or customs to be enforced. I have not heard anyone say that. Nonetheless, at least three credible candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination rushed to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s position.

Republicans are calling Ms. Ocasio-Cortez the “new face” of the Democratic Party. That’s why Nancy Pelosi has tried to put distance between Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and House Democrats. “They made a choice in one district,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else.” She knows that if Democrats are to regain a majority, it will be by winning swing districts with sensible, mainstream candidates. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is making that task harder across America.

Joe Crowley’s re-election would be evidence that Democrats are capable of governing again. His voting record shows that Mr. Crowley is a progressive [laughably wrong]. I know him as a bridge builder and problem solver, which is exactly what Congress needs more of in both parties.

Crowley has refused to remove his name from the Working Families Party ballot slot, despite the Working Families Party asking him to. We asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates for their perspectives on this. First to respond was Tom Guild who is running on very similar all-American, working family issues that Ocasio ran on-- in Oklahoma City. They work as well among voters there than they work in the Bronx and Queens. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a breath of fresh air," he told me. "She prevailed against big money and is not responsible for the problems that others have created-- paralysis, placing our democracy at risk by coveting and hoarding big donor money, and selling out working people and the middle class by doing the bidding of the modern moneychangers in the American political temple. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Crowley is the same old, same old and a charter member of the DC Swamp. Progressive change will make things better for people who are struggling to survive and throw the corrupt moneychangers out of the temple. Alexandria beat the tired and failed political establishment playing by their rules, and may be able (with a little help from her friends) to shake up Washington and get the country moving in a positive direction. Experience makes it crystal clear that for many years Lieberman and Crowley made a functioning national government dysfunctional. Why would we want to go back to that future?

Kansas Democrat James Thompson made an addition after the post was completed: "My first thought is who cares what Lieberman thinks? He is a corporate crony owned by the establishment in both parties. If Ocasio is the breath of fresh air then Lieberman is the dying breath of a decaying establishment that can’t see past its next Corporate PAC endorsement." And then there's this nice video, nice message from the Sanders Institute. I bet you can guess why we're running it here, right?

Down Goes The King Of Queens, But What Does It Really Mean?

by Bob Lynch
Democratic campaign operative

The large part of the analysis focused on the “shocking” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez victory in New York’s 14th Congressional District has focused on the fact that the ten term incumbent and number 4 member of the Democratic House Leadership team was taken out by a 28 year old Latina who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, calls for the disbanding of ICE, and has never held any elected office. But was the result really that shocking? And more importantly, how many Independent and casual Democrats even knew Joe Crowley’s name before Tuesday night? Painting this as a referendum on the Democratic “Establishment” seems like a stretch despite the practical implications. They reality of the matter is that this race absolutely Did Not result in the pick up of an additional blue seat.

The media often attributes the “shocking” label to events simply because they were caught off guard but that doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story nor does it “shock” those of us who pay far too close attention to these things. Many people were “shocked” that the Eagles won the Super Bowl, but it wasn’t at all surprising to people who watched a lot of Eagles games.

The media is constantly looking for a pre-arranged narrative and the idea of a Civil War within the Democratic Party seems to be the one they want to run with at this moment, sprinkled with the false choice that all Dems are either Nancy Pelosi minions or outright socialists. A little odd given that we didn’t hear any of this when Doug Jones and Conor Lamb picked up valuable seats in special elections, that far more Democrats actually participated in, by a multiple that is not even close. Approximately 28k thousand votes were cast on a ballot in the 14th district that featured two names for a seat that hasn’t seen a primary in 14 years and is widely deemed to be one of the safest Democratic seats in the entire country. The GOP candidate doesn’t even have a website.

Is Joe Crowley losing his seat to a political newcomer a big deal? Of course it is. But let’s not put the cart before the donkey...

Much has been said of the fact that Crowley’s campaign outspent Ocasio-Cortez by a factor of around 10 to 1. The emphasis on this overlooks the fact that Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi has been an incredibly effective fundraiser despite leading a caucus that hasn’t held a majority since the disastrous 2010 elections.

Money can’t buy happiness and eventually we can all hope it won’t buy elections but assuming that this is a definitive referendum on getting money out of politics ignores a lot of logistical realities starting with the fact that Joe Crowley sent a stand-in to a debate with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she cut a genuinely unique campaign ad that resonated with many young voters, and ran a well focused grass roots ground campaign. His immediate and elated concession also seemed like the type relief sentiment to be out of the mix and no doubt resonated with John Boehner.



The reality of the situation is that the leadership of the Democratic Party has already seen the writing on the wall and probably realized that saving Joe Crowley’s seat in a district the Republicans had absolutely no threat of capturing simply wasn’t worth the money and was deemed to be bad optics that would stifle the new energy of the Bernie Sanders “wing” of the party and reinforce the narrative that the DCCC is playing favorites, which in many cases is true.

