A Month From Today-- Can We Trade In A Blue Dog Retrobate For A Dedicated Progressive?

Over the weekend, Blue America launched a last-minute fundraising drive for the one progressive challenger running for Congress in Arizona, Eva Putzova. 24 hours later, 61 contributors had raised $1,567 for her last minute push-- an average of around $26 a person. For a grassroots campaign, taking on an entrenched galoot like this, contributions like that make a real difference. In Eva's own words, "This is the final stretch for our campaign before the big primary on August 4 and your contributions are already making a big difference. Over the last 18 months of campaigning, we have done the impossible-- knocked on 17,000 doors (prior the pandemic), dialed 160,000 phones, and raised more than AOC didi in 2018 heading into her primary in New York."

But Eva's district, AZ-01, has some unique challenges for campaigns like hers as it includes the Navajo Nation where cell phone coverage (for texting and calling) is spotty, where broadband Internet access is limited (for digital ads), and where people check mail under the non-pandemic circumstances only once a month (for campaign mailers). "These days, Eva explained "it takes 2-3 hours standing in a line at the Post Office to get mail out of P.O. boxes on the reservation. Shortage of staffing due to COVID-19 as well as space limitation due to the necessary social distancing measures put in place make a trip to get mail a challenge the rest of America can’t even imagine. We still need to reach the Native voters and the best way to do it, considering these limitations, is by radio. We set a goal to raise $15,000 in the next 5 days to fund our radio campaign strategy on the Navajo Nation."

Can you step up on more time for Eva? Why? I asked her why.

As a reliable progressive with a track record of following through on my campaign promises-- during my campaign for the City Council in 2014 I said I’d work to raise Flagstaff’s minimum wage and I did that in 2016-- I will fight for Medicare for All where everybody is in and nobody is out, for a Green New Deal to retool our economy away from fossil fuels while bringing equity and justice to historically marginalized communities, and to overhaul our immigration system to reflect the humanity that I still believe most people in this country subscribe to. You can count on me to oppose wars of choice and to use my political capital to recalibrate our defense budget that serves corporate interests rather than peace, actual security, and diplomacy.

As a representative in Congress, I also need to bring justice for Indigenous people who live in this district and to all Native people around the country. We have to put First People first because for centuries, we put them last. As a result, 1/3 of the Navajo Nation doesn’t have running water, 15,000 households lack electricity, hundreds of miles of their roads are unpaved and children spend 2-3 hours every day being bussed to schools or separated from their families in boarding schools.

This weekend, I talked to an ER doctor from Chinle, AZ and they shared with me what it’s like for the Native patients. Unlike in other hospitals around the country, important specialists are not being hired to provide healthcare for the local Native people. During every ER shift, routinely, 1 to 6 patients require care of a urologist, neurologist, nephrologist, or one of other specialists. Instead of being completely treated at the Chinle hospital, they are airlifted and transported hundreds of miles away from their homes to Phoenix, Flagstaff, or New Mexico’s Albuquerque. After the treatment, they are discharged but Indian Health Service doesn’t pay for their transportation back home and they are stranded, oftentimes left homeless overnight or for longer in a place they have no network to turn to. And it’s not just the ER patients-- others who need a specialist-- experience a huge distress over the prospect of being sent outside of their home communities without access to transportation to bring them back.

How is it possible that we don’t fund Indian Health Service to employ much needed specialists locally? How come there’s money for expensive air transportation but not to bring people back to their homes? How can we stomach leaving vulnerable people stranded and homeless after the hospital discharge?

What we hear from the healthcare providers on the Navajo Nation points to one thing: a complete bi-partisan failure of the Congress to act. My opponent has done absolutely nothing for four years to change this and has done everything to help Republicans and corporations to exploit the rest of the country.

Help me unseat one of the most pro-Trump Democrats, Tom O’Halleran and donate to our campaign. We have no plans to come in a strong second and with your help, our campaign will deliver on August 4.

You see that thermometer above; just click on it and you'll be on an ActBlue "Primary A Blue Dog" page where you can contribute to Eva Putzova for Congress. Those radio ads for the Navajo reservation are not all that expensive. $26 contributions go a long way-- and this I can tell you for certain. As bad as O'Halleran has been in the House... that's how good Eva will be.

Arizona Primary Is Next Month-- This Is The Most Important Race For Progressives

For Blue America, primary season is rapidly coming to a close-- there are just a few left. We helped with some spectacular wins this cycle-- Kara Eastman in Omaha, Marie Newman in Chicago, Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones in New York, Liam O'Mara and Audrey Denney in California... Mike Siegel (TX-10) and Lisa Ring (GA-01) came in first in their primaries and Mike's runoff is next week (July 14) and Lisa's is August 11th. In between Mike's runoff and Lisa's, the last two candidates on our 2020 Primary A Blue Dog page have their big days: Keeda Haynes in Nashville and Eva Putzova in Arizona's mammoth first district.

Eva just released a new homemade video introducing herself (above). But after reports this week that Pelosi is doing for her Blue Dog opponent exactly what she did for Jamaal's-- raising tons of cash-- I thought it is important to remind people not just what Eva stands for-- Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal, an equitable immigration overhaul, tuition-free college, peace...-- but also what the incumbent Pelosi is supporting stands for.

First a quick reminder about AZ-01. It is absolutely massive-- bigger than several states-- and it includes all or part of 11 counties. (The whole state has 15 counties.) Most of the voters live in just 5 though-- Pinal, Coconino, Pima, Navajo and Apache. It is the home of the country's biggest Native American population (23% of the district's residents) and is a classic swing district, although Trump has caused it to turn bluer. McCain won the district by over 3 points, Romney by two-and-a-half points but Trump by just one point. In 2018, the Republican congressional candidate lost by over seven-and-a-half ponts. Local polling shows Trump being swamped in AZ-01 this November.

The incumbent is a lifelong conservative Republican, Tom O'Halleran, who began his career as a cop in Chicago and then a futures trader on the Chicago Board if Trade. He was elected to the Arizona state House, as a Republican, in 2000 and then to the state Senate in 2007, again, as a Republican, before losing the Republican primary in 2008. As a state legislator he voted against marriage equality and to criminalize abortion-- both bills subsequently vetoed by Governor Janet Napolitano (D). He quit the GOP in 2014-- primarily over a water rights issue-- but was defeated when he ran for a state Senate seat as an independent. When he decided to run for Congress, he suddenly switched parties again and-- voilà!-- a Democrat is born. Kind of. He joined the Blue Dogs and basically still votes with the Republicans more than half the time (on substantive issues).

A big Austerity fan, O'Halleran is eager to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, takes massive injections of corporate cash (bribes), which helps explain why he has voted with Trump 54% of the time, one of the worst records of any Democrat in Congress. You want examples? Halleran voted against:

• opening at impeachment inquiry against Trump
• a carbon tax
• removing an antitrust exemption for insurance providers
• disaster relief for Puerto Rico and other areas

O'Halleran voted for:

• a failed amendment to give Trump the authority to go to war with Iran
• a resolution to support ICE
• S 2155, introduced by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) and passed into law in May 2018  that rolled back important banking regulations adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010
• an amendment that weakened the historic Raise the Wage Act, by allowing Congress to modify or delay future wage increases. (He wrote the amendment.) That is especially harmful considering that this was the very first time either chamber of Congress voted to raise the exploitative subminimum tipped wage of just $2.13 to the full minimum wage.

