The Next Speaker of the House

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer (Getty Images)

by Thomas Neuburger

A short note to let you know that if Nancy Pelosi doesn't step down as Speaker, it's possible, though not likely, that she'll be challenged when the new House convenes in January. With a smaller majority this time (from 232 to maybe 227), it won't take many of her opponents to be able to gridlock the Speaker's vote until there's a compromise candidate. With a caucus of 227, it would take only 11 members to hold the election hostage. 

But even if that doesn't happen and she retains her position until 2022 when she's promised to retire, the question of the next Democratic caucus leader is an important one. Who that might be is anyone's guess, but most people's money is on Hakeem Jeffries — it's an open secret he's being groomed for the job. (More on Jeffries here.)

Which brings to mind this event from 2012. The fifth-ranking House leadership position was vice-chair of the caucus. Corrupt New Dem Joe Crowley wanted that position, but he was opposed by progressive Barbara Lee. Finally, progressives thought, someone they could support!

But it was not to be. Prior to a vote in the caucus — and likely to prevent one — Lee was talked into resigning (or talked herself into it after counting the votes). Politico put it this way:

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that she is dropping her leadership bid in what would’ve been the only contested race among House Democrats.

This means Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) [former vice-chair of the New Dem Caucus]  is a sure bet to become the next vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, the fifth-ranking post in leadership. …

Lee, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she was withdrawing her bid in order to “unify” lawmakers around Crowley. [emphasis added]

No real progressive wants this kind of unity this time around. Jeffries is a Party man, not as corrupt as Crowley, but no AOC either. He'll do what the donors say to do.

Real progressives want people like these deposed, not promoted, even if it means losing this time around to build a base for the fight next time — and even if it means pitting the base against the Establishment the way Keith Ellison's run for DNC Chair roiled the base and riled the leaders.

At some point, a progressive has to fight for the base, against the leadership, and do it openly, even if it exposes Party leaders to (well-deserved) scorn.

If no one on "our" team dares to do that, we've gone nowhere and we're getting nowhere, no matter how many "bold progressives" we send into that pit. 

By the way, if there was any year in which current Party leadership should be challenged, it's this year, after the debacle of this election. Just saying.

(Note: For those who like my work, I'm launching a Substack site. You can get more information here. If you decide to sign up — it's free — my thanks to you!)

  

Marianne Williamson Draws A Line In The Sand-- For Shahid Buttar And For David Kim

A few weeks ago Marianne Williamson wanted to discuss the congressional election in CA-34, a district that starts a few blocks from my house. I can walk there; before the new reality, I used to have dinner there a couple of times a week. And Konbi, my favorite sandwich shop-- also, according to Bon Appétit, the best sandwich shop in America-- is in the district. CA-34 includes Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Koreatown, Mount Washington, El Serano, Cypress Park, Boyle Heights, DTLA (the Arts District, the Financial District, the Fashion District), Dodger Stadium, City Terrace, Chinatown, Bunker Hill, Little Tokyo, Newton Park and Skid Row. It borders on Adam Schiff's district, Ted Lieu's district, Judy Chu's district, Karen Bass' district and Lucille Roybal-Allard's district. It's the heart of Los Angeles.

The district is 64% Hispanic, 20% Asian and 10% white. The $40,215 median income makes it one of the 20 poorest congressional districts in the country. It's one of the bluest districts in the country (D+35), gave Romney 14% of the vote and Trump 11%. It was the only district in Los Angeles to give Bernie a majority in the 2016 primary. The congressman representing CA-34 is Jimmy Gomez. Progressive Punch rates his voting record-- the 16th most progressive-- a solid "A." The only Californians voting further left are Mark DeSaulnier, Judy Chu and Ro Khanna. Gomez's #16 compares well to actual heroes of the revolution like AOC and Rashida Tlaib (tied at #18), Barbara Lee (#22) and Ilhan Omar (#37). But Marianne wasn't calling me to discuss endorsing Gomez's reelection campaign. She knows the meaninglessness of these kinds of ratings and wanted to know what I thought of David Kim, Gomez's opponent.

David's a 36 year old anti-corruption attorney whose campaign motto is "Financial Freedom, Love & Justice for All" The jungle primary was March 3 and the two who emerged to face off in November were Gomez with 49.5% of the vote (just under 50) and David Kim with 23.2% of the vote. Turnout was abysmal-- 34,034 voters in total. After the vote, the other 3 candidates (including the Republican) all endorsed David Kim. This video will give you a good idea about what his campaign is all about and why he has been gaining momentum:





I asked him how he's going to persuade voters to replace Gomez and he told me that Gomez isn't "a true progressive and does the bare minimum, only chiming in to support certain legislation once Nancy Pelosi does so first. He is scared to lead in legislation and just follows. If he were a true progressive, he should be supporting Ilhan Omar's HR 6515 and not HR 6314 in place of that. Moreover, Jimmy doesnt have a pulse with the suffering of our people here in L.A. I have nothing personal against him but when career politicians have been in office too long, they're unable to connect with the suffering of the people no matter how hard they try because they've been in their political cash bubbles for so long... [W]e need a federal representative who will fight and lead for us, not do everything Nancy says. We have corrupt local politician/developer relationships/money rampant in L.A. and our federal representative hasn't stepped in because they're all part of the same pack, with the same campaign donors... 98.8% of Jimmy's campaign contributions are from PACs, corporate PACs, banks, developers, military industrial complex/defense, etc.. And our people in L.A. don't like that kind of energy feeding our federal representative. We want to move away from a Jimmy Gomez [towards someone more like] Ro Khanna. We need someone to take a firm stance on clean campaign finance reform, while addressing homelessness, housing and these systemic issues that haven't been addressed for years... Nothing personal against Jimmy. But people are suffering and we don't want to waste another 2 years by electing someone who just follows."

Marianne endorsed him. That was a big step towards a kind of political clarity that differentiates between real leadership and... well, however you want to describe professional politicians who try to be on the right side of their districts' prevailing sentiments.

Marianne was just getting started though. She asked me about the grassroots progressive taking on Nancy Pelosi, Shahid Buttar, which began a process that led to the video up top. As she noted, she's "a lifelong Democrat who has become has become very very concerned with the corporatist direction of the party in too many cases." Her own experience in running for president this year showed her, she said, "how the control of certain forces, at the expense of progressive voices, is a direction that is taking the Democratic Party away from the principles" that she was-- like many of us-- raised to believe the party stands for. The Heroes Act Pelosi pushed through Congress on Friday snapped something in Marianne. She is insisting that there should be $2,000 a month for everyone until the pandemic is under control, as well as Medicare for All... "We need a show of compassion for the American people that is simply not the agenda these days for the corporate-backed Democratic Party."