There is clearly an imminent, and much needed reshuffle of senior level Democratic Leadership that insiders have been openly talking about for months, if not much longer. Don’t let a lazy media convince you that obvious things are now shocking. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of basic polling info realizes that Nancy Pelosi’s leadership is a massively polarizing issue, with no universal conclusion, and played a large part in how Conor Lamb ran his race.

New names like Ted Lieu are openly being floated and no one should act surprised. New blood is needed.

Ocasio-Cortez is just that kind of new blood the party needs and the fact that she is a Socialist shouldn’t overshadow the fact that she is foremost a She, She is a Latina, and She is absolutely going to be the youngest member in the history of the House Of Representatives which provides a great counter argument to Neo-Fascist, Racist, and all around bad guy, Tom Cotton, who is the youngest member of the Senate.

A lot of people are making extrapolations but I can guarantee that Andrew Cuomo has nothing to worry about with Cynthia Nixon, even after this result, and is probably only losing sleep tonight by watching his brother Chris giving the psychotic Rep. Steve King a platform and having debates between Van Jones and the shameless Jason Miller about civility on CNN in Prime Time. Normalizing the circus only ensures that it will eventually come to town... Joe Crowley’s concession was admirable and should be a lesson for all Dem candidates who lose primaries going forward. Endorse the victor, come together and move on. But let’s not forget that old white guys singing 30 year old Bruce Springsteen songs, to a district more familiar with the lyrics to Despacito, is largely how we found ourselves in this situation in the first place. As to the media’s insistence that this is an earth shattering wake up call to “the establishment.” Crowley was the first Democratic incumbent to lose a primary this year and the even older, whiter, and uninspiring Senator Ben Cardin won his Maryland primary against a transgender veteran, who is held up as somewhat of a cult figure in circles that actively favor dismantling the Military Industrial Complex, by over 70 points…

There were obvious winners as a result of Ocasio-Cortez’s victory and the most obvious one has to be all women. Women have largely fueled the Blue Wave and they just picked up a guaranteed new seat in Congress. The next is Latinos who also added to their presence, followed by the Millennials. Anyone discounting the importance of our government having more faces that look like the real America is missing the source of so much of our momentum. Another big winner are people who believe in grass roots campaigns, volunteers, and the importance of actually knowing your district.

The clear cut loser was any of the Special Interest Money that contributed to Crowley’s $3+million in the attempt to buy access to someone believed to be a shoe in for the next Speaker of the House. If you are currently running a congressional campaign and most of your budget is tied up in the same kind of tired media buys and mailers that Crowley relied on, you might want to hit the panic button and rethink things. The Democratic establishment, people like Robby Mook, and all of their various consultants, strategists, data wizards, communications experts and other hangers on, who haven’t realized that the ground has long since shifted under their feet, were just soundly beaten by a rag tag group of first timers on a shoe string budget.

It doesn’t take a multi million-dollar budget to realize the importance of a viral campaign ad, knocking on doors, and handing out flyers with the common sense to print them in English, Spanish, and Bengali. Meanwhile, Senator Bill Nelson can talk policy with you for hours but doesn’t even have a Spanish language website while trying to hang on to his seat in Florida in a year Dems want to make immigration an issue. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s platform may have looked like the type of detail free poster you would see in the cafeteria during a middle school student body election but she got her message across and the only thing she didn’t actually promise her voters was longer recess and free candy…

Don’t get too lost in the identity politics issue either and keep in mind that the bulk of the difference makers in the NY-14 race’s turn out were college educated, millennial white voters who had long since been priced out of Brooklyn, let alone Manhattan. It is also infinitely easier to knock on doors in New York City than just about anywhere else in the country.

We’re already one day in, and Ocasio-Cortez is already on CNN and Fox News making routine rookie mistakes and feeding right into the divisive narrative that could doom the party moving ahead. There is no reason for her to ever be on Fox News, she won’t need a single GOP vote in the general, and there needs to be someone savvy enough to tell her this.

Congratulations to Ocasio-Cortez and to all of the volunteers and grassroots supporters who made this amazing upset happen. Do not dismiss many of the ideas she ran on. They are powerful and are not going away. Let’s just make sure we are in a position to address them in a realistic way and not concede the whole package to the GOP like we did in 2016. Do not get ahead of ourselves and make the disastrous assumption that what works in NY-14 will work in every other district in the country.

We have to remember that the crucial and immediate goal is to win control of Congress and provide a necessary check on Donald Trump and the GOP. Nobody wants the Democratic Party to be involved in internecine warfare more than Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon except maybe the New York Times and CNN, who have been relentlessly pushing the story. We need to stick together folks, and we have to win.