This is the final month before the primary and Eva's campaign could use more contributions to help fund, among other things, mailers for newly registered voters and GOTV and compared and contrast radio ads for the Navajo Nation. Please just click on the Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to Eva's campaign. I can't promise you she is going to win-- beating an incumbent is hard-- but I can promise you two things:

1- She will use your contribution well and work right up until the last vote is counted; and

2- If she is elected to Congress, she will be one of the top 5 members for her entire career, just the way O'Halleran has been one of the 5 bottom worst members. And remember, whoever wins this primary, will be the next member of Congress from AZ-01. There is no need to worry about losing this seat. 

(And, by the way, early voting starts in 3 days!)

A First For Tipped Workers Was Part Of What Passed The House Yesterday

by Eva Putzova
Candidate for Congress (AZ-01)

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the historic Raise the Wage Act (H.R.582). It is the first time in the history of this country that either chamber of Congress has passed legislation that guarantees tipped workers the same minimum wage as everybody else in the country.

In my day job, I work for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United-- a grassroots organization that fights to improve wages and working conditions for the nearly 14 million restaurant workers. I have heard so many stories from our members describing their struggle to make ends meet, their dependency on tips forcing them to tolerate sexual harassment, and their wages and tips being stolen. And indeed, the restaurant industry is the single largest source of sexual harassment and has a wage and hour non-compliance rate of 84 percent.

With the vote in Congress, people working in tipped professions as servers, busers, nail salon workers-- most of them women and many people of color and immigrants are for the first time recognized (at least by one legislative chamber) as workers worth the full minimum wage with tips on top.

Across the nation, 29 states and 42 cities have already raised the minimum wage locally. In Flagstaff, Arizona, I led a successful local citizen initiative raising our minimum wage to $15 by 2021 and the exploitative subminimum tipped wage to the full minimum wage by 2026.

While there’s enormous support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15, my opponent-- a blue Dog Democrat (former Republican state legislator Tom O'Halleran)-- contemplated a lower regional minimum wage for people in the southern states. In the end, he weakened this historic legislation through an amendment, allowing Congress to delay or otherwise modify scheduled increases based on their interpretation of findings of a study the same amendment requires. How many times in the past did the Blue Dog Coalition proposed amendments to study the economic impact of other policies on workers’ income and standard of living? Never.

Raising the minimum wage doesn’t hurt jobs. We’ve raised the minimum wage in cities and states across the country and study after study shows no long-term negative impact on employment. The most reputable economists agree that a $15 minimum wage would boost the economy and raise individual income for millions of people. Since increasing the minimum wage in Flagstaff, the most vocal opposition-- the restaurant industry-- saw an increase of 15 percent in total sales. Not only there was no decrease in the economic activity, the industry grew while people in the lowest paid professions got a small boost in their pay.

But this is more than just an economic justice issue. Nearly 40 percent of women of color would see a raise with the federal minimum wage going up. When you look at the map of the tipped wage rates by state, you’ll see that the states that pay their tipped workers $2.13 are mostly southern states with a disproportionally larger population of people of color. And indeed, the subminimum tipped wage has its roots in slavery. At Emancipation, the railroad industry and restaurant lobby demanded the right to hire newly freed slaves and not pay them anything, having them depend entirely on customer tips. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 codified this racist practice into law, carrying this legacy of exploitation into the modern era.

A quick history of the Federal tipped wage:

1938: $0
1966: At $0.63, for the first time more than $0 and pegged to 50% of the regular minimum wage.
1991: $2.13
1996: The "other" NRA chaired by Herman Cain successfully separated the tipped wage from the minimum wage-- no longer pegged to the minimum wage.
2019: $2.13

The vote in the U.S. House is truly historic and it deserves recognition. More than 200 members of Congress co-sponsored the Raise the Wage Act. We need the Senate to follow in their footsteps and do what’s been long overdue.

The Progressive Policy Institute Sounds Like A Good Organization, Right? Don’t Get Fooled Again… This Is Biden Progressivism Not The Kind Bernie Or Elizabeth Warren Supports

The DeSmog blog endeavors “to clear the p.r. pollution that clouds climate science” and last week they worked on clearing it about the grotesquely misnamed Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), an operation currently supporting the fossil fools’ pushback against environmental lawsuits. Phil Goldberg is a former lobbyist for coal giant Peabody Energy. Today he’s running that PPI pushback. (Keep in mind Biden’s second rule of governance— lobbyists aren’t bad people and government officials who accept their legalistic bribes aren’t bad people— and keep in mind that most of Biden’s family are lobbyists trading on his name for decades. Biden’s first rule that if you work with racists, you can pass some racist legislation.)

The PPI— founded in 1989 by the DLC— has always been part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and was known as Bill Clinon’s “ideas mill.” Best known for his hawkish agenda on Iraq, conservative Lieberman crony Will Marshall— a founder of the Wall Street owned and operated New Dems— runs it. It is an arm of Third Way and has been funded by Chevron, British Petroleum, the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, AT&T, Eli Lilly & Company, Prudential, Ameritech, Georgia-Pacific and Eastman Kodak. People associated with the PPI include Biden, Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Evan Bayh, both Clintons, Harold Ford Jr., Blanche Lincoln, nearly every conservative Democratic politician from Delaware, Ron Kind, Al From, Dick Gephardt, Jim Moran, etc.

As part of a growing trend of lawsuits over climate change impacts, cities and states across the U.S. are seeking damages from oil, gas, and coal companies whose products drive the crisis and which for years evidently engaged in disinformation and denial campaigns to stall climate action.

Now the fossil fuel industry is pushing back, taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook to rein in that liability litigation, and getting help from an unexpected source.

Behind the scenes, politically affiliated groups are quietly providing support. One of the outfits promoting the efforts to counter the slew of climate lawsuits is none other than the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), a center-left Washington, D.C.-based think tank with links to the Democratic party.

Phil Goldberg, PPI’s director of its Center for Civil Justice, is leading the charge.

For over a year, PPI’s website has been showcasing Goldberg’s work attacking climate litigation, which he calls “copycat climate suits.” Goldberg is a former lobbyist for coal giant Peabody Energy, which his law firm still represents.

And while Goldberg’s bio on PPI’s website lists him as a partner in the corporate law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon, there’s no mention of his hiring earlier this year by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) to serve as special counsel in its fight against climate litigation. NAM’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, which it launched in 2017, targets climate lawsuits against the manufacturing industry’s energy sector.

NAM’s members, many of which are facing litigation, include such fossil fuel powerhouses as ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, Phillips 66, Southern Company, Continental Resources, Marathon Petroleum, Dominion, Energy Transfer, and Devon Energy.

The states of New York and Massachusetts, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, have taken legal action against ExxonMobil, while a number of cities and counties across the country have filed a lawsuit against over thirty companies, including other NAM members ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Marathon Oil, and Devon Energy.

PPI’s website also does not disclose Goldberg’s recent work for Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN), a front group funded by several oil and gas trade associations. In a report for GAIN titled “Vigilante Regulation,” Goldberg, along with two other Shook, Hardy & Bacon attorneys, detail how tort law can be employed to stem what the authors call “anti-pipeline activism.”

“It’s just plain freaky that a hired gun for the fossil fuel industry would pretend to be neutral or, shockingly, even perhaps ‘progressive’ under the guise of PPI, which has a good reputation as a think tank,” said Denise Antolini, an associate dean at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa’s School of Law. “I guess the ‘tank’ is stronger than the ‘think’ with PPI’s embrace of Mr. Goldberg’s advocacy for big oil.”

Antolini, an expert in environmental law who supports climate litigation, recently found herself in a row with Goldberg, who last month emailed the academic with what she described as a “surprising” request she’s never received in her 23-year career. Goldberg asked Antolini to postpone a panel discussion in a conference on climate litigation she was scheduled to host and moderate that same day at the University of Hawai’i. His reasoning? The lack of opposing voices to climate litigation on the panel.