"Progressives," she said, "can't just be sidelined all the time... or pandered to, suppressed. It's got to stop. Let's stop it now. ShahidButtar.com." Please take a look at the candidates Marianne has already endorsed by clicking on the thermometer on the right. And don't be surprised if she gets behind others taking on the Ancien Régime beyond just Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Mitch McConnell, Carolyn Maloney, Gregory Meeks, Albio Sires and Susan Collins. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, Debbie Wasserman Schultz doesn't find herself with a Marianne Williamson problem down in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, please take a look at the candidates, like David Kim, Shahid Buttar, Mckayla Wilkes, Andrew Romanoff and Betsy Sweet, who Marianne has already endorsed. And please contribute what you can to their campaigns at the page the thermometer will take you to.

Impeachment Is Too Good For Him

When Congress authorized $1,200 emergency checks to American families, the word "emergency" connoted that they were to go out FAST. Instead the always dysfunctional and incompetent Trumpist regime dawdled to accommodate Trump's horrifying narcissism. After all, the IRS had to figure out how the millions of checks would include Trump's signature. The Washington Post reported that made the checks late by days. They're wrong; it put back the checks by two weeks. Know anyone without savings to fall back on who has been worried about rent and bills and food? Trump doesn't.

This is the "dear colleague" letter Nancy Pelosi sent to every Democrat in the House yesterday:

This Easter Weekend provided me with a time for deeper prayer and reflection. This is an unbearably sad time with all Americans sharing the same devastating experience: we are grieving for those who have died from the coronavirus, we are fearful for our health and especially the health of our loved ones and we are heartbroken for our children who are unable to be in school and with their friends.

As Americans, we are suffering from pressures of economic hardship. All of us want to resume the precious and beautiful lives that America’s unique freedoms provide. We will overcome this moment, but success requires one fundamental from which all actions will follow: we need the truth. To succeed in this crisis, we must insist on the truth, and we must act upon it!

In order to move forward, we must first understand the truth of what has put us in this position:

• The truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.

• The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster.

• The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.

• The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.

• The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.

• The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others. 


The truth is, from this moment on, Americans must ignore lies and start to listen to scientists and other respected professionals in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

Here’s more that is true: the American people want us to work together. In March, Congress passed three bipartisan bills to address this crisis. The first bill passed the House on March 4 and focused on testing, testing, testing.

The truth is, one month later, we do not have appropriate testing. The President continues to obfuscate, saying we have more testing than any other country in the world. The truth is that only 1 percent of Americans have been tested. The failure to test is central to the spread of the virus and its impact on those most vulnerable in our society. The failure to test is dangerous and deadly, and without testing, we cannot resume our lives.

The President has said that we are engaged in a war. Leaders understand that in war, force protection of our troops is the top priority. In this war, force protection means for health care, police, fire, EMS, food and other essential workers to have the protective equipment that they need to save lives without risking their own.

The truth is that we do not have the necessary hospital equipment. Without ventilators and other equipment, our health care workers cannot save the lives of those they serve.

Once we all share the truth of what took place and what is currently happening, including in our minority communities, we can work together to solve these problems.

There are important decisions ahead. We can go forward confident that America, its competent and honest leaders and its people are fully capable of making the right choices and decisions to restore the American greatness that has been squandered.

But if we are not working from the truth, more lives will be lost, economic hardship and suffering will be extended unnecessarily and our children will not be safe, happy and learning. Our future will be healthy and prosperous if we no longer tolerate lies and deceit.

We must recognize the truth, we must speak the truth, we must insist on the truth and we must and will act upon it.

Respectfully and sadly,

Nancy

Pelosi’s Disastrous Impeachment-Lite Has Given Trump an Election Boost-- A Guest Post By Peter Daou

Sometimes we published guest posts to show a different point of view. This isn't one of them. The point of view in this guest post is a point of view we embrace entirely. In fact, if you'd like to contribute to Pelosi's primary rival, Shahid Buttar, you can do it here at the DownWithTyranny ActBlue endorsement page.
-DWT

-by Peter Daou

As the most powerful Democrat in America, Nancy Pelosi has a singular responsibility to lead effective opposition to an increasingly lawless and extremist Republican Party. She has failed spectacularly and should be replaced as Speaker.

The evidence of her failure-- and that of the entire Democratic Party leadership in the 21st century-- stares us in the face every day. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Stephen Miller, Bill Barr, Kellyanne Conway, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Brett Kavanaugh, Mike Pompeo, Devin Nunes, and their extremist ilk are conducting a full-scale assault on our checks and balances, on the rule of law, on women’s rights, on immigrant families, on basic human values. A motley assemblage of GOP crooks, theocrats, and authoritarians runs the country, emboldening white supremacists and torturing migrants with impunity.

If Pelosi and her fellow Democratic leaders are playing a “long game,” as her cheerleaders insist, it’s unclear what the objective is. Since the early 2000s (when Pelosi admittedly gave Bush a free pass for a war based on lies), that “long game” has led to the rise of a Republican autocrat, the empowerment of oligarchs, and the wholesale pillaging of the working class. But you wouldn’t know it if you perused the corporate media’s coverage of the Speaker. Pelosi’s round-the-clock press operation ensures a steady stream of fawning corporate media fluff pieces about her ‘7-dimensional chess.’

A blaring “Trust Pelosi” brigade greets any online criticism. Her fans swarm Twitter threads, crowing about her “brilliant strategy” and “perfect timing.” She “gets under Trump’s skin” they declare gleefully, as though a racist autocrat who kidnaps migrant children cares about who points fingers or claps sideways at him. Pelosi takes full advantage of the glorification of her empty gestures, with a full panoply of merchandise for sale on her official website.

The dichotomy between the glowing perceptions of Pelosi and her real world actions is perfectly illustrated by her now-iconic clap during Trump’s 2019 State of the Union speech. To this day, that gesture is put forth as incontrovertible proof that Pelosi alone has the power to “rattle” Trump. In reality, Pelosi confirmed that she was clapping for Trump. “It wasn’t sarcastic,” Pelosi explained. The Democratic Speaker-- the party leader-- felt it was appropriate to applaud a president who has stoked neo-Nazi terrorism, abused migrant families, incited violence against the free press, coddled dictators, alienated allies, and who poses (according to her) a “threat” to the Constitution.

To add insult to injury, Pelosi has willingly given Trump legislative wins that will boost his reelection chances, including extending the Patriot Act, passing a massive military budget with a “Space Force,” and bizarrely, announcing a trade bill an hour after Democratic leaders unveiled Articles of Impeachment. Perhaps most egregiously, as Trump was torturing asylum-seeking families in the spring of 2019, Pelosi said she was praying for him and that she and Chuck Schumer “had hoped to give him a signature infrastructure achievement.”