The disastrous announcement of Justice Kennedy’s retirement means that there will most likely be another conservative Supreme Court Justice already confirmed before the midterm elections. The threat level has been turned up to life or death and the only realistic solution to Donald Trump, the GOP, and a fascist dictatorship that will roll back all civil rights advances of the past 100- years is regaining the House and investigating any and everyone involved in the election of Donald Trump as well as everything him and his GOP cabal has done while in office. The fate of the free world relies on this mission.

What Happened Last Night? Alexandria's Earthquake-- And The DCCC Stinks Up The Room Again

NY-14 voters knew exactly what they were voting for

On Wednesday mornings after elections, I like giving a recap of the important things that happened, at least important to progressives. I was all set to start with the way Jason Crow and he's sleazeball allies-- we're looking at you, Steny-- stole the CO-06 election from Levi Tillemann. We'll get to that soon. First we should just say a few words about the biggest political upset since Señor Trumpanzee was declared the winner of the 2016 election. Or, in congressional terms, since Eric Cantor went down to some crackpot teabagger. 28 year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did exactly what she told me she would do several months ago... she defeated the #4 member of the House Democratic leadership, and most corrupt Democrat in Congress, Joe Crowley. She did it by working and working and working and working smart and working hard. Crowley, who's taken more bribes from Wall Street than any other House Democrat-- $7,148,700-- spent-- as of June 6th-- $3,354,370 to her $300,709. And outside independent spending... minimal. as you can see below, the Sierra Club spending $10 on Crowley and Blue America spending $11,000 on Alexandria. (Thanks all the small donors who chipped in here.)

Anyway, Alexandria beat him 15,897 (57.5%) to 11,761 (42.5%)-- a big win, especially considering EMILY's List absolutely refused to endorse her. Everyone is Congress who got involved, including big women's champion Kirsten Gillibrand, endorsed him and only Ro Khanna backed her (although it was a dual endorsement). No one from the establishment took her seriously. Now they have to learn how to pronounce her name. Randy Bryce was delighted and speaking for fellow grassroots progressives said, "Tonight was yet another example of the Beltway getting it wrong-- regular, working people are on a mission. We’re on a mission to stand for our values and win the monumental battles at hand. Alexandria proved people wrong and I’m excited to serve with her and unite in defying the odds." This is a great day for for NY-14, a great day for progressives, a great day for Alexandria's team (including the Justice Democrats), a great day for the Democratic Party, a great day for America, a miserable day for Mark Pocan.

Also in New York, the DCCC lost another one. Up in the Syracuse area (NY-24), all the local Democrats were firmly behind Dana Balter when suddenly, the DCCC-- ignoring the local Democratic Party, as they always do-- parachuted their own candidate into the race, Juanita Perez Williams. The locals were furious. The final score:

The DCCC should fight Republicans-- and first learn how to-- and stop fighting their own party's grassroots and progressives. Syracuse voters slapped them hard across the snout, just the way voters in Omaha, Nebraska and Lexington, Kentucky did recently.

Yesterday's big DCCC win was NRA ally and right-wing Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi in NY-22 (Utica, Rome, Oneida, Cortland, Binghamton), who ran unopposed and will now face Claudia Tenney in the DCCC's favorite kind of race-- forcing voters to pick between the lesser of two evils.



As long as we're on bad news, let's move on to Colorado, where one of the DCCC's worst candidates of the cycle, payday lender attorney Jason Crow, or one of his allies, sent out the robocall above. Sounds like Bernie, right? It isn't. Our Revolution endorsed Levi Tillemann, against the reactionary corporate shill Crow and Bernie didn't get involved. But every Democrat in the suburban Denver district got that illegal call yesterday. Notice there is no "paid for by" at the end of the ad. This is sickening and exactly what you can expect from Crow if he beats Mike Coffman, a moderate Republican incumbent who might be the lesser evil of these two. I know I'd never vote for Crow. He beat Tillemann 49,101 (66.1%) to 25,237 (33.9%) in a district that Bernie won in 2016.

Socially progressive Jared Polis, a Boulder-based congressman, had a big win in a 4-person race for governor. Will he be the first openly LGBT man ever elected to a governorship?

• Jared Polis- 264,464 (44.7%)
• Cary Kennedy- 145,908 (24.7%)
• Mike Johnston- 137,617 (23.3%)
• Donna Lynne- 43,010 (7.3%)

He'll face conservative Trumpist Walker Stapleton in November. The other gubernatorial race we were watching was in Maryland, where Berniecrat Ben Jealous came out on top in an 9-person Democratic race.

The only other race we were watching was the Oklahoma City congressional contest which goes to an August 28 primary runoff between garden variety Democrat Kendra Horn and progressive Tom Guild.