Then, after the pair sparred in two op-eds published in the Hawaiian press, Antolini, in a formal letter to Goldberg, rebuffed the lawyer’s request, which she called an attempt to “disrupt a public event.”

Criticizing Goldberg’s characterization of climate litigation as “controversial,” Antolini wrote: “It’s understandable that your client would take this position but that does not mean the lawsuits, brought by governments on behalf of injured communities, are ‘controversial.’”

Shook, Hardy & Bacon has a long history of working for industries that have been subject to controversy.

Goldberg previously served as an adviser to the Civil Justice Task Force of the “corporate bill mill,” the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where he published reports against state-led climate lawsuits in the group’s publication Inside ALEC.

ALEC, which works secretively with legislators to produce model legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors, has a history of climate change denial and funding from fossil fuel interests and the Koch brothers’ foundations.

Goldberg’s colleague at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, attorney Mark Behrens, currently chairs ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force. Another lawyer at the firm, Victor Schwartz, previously chaired the task force and is currently a member of ALEC’s board of scholars.

After going to bat for decades for Big Tobacco, Shook, Hardy & Bacon is now a leading defender of the asbestos industry, whose product causes a type of cancer known as mesothelioma.

Goldberg did not respond to several requests for comment.

Growing out of the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), PPI is one facet in the Democratic Party wing that promotes “Third Way” free market, corporate-friendly policies to balance the party’s more leftist tendencies. Former President Bill Clinton previously chaired the DLC.

PPI’s website, which greets its visitors with the banner “radically pragmatic,” does not publicize its funding sources. But the group’s funding seems to come at least in part through its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, whose tax forms states it is “doing business as the Progressive Policy Institute.”

In 2015 the Third Way Foundation received funding from the American Gas Association. The group receives other corporate funds, including from the pharmaceutical industry.

Evidently, oil and gas companies have for years donated to nonprofit institutions to further their own interests.

As DeSmog contributor Sharon Kelly recently revealed in an investigation for The Guardian, oil giant Mobil used its charitable giving to promote its interests through a range of universities, civic groups, and arts programs. She reported that a top Mobil official said: “I don’t know whether corporate philanthropy as I’ve sort of defined it, which is just to get a warm feeling, ever existed. But if it did, I’d have to say that it’s a dying concept in terms of corporate giving.” That was during a talk in 1987.

Third Way’s funding might, at least in part, explain why PPI supports fracking and the boom in building natural gas pipelines and other infrastructure.

A PPI spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

PPI and others’ pushback against climate litigation will only intensify, predicts Robert Brulle, a sociology professor at Drexel University, who studies environmental movements and climate science disinformation campaigns.

“As these cases move toward discovery and eventual trial, the architects of the campaign to obstruct climate action, such as the National Association of Manufacturers, are gearing up for a long battle in the courts,” he said.

Brulle, who, along with other academics, filed a brief detailing what major fossil fuel companies knew historically about climate change as part of the ongoing litigation, thinks the industry has good reason to be concerned.

“The evidence of deliberate obstruction and promulgation of misinformation to preserve corporate profits is strong, and these energy companies and trade associations know it,” he said. “Not surprising to see them lawyering up.”

Today we're doing a fundraising effort for Eva Putzova, who is running for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Arizona's 1st district. Her opponent is Blue Dog, "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran, a PPI kind of politician. When we ask for contributions for Eva and other progressive leaders like her... well, this post helps explain why. Not all Democratic Party members of Congress support efforts to address the climate crisis. Eva Putzova does. Tom O'Halleran doesn't. Please consider contributing what you can to Eva's campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right. Are Blue Dogs and New Dems as bad as Republicans. No... but if you would like to save the planet from Climate Change, the differences seem pretty negligible.

Help Stop The Koch Brothers From Buying The Democratic Party, The Way They Bought The GOP-- Support Working Class Warrior Eva Putzova

You may recall that a few weeks ago, a Koch brothers’ spokeswoman announced that their network is now willing to finance political campaigns for Democrats who are "in step with Koch policies." Koch policies? Koch policies are first and foremost their business bottom line. Any study of their pattern of political giving shows what being in step with the Koch policies means: slashing government regulations that protect workers and the environment. And that is perfect for the Democrats who make up the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the New Dems and Blue Dogs— like, for example, Tom O’Halleran, an “ex”-Republican Arizona legislator who switched parties and it now a member of both the New Dems and the Blue Dogs. In fact, he’s a Blue Dog co-chair… and no one has to beg him to support Koch policies. Tom O’Halleran has been doing that for his entire political career.

His primary opponent, a progressive Democrat from Flagstaff and former national Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention, is Eva Putzova, who made her bones fighting against Koch policies— and the Koch brothers themselves… and winning.

This week I received a letter from Marilyn Weissman, who has known Eva since they were both board members of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future. She explained why she is supporting Eva’s challenge to O’Halleran in the Arizona primary. “We need Eva in Congress,” she wrote, “to lead on issues such as raising the minimum wage, fighting climate change, keeping us out of wars, and protecting women’s reproductive rights. Eva's bold leadership has proven she’s a strong advocate for the people of Flagstaff. She worked hard to gain a seat on the council and brought a progressive perspective to local issues.” Marilyn was urging her fellow Arizonans to vote for Eva in the2020 August primary.

They worked together on the $15 Minimum Wage Campaign here in Flagstaff, where, in her words, Eva “was a tireless advocate and campaigner for restaurant and other low wage workers. In the face of much criticism from the Chamber of Commerce, Eva was fearless and never backed down. Eva stood up to the Koch-network-funded efforts in Flagstaff’s minimum wage fight and will stand up to them and other big money interests when she is in Congress. We in Arizona have an opportunity to add another progressive woman to Congress in 2020. Let’s be as fearless as Eva and work to make that happen!”

Eva was born and raised in Slovakia, made Flagstaff her home in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen in 2007. She started her professional career in the renewable energy sector and, in 2003, began working in higher education. During her 14-year tenure at Northern Arizona University she held a number of positions, including Director of Strategic Planning and Executive Director for Marketing and Strategic Communications. She was elected to the Flagstaff City Council in 2014. Today, she is the National Communications and Technology Director for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, working to raise wages and improve working conditions for the country’s 13 million restaurant workers.

Her website emphasizes themes that any progressive Democrat would be behind— and that have been opposed by Tom O’Halleran. One especially caught my attention: "Over the last 30 years, wages have remained flat for most workers while corporate profits have soared. One reason for stagnant wages is the loss of workers’ bargaining power as labor unions have been decimated by corporate attacks. The other reason is the low federal minimum wage. I will support legislation to allow workers to more easily unionize and to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour."

After decades of stagnating wages and an inadequate federal minimum wage policy, communities around the country have been taking actions into their own hands. To raise wages in red states like Arizona, your only option is a ballot initiative. Republican lawmakers not only refuse to raise the minimum wage legislatively, they would prefer to get rid of it completely, taking us back to the era of total labor exploitation.

In 2016, in Flagstaff, Arizona, I led a local citizen initiative raising the minimum wage to $15, gradually increasing the subminimum tipped wage to the full minimum wage, and establishing local enforcement-- another key provision in states where your governor does not believe in enforcing the law against wage theft and corporate greed. Shortly after the local success in the 2016 election, the Koch outfit American Encore initiated a repeal of the voter-approved minimum wage law. They called their misleading amendment the “Sustainable Wages Act” and collected signatures to get it on the next ballot by simply lying to people. From the beginning, the biggest opposition to raising wages came from the restaurant industry because the local law finally increases the subminimum tipped wage. Living almost exclusively off tips forces the mostly female restaurant workforce to put up with inappropriate behavior from customers, managers, and co-workers.