In stark contrast to her gentle prayers for Trump, Pelosi has displayed dripping scorn for the left, eagerly reprimanding and marginalizing progressive members of Congress, calling the Green New Deal the “green dream or whatever” and rushing to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar even after Omar apologized for insensitive comments.

Pelosi has long been a central figure in the Democratic establishment’s performative opposition to the GOP, feigning outrage and sending strongly-worded letters while caving to Republicans on a wish list of monstrous policies. And media elites continue to praise her as she upholds a corrupt establishment that enriches billionaire plutocrats.

But Pelosi isn’t alone in preserving the toxic status quo. Barack Obama has recently gone after progressive activists, while Michelle Obama has said she shares values with George W. Bush-- the former president whose horrendous policies caused untold death and suffering. Joe Biden has indicated that he doesn’t want to defeat the GOP too badly, because he thinks we need radical Republicans as a “countervailing force.” Chuck Schumer has rolled over for Mitch McConnell’s court-packing. And Hillary Clinton appeared on Howard Stern’s show to ridicule Bernie Sanders.

Pelosi recently admitted knowing that Bush lied America into war, but didn’t think war crimes were an impeachable offense. And her strategy on Trump’s impeachment has been nothing short of disastrous. She rejected month after month of relentless grassroots pressure, scoffing at progressive activists and members of Congress, including Al Green, Maxine Waters, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib, who were adamant that Trump should be impeached when Democrats took control of the House.

While her fans gushed over her “patience” and “wisdom,” Pelosi refused to impeach Trump as he trampled rights, obstructed justice, ignored the law, disgraced his office, enriched his family, abused migrant children, and incited racist violence. When the grassroots pressure became overwhelming, she seized on a whistleblower complaint that Trump was pulling another foreign interference scheme and gunning for Joe Biden, immediately ditching all her arguments against impeachment.

The reversal was stunning. Pelosi quickly wrapped herself in the mantle of the Founders, stole all the progressive arguments for impeachment that she had derided all year, and claimed credit as the champion of constitutional oversight and accountability. And of course the elite media and her social media fans heaped praise on her for playing the “long game.”

Unfortunately for America and the world, Pelosi’s impeachment-lite approach-- where Trump is effectively exonerated for every heinous abuse of power except trying to cheat to beat Joe Biden-- is an epic failure. The impeachment hearings came far too late and were far too narrowly-focused, probing the intricacies of Ukraine policy for weeks as polls flatlined and the public lost interest. “The level of readers’ social media engagement on stories about impeachment has steeply declined since September,” reported Axios.

For most of 2019, Pelosi’s supporters vehemently argued that the Democratic leadership’s decision to ignore the progressive grassroots and wait for a whistleblower would lead to massive public support and GOP defections. The reverse is now the case: Democratic defections and waning public interest. And to top it off, Mitch McConnell now has free rein to make a big show of acquitting Trump.

The worst moral lapse of all is that if Democrats knew the inevitable outcome of impeachment was Senate acquittal, why would they avoid impeaching Trump for crimes against humanity at the border, not to mention all his other hideous abuses, at least to make a point for history that we don’t tolerate child torture? Their explanation for absolving Trump of atrocities at the border defies logic: ‘It’s easier to explain Ukraine policy to the public than caging children.’ Really? In what world? The ugly fact is that although Trump’s “family separation” policy is unique to his administration, Democrats are also culpable for caging children.

In the end, we must face the truth that the Democratic Party leadership is comfortable and complicit. Trump has been a boon to their fundraising. We cannot look to them for true accountability. They are part of the broken system that must be overhauled. To those who incessantly repeat “trust Pelosi, she knows what she’s doing, she’s playing the long game,” this isn’t a game. It’s people’s lives. And now more people will pay the price for this disastrous impeachment-lite.

Pelosi's Jihad Against Progressive Ideas And Progressive Leaders

I've been talking to an increasing number of progressive candidates for Congress who have told me that they have no intention of voting for Pelosi as speaker in 2021. Flagstaff progressive and AZ-01 congressional candidate Eva Putzova head it right on the head: "If we are going to address climate and healthcare crises and inequality, we need leaders who understand that yesterday's politics won't work. When elected I will support a leader who is not out of touch with working class people's struggles and who can see how visionary the Green New Deal and Medicare for All are. Speaker Pelosi who publicly campaigns for my opponent (who voted with Trump nearly 60 percent of the time in the 2017-2018 cycle) fails to see what my generation will no longer tolerate: lack of political courage."

In the past it has always been Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who have tried to depose Pelosi. She has been protected from being ousted by progressives. Now-- with her stands against the popular progressive agenda-- she will not only not be able to count on progressives to save her, she will find many of the progressive challengers being undermined by her DCCC looking for an alternative candidate. One, for example, told me she's already talking with other Democrats about replacing Pelosi with Pramila Jayapal. "Had AOC introduced the Green New Deal resolution while Boehner or Ryan was speaker," one candidate in the middle of the Blue America vetting process told me, "they would have bottled it up in committee and let it die there. That's exactly what Pelosi has done."

Pramila Jayapal introduced Medicare-for-All last February. Pelosi has that bottled up in committee to-- in committees chaired by her corrupt conservative posse who will absolutely not allow it to pass. Jayapal now has 118 co-sponsors, the most recent being Hakeem Jeffries, who Pelosi is grooming to take over for her eventually. Many progressives fear, the Green New Deal and Medicare for All will never even get votes while Pelosi is speaker. Shan Chowdhury is running for a seat held by crooked Pelosi ally and Queens political boss Gregory Meeks. Meeks does whatever Pelosi tells him to do; Shan is a different kind of leader. "We could use a breath of fresh air," he told me. "The premise for her tenure as the speaker has come and gone. With every challenge working people are facing today, we need leaders who will align with the values that can help us move in the right direction. A leader who will set the the example by not taking any corporate money, sees the healthcare is a human right for all, and will be bold on supporting the Green New Deal." To see the growing list of progressive candidates Pelosi's DCCC is sabotaging, clock on the 2020 congressional thermometer on the right.

She did an interview with Bloomberg News yesterday and the take-away was her disdain for Medicare-for-All. As Sahil Kapur reported yesterday, there was even worse than that in the interview. She was chastising Democratic candidates for the presidency-- particularly Bernie and Elizabeth-- that "those liberal ideas that fire up the party’s base are a big loser when it comes to beating President Donald Trump." THat's what's wrong with Pelosi-- she doesn't believe in Democratic values any longer. The American people have moved in a progressive direction at the same time she was moving in a neo-liberal direction. She's now so out of touch with America that she's endangering the party itself. The only politician in America more hated than Pelosi is Moscow Mitch.