And there was one Republican race we were paying attention to-- NY-11 (Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn). Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm lost his come-back attempt to mainstream Republican incumbent Dan Donovan 12,774 (63.9%) to 7,219 (36.1%). We'll probably never hear from Grimm again, unless he's arrested for... judging by his past, it could be anything. Donovan will face wretched Blue Dog Max Rose in November, another lesser of two evils contest.

Why Is Joe Crowley Dissing The Bronx Part Of His Own District Again?

The editorial board of the NY Times slapped down Joe Crowley this week: If You Want to Be Speaker, Mr. Crowley, Don’t Take Voters for Granted. The editorial is especially poignant since Crowley hired a lobbyist to remove the Bronx part of his district removed from NY-14. Crowley is the machine boss of Queens and he doesn't like dealing with the residents of Throggs Neck, City Island, Eastchester Bay, Silver Beach, Locust Point, Schuylerville, Middletown, Pelham, Parkchester, Morris Park and Baychester. So he ignores them-- and hopes they don't vote. (In the 2014 midterm 79,790 of NY-14 voters came from Queens and just 48,580 came from the Bronx.

The Times' editors beef with Crowley was that, though he went to the Queens debate last week-- a debate he was not prepared for and clearly lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-- he skipped the Bronx debate entirely.

When asking New Yorkers for their vote, most candidates would begin by showing up.

Not Representative Joseph Crowley. No, Mr. Crowley, a 10-term Democratic congressman who reportedly has ambitions of serving as House speaker, chose to skip a debate Monday night with his primary challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He sent a surrogate instead, former City Councilwoman Annabel Palma.

This is the second primary debate in which Mr. Crowley was a no-show. A spokeswoman for Mr. Crowley said he had scheduling conflicts that wouldn’t allow him to attend the two debates, inevitably leaving voters to wonder-- what are we, chopped liver?

Indeed, the snubs should be galling not only to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Crowley’s constituents in New York’s 14th Congressional District, in Queens and the Bronx, but also to anyone who cares about the democratic process.

Mr. Crowley, 56, is a powerful congressman who leads the Queens County Democratic Party. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, has presented him his first major primary challenge in years. Despite long odds, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer, has garnered significant support, waging a high-energy campaign and positioning herself as a grass-roots alternative to Mr. Crowley.

The candidates have met once, in a Spectrum News NY1 debate last week at which both candidates held their own.

Instead of attending Monday evening’s debate, which was hosted by the Parkchester Times, Mr. Crowley visited a civic association meeting in Queens. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was left to debate Mr. Crowley’s chosen surrogate, Ms. Palma. Ms. Palma once represented the Bronx on the City Council and now serves in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration as a deputy commissioner at the Department of Social Services.

Mr. Crowley’s constituents might well now wonder whether he intends, if re-elected, to have Ms. Palma make his floor speeches and cast his votes as well.

Crowley aides said they had told the newspaper weeks ago that there was a scheduling conflict and had asked to change the event. The publisher of the Parkchester Times said he had no idea that Mr. Crowley wouldn’t attend.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter after the debate that in sending Ms. Palma, Mr. Crowley chose “a woman with slight resemblance to me” as his surrogate. Both Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Palma are Latina. Crowley aides dispute that Mr. Crowley chose Ms. Palma because of her ethnicity. A campaign spokesman, Vijay Chaudhuri, said Ms. Palma was chosen because she is a “phenomenal local leader.”

Mr. Crowley is far from the first candidate to decline to debate a challenger he is heavily favored to beat. But as a longtime incumbent with a powerful role as a party leader, he should relish, not shirk, a chance to make his case to voters. Mr. Crowley has decades of experience that can serve his constituents well in Congress. But his seat is not his entitlement. He’d better hope that voters don’t react to his snubs by sending someone else to do the job.

Blue America has been working with a very grassroots group in NY-14, Queens Against Crowley, to run a Facebook ad campaign and do robocalls to public housing residents in Queens and the Bronx that we hope will help people understand the difference between Crowley and Alexandria Ocasio. Below are a couple of the ads that have already gone out... if you'd like to listen. And if you want to chip in for more calls and ads, you can do that by tapping here and contributing to the Blue America Independent Expenditure Committee.

The Big Debate-- Ocasio Eviscerates Crowley In Queens

At Friday night's debate Alexandria Ocasio forced him into, Congressman Joe Crowley was completely out of his depth. When he promised this constituents "good paying jobs... affordable healthcare, they’re hoping that they can send their children to college and get a higher education... retirement security," it was only natural to wonder what he's been doing for the past 31 years since he's been in office. Crowley and his family live in Virginia and has virtually nothing to do with NY-14, the Queens/Bronx district he represents as some kind of absentee landlord. The district includes Steinway, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, East Elmhurst, College Point and Malba in Queens and Throggs Neck, Parkchester, Morris Park, Pelham, Baychester and Middletown, City Island and Eastchester Bay in The Bronx. The Democratic machine boss of Queens, a few years ago Crowley hired a lobbyist to get The Bronx out of his district-- too many people of color. The lobbyist failed and now Crowley's worst nightmare is coming true: a primary challenge from a young Hispanic woman who is forcing him to defend a record that has nothing to do with his own district, just his own careerism.