At the same time when Flagstaff passed its One Fair Wage covering tipped workers under the same minimum wage rate rules as the rest of the workforce, so did voters in Maine. While Arizona and Flagstaff enjoyed the protections of the Voter Protection Act and initiatives can’t be overturned by legislative action, people in Maine were not so lucky. The National Restaurant Association, the “other” NRA, is a trade lobby that spends millions of dollars influencing legislation in order to keep wages low and uphold their greedy corporate agenda. The “other” NRA piloted a new lobbying tactic in Maine, fronting a fake grassroots group called the Restaurant Workers of America, in which white male servers from fine dining establishments argue against increasing their own wages. The astroturf group managed to get enough faux Democrats in the Maine legislature to overturn the people’s will.

In addition to astroturfing, the restaurant lobby buys legislators when they can-- as was the case recently in DC where the City Council repealed the voter-approved Initiative 77, or in Michigan, where legislators adopted the voter-initiated ballot measure rather than sending it out to the voters which would have tied their hands. They gutted the law in the lame duck session and left tipped workers way behind-- with $4.58 per hour by 2030 instead of $12 by 2022 that the Michigan voters petitioned for. [More recently], in New Jersey, legislators cut a deal with the Governor to raise the minimum wage to $15, carving out tipped workers and farmworkers, with the tipped wage going up from an embarrassing $2.13 to an insulting $5.13 in five years. All over the country, people support raising the minimum wage and raising the subminimum tipped wage. It’s the legislators who are behind.

The 2018 campaign in Flagstaff to repeal the minimum wage was in its final stages funded by other dark money shops-- America Revived and Market Freedom Alliance who worked hand in hand with the local Chamber of Commerce and a local Restaurant Association. While we may never know what they spent-- as their reporting is as shady as their donor base-- we estimate they outspent our local NO campaign protecting the minimum wage by a 4-to-1 margin. We ran a fearless campaign knocking on the doors, proving that organized people can defeat organized money. We protected the local law by a greater margin than we won initially in 2016. Thanks to Flagstaff voters (and a well-run defense campaign), $140 million will go every year to the pockets of workers instead of their corporate bosses.

It’s disturbing how so many of our so-called Democrats are willing to defy the will of the voters and support the subminimum tipped wage policy-- a policy that is nothing more than institutionalized gender and racial discrimination because more than 65 percent of restaurant workers are women and many are people of color. And yet, One Fair Wage has been in effect for decades in seven states-- California, Nevada, Oregon, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, and Alaska. These one-fair-wage states have half the rate of sexual harassment as the 43 states with subminimum tipped wages. In addition, they have higher restaurant sales per capita in the industry (proving that paying people well is good for the bottom line), higher job growth, and the same or higher tipping averages than the 43 states where tipped workers still get paid the subminimum wage rate.

What stands between workers and their ability to enjoy a decent life with a stable paycheck is too often just corporate greed enabled by a subservient legislature. But we can do better. I will fight for just, generous, and inclusive America as hard as I fought for Flagstaff workers against the Chamber allied with the Koch network and their dark money tentacles.

All the other Democrats in Congress from Arizona— Raul Grijalva, Ruben Gallego and even Ann Kirkpatrick— have signed on as co-sponsors of Bobby Scott’s Raise the Wage Act. But O’Halleran, typical Republican that he is, has refused— like all the Republicans have. There are now 235 Democrats in Congress. As of today, 205 are official co-sponsors of the $15 minimum wage legislation. Only 30 oppose it. Does Tom O’Halleran think workers in Flagstaff, Winslow, Tuba City, Maricopa, Casa Grande, Safford, Holbrook, Ganado... don’t want and need a raise?

Eva Putzova isn’t one of the Democrats the Koch brothers networks is planning on supporting in this year's primaries— quote the opposite… nor is she interested in pursuing their sewer money. Her platform is not and will never be "in step with Koch policies." O’Halleran represents their interests. Eva is fighting for peoples’ interests against the Koch brothers bottom line. Please consider contributing to her congressional campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Primary A Blue Dog thermometer on the right. Cheri Bustos and her renegade DCCC are doing all they can to protect Tom O’Halleran from Arizona Democrats instead of working with local Democrats to end the career of this fake-Dem by replacing him with someone who embodies the values and vision of the Democratic Party as it was crafted by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to make it a protector of American working families— not a protector of Wall Street banksters and multinational corporate interests. FDR knew who the enemy was— and so does Eva Putzova. Cheri Bustos doesn’t and neither does Tom O’Halleran.

Arizona Can Handle A Real Democrat-- Meet Eva Putzova

Arizona is starting to slip out of the grasp of the GOP. The state party elected a neo-fascist chair and fundraising evaporated. 2020 could be a good year for Arizona Democrats. One Republican state Senator saw what was coming and abandoned ship, first to become an independent and finally joining the almost-as-conservative Blue Dogs, Tom O'Halleran. There's nothing about him that says "Democrat: except the "D"" next to his name-- which is better than the ProgressivePunch "F" next to his crucial vote score.

Look at the 5 most important bills pending before Congress, Medicare-For-All H.R.1384, The Raise the Wage Act (H.R.582), the Green New Deal Resolution (H.Res109), the Social Security 2100 Act (H.R.860) and the bill to lower the price of prescription drugs (H.R.1046). O'Halleran opposes them all! There are a dozen Democrats who regularly vote against virtually all progressive initiatives. O'Halleran is one of the 12.

Tom O'Halleran has also been an obedient lapdog for the special interests and corporate PACs that finance his career and his campaigns. The DCCC and Cheri Bustos are doing all they can to prevent O'Halleran from being primaried.

The actual Democrat primarying O'Halleran this cycle is Flagstaff former city councilwoman and progressive activist, Eva Putzova Eva is literally as good as O'Halleran is bad. Just look at the issues page on her official campaign website. Short version: she supports Medicare-For-All; she supports tuition-free public colleges; she's fighting for the rights of Arizona's indigenous people; she's campaigning for a complete immigration overhaul; she supports the Green New Deal; she is 100% pro-Choice; she opposes invasions and occupations of other countries and will be a strong voice for peace; she is strongly behind raising the minimum wage to a livable wage; and she backs LGBTQ equality. What a breath of fresh air compared to O'Halleran. Below she wrote a guest post explaining the foundations of the immigration plank she's running on. If you think she would make a better representative, please consider contributing to her campaign by clicking on the thermometer on the right.


On A Slippery Path To A Police State
By Eva Putzova

We have all seen the photos and videos of families being separated at the border. We have seen the crying children, sobbing parents, border patrol and ICE agents with guns, barbed wire detention centers. Our immigration system is cruel, chaotic, irrational and unjust.

Although many are deeply impacted by these images, we forget what caused them in the first place. Most people don’t leave their homes voluntarily to travel hundreds or thousands of miles in harsh and dangerous conditions to another country unless they are desperate and have no choice. Most of the immigrants coming to the U.S. nowadays are fleeing extreme poverty, violence, domestic abuse, and political tyranny in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras or elsewhere. Their living conditions are so marginal and desperate that they are willing to take the enormous risks of making the dangerous journey north to get across the border to the U.S. any way they can.

We need to remember that it was American military interventions in these nations in the 1970s, '80s and '90s that helped generate this flow of refugees. We helped fuel civil wars in these nations by aiding brutal, authoritarian regimes and armed groups that committed atrocities against civilians and flooded the region with weapons. Is it any wonder that this resulted in domestic instability and insecurity that, in the ensuing years, led to hundreds of thousands of people wanting to leave?