Proposals pushed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders like Medicare for All and a wealth tax play well in liberal enclaves like her own district in San Francisco but won’t sell in the Midwestern states that sent Trump to the White House in 2016, she said.

“What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan,” Pelosi said at a roundtable of Bloomberg News reporters and editors on Friday. “What works in Michigan works in San Francisco-- talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.”

“Remember November,” she said. “You must win the Electoral College.”

Pelosi was careful not to back any one candidate in the party’s contentious presidential contest, but didn’t hold back when asked about which ideas should-- and shouldn’t-- form the party’s case to American voters. Or about her fears that candidates like Warren and Sanders are going down the wrong track by courting only fellow progressives – and not the middle-of-the-road voters Democrats need to win back from Trump.



This is familiar ground for Pelosi, who has spent the year tussling with the “Squad,” a vanguard of liberal newcomers to the House led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

“As a left-wing San Francisco liberal I can say to these people: What are you thinking?” Pelosi said. “You can ask the left-- they’re unhappy with me for not being a socialist.”

Polling has consistently shown the Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, and a wealth tax on multimillionaires (like Pelosi, whose net worth is over $120 million) are hugely popular across the country. And Pelosi hasn't been a "left-wing San Francisco liberal" in decades and is best described today as a middle of the road partisan hack and neo-liberal from a San Francisco that is barely recognizable to people who lived there when Pelosi was first elected to Congress in the 1980s. "Her call for caution," wrote Kapur, "is backed by the authority she carries as a giant of Democratic politics who rose from the left wing of the party to become the first female speaker of the House and has earned grudging praise from her foes for her skill as a legislator. She spoke as polls show a significant tightening of the race with Warren edging up on Joe Biden at the top of the field. A New York Times/Siena College survey of Iowa Democrats released Friday showed the top four candidates-- Warren, Sanders, Biden and Pete Buttigieg-- all bunched up in a five-point spread at the top of the field." He asserted that her line reflects that of many other geriatric leaders like Pelosi as well as the special interest donors who have funded her career and who have always and will always "believe that left-wing policies will alienate swing voters and lead to defeat."

Warren and Sanders are betting on a different theory-- that voters who float between parties are less ideological and can be inspired to vote for candidates who represent bold new change in Washington.

Pelosi said Democrats should seek to build on President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act instead of pushing ahead with the more sweeping Medicare for All plan favored by Warren and Sanders that would create a government-run health care system and abolish private insurance.

“Protect the Affordable Care Act-- I think that’s the path to health care for all Americans. Medicare For All has its complications,” Pelosi said, adding that “the Affordable Care Act is a better benefit than Medicare.”

Warren has been under pressure from Biden and other candidates to demonstrate that her plan wouldn’t require tax increases on middle-class Americans.

On Friday, her campaign said it would cost $20.5 trillion and would be funded by raising taxes on large corporations and the wealthy, cracking down on tax evasion, reducing defense spending and putting newly legalized immigrants on the tax rolls. The Biden campaign called that plan “mathematical gymnastics” intended to hide the fact that it would result in higher taxes for the middle class.

Warren swatted back at the criticism, accusing Biden of “running in the wrong presidential primary.”

“Democrats are not going to win by repeating Republican talking points,” the Massachusetts senator said in Des Moines, Iowa. “So, if Biden doesn’t like that, I’m just not sure where he’s going.”

Pelosi also expressed worries about voters’ reactions to the Green New Deal, which Sanders and Warren also support, that calls for radical, rapid reductions in carbon emissions. “There’s very strong opposition on the labor side to the Green New Deal because it’s like 10 years, no more fossil fuel. Really?” she said.

Pelosi said Democrats must stick with pay-as-you-go rules to avoid adding to the debt, a point of contention with left-leaning figures who want to permit more deficit spending for ambitious liberal priorities.

“We cannot just keep increasing the debt,” she said [sounding far more like Herbert Hoover than Franklin Roosevelt].

Pelosi added that she doesn’t understand the race to the left among some candidates, because “Bernie and Elizabeth own the left, right? Is anybody going to out-left them?”

She stopped short of endorsing a tax on wealth, an idea that Warren and Sanders have embraced as a means to reduce income inequality and expand the safety net. The speaker said she wants “bipartisan” tax changes that lower the debt and fix the “dumb” Republican tax cuts of 2017.

She also steered clear of backing a cap on pay for chief executive officers.

Pelosi is living in a different political reality. It pains me to say it but she's old and increasingly senile

Will County progressive and congressional candidate Rachel Ventura (IL-11) reminded us last night that "We are living through a period of American history that is facing enormous challenges, the most pressing of course is the climate crisis. These unprecedented challenges require bold, visionary leadership that is willing and able to steer the ship in the right direction. We don't know who will be running for Speaker of the House, but my obvious hope is that there is a progressive choice or a coalition of new leaders. I will work with the Progressive Caucus and the Squad to position ourselves strategically to be in the best position possible to pass a progressive agenda. For the time being it is important that we get as many progressives into Congress along with a progressive president."

Friday night at the big Democratic Party rally in Iowa, Elizabeth Warren shredded Mayo Pete-- a real Pelosi-kind of candidate-- without mentioning his name: "I'm not running some consultant-driven campaign with some vague ideas that are designed not to offend anyone" and went on to also cut down the other Pelosi fave, Status Quo Joe, saying Biden thinks "running some vague campaign that nibbles around the edges is somehow safe, but if the most we can promise is business as usual after Donald Trump, then Democrats will lose."

The newest polling from YouGov for The Economist asks registered voters if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of various American politicians. Pelosi faired extremely poorly.

• Pelosi-- favorable-38% ; unfavorable- 47%
• Trump-- favorable- 40%; unfavorable- 54%
• Bernie-- favorable- 40%; unfavorable- 46%
• Elizabeth-- favorable- 40%; unfavorable- 42%
• Status Quo Joe-- favorable- 39%; unfavorable- 47%
• Mayo Pete-- favorable- 34%; unfavorable- 35%
• Schumer-- favorable- 31%; unfavorable- 42%
• Moscow Mitch-- favorable- 26%; unfavorable- 49%
• Pence-- favorable- 37%; unfavorable- 48%

So that's 47% for the 2 progressives and 37% for the 3 conservatives

The Self-Set Impeachment Trap

Krystal Ball: This is the hill that Democratic leaders chose to die on?

by Thomas Neuburger

A note about the coming and much-cheered impeachment of Donald Trump. Of course impeachment was always the right thing to do. But having waited so long to do it, and having chosen Joe Biden's integrity as the hill to die on, the decision to impeach Donald Trump now may be a trap for Democrats — in fact, several of them.

If so, they did it to themselves. Let me explain.