Briahna Gray reported on the debate for The Intercept. She painted it-- accurately-- as a contest between "establishment and outsider, old guard and upstart, experience and progress, status quo and change." Crowley had his lunch eaten. His "first remarks were those of a professional who felt confident enough to not prepare-- and who realized too late that he should have." He spent the whole debate babbling about fighting Trump, which he hasn't been very successful in doing for the last year and a half. Ocasio scored when she told him that "It’s not enough to fight Trump. We have to fight the issues that made his rise in the first place."

"Ocasio-Cortez’s stridency and urgent framing," wrote Gray, "highlighted the difference between lip service and substantive change, between a movement powered by small donors and a politician funded by Wall Street and luxury real estate developers. Whereas Crowley framed issues in terms of what he thinks his constituents want, Ocasio articulated them as goals she could deliver. Crowley’s nod to 'affordable healthcare' and the 'hope' of higher education sounded anemic next to Ocasio-Cortez’s demand for guaranteed jobs and free public college. And where Crowley emphasized his support of Barack Obama while underscoring how many thousands in the district are helped by the Affordable Care Act, Ocasio-Cortez’s focus was on getting more for her constituents in the form of Medicare for All.

Crowley’s experience and power in Washington are only useful for Queens and Bronx residents if he uses that power to benefit them as opposed to his high-end donors. Crowley’s promise to provide affordable housing felt empty, given that housing has only become more expensive during his long tenure-- especially since, as Ocasio-Cortez has pointed out repeatedly during the campaign, Crowley’s coffers have swelled with donations from luxury real estate developers. One exchange that was damaging to Crowley came when he defended a major development project by claiming that the local community board had been in favor of it. Ocasio-Cortez, however, had been at the vote and protested the development, and she corrected him: the board in fact voted overwhelming against it.

...Viewers looking for a spat about identity politics in the wake of The Intercept’s recent report that Crowley accused his opponent of making the race “about race” were disappointed. Issues of identity barely surfaced from Ocasio-Cartez, who mentioned the diversity of her district and the importance of representation, but left the identity wrangling to Crowley, who, in a clear effort to fend off accusations that he’s insufficiently diverse, sounded off a list the names of all the people of color who, as machine boss, he’s helped get into office. Her response: “This isn’t just about gender and race, but class.” And without missing a beat, she pivoted to a controversial zoning issue in the district which she says was approved will displacing working, disproportionately immigrant families to the benefit of luxury real estate developers.

 In fact, from her opening statement, Ocasio-Cortez made it clear that she wasn’t just an “identity” candidate. “In a district that is 85 percent Democrat, overwhelmingly working class and 70 percent people of color, we deserve a working class champion,” she said.

It’s possible that Ocasio-Cortez simply understands that her relationship to the community she hopes to represent speaks for itself, as was apparent when the candidates answered a question about their favorite restaurants in the district. Crowley offered “Daizies on Sunnyside,” an Italian restaurant.

“Taqueria Tlaxcalli,” Ocasio-Cortez answered with a smile, pronouncing it perfectly. Crowley looked nervous, perhaps wishing her were at Daizies that very moment.

The district has changed from the time when Crowley, who proudly touts his Irish immigrant roots, grew up in it. The question became, regardless of identity, whether Crowley is sufficiently in touch with the neighborhood to meet its evolving needs.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable moment in the short debate occurred when the moderator asked Crowley a question which Ocasio-Cortez has raised consistently throughout her campaign: Why do he and his family choose to live outside the district in the Washington D.C. area? Crowley explained that in his view, he was elected by the taxpayers to represent them in the capital. “And that’s what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m a lifelong New York City resident... My dad was a police officer, my mom was an immigrant,” he said (skipping over how his father also went to law school and became a partner in a firm). “I love this city. I went to school here,” he said. “I went to [Queens College]. This is my borough. This is my city and I love it very much.”

Ocasio-Cortez followed: “If a person loves their community they would choose to live here... They would choose to drink our water and breathe our air. It takes away fundamental understanding of our community when they’re raised somewhere else.”

Crowley struggled for an answer. “It’s very hard to raise a family,” he said. “I’m just doing the best that I can, quite frankly, as a father.” He seemed to come close to admitting the fundamental issue underlying Ocasio-Cortez’s point: It’s hard to raise kids in New York City. But it shouldn’t have to be.