Then came the 9/11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and a brand-new immigration enforcement agency called the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE. Its mission is to "enforce the immigration laws of the United States and to investigate criminal and terrorist activity of transnational organizations and aliens within the United States." Regardless of its original intent, ICE has become an instrument of government terror in communities across our land. Undocumented, even long-time members of our communities, regardless of age, are the targets of ICE raids. These people are not engaged in "criminal and terrorist activity of transnational organizations…" They are our neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family members. And for those who assume that because they are citizens or legal residents of the U.S and have nothing to worry about-- guess again. ICE agents bully, intimidate, and even detain citizens and legal residents when they are looking for someone who is undocumented.

I have seen this firsthand in Arizona. Several years ago, Frankie Madrid, a young undocumented community activist who had been brought to the U.S. as a baby by his mother who was fleeing domestic abuse in Mexico, was arrested, charged with drug possession, served time, and then deported by ICE. Our system had forced him to live in the shadows where he suffered from depression and drug addiction. Frankie could have had protected DACA status but was the victim of an unscrupulous attorney who never filed the papers. After being deported to Mexico, a country he had never even visited, he committed suicide in despair. Just like any other American citizen or legal resident, Frankie should have been released to his family after serving his time and paying his debt to society. Instead, ICE sent him into a never-to-return-exile to a foreign land where he took his own life.

Another ICE victim in Flagstaff is an undocumented man named Jose. Jose came to the U.S. when he was nine years old. He is a father himself now. He was picked up by the local sheriff on a warrant for an unpaid fine on a previous DUI. While in custody, Jose filed a lawsuit against the sheriff for his policy of honoring ICE’s 48-hour administrative detainers, which keeps people in jail after completing their sentence or posting bail. To prevent Jose from moving forward with the lawsuit and avoiding an unfavorable court ruling, ICE lifted their detainer, effectively removing Jose’s standing in the lawsuit. Jose was able to post bail and, for a while, avoid ICE with community support.

But ICE was not going to allow Jose to escape and the community to keep protecting him. They spent months keeping him, his friends and family under surveillance. In April, ICE conducted raids in Sedona and Flagstaff with heavily armed agents and detained him-- without a warrant signed by a judge. In the process they threatened his family members with taking away their children if they didn’t cooperate. They also detained a documented resident for a period of time during this raid. While driving Jose to the ICE detention center the ICE agents celebrated their success in capturing him and told him it was his fault because he had filed the lawsuit against the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department for their unjust 48-hour detainer policy. They acted in a cruel and sadistic manner towards him.

I grew up in Slovakia, which in 1989 overthrew its totalitarian regime as did other countries in Eastern Europe. We all knew about and were familiar with state police agencies like my home country’s ŠTB, East Germany’s STASI and the Soviet Union’s KGB. They intimidated, manipulated, and blackmailed people, spied on their own citizens, and turned neighbor against neighbor. The reports about how ICE operates are too familiar to me. We are on a path to slowly turning the U.S. into a police state.

In addition to the documented stories of abusive ICE raids, the ACLU has reported that more than 80 local law enforcement agencies are now sharing license plate information collected by a private company with ICE. In emails obtained by the ACLU, ICE was told that law enforcement could expect access to billions of license plate scans, with hundreds of millions more added each month. More than 9,200 ICE employees have access now to this information with few privacy safeguards in place.

Let’s be clear. We are all now under surveillance-- citizens, legal residents, and undocumented persons alike.

There is no "immigration crisis" or "national security threat" that justifies law enforcement agencies collecting everyone’s license plate and personal location data and turning them over to ICE who will use them to bully, intimidate, and threaten families. There is no threat that justifies the brutal display of force terrorizing our communities.

When I am elected to Congress, I will work with my progressive colleagues to overhaul the immigration system. Just like ŠTB in my home country, ICE has lost its moral authority and must be abolished. We need a humane, lawful, immigration policy that provides legal status and protection to the vast majority of people who enter the U.S. seeking protection and a better life. Immigration oversight should be under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice as it was prior 2003, and not under the Department of Homeland Security. Both Frankie and Jose should have been citizens a long time ago. Frankie would have lived.

One reason that our Congress has failed to enact the reform we need is that less than three percent of its members are immigrants themselves. If the Congress reflected the population, we would now have 56 immigrants in the House and Senate. I will be the first immigrant elected to Congress from Arizona.

The militarized response by agencies like ICE to people from Latin American nations seeking asylum and protection here is the result of our past militarized interventions in those same nations. We must recognize that many of our trade agreements, drug policies, and inaction on climate change are also contributing factors to migration. We now must acknowledge our past mistakes, address the current problems humanely and create a new and different future where peace, justice, and diplomacy are paramount.

57 Democrats Voted With The Republicans To Water Down Ro Khanna's Get-Out-Of-Yemen Bill

Trump water-carrier Ken Buck (R-CO)

Less-than-progressive members of Congress who are afraid of being primaried the way Crowley was, are happy to fork over $5,000 annually to the Congressional Progressive PAC so they can "join" the CPC, an important protection racket/insurance policy issuer for New Dems. And the latest New Dem who's joining the CPC is Eliot Engel. Does that mean AIPAC is a de facto CPC member now too?

It's gotten so bad, that when Sarah Lazare and Michael Arria wrote up the out-of-Yemen victory, the title of the In These Times piece was Here Are the “Progressives” Who Watered Down the House Measure Ending Support for the Yemen War. They list 13 CPC members (including 9 freshmen) who voted with the GOP to water down the import of the resolution. And, although, technically 4 of those freshmen-- Gil Cisneros (CA), Angie Craig (MN), Katie Hill (CA) and Steven Horsford (NV)-- are members of the CPC, each has joined the New Dem Coalition and is no more progressive than fellow New Dem freshmen like Max Rose, Abigail Spanberger, Mike Sherrill, Elissa Slotkin and Ben McAdams.

There are already 11 members of the CPC with ProgressivePunch over-all "F" scores: Antonio Delgado (NY), Jared Golden (ME), Katie Porter (CA), Donald Norcross (NJ), Steven Horsford (NV), Jimmy Panetta (CA), Adam Smith (WA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Brendan Boyle (PA), Tulsi Gabbard (HI) and Darren Soto (FL). Something's wrong here, although it's nice that CPC boosters can still brag that they have more members than any other Democratic caucus in Congress. Does anyone still take that boast seriously???

I had lunch today with an old friend who is often the biggest Democratic donor in Southern California. Before I could even sit down he started talking about how "moderate" Democrats have been all about telling us what's too difficult to accomplish. "They've done this for decades," he said. "And now they're doing it with the Green New Deal and Medicare-For-All. Thank God for those new freshmen who are holding their feet to the fire." He was talking about AOC, Ilhan, Rashida and Ayanna, but I'm thinking Jose Neguse belongs in that grouping too.

