Pelosi Is Encouraging A Primary Against Seth Moulton While Opposing Primaries By Progressives Against Corrupt Conservative Incumbents-- She's Losing Her Mind

One month from Tuesday there's a special election to fill the empty congressional seat in PA-12. Haven't heard much about it, have you? You weren't meant to. The DCCC and NRCC have a gentleman's agreement that this one goes to Team Red without a contest. The DCCC is ignoring the district entirely. After all, it's a pretty red district and the Democrat running for the open seat, Marc Friedenberg, is a damned progressive who advocates policies Cheri Bustos thinks are detrimental to the Democratic Party-- like Medicare-For-All. Besides, the DCCC has a rough and tumble civil war of its own making to spend all it's attention on at the moment. "Why fight Republicans when there are progressives to attack," has been a motivating principle of the DCCC since Bustos' guru, Rahm Emanuel, had the position she now occupies.

If you're hung up on political consultants, you're missing the true import of Cheri Bustos' diktat about primaries and Democratic incumbents. The threat to consultants-- that if they work for anyone who challenges a Democratic incumbent, they're finished-- is dastardly and debilitating but also possible for candidates to circumvent. The real problem is that it's another signal from the Democratic establishment that rebels are not welcome; progressives are not welcome; independent minds are not welcome. It's another impediment that the DCCC can throw up against challengers in the never-ending incumbent protection racket that is at the heart of the DCCC.

Two interesting and contradictory things happened in the last few days. Star Intercept reporters Akela Lacy and Ryan Grim blew the whistle on how the DCCC, which is completely controlled by Pelosi, pressured 4 consultants to stop working for Marie Newman, the progressive challenger to anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-healthcare Blue Dog Dan Lipinski in Chicagoland. The DCCC told the consultants that "if they continued working against Lipinski, their future business with the party would suffer."

Grim and Lacy wrote that the DCCC policy "will have the effect of protecting white male incumbents defending seats against challengers in an increasingly diverse party. That’s the case with Lipinski, who inherited the seat from his father in 2005 and has retrograde views when it comes to much of the Democratic agenda, including his opposition to marriage equality and abortion rights. He voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the signature legislation House Democratic leaders are trying to save in their campaign against Medicare for All."

Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the Justice Democrats, told The Intercept that the way progressives are viewing this is that "The DCCC would rather stand with a so-called Democrat who has stood against reproductive, immigrant, and LGBT rights and a $15 minimum wage rather than allow a fair competition and choice for voters. The Democratic Party leadership is choosing machine politics over ushering in a new generation of leaders and the fundamental idea of democracy."

Meanwhile more than 40 official chapters of the Young Democrats-- including Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, Boston College, UCLA, Michigan State, Occidental, Texas State, University of Wisconsin, Rutgers-- are boycotting the DCCC over Bustos' anti-democratic policy. In their letter to Bustos, the Harvard Young Democrats wrote that "Primary challengers are essential to ensure that the Democratic Party is continually held accountable to the needs of our constituents. This blacklist policy is undemocratic and antithetical to our values of inclusion and diversity. As Rep. Ayanna Pressley has put it, as Democrats we 'cannot credibly lay claim to prioritizing diversity and inclusion when institutions like the DCCC implement policies that threaten to silence new voices and historically marginalized communities.' Challengers to incumbents have been essential to making the Democratic Party an institution that truly reflects the progressive values and diverse identities of the people it claims to represent. As young Democrats, we support a national boycott of donations to the DCCC until it reverses this blacklist rule and institutes policies that support, not punish, new voices in the Democratic Party. Until this policy is reversed, we urge donors to contribute to individual candidates." Good idea-- and you can do just that by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right and contributing to Marie Newman and the other progressive candidates on the page.

At the same time that was happening, Pelosi contacted former Congressman John Tierney to recruit him to run against a Democratic incumbent she personally detests, Seth Moulton. And while it's hard to argue with Pelosi that Moulton deserves a primary challenge, the real point is that Lipinski deserves one even more. It's just that Pelosi doesn't feel the same degree of personal animus towards Lipinski as she does towards Moulton, who tried the derail her bid for the speakership.

With Moulton running around wasting his time on a DOA presidential campaign, Pelosi sees an opportunity to knock him off politically at home. I think that's great, although she did run-over the hopes of former state Sen. Barbara L’Italien, who has been planning on running against Moulton herself. And what does Cheri Bustos have to say about all this? Nothing... not a peep so far. I guess she thinks Democratic campaign donors and voters don't understand what hypocrisy looks like.

The DCCC Announced 5 Regional Vice Chairs Last Week

Cheri-- burnin' down the House (but not in  a good way)

And the winners are... not the candidates being recruited to run for congressional seats next year. These 5 were elected to positions that haven't been well-defined yet:

• Madeline Dean (New Dem-PA)- the northeast
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- the South
• Gwen Moore (D-WI)- the Midwest
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- the West Coast
• Marc Veasey (new Dem-TX)- everything else

Do you know the expression "Oy Veh?" Oy veh! Four New Dems-- Charlie's that too besides being a Blue Dog-- plus Gwen Moore. Gwen's cool and might be able to help some of the candidates. I don't know much about Madeline Dean, so I'll withhold judgement, although my immediate reaction is that for a freshman to seek out a job like this, she probably wants to do some good. Her comments on taking the job were fine: "Last election, the people sent a positive message to our leaders to say that we can and must do better-- ushering in the most beautifully diverse Congress in our nation’s history. We must build on this energy and remember that we are the party of progress; the party that values diversity, decency, and equality; the party of the people. As Regional Vice-Chair, I am dedicated to building our party’s strength by electing those who embody these ideals, listen to the public, and truly put the people first."