First, impeachment is without doubt the right thing for Congress to do — or would have been when cause was first given for doing it. Impeachment is the correct and only constitutional tool the Founders gave the government for removing a president guilty of the kinds of official sins Donald Trump has been decried for since his inauguration. Impeachment is the Founders' gift to a people that, just a few generations earlier, had seen the English Parliament use the only tool it had for removing a head of state — by removing the life from his body.

Impeachment is the Constitution's version of the English Civil War, minus the war.

Congress could, and should, have impeached Donald Trump in 2018, for example, when ICE was caught keeping immigrant children in cages, some of whom later died. He could, and should, have been impeached in 2017 when Puerto Rico was left, after Hurricane Maria had devastated the island, to fend for itself because it wasn't white enough, Republican enough or American enough (Puerto Rico is a possession, not a state) to merit Trump-controlled federal relief.

Congress could have written articles of impeachment early in 2017, and should have, based on Trump's violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. They could, if they chose, have written them decrying his repeated calls for rightwing violence, calls that started during the campaign.

They could have impeached Donald Trump in any year of his presidency for any number of harms. Instead they didn't, saying as late as August 2019 in Nancy Pelosi's words, "The public isn't there on impeachment."

In other words, the rightness of impeachment was never a consideration for Democratic Party leaders.

Democratic Leadership: Impeachment Is a Partisan Political Decision

Pelosi's statement that "the public isn't there" signals with no confusion that impeaching Donald Trump is viewed by Party leaders as a political choice and not a constitutional duty. It says that Party leaders see impeachment as a bare calculation in which the benefit to the Party — electoral victory — must be served before the benefit to the nation — drawing a line in the sand that says "No president should ever do this again" — is even considered.

If Democrats are this naked and open about saying the act of impeachment, even of Donald Trump, is justified only if there's a political benefit, why should the nation not say the same of them, that all they seek is a political benefit, just as nakedly and openly?

Of course Republicans will say that. But what will the larger nation think? What have Democratic leaders led them to think?

(Nancy Pelosi now asserts, of course, that her turnaround is principled, a result of Trump's "betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections." But Ryan Grim of The Intercept offers plenty of evidence that part of what changed was the mood and politics of her House caucus and not her views on Congress's constitutional duty.)

So that's trap one, that the Party's turnaround on impeachment both is merely political and will be seen as political, since a principled position would have been acted on years ago. The nation needed better than that from Democratic leaders, needed them to act from a stronger, more defensible position. The nation didn't get what it needed, and both Democrats and the nation may soon pay a price for their failure.

Is Joe Biden's Integrity the Hill the Party Wants Die On?

The second trap is this, that the impeachment inquiry will be Joe Biden–specific — narrowly drawn around the four corners of Trump's alleged attempt to get the president of Ukraine to help him find re-election dirt on one of his political rivals.

In other words, none of the other matters mentioned above — the ICE detentions, the deaths of children and other detainees, the post-Maria destruction-by-inaction of Puerto Rico, or any of a hundred other deeds (remember the Muslim ban?) — will figure into the inquiry or the articles of impeachment the House will vote on. None of those principles of presidential behavior will be adjudicated.

Instead, the entire drama will turn on two questions only: Did Donald Trump attempt to blackmail the government of Ukraine into aiding his re-election campaign? Did Joe Biden, as President Obama's VP, blackmail the government of Ukraine into feathering his son's nest, or keeping it feathered?

Both questions will be examined — endlessly — before the public in the next few months. Those questions and only those.

About the first, though the evidence is not yet in, it's likely true that Trump did indeed attempt to bully the president of Ukraine into helping his campaign. Even Reason magazine has its doubts about Trump's innocence.

But if so, is that electoral use of "a foreign power," though more brutish and overt, different in kind than any of the other intrusions-by-invitation into our electoral process?

For one, the Fusion GPS material was developed with the aid of assets or ex-assets (is there a difference?) of British intelligence and deployed by the Clinton campaign before it was deployed by the FBI. Further, I'd be shocked if Israel and Saudi Arabia hasn't helped a number of our electoral campaigns, given the money and geopolitical power at stake in these elections, their ties to leaders of both parties, and the financial and intelligence assets available to do the work.

That's one part of the discussion the Party and the nation are headed for. Buckle up.

The other discussion will be around Biden's actual dealings with the Ukraine government as Obama's VP, actions which were sanctioned, let's not forget, by President Obama himself.

Were Biden's dealings corrupt? Again, the evidence is not in.

The Hill's John Solomon, who it must be added leans decidedly right, has written that he was told by several Ukrainian law enforcement officials, including a deputy head in the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office, that they have "[f]inancial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who managed U.S.-Ukraine relations for the Obama administration".

On the other hand, Lanny Davis, who it must be added leans decidedly centrist, has written that he "couldn’t find a single fact in the [Washington] Post story about anything improper by Hunter Biden due to his service on the Burisma board, much less anything criminal."

If there's no smoking gun in the Biden-Ukraine case, is that evidence of innocence when the facts of the case suggest on their surface otherwise? After all, did Hunter Biden not receive a great deal of money for being on the Burisma board? Is he not Joe Biden's son? Was the prosecutor, corrupt as he may be, not investigating Burisma? And is this not part of a pattern of suspicion about the Biden family in general?

"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden," said Biden's brother James according to this Politico story about how the Biden family cashes in on their well-placed relative.

That's the other part of the discussion the Party and the nation are in for. Buckle up twice.

Two Traps for the Party as the Next Election Looms

These are the discussions the Democratic Party's belated decision, and its reason for delaying it, will spawn. If Trump was always this corrupt, why now? What does that say about the principles that drive Democratic Party leadership?

If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment?

Two traps for a party that much of the nation depends on to rid them of the man the last election elevated to power. Two reasons for independent voters — those not Party loyalists, not blue-no-matter-who, not Never-Trumpers, voters who never turn out for elections or rarely do — to not turn out for this one, when their voice and vote is needed most in this greatest of watershed years.

What’s decided now, in this year and the next, will set the course of the nation and the world for a dozen years to come — or a dozen millennia if the chaos predicted by the most pessimistic among us takes root and grows. After all, social and political chaos is a breeding ground for authoritarian "solutions." We don't need any of those, and this may be the last electoral chance to avoid them.

The nation needs the Democratic Party to be on top of its game, not behind every eight ball it can find — and certainly not stumbling into pits and traps its leaders have created to catch only themselves.
 