Thursday, in the run up to the vote to get the U.S. out of the Saudis' Yemeni genocide, right-wing Republican Ken Buck offered an amendment to water it down. Although most Democrats (175-- including the 5 heroes we just mentioned) voted against Buck's amendment, it passed 252-177. How did that happen? The Democratic leadership team voted against it. Why did 57 Democrats vote with the GOP? Fair question-- and an important one. First let's look at who crossed the aisle. The only Republicans to vote NO were libertarian-types Justin Amash (MI) and Tom Massie (KY). These are the Dems who they passed on the way across:

• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Cheri Bustos (New Dem-IL)
• Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI)
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)
• Lou Correa (New Dem-CA)
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)
• Antonio Delgado (D-NY)
• Abby Finkenauer (D-IA)
• Jared Golden (D-ME)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Josh Harder (New Dem-CA)
• Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Katie Hill (New Dem-CA)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Steven Horsford (New Dem-NV)
• Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)
• Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
• Andy Kim (D-NJ)
• Anne Kuster (New Dem-NH)
• Conor Lamb (D-PA)
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)
• Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)
• Stephen Lynch (D-MA)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)
• Joe Morelle (D-NY)
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Jimmy Panetta (D-CA)
• Chris Pappas (New Dem-NH)
• Ed Perlmutter (New Dem-CO)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
• Katie Porter (D-CA)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)
• Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA)
• Bobby Rush (D-IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Kim Schrier (New Dem-WA)
• Bobby Scott (D-VA)
• Brad Sherman (D-CA)
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
• Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Jennifer Wexton (New Dem-VA)

Early this morning, Ro Khanna was still rejoicing that the overall War Powers Resolution passed. But... "I was disappointed," he told me, "that the Buck Amendment was added to water down our Yemen resolution and allow for limited intelligence sharing with the Saudis. It was unnecessary, and it gives the Administration a small loophole. That said, the main event of passing the WPR should not be diminished. That is the first time it has happened since 1973. The signal is very clear to the Saudis-- they need to stop the bombing in Yemen and let in food and medicine."

The way Buck, the GOP and what amounts to most of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (list above) watered down Ro Khanna's out-of-Yemen bill was by allowing Trump to share U.S. intelligence with any country he deems appropriate. That goes right to the heart of Khanna's bill and I;'ve been reaching out to some of the ostensibly progressive members who voted for it so I could find out why. So far none of them have responded.

No one was surprised that "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran voted with the still-Republicans for the Buck Amendment. O'Halleran has one of the most persistently-Republican voting records of any Democrat in the House and voting with his old cronies in the GOP is his safe space/comfort zone. Fortunately, actual Democrats in AZ-01 are fielding a progressive, Eva Putzova, for next year's primary. Blue America has endorsed her and you can contribute to her campaign by clicking on the thermometer on the right. This morning she told us that she opposes the Buck amendment because it "allows the Trump administration to continue sharing intelligence with the Saudi regime in their war on Yemen. Over the past three years the Saudis have used the information provided to them by American intelligence services to attack civilians in areas under Houthi control in Yemen. Neither the Trump administration nor the Saudis can be trusted to conduct themselves otherwise. I support the original resolution sponsored by Rep Ro Khanna that 'directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen within 30 days unless Congress authorizes a later withdrawal date, issues a declaration of war, or specifically authorizes the use of the Armed Forces.' Tens of thousands of civilians have died in this war and millions more are in the middle of a growing cholera epidemic as a result of the unsafe water supply. The American people never authorized the President to assist the Saudis in this war against Yemen and it is time to end it."

Their Masks Fall-- The House Dems Who Do Not Support Social Security Expansion Expose Themselves

This morning, on FDR's 137th birthday, Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson (D-CT) introduced the Social Security 2100 Act. The bill, which would be the most significant update to Social Security since 1983, is meant to increase benefits and strengthen the Trust Fund. There are 203 co-sponsors. Not a single Republican and several of the worst Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party have signed on. There are 235 Democrats in Congress. So who hasn't signed on? The first place I looked was at the Blue Dog membership list and then the New Dem membership list, since those groups are where you find Democrats who oppose working families in the same way that Republicans do. These are the names of the refuseniks I found-- first the Blue Dogs:

• Jim Cooper (Nashville, TN)
• Jim Costa (Fresno, CA)
• Charlie Crist (St. Petersburg, FL)
• Joe Cunningham (Charleston, SC)
• Josh Gottheimer (Bergen Co., NJ)
• Dan Lipinski (Chicago, IL)
• Stephanie Murphy (Orlando, FL)
• Tom O'Halleran (Sedona, Flagstaff, AZ)
• Anthony Brindisi (Utica, Binghampton, NY)
• Brad Schneider (North Shore Chicagoland, IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Willamette Valley, Salem, OR)
• Max Rose (Staten Island, Brooklyn, NY)
• Mikie Sherrill (Morris Co., NJ)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Las Cruces, NM)
• Jeff Van Drew (Atlantic City, NJ)

And these are the New Dems, although most of the Blue Dogs are also New Dems:

• Scott Peters (San Diego, CA)
• Colin Allred (Dallas, TX)
• Lizzie Fletcher (Houston, TX)
• Josh Harder (Modesto, CA)
• Ron Kind (Eau Claire, La Crosse, WI)
• Raja Krishamoorthi (Northwest Cook County, DuPage, IL)
• Susie Lee (southern Clark Co., NV)
• Elaine Luria (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, VA)
• Ben McAdams (Salt Lake suburbs, Provo, UT)
• Dean Phillips (west Minneapolis suburbs, MN)
• Elissa Slotkin (Lansing, MI)

We've been warning you about these garbage members of Congress. And now you see why. Alex Lawson, who runs SocialSecurityWorks, told us that "There are over two hundred original co-sponsors on this bill from every corner of the party, every caucus, every geographic area, every everything. We will welcome everybody on after introduction and we expect their votes when this comes to the floor in the spring. Anybody who votes against this bill is ignoring the overwhelming majority of Democrats and even the majority of Republicans who support increasing Social Security benefits. Anybody who votes against this bill is making it crystal clear they work for the billionaires and not the people."

I asked Eva Putzova, the progressive candidate for Congress in AZ-01 challenging Tom O’Halleran, an "ex"-Republican and she had strong feelings that differed greatly from his: "Strengthening our social security program is a no brainer. Nobody should live in poverty and certainly nobody who worked all their life should worry about where the money for food and other basics will come from." This is what they refuse to support:

• Benefit bump for current and new beneficiaries – Provides an increase for all beneficiaries that is the equivalent of 2% of the average benefit. The United States faces a retirement crisis and a modest boost in Social Security benefits strengthens the one leg of the retirement system that that is universal and the most reliable.

• Protection against inflation – Improves the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) formula to better reflect the costs incurred by seniors through adopting a CPI-E formula.  This provision will help seniors who spend a greater portion of their income on health care and other necessities.  Improved inflation protection will especially help older retirees and widows who are more likely to rely on Social Security benefits as they age.]

• Protect low income workers – No one who paid into the system over a lifetime should retire into poverty.  The new minimum benefit will be set at 25% above the poverty line and would be tied to wage levels to ensure that the minimum benefit does not fall behind.

• Cut taxes for beneficiaries – Over 12 million Social Security recipients would see a tax cut.  Presently, your Social Security benefits are taxed if you have non-Social Security income exceeding $25,000 for an individual or $32,000 for couples.  This would raise that threshold to $50,000 and $100,000 respectively.

• Holding SSI, Medicaid, and CHIP Beneficiaries Harmless – Ensures that any increase in benefits from the bill do not result in a reduction in SSI benefits or loss of eligibility for Medicaid or CHIP.

• Have millionaires and billionaires pay the same rate as everyone else – Presently, payroll taxes are not collected on wages over $132,900. This legislation would apply the payroll tax to wages above $400,000.  This provision would only affect the top 0.4% of wage earners.

• 50 cents per week to keep the system solvent – Gradually phase in an increase in the contribution rate beginning in 2020 so that by 2043, workers and employers would pay 7.4% instead of 6.2% today. For the average worker this would mean paying an additional 50 cents per week every year to keep the system solvent.