Please consider helping Alexandria do something historic by replacing Crowley, something that will send a chill up the spine of every blue seat Democrat in Congress who thinks he or she can take their constituents for granted. Please tap the 2018 congressional thermometer on the right and contribute what you can.

The Democratic Fight Over House Leadership

You read about all these Democratic candidates who say they're not going to vote for Pelosi for Speaker. It's almost de rigueur for them to say it sometime during their campaign. She laughs and says she has the votes anyway. Does she? There have been more than a few discontented right-of-center Blue Dogs and New Dems already in Congress who say she should step now, primarily ambitious malcontents from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party like Kathleen Rice from Long Island. But lately enough normal Democrats are starting to whisper about her time being up as well. I don't know if she actually has the votes anymore.

Some members have told me she's trying to broker a deal that would allow her to become Speaker again if she promises to step down after 100 days and retire-- allowing for a special election is San Francisco with her daughter Christine likely to follow in her footsteps. (caveat: I like Christine; I don't like political dynasties).

On Wednesday, a normal, garden variety Democrat and heretofore Pelosi backer, Brian Higgins (D-NY), told the Buffalo News that he will not back Pelosi for another term as Democratic leader, complaining about the lack of a clear Democratic agenda as an alternative to Señor Trumpanzee and the increasingly radicalized GOP. He claims that his opinion is widely shared but only whispered. I've found the same thing, complicated by how so many people feel like her and feels personal loyalty towards her.

Higgins cited the lack of a clear Democratic agenda as an alternative to President Trump, as well as Pelosi's lack of interest in his bills to expand Medicare and invest in infrastructure, as the key sources of his frustration.

"She's listening, but this is my conclusion: She's aloof, frenetic and misguided," Higgins said.

..."I'm giving voice to a frustration that I hear every single day," he said. "It's members. I don't want to call anybody out. But this is the conversation that is taking place."

Higgins' said his disappointment in Pelosi stems in large part from what he sees as his party's weak efforts to develop a compelling alternative agenda to that of Trump, a Republican.

"Our leadership is out of touch with what is going on not only in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan but in Cheektowaga, West Seneca, Hamburg, Orchard Park and Lancaster," he said. "Democratic voters at least and voters writ large feel politically homeless, and it's because we are not offering something affirmative to give people hope and something to invest in, in the way that we want to do things."

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, teamed up last July to promote a Democratic agenda called "A Better Deal." The effort calls for increased federal investment in infrastructure, public housing and education, a series of political and labor reforms and an effort to reduce prescription drug prices.

Higgins stressed that he did not mean to criticize Schumer or his role in that effort, but the Buffalo congressman had harsh words for A Better Deal.

"It's thematic, it's well-intentioned, but nobody's buying it," Higgins said of the Democratic agenda. "It's Washington-speak."

Democrats would be better off, Higgins said, if they stressed two issues that he said aren't stressed strongly enough in A Better Deal: health care and infrastructure investment.

Most notably, he mentioned the bill that he introduced last year that would allow Americans from the ages of 50 to 64 to buy into Medicare, the federal health care program for Americans over age 65.

He said Pelosi and her staff have shown little interest in the bill.

"They say it does not comply with the essential benefits of the Affordable Care Act," Higgins said. "That is not true."

...Higgins argued that his Medicare expansion bill would offer health care to a particularly vulnerable population: middle-aged Americans who are coping with huge health insurance price increases because of Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. Every congressional district is home to approximately 14,000 such people, he said.

In addition, he said the bill would stabilize Medicare's finances, given that it would bring younger, healthier Americans into the system.

Higgins' Medicare expansion bill has 49 cosponsors, where his bill to invest $1.5 trillion in American infrastructure has none.

A Better Deal includes a proposal for a smaller, $1 trillion infrastructure plan, but Higgins said Democrats aren't doing a very good job of selling it to the public.

There's little mention of the fact that a huge infrastructure bill would create upwards of 34.5 million jobs and add 1.5 percentage points to the annual growth rate, thereby boosting the economy and cutting the federal deficit, Higgins argued.

"So infrastructure pays for itself and investment helps fund all the other Democratic priorities: education, health care and the environment," he said.

Higgins singled out Pelosi for failing to clearly articulate a Democratic agenda, and mentioned several current House members as possible alternatives to the current leader: Current Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Rep. Karen Bass of California and Rep. Joe Crowley of Queens-- a close friend of Higgins.