Who Would Have Ever Imagined That Nancy Pelosi Would Go Down In History As One Of The Worst Speakers Ever-- If She Resigned Tomorrow It Would Not Be Soon Enough

According to strange #NeverTrump Republican Andrew Sullivan, in his New York Magazine column Friday, many voters who are not Democrats may have "voted for the Democrats last fall because we wanted a serious check on President Trump’s intensifying authoritarianism. That includes many of us who don’t support the far left’s takeover of the Democrats, but who saw the urgency of an opposition with teeth, confronted as we are by a deranged, tyrannical bully in the White House. What would happen if the Mueller Report emerged with a Republican House still intact, we worried? How could we begin to investigate Trump’s tax returns, or his cronies’ corruption, or his foul pedophile friends, or his murky real estate money-laundering, if Paul Ryan, the Randian eunuch from Wisconsin, were still in charge?"

And speaking of eunuchs... who even needed Paul Ryan! With Trump sniping at Pelosi's progressive "enemies"-- especially AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib-- there almost seems to be an unspoken alliance between the fake president and lame-duck, increasinbgly detested speaker. And #NeverTrump Republicans like Sullivan are noticing: "It turns out, six months later, that on all these topics, the Democratic House majority didn’t matter much at all. Whenever a serious administration abuse of power seems to demand investigation, Speaker Pelosi springs almost instantly into inaction. There is nothing she won’t not do."

Pelosi?

When, for example, a highly dubious decision years ago by Labor Secretary Alex Acosta-- to give Jeffrey Epstein an incredibly lenient plea deal for the sexual abuse of 40 underage girls-- blew back into the headlines, Pelosi instantly ruled out any notion of impeaching Acosta: “It’s up to the president, it’s his Cabinet. We have a great deal of work to do here for the good of the American people and we have to focus on that.”

Really, Madam Speaker, oversight of shady dealings by Cabinet officials is the work of the president now? And holding a corrupt administration to account is not “work … for the good of the American people”? This “distraction” from real “work” meme is, in fact, a Republican talking point. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise described the oversight process this week as “presidential harassment rather than focusing on the priorities of the American people.” Trump himself tweeted a demand that Democrats “go back to work!” How practically different is that spin from Pelosi’s? (Even though the question is largely moot now that Acosta has resigned, it came as a relief to see Elijah Cummings was pledging to investigate him.)

The most epic moment of Pelosi’s oversight abdication was, of course, her response to the Mueller Report. She was completely out-foxed by Bill Barr’s shameless misdirection at first, and once his sleight of hand became obvious, she seemed to have no strategy to hold Trump to account in any way. She was presented with striking evidence that President Trump repeatedly abused the power of his office to obstruct justice-- the charge that brought down Nixon, and one charge that forced even Bill Clinton into a Senate trial-- and was all but invited by Mueller to move the ball forward through impeachment: “If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Pelosi immediately, reflexively, punted.

Later this month, we will finally get testimony from Mueller. This week, the House Judiciary Committee has issued 12 new subpoenas for Trump officials, including Jared Kushner. This time, they tell us, they’re serious. These subpoenas come after almost all previous ones were rebuffed entirely by an unprecedented blanket assertion by the president that all oversight inquiries are of a partisan nature and should therefore be ignored. But last month the Democrats passed a resolution seeking court enforcement of their subpoena power. How long will this process take? Who knows? Many seem to think the process could go on for years-- probably likely to take longer than the rest of Trump’s term-- thereby nullifying any practical oversight at all, and giving all future presidents a precedent of immunity by stonewalling. What we do know is that six months into this Congress, we know nothing more from their efforts than we did in January. Could you speed this up if these subpoenas were part of an impeachment inquiry? Almost certainly yes. But Pelosi appears to be in no hurry at all.

Or take the issue of Trump’s tax returns. Judd Legum is aghast that it took the Democrats four months even to ask for them! When Trump (surprise!) refused to hand them over, Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal filed a lawsuit arguing that the reason he was doing so was not because he wanted to see if Trump had committed fraud or other financial crimes, but that he needed “to decide if legislative action is needed” on “the mandatory presidential audit program.” He believed the claim should be as modest as possible to help guarantee an eventual court victory. But “eventual” is the operative word here.

The goods are there though. So when Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill allowing Trump’s state tax returns to be examined directly by Neal, Neal refused, even though the data would be largely the same as the federal returns. He preferred to wait for the result of his own federal legal case-- which could be months or years in coming! And so the clock ticks on. It will likely tick past the next presidential election. This is the fierce urgency of whenever. It is an effective abandonment of a critical tool for exposing presidential corruption.

Maybe Pelosi could hold hearings and then merely vote on a measure of censure of the president? But no: that’s not on the table either. “I think censure is just a way out,” Pelosi said last month. “In other words, if the goods are there, you must impeach.” But the goods are there. We waited months on a thorough investigation, and it found multiple cases of obstruction of justice, a supremely impeachable offense for Congress to pursue. Isn’t she, rather than censure, Trump’s “way out”?

What would she use her oversight powers for? She has argued, for example, that the attorney general openly “lied under oath” to the Congress, her branch of government, a criminal offense. So what will she do? Impeach? Censure? Wait for it: She won’t be “speaking to anything more that he has to say.” Bill Barr must be trembling in fear. What did she do when Trump crossed a clear Constitutional red line and, via a fake national emergency, funneled money to his wall against Congress’s express wish? Yes, you guessed it: nothing. Not even censure. She’s a Speaker who will jettison even the power of the purse rather than take on a tyrannical president.

For good measure, she told Maureen Dowd that Trump “every day practically self-impeaches by obstructing justice and ignoring the subpoenas.” A word to Madam Speaker: People cannot actually impeach themselves. And if you read the Constitution, it’s your job. Why are you persistently refusing to do it?

I know that aggressive oversight, especially impeachment hearings, is a politically fraught decision, full of risk. I know the polls suggest it splits the country and, by her own expert counting, divides the House Democrats as well. I know her party won the House in 2018 by focusing on health care, rather than Trump. I think that should be their focus next year as well. But fortune favors the brave. If she doesn’t act against a serious threat to the Constitution, voters will infer that the Democrats don’t actually believe there’s a threat. If she lets this president own the narrative, as he keeps doing, Democrats will end up following his story rather than their own.

And there is no essential conflict between holding impeachment hearings and making the case for your policies. It should be possible for a competent and gifted Speaker to do both. But Pelosi, alas, is not exactly gifted in persuasively making a case for anything outside her hyperliberal constituency. And she’s deeply unpopular across the country. She has a worse favorable/unfavorable rating than Trump-- and during the partial shutdown in January, she had the lowest ratings of any politician in the country. But if she can’t deploy rhetoric or popularity, at least she could use her Constitutional prerogative.

Her strengths lie in her considerable skills for legislative cat-herding and winning news cycles in the mainstream liberal media. Because she is the first female Speaker, she is largely untouchable in the nonconservative press. I love Maureen Dowd, but her most recent column was beyond fawning. The only substantive achievement Dowd could point to in her glowing account of Pelosi’s political talents was that Pelosi had “gotten into Trump’s head” and that she “has offered a master class, with flair and fire, on how a woman can spar with Trump.” Seriously? Yes, she can provide some cutting retorts. But, substantively, a master class in capitulation strikes me as more accurate.