• Social Security Trust Fund Established – Social Security provides all-in-one retirement, survivor, and disability benefits funded through the dedicated FICA contribution paid by workers. There are technically two trust funds, Old-Age and Survivors (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI), and that are usually referred to as the Social Security Trust Fund. This provision combines the OASI & DI trust funds into one Social Security Trust Fund, to ensure that all benefits will be paid.

Natalie DeVito is a progressive activist and a friend of mine who lives on Staten Island. She took the news about Max Rose refusing to get behind Social Security badly. She e-mailed me this morning:

I'm shocked-- shocked! (in my best Captain Renault voice) to find Max Rose in lockstep with the Blue Dogs! Just a few weeks into his term, he has already managed to incite vocal opposition and disdain from core supporters and persistent surrogates for pandering to Republicans and making shady alliances. First it was the Blue Dogs, then the New Dems-- and to add extra insult to every progressive Democrat who knocked doors and chipped in cash, the Problem Solvers' Caucus, Third Way and No Labels. It's like the Five Point plan of every Progressive's nightmare. But this is Social Security, and it ain't even that "left."

Because Rose is unresponsive on social media and only communicates in soundbites after he's done something or been somewhere he wants to promote, one can only wonder how he'll vote until after it's recorded. It's a fair question as to whether he's trying to sneak in silently past the wealthy by casting a vote Democrats would appreciate, or suck on the Blue Dog teat and hope to sneak past the progressives instead.

A full six days before he cast his MTR vote with unanimous Republicans on January 23rd, one Sharon Pinsker posted on his official timeline, 

"Those of us who worked  to help get Max Rose elected seem to have a new task before us.  Sadly, we now need to turn our energy into calling him and knocking on his door to let him know what we think of his being part of what Sarah Sanders called the 'problem solvers caucus.' Lets ask Max Rose where he stands on the wall and what exactly he means by the statement that he will 'work with anyone.' A well-educated man (despite his efforts to offer that down-home vibe), Max Rose clearly knows the history of appeasement.  Here is the info. on his offices (by the way, no Brooklyn office...) "        

These aren't yesterday's Democrats, content to show up on Election Day, check a box and move on with their lives. They are organized and they are plugged in and they have no hesitation about weaponizing their voices. The hundreds of moms who canvassed, volunteered and remain plugged in are well-versed in the language of "I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it."

They are watching the votes diligently.
They are unafraid to criticize.
They are as passionate as ever.
And they expect a Democrat to show up to work as a Democrat.

I'd suggest he work on sneaking past the bankers funding the Blue Dogs, because he'll never sneak his votes past these moms in action.

Blue Dogs Still Whining About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Blue Dogs say they can work with this in a bipartisan way

It's silly to called Blue Dogs, the right-wing fringe of the Democratic Party (AKA, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) "moderate." They're not moderate; they're conservative-- and more than anything else, they're corrupt, When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said "I don't think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health care legislation," they short circuited and have been attacking her ever since. If the Blue Dogs were once motivated by right-of-center ideology, today they are just as motivated by the right-of-center gravy train, just as Republicans are. Ocasio-Cortez also said, "I don't think people who are taking money from Oil and Gas companies should be drafting climate legislation.

There are 17 Blue Dogs returning to the House in January-- not counting the 7 right-leaning freshmen they recruited. This list is the 17 incumbents with how much each has accepted in bribes, first from PhRMA and second from Oil and Gas. This kind of bribery ins't illegal-- since Congress gets to define its own criminal behavior as legal.

• Sanford Bishop (GA)- Appropriations Committee, next chair of the Subcommittee dealing with the Food and Drug Administration, $67,500, $82,930
• Jim Cooper (TN)- Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on Health Care, $134,400, $102,375
• Lou Correa (CA)- Veteran's Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Health, $69,998, $53,500
• Jim Costa (CA)- Natural Resources Committee's subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources $35,500, $517,974
• Charlie Crist (FL)- Financial Services Committee, $101,250, $79,905
• Henry Cuellar (TX)- Appropriations Committee, $75,350, $708,127
• Vicente Gonzalez (TX)- Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Insurance $4,750, $47,250
• Josh Gottheimer (NJ)- Financial Services Committee, $103,990, $57,841
• Dan Lipinski (IL)- Science Committee's Subcommittee on Energy; Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Pipelines, $17,000, $35,000
• Stephanie Murphy (FL)- Small Buisiness Committee's next chair of Subcommittee on Regulations, $62,081, $3,300
• Tom O'Halleran (AZ)- Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Energy $25,935, $475
• Collin Peterson (MN)- next chair of the Agriculture Committee- $44,000, $150,926
• Brad Schneider (IL)- Small Business Committee- next chair of Subcommittee on Energy and Trade, $268,491, $22,552
• Mike Thompson (CA)- Ways and Means-- next chair of Subcommittee on Health, $502,228, $90,260
• Filemon Vela (TX)- Agriculture Committee, $29,100, $98,300

As for calling the Blue Dogs, "centrists," they are certainly not anywhere near the center of the Democratic Party, although they are in the center of Congress, something right in between actual Democrats and Republicans (basically now a neo-fascist party). The Blue Dogs and New Dems are pretty much what's left of Eisenhower Republicans. In fact, severakof their members are "ex"-Republicans, like Charlie Crist, and Tom O'Halleran.

Over the weekend Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, in a pull piece for the Blue Dogs, referred to the then as both moderates and centrists and never once mentioned their corruption. His headline is their p.r. message-- what a coincidence-- going into 2019, Blue Dog Democrats are poised to play a crucial role in the next Congress. He starts by reminding his readers that "The Democratic Party [the DCCC] spent enormous amounts of time and money recruiting and supporting moderate, centrist candidates as part of its strategy to take control of the House in last month’s midterm elections-- and it worked." Yes, it worked; there was a massive anti-red wave they swept even even wretched candidates like Jeff Van Drew, Max Rose and Abigail Spanberger into Congress. Rogin's next sentence is the message that the Blue Dems have repeated-- and have had their pet media hacks repeat-- year after year after year, no matter how many times it's proven to be completely incorrect: "Now, these very lawmakers are organizing to assert their influence. If they succeed, they might just keep their jobs and save the Democratic majority in the process."

Meet Rep. Van Drew, Josh Rogin's idea of the "moderate," "centrist" candidate-- it's not easy to get an A+ from the NRA, but Van Drew pulled it off... so moderate in suburban New Jersey!

The Blue Dog Coalition began in 1995 after Democrats lost power in the most stunning electoral defeat of that era. Originally made up of mostly older, white, Southern men, their name was inspired by the iconic yellow-eyed blue dog painted by artist George Rodrigue... The forming principle of the group was that fiscally conservative, national-security-minded Democrats needed to stick together-- and occasionally stick it to their own party’s leadership-- to survive and get stuff done. But the Blue Dog Coalition will look a lot different in 2019 than it did in 1995: It now includes Northerners, young people and veterans. It is led by an Asian American woman who served in the Pentagon and just won her first reelection in a purple Florida district that supports both gun control and gay rights.

“The makeup of our coalition has changed,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) told me. “It’s not your Southern Democratic Blue Dog Coalition anymore.”

Murphy and her co-chairs, Rep. J. Luis Correa (CA) and Rep. Tom O’Halleran (AZ), are growing their coalition by recruiting from the incoming freshman class.

[Note: Correa was known as the worst Democrat in the California legislature, corrupt beyond belief and voting more frequently with the Republicans than any other Democrat. There was general rejoicing when he left Sacramento. Tom O'Halleran also served in his state's legislature... as a Republican, which is still basically is, except with a "D" next to his name.]