Karen Bass was elected Speaker of the California State Assembly in 2008, only the second woman to serve in that position. So she knows how to do it. Rated "A" by ProgressivePunch, she has one of the best voting records in Congress. Pelosi doesn't want to leave the speakership to Hoyer, which would be like leaving the speakership to K Street. The only thing worse would be leaving the speakership to Wall Street-- and that the most likely post-Pelosi Speaker: Joe Crowley, a crook, a machine hack, a Wall Street puppet and, until he decided to run for party-wide leadership, head of the Wall Street owned and operated New Dems. I can't think of anyone worse.

But he appears to have it sewn up. Most Democrats in the House are either enthusiastic about him or resigned to what he's made them all think is inevitable. What can we do? Crowley is virtually unknown in his own district where he's like an absentee landlord. He and his family live in Virginia. He has a credible primary challenge in less than 2 weeks (June 26). His opponent, Alexandria Ocasio, is more of the district than he is. And she's making a strong grassroots attempt to dislodge him. If she wins, he won't be Speaker-- and Wall Street will lose it's biggest patsy among House Democrats. Yesterday, Lee Fang, published a brilliant piece in The Intercept, How People Close The Joe Crowley Have Gotten Rich While The Queens Boss Has Risen In Congress. His rise to the speakership could be another death knell for the Democratic Party. The crooks may be tolerated-- bad enough-- but they should never be the top man.

The rise of Congressman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., has coincided with lucrative lobbying contracts for his younger brother, John Crowley, an attorney who goes by the first name Sean, and previously specialized in wills and estate law.

Sean Crowley serves as a partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, a powerhouse law firm with offices in Albany, New York City, and Washington, D.C., that advertises its ability to connect clients with congressional leadership.

Over the last decade, clients with interests before Congress have retained Sean Crowley through his lobbying firm, paying more than $4.5 million to influence and monitor government policies, according to a review of contracts by The Intercept.

Clients in recent years have included Oracle, AbbVie, NBCUniversal, Juniper Systems, New York Community Bancorp, Abbott Labs, and Elections Systems & Software.

In many cases, the interests of Sean Crowley’s clients have overlapped with his elder brother’s legislative and political work.

Earlier this year, Joe Crowley voted in favor of President Donald Trump’s effort to repeal a rule established by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau designed to prevent racial discrimination in the auto loan industry.

The legislation was heavily promoted by the National Automobile Dealers Association, the New York affiliate of which retains Sean Crowley as a lobbyist on regulatory issues, including city rules meant to curb predatory lending practices.

In 2013, Joe Crowley helped award $10 million in federal assistance to the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative, a merchants association in the Bronx that retained Sean Crowley as a lobbyist.

In 2009, both Crowley brothers worked to assist the life insurance settlement industry. A few months after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Joe Crowley, newly empowered with his first major leadership post at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a perch on the powerful committee dealing with tax legislation, traveled to Orlando, Florida, to address hundreds of financial representatives.

Joe Crowley, speaking to the Life Insurance Settlement Association’s annual meeting, reassured executives, and noted that Obama had made no mention of life insurance or life insurance settlements during his recent speech outlining his tax agenda, suggesting the audience might be spared from any future tax hikes.

“I think for your industry, that is a good thing,” said Crowley. “It doesn’t mean that you’re out of the woods, but it’s a good thing.”

The congressman encouraged the attendees to contact Democratic lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee and continue to lobby to share their views.

The friendly chat coincided with a lucrative contract for Crowley’s younger brother, Sean, who was retained by the Life Insurance Settlement Association earlier that year to influence tax legislation on Capitol Hill. Sean Crowley’s lobbying firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, went on to collect $140,000 on behalf of the life insurance settlement client.

The engagement with the life insurance settlement lobby also provided a lift to Joe Crowley. He was the largest recipient of Life Insurance Settlement Association political action committee donations during the 2010 election cycle.

...A report last year in the New York Post revealed that Joe Crowley has also paid nearly $70,000 in campaign funds to a company owned by Sean, called Killean Enterprises LLC. Joe Crowley claimed the money was rent for a campaign office, though the space owned by the younger Crowley brother is outside the district.

Before working as a lobbyist, Sean served as an attorney at a firm called Crowley, Crowley & Kaufman, a partnership with Scott Kaufman, the treasurer of Joe Crowley’s political action committee.

Joe Crowley has faced years of headlines charging that he engages in nepotism and unethical political patronage. As the boss of the Queens Democratic Party, he has nominated associates to the borough election commission, helped allies win election to the New York City Council, and appointed family friends to the Queens Surrogate’s Court.

The court appointments have gained increasing scrutiny after reports that associates of Joe Crowley are routinely selected as court-appointed guardians who have earned millions of dollars processing the estates of residents who pass away without establishing a will. Gerard Sweeney, an official at the Queens Democratic Party and a Crowley lieutenant, has raked in over $30 million administering estates through his position as an administration attorney at the Surrogate’s Court, which he won through his relationship with Joe Crowley.