And isn’t it more plausible to say that Trump has gotten into Pelosi’s head? Here’s an example of what Dowd calls her “flair and fire”: “Oh, [Trump would] rather not be impeached… But he sees a silver lining. And he wants to then say, ‘The Democrats impeached me but the Senate’-- he won’t say Republicans-- ‘exonerated me.’” So fucking what? Of course he’d say that. Why are you allowing his future spin to affect your present Constitutional duty? You’re in a defensive crouch, Madam Speaker. Against a bully, that never works.

The best gloss I can think of to explain Pelosi’s abdication is that she believes that it’s only a matter of time before Trump loses in 2020, so why risk alienating moderates who get nervous with the I-word now? Why impeach when the Senate will acquit? Why go to war now, when it might imperil electoral victory next year?

Here’s why. There is a strong possibility that Trump is going to win the next election. I know it’s early but the head-to-head polling against most of the Democratic candidates is very close-- and that’s before the GOP has gotten to work on oppo research on those Democrats who aren’t well known. Incumbency in a strong economy is usually dispositive. The Dems have almost all decided to run further to the left than even Hillary’s woke-a-thon in 2016: free health care for illegal aliens, abolishing private health insurance, publicly funding abortions, declaring America in 2019 a product of white supremacy, etc. Their strategy seems designed to alienate every white person in the Midwest and give Trump another victory in the Electoral College. Only Biden has a serious polling advantage, and he’s looking frail and weak.

If Pelosi keeps playing it safe and Trump is reelected, it will set a precedent that a president can obstruct justice and be rewarded for it. He can avoid all serious congressional oversight and get away with it. The Congress will continue its journey as a withered limb in a Constitution that actually gives it pride of place, Article 1. And every time Trump gets away with another crime, or abuse of power, he is emboldened. Vindicated by re-election? God help us.

And what Trump now knows after six months of Democratic control of the House is that he is as free from congressional checks whether it is run by Democrats or Republicans. Pelosi has shown every future president that they can obstruct justice with impunity, refuse every subpoena with impunity, lie with impunity, and violate the separation of powers with impunity.

At some point, Madam Speaker, history may show you had one critical chance to stop this slide toward populist authoritarianism. And you decided you had better things to do.

Meanwhile, Pelosi has accomplished nothing-- not even raising the minimum wage increase she promised to do immediately after the Democrats won the House back. Oh, wait-- she hasn't accomplished nothing; I was wrong. She got Trump's concentration camps funded. And she passed PayGo, to make sure no big progressive ideas would pass. She is utterly worthless and destroying the Democratic Party, having launched an anti-progressive jihad, threatening members of her conference who were about to endorse Bernie with retribution, directing the DCCC to prevent progressive candidates from an even playing field and going war against 4 progressive women of color, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Omar Ilhan and Ayanna Pressley. What's the thermometer for? So you can contribute to the campaign of the progressive Democrat running to replace Pelosi in her San Francisco congressional district, Shahid Buttar.

This morning, Buttar noted that "As disturbing as it might be for Democratic Party activists to recognize, Speaker Pelosi is either entirely ineffective in mounting resistance to our criminal president and his corrupt administration, or instead unfortunately co-opted. Both of those possibilities are unacceptable. There is too much at stake-- especially with the twin cataclysms of fascism and climate catastrophe already unfolding-- to defer to the continuing failures of a careerist inclined towards accommodation. With a would-be tyrant in the White House, now is a time for full-throated resistance for real. The American people deserve leaders willing to oppose kleptocracy instead of enabling it. And we deserve representatives who will meet the needs of the future by expanding human rights, instead of doubling down on the predictable failures of corporate rule and eroding them even further."

Trump's Concentration Camps-- Funded By 176 Republicans And 129 Pelosi-Democrats

American Dream Revisted by Nancy Ohanian

The bad news: on June 27 129 Democrats joined with the GOP to vote to authorize funds for Trump's concentration camps. Briana Urbina is a top progressive candidate taking on Stony Hoyer this cycle. She told me she "cannot forgive my representative for voting in support of the cruel and inhumane treatment of immigrants at the border. The practices of this administration cannot be divorced from the system that funds it. Steny should be using his power in leadership to dismantle this system not bolster it. Our district has a vibrant and beautiful immigrant community. I have been honored to serve immigrant families as a pro bono attorney. I will continue my service to all Marylanders, native and foreign born when I am sworn in as the first Latina elected to Congress from Maryland."

The good news: 95 Democrats voted against funding the concentration camps despite Pelosi and Hoyer having shit-fit. These are the 95 who are fit to call themselves Democrats:

• Alma Adams (D-NC)
• Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA)
• Nanette Barragán (D-CA)
• Karen Bass (D-CA)
• Don Beyer (New Dem-VA)
• Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)
• Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR)
• Brendan Boyle (New Dem-PA)
• Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD)
• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
• Tony Cárdenas (New Dem-CA)
• André Carson (New Dem-IN)
• Judy Chu (D-CA)
• David Cicilline (D-RI)
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)
• Katherine Clark (D-MA)
• Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
• Lacy Clay (D-MO)
• Gerry Connolly (New Dem-VA)
• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Danny Davis (D-IL)
• Pete DeFazio (D-OR)
• Diana DeGette (D-CO)
• Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
• Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
• Debbie Dingell (D-MI)
• Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
• Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY)
• Veronica Escobar (New Dem-TX)
• Adriano Espaillat (D-NY)
• Dwight Evans (D-PA)
• Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)
• Chuy García (D-IL)
• Sylvia Garcia (D-TX)
• Jimmy Gomez (D-CA)
• Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
• Deb Haaland (D-NM)
• Brian Higgins (D-NY)
• Katie Hill (New Dem-CA)
• Steven Horsford (New Dem-NV)
• Jared Huffman (D-CA)
• Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)
• Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)
• Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
• Joe Kennedy (D-MA)
• Ro Khanna (D-CA)
• Brenda Lawrence (New Dem-MI)
• Barbara Lee (D-CA)
• Andy Levin (D-MI)
• John Lewis (D-GA)
• Ted Lieu (D-CA)
• Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
• Alan Lowenthal (D-CA)
• Nita Lowey (D-NY)
• Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)
• Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
• Betty McCollum (D-MN)
• Donald McEachin (New Dem-VA)
• James McGovern (D-MA)
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)
• Grace Meng (D-NY)
• Gwen Moore (D-WI)
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)
• Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
• Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
• Joe Neguse (D-CO)
• Donald Norcross (New Dem-NJ)
• AOC (D-NY)
• Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
• Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
• Mark Pocan (D-WI)
• Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
• David Price (D-NC)
• Mike Quigley (New Dem-IL)
• Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
• Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
• Linda Sánchez (D-CA)
• Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA)
• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
• Brad Sherman (D-CA)
• Adam Smith (New Dem-WA)
• Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)
• Jackie Speier (D-CA)
• Mark Takano (D-CA)
• Dina Titus (D-NV)
• Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
• Paul Tonko (D-NY)
• Norma Torres (New Dem-CA)
• Lori Trahan (New Dem-MA)
• Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
• Marc Veasey (New Dem-TX)
• Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)
• Nydia Velázquez (D-NY)
• Peter Welch (D-VT)