It is no accident they’ve signed up Afghanistan war veteran Max Rose (NY), former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger (VA) and former Salt Lake County, Utah, mayor Ben McAdams. Their theory of the case is that competence, pragmatism and experience in public service are attributes voters crave in the age of President Trump.

Republicans have ceded huge territory in the center, Murphy said, by abandoning fiscal responsibility on debt and deficits while following Trump as he takes the GOP toward a nationalist trade and foreign policy.

“We have a unique opportunity,” she said. “It is a moment when the Blue Dogs have an opportunity to be a strong, reasonable voice. . .  In contrast to some of the reckless policies we are seeing.”

This is how the rules of the conservative game read: when Democrats are in power, no money is allowed to be spent except on the military. Money spent on making the country more equitable and more livable for working families is verboten. First priority must always be reducing the deficit that the conservatives ran up with their tax cuts for the rich and wasteful militarism. Then when voters get sick of the Scrooge-like posture, Republicans get back into power and the spigots open for further enriching the very rich-- and stealing from the public purse, another hallmark of conservative governance. When in comes to fiscal and economic policy, Blue Dogs are Republicans. And when it comes to attacking progressives, the Blue Dogs are better at it than Republicans. Rogan continued, sympathetically: "They know the progressive far-left Democrats entering Congress are getting the lion’s share of media attention. For example, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) has a district just miles from Rose’s but gets drastically more coverage, in part because of her willingness to oppose party leadership and advocate economic and foreign policy ideas that are outside the mainstream."

Laughable. It was Rose who threatened to not vote for Pelosi and who demanded she agree to rules that would enable the Republican minority. Ocasio-Cortez said she would vote for Pelosi. So where does the lie come from? The Blue Dog p.r. person or from the dishonest or really dumb-as-a-brick "journalist?" Why shouldn't Ocasio-Cortez get media coverage? She's already been setting the policy discussion while Rose sits around with one finger up his ass and the other in the wind trying to figure out what's the least dangerous things for him to say.

Sixty-four percent of the 42 seats Democrats flipped in the 2018 midterms will be held by members of the Blue Dogs or the moderate New Democratic Coalition; only 27 percent of those seats will be held by members of the Progressive Caucus. Of the 20 congressional districts now held by Democrats but that favored Trump in 2016, 11 are Blue Dog or New Dem members; only three are in the Progressive Caucus.

With a little sleight of hand, the Blue Dog p.r. team leaves out progressive freshmen like Ocasio-Cortez (NYC), Ilhan Omar (Minneapolis), Ayassa Pressley (Boston) and Rashida Tlaib (Detroit) since they represented seats that were already held by Democrats, while including a brainless conservative backbencher, the wealthy Vegas socialite and Mob-connected Susie Lee who was also elected in a district held by a Democrat, as were Steven Horsford, Jahanna Hayes and Chris Pappas. So is the use of "honesty" in the calculations too much to ask for?

Lets start with how many freshmen joined each caucus, keeping in mind that the most conservative freshmen joined both the Blue Dogs and the New Dems and that the actual centrists-- rather than the right wing Democrats-- joined the New Dems and the CPC (Congressional Progressive Caucus.) A brief tangent here. Many of the centrist Dems feel they need the political cover of being able to tell their constituents they are progressives, so they pay the $5,000 annual membership fee and and the CPC gives them that cover. They think they can avoid primaries from the left that way. That's fucked up!

OK, these are the new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus: 25 members so far:

Only 7 freshmen were willing to admit to being Blue Dogs, all proven conservatives. Not one, for example, has signed onto the #GreenNewDeal:

• Jeff Van Drew (NJ)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)
• Xochitl Small (NM)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)

As for the New Dems, 30 joined... although 6 are also Blue Dogs and 5 are also members of the CPC. This in the whole list:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Greg Stanton (AZ)
• Josh Harder (CA)
• Katie Hill (CA)
• Harley Rouda (CA)
• Jason Crow (CO)
• Debbie Powell (FL)
• Sean Casten (IL)
• Sharice Davids (KS)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI)
• Haley Stevens (MI)
• Angie Craig (MN)
• Sean Phillips (MN)
• Susie Lee (NV)
• Chris Pappas (NH)
• Tom Malinowski (NJ)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)
• Xochitl Small (NM)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Chrissy Houlahan (PA)
• Susan Wild (PA)
• Lizzie Fletcher (TX)
• Veronica Escobar (TX)
• Colin Allred (TX)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Elaine Luria (VA)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)
• Jennifer Wexton (VA)
• Kim Schrier (WA)

OK, now the excuse the conservative Democrats use for voting with the Republicans so frequently. Rogin points out that "Ocasio-Cortez won with 78 percent of the vote. Rose won with less than 53 percent. If Pelosi still wants to be speaker after two years, Democrats must convince constituents in districts such as Rose’s that their party represents them." Perhaps if Rose ran on the issues Ocasio-Cortez ran on-- Medicare-for-All, free state colleges, the GreenNewDeal-- he would have had 78% as well. Only 4 Democrats had worse voting records.

The Blue Dogs disagree, of course. Rogin asked the "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran (who has an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch and who has voted about 60% of the time on crucial roll calls since he was elected with the Republicans.

“Our districts have a different look to them and a different face to them, and we have to recognize that and the caucus has to recognize that,” O’Halleran told me. I might ad that though he had a very week opponent, who spent half what he did, the DCCC threw $1,002,928 into the race and Pelosi's SuperPAC kicked in another $481,564. (Neither the NRCC nor Ryan's SuperPAC targeted the race; they spent zero.) And now to the main point they want to get to: if Democrats deliver on the progressive ideas that powered

The risk for Democrats is that the squeaky wheels will wind up getting the grease-- and the loudest voices will become the voice of the party.

“Pragmatism never has been and never will be a sexy message, but these members were elected in part because of their pragmatism,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, a partner at ROKK Solutions, a Washington consultancy. “The priority is maintaining and expanding the majority. As a bloc, there’s a lot of strength in the Blue Dog Coalition.”

What bullshit! The 7 of them were elected because they were on the ballot in an anti-red year. Jeff Van Drew, for example, nearly lost his race, in a blue district and despite running against a vanity candidate with no support. Had he run as a progressive, he would have done much better. Any Democrat with the kind funding Sherrill had was going to win that seat. Same with Rose.



"The Blue Dogs’ challenge is not just about marketing. They are preaching moderation," he asserts, instead of calling it what it is: conservatism and a defense of the status quo. He extols "compromise and bipartisanship in an environment characterized by divided government, intense partisanship, the prospect of two years of investigations into the administration and potential impeachment proceedings." Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy reached out with that same message to the Blue Doggie freshmen last week, ironically on the exact same day that he refused to allow a vote on ending the U.S. participation in the tragic genocide in Yemen. That was a compromise bill passed with a bipartisan majority in the Senate. It would have passed by a bipartisan majority in the House as well, but McCarthy and Ryan refused to allow a vote. That's who Rogin and the Blue Dogs want to work with on compromise and bipartisanship? (You bet it is!)

And Rogin ends with another canard that the Blue Dogs, New Dems and Republicans love repeating endlessly when Democrats take over Congress: "Even if the Democratic leadership gives its centrist and moderate members the opportunities and cover they need to be independent and focus on their districts, greater forces may continue to push both parties to their extremes. Democrats must decide whether they want to assuage their angriest elements or govern from the middle and keep their power." Majorities of Americans-- not just Democrats, but also independent voters and in some cases Republican voters say they support the progressive platform. Almost no one supports the Blue Dog platform except Republicans, who don't vote for Blue Dogs anyway.