Before becoming a lobbyist, Sean Crowley also served as a court-appointed guardian. Kaufman has continued to serve as one, earning around $550,000 from work assigned through the Surrogate’s Court. Notably, Kaufman now faces a state ethics probe for potentially violating court administration rules on compensation.

...The convergence of business and politics in the Queens Democratic machine reflects Joe Crowley’s ascent through the ranks of House Democratic leadership.

Joe Crowley has gathered power through high-level connections with well-placed political figures and business leaders. The previous lawmaker to serve in his seat, Rep. Thomas Manton, D-N.Y., another Queens Democratic Party boss, quietly selected Crowley as his successor just before the legal filing deadline in 1998, while deceiving the public and claiming he would run for re-election, a strategy that effectively prevented a competitive election.

In Congress, Joe Crowley has served as a liaison between K Street and the Democratic Party, often mobilizing opposition to bank regulations and other rules opposed by major donors to the party. In 2005, he won a low-ranking position with the DCCC, helping to serve on an outreach council to the business community. But Joe Crowley proved a prodigious fundraiser, helping to raise $5 million for the party, a capability that catapulted him to serve as vice chair of the DCCC four years later.

In 2009, he was elected as the leader of the New Democrat Coalition, a moderate [shame of Lee for referring to conservatives as "moderrates"] caucus that used its political weight to weaken financial reform. The coalition famously threatened to defeat the Dodd-Frank financial reform law unless amendments were added to provide less stringent rules on derivatives and pre-emption of stronger state-based bank regulations. As Joe Crowley and other New Democrat leaders marshaled political support for changes to the bill, the lawmakers went on a rapid fundraising spree, collecting checks from Wall Street banks that were seeking to influence the legislation.

The Office of Congressional Ethics opened an investigation into Joe Crowley’s financial reform-related fundraisers, though the House Ethics Committee, which outranks the OCE and is stacked with fellow lawmakers, later declined to continue the probe.

In the years since passage of financial reform, Joe Crowley has continued to chip away at tough rules on banks while vacuuming up Wall Street donations. In 2011, he co-authored a letter requesting that regulators withdraw and revise the fiduciary rule, a high-profile consumer safeguard designed to ensure that financial planners act only in the interests of their clients. The following year, after meeting with bank executives, Joe Crowley and other New Democrats sent a letter to regulators requesting a delay to the Volcker Rule, one of the signature restrictions on big banks, designed to prevent reckless proprietary trading.

The letters, again, coincided with a steady flow of bank and corporate contributions to Joe Crowley’s political action committees, which include a leadership PAC, a joint fundraising committee, and a personal PAC. Following the 2016 election, Joe Crowley was elected as chair of the House Democratic Caucus, making him the fourth ranking member in leadership.

Now, the Trump administration has signaled that it is working to unravel both provisions of financial reform criticized by Joe Crowley’s letters and is making headway in relaxing other aspects of the Dodd-Frank law. That Joe Crowley previously targeted the same financial regulations that are now in the crosshairs of Trump contrasts sharply with the image the Queens Democrat has portrayed in his campaign advertising, which depict him as a bold opponent of the president.

Despite a relatively conservative voting record while representing a deeply Democratic district-- Crowley not only has been a consistent friend to the banking lobby, but voted for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and a controversial bill in 2005 to limit consumer bankruptcy protections-- he is currently maneuvering to become the next speaker of the House.

Last month, members of the New Democrat caucus provided strong support for a Republican-led bill to increase the bank threshold for systemic risk assessments, raising the size at which regulators provide additional scrutiny from $50 billion to $250 billion in bank assets.

Facing pressure from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive challenging Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary on June 26, the Queens Democratic Party chief abandoned his moderate pro-bank colleagues. This time, he bucked his New Democrat colleagues and voted against the bill weakening Dodd-Frank. Crowley, facing a tightening race, has begun to spend heavily on television to stave off a major upset, and has agreed to debate Ocasio-Cortez. (It will air this eveningy on NY1 in the 7:00 hour.)

As I tried explain yesterday afternoon-- here-- many Democrats in Congress who want to stay on his good side or because they are afraid of him and because freshmen and sophomores are largely unaware of what a crooked conservative Crowley is are going along with his rise. The co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Mark Pocan, who has the 3rd best voting record in the whole Congress-- and who should be a candidate for Speaker himself-- is actually whipping for Crowley and telling naive progressives that Crowley is trustworthy and a fellow progressive! Pocan is a good man... and he should know better. I would like everyone reading this to please consider helping replace Joe Crowley and the threat he is to the Democratic Party and to the country-- one Trump is already too much-- by contributing to Alexandria Ocasio's campaign. And you can do that by tapping on the Blue America 2018 congressional campaign thermometer on the right and giving what you can.