It must have stung Pelosi especially hard when she wasn't even able to control members of her own leadership team and inner circle-- like Hakeem Jeffries and Ben Ray Luján, each fearful of primaries from the left. But these were Pelosi's "good soldiers" who told themselves a nice story that made it ok to vote funding for concentration camps. If any of them call you for a contribution to their reelection efforts, ask them why they decided our taxpayer money should go for locking children seeking asylum in cages inside concentration camps.

Babies in Cages by Nancy Ohanian

Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)
Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)
Joyce Beatty (D-OH)
Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
Lisa Blunt Rochester (New Dem-DE)
Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA)
Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL)
Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)
Matt Cartwright (D-PA)
Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI)
Sean Casten (New Dem-IL)
Kathy Castor (D-FL)
Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO)
Jim Clyburn (D-SC)
Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Joe Courtney (D-CT)
TJ Cox (D-CA)
Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)
Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)
Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)
Madeleine Dean (New Dem-PA)
Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)
Antonio Delgado (D-NY)
Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
Ted Deutch (D-FL)
Michael Doyle (D-PA)
Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
Abby Finkenauer (D-IA)
Lizzie Fletcher (New Dem-TX)
Mike Foster (New Dem-IL)
Lois Frankel (D-FL)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
John Garamendi (D-CA)
Jared Golden (D-ME)
Vicente Gonzalez (Blue Dog-TX)
Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
Al Green (D-TX)
Josh Harder (New Dem-FL)
Jahana Hayes (D-CT)
Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)
Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)
Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)
Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Hank Johnson (D-GA)
Bill Keating (New Dem-MA)
Robin Kelly (D-IL)
Dan Kildee (D-MI)
Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
Andy Kim (D-NJ)
Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)
Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ)
Raja Krishnamoorthi (New Dem-IL)
Anne Kuster (New Dem-NH)
Conor Lamb (D-PA)
Jim Langevin (D-RI)
Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)
John Larson (D-CT)
Al Lawson (New Dem-FL)
Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)
Mike Levin (D-CA)
Dan Lipinski (D-IL)
Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)
Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)
Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
Doris Matsui (D-CA)
Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)
Jerry McNerney (D-CA)
Joseph Morelle (D-NY)
Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
Richard Neal (D-MA)
Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
Jimmy Panetta (New Dem-CA)
Chris Pappas (New Dem-NH)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Ed Perlmutter (New Dem-CO)
Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Katie Porter (D-CA)
Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY)
Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)
Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA)
Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
John Sarbanes (D-MD)
Adam Schiff (New Dem-CA)
Brad Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)
Kim Schrier (New Dem-WA)
Bobby Scott (D-VA)
David Scott (Blue Dog-GA)
Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)
Donna Shalala (New Dem-FL)
Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)
Albio Sires (D-NJ)
Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)
Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
Greg Stanton (New Dem-AZ)
Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)
Tom Suozzi (New Dem-NY)
Mike Thompson (Blue Dog-CA)
Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)
David Trone (New Dem-MD)
Lauren Underwood (D-IL)
Jefferson Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)
Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)
Jennifer Wexton (New Dem-VA)
Susan Wild (New Dem-PA)
John Yarmuth (D-KY)

"Denny Heck voted to give money to concentration camps," his progressive primary opponent, Joshua Collins told me. "And he did it with no expectations of improved oversight or improved conditions. We might as well be burning money because they're already getting over $700/day per detainee, and still won't even give them toothpaste and soap. That vote was despicable. And it signifies why we have to replace Representatives like Denny Heck. He's not just a lazy centrist who won't budge on important issues like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. He's actively helping the Republicans. And when asked why he makes all these bad votes, and why he refuses to support impeachment, his office says it's because he takes his marching orders from Nancy Pelosi. If he is being funded by large corporations and controlled even more explicitly by Nancy Pelosi, why in the hell should he be representing Washington's 10th? He needs to retire already. He's gotta go. That's why I'm running against him."

23 hours to go on this poll, but the trend seems set

Progressive Democrat Matt Tirman is running for the House seat occupied by New Dem chief Derek Kilmer in the sprawling 6th district west of Seattle. "The vote to give $4.6 billion in funding to ICE was not one to help the children being kept in cages at the border," he told me this morning, "but one to assuage the enormity of guilt felt by those in Congress. This was not a way to help reunite families, or help provide the humanitarian aid so desperately needed. This was simply a way for congressional members, like Rep. Kilmer, to stick a band aid on the issue and hope the American people will be placated so they could go march in their hometown parades without having to worry about messy questions about kids in cages."

Dean Obeidallah penned an OpEd for CNN yesterday, Why is Nancy Pelosi slamming AOC and helping Trump?. He was as pissed off as every progressive I know about Pelosi's slide over to the Dark Side, in terms of Trump's concentration camps and in her vicious attacks against progressives who opposed her collaboration with America's #1 enemy. She has especially singled out freshmen women Ilhan Omar (MN), AOC (NY), Rashida Tlaib (MI) and Ayanna Pressley (MA) for the full scale viciousness many Democrats would rather see her aiming at McConnell and Trump. She's become a real detriment to the Democratic Party and with her legacy in shreds, should step down and disappear immediately.

"Whatever"

Pelosi's criticism came after a June 25 vote in which the four were the only Democrats to oppose a House bill to provide funding for the crisis at the southern border because as they put it in a statement, "in good conscience, we cannot support this supplemental funding bill, which gives even more money to ICE and CBP and continues to support a fundamentally cruel and broken immigration system."

In response to that vote, Pelosi told Dowd, "All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," adding, "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."

by Jack Spencer

In response, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter, focusing in on the dismissiveness of the speaker's "public whatever" remark. "That public 'whatever' is called public sentiment. And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country," she tweeted.

What makes Pelosi's remark so stunning is that it flies in the face of her often-repeated philosophy that she has espoused to House Democrats since taking control of the chamber in the 2018 midterms. "Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power," she wrote last November.

Pelosi is 100% correct with that approach. That means, though, that diversity of opinion needs to be respected-- not belittled. This unity is vitally needed in the time of Donald Trump, since the Democrat-controlled House is the only chamber that serves as a legitimate check on the President.