The other 3 are bad news. Scott Peters is running for Mayor of San Diego and doesn't give a rat's ass about Congress and won't do anyone any good. He's also an entitled multimillionaire with a relatively reactionary agenda and a very strong "F" from ProgressivePunch. (Moore and Dean have "A" grades; the 3 others all have "F.") Great role models.

Veasey's probably as bad a choice as Peters since he's going to be pre-occupied with his own primary battle this cycle and is likely to be worthless to any of the candidates running in his vast stretch of the country. Texas gets screwed again!

And Crist is a complete joke. I doubt he'll pull himself away from the mirror he stares into for 15 hours a day. And even if he did, what good is a Republican pretending-- half-heartedly-- to be a Democrat going to do for any candidates. Bad news for new candidates: "I’m proud to serve as a Regional Vice-Chair at the DCCC because I’m committed to working with our Frontline Members and re-electing our Democratic Majority in 2020 so we can continue getting the job done for all Americans." Peters too seemed unaware and uninterested in working to help new candidates. "As chair of the New Democrat Political Action Committee last year, I helped find and support the candidates who enabled us to win the majority; many of these new members are from the west. Now, as a Regional Vice-Chair, it will be my honor, and I’ll do everything I can, to help these strong, energetic new members win re-election."

The worst chair of the DCCC since her role model, Rahm Emanuel, left about a decade ago has something to say. It doesn't mean anything but not much she says ever does. Take it away, Cheri!

If we want to make meaningful progress on the kitchen table challenges facing families across America, we need to fortify and expand our Democratic majority. That’s why I’m so proud to announce the DCCC’s regional Vice-Chairs who will help lead our on the ground efforts to win in 2020. I want to thank Reps. Dean, Crist, Moore, Veasey and Peters for stepping up and taking a leading role to get it done. By working together to draw a clear contrast between our work to lower health care costs and the Washington Republicans failed agenda of stripping protections for people with pre-existing conditions, we’ll ensure a better future for all of our families.

The Next Special Election Is In Madeline Dean's Region-- And State

Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district is humongous, the biggest in the state and it includes all of Porter, Tioga, Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming. Sullivan, Lycoming, Clinton, Union, Snyder, Mifflin, Juniata and Perry counties plus parts of Montour, Centre and Northumberland counties. I would guess that the largest city in the district is Williamsport, population 28,462. It's very rural, very small town... and very red. The PVI is R+17. Obama lost it both times-- badly-- and Trump pulverized Hillary 66.1% to 29.7%. I haven't seen any evidence of the DCCC lifting a finger to help the Democratic candidate.

Last year Governor Tom Wolf (D) and Senator Bob Casey (D) each crushed their Republican opponent by double digits statewide. But neither of them took a single county in the 12th other than very blue Centre County (which includes State College), and most of that county lies outside the district (in PA-15). Also last year, incumbent far right Republican Tom Marino beat his challenger, progressive Democrat Marc Friedenberg-- 66-34%, Friedenberg also winning just the portion of Centre County in the district.

And one month from today-- on May 21-- Friedenberg is running again. Marino abruptly resigned from Congress two weeks after being sworn in. Marino first said he wanted to serve the public by creating jobs in the public sector but then said he has been battling kidney cancer. He also seems angry and fed up with politics. Trump nominated him to be drug czar but a month later had Marino withdraw from the nomination after it came out that he had been the chief architect behind a bill that protected pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors and crippled the DEA's ability to combat the U.S. opioid epidemic, a bad look for a drug czar. (He also accepted $190,941 in legalistic bribes from Pharmaceutical companies and $92,000 from Pharmaceutical manufacturing firms.)

Democrats in areas as red as PA-12, tend to identify with strong progressive policies and candidates. In 2016, Bernie won the district. He beat Hillary in Bradford, Centre, Clinton, Juniata, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Northumberland, Perry, Potter, Tioga and Wyoming counties-- and lost Snyder County to her by 55 votes, Sullivan County by 17 votes, Susquehanna by 78 votes and Union by 39 votes. Friedman is running on similar issues-- like Medicare-For-All. In fact he says that health care issues are what first inspired him to run. Unlike his opponent, he embraces the "scientific consensus that climate change poses a threat to our future on this planet."

Friedenberg is a college professor who teaches cybersecurity. There was no primary for the special election and no other candidates came forward to run so he was given the Democratic nomination by default. His Trumpist opponent Fred Keller beat back 13 challengers to win the nomination on the 4th ballot at the GOP district convention.

Last week he was endorsed by Lt Governor John Fetterman-- and has also been endorsed by former Congressman Joe Sestak and by Progressive Democrats of America, Our Revolution, the state AFL-CIO and the editorial board of the Scranton Times-Tribune, which noted that he is "far better aligned with the public interest" than his Republican opponent.

This is going to be a very, very tough district to flip. I believe the reddest district won by a Democrat currently serving in Congress has a PVI of R+12, Collin Peterson and he really is a Democrat in name only. Friedenberg is actually running as a real Democrat in an even redder district. As of March 31, he had raised $83,514.43 and spent $769.66, while Keller had raised $175,074.14 and spent $11,409.47.

Even Before The Merger With Amazon, Whole Foods "Inspired" Tom Prigg To Run For Congress

PA-12 in the western part of the state stretches from the Ohio border in the vicinity of Little Blue Run Lake into suburbs north of Pittsburgh from Aliquippa through McCandless, Ross, West Deer and Harrison townships and the east to Johnstown and Somerset. Very blue collar and very white, the district used to be a strong Democratic Party stronghold. But Obama lost it both time-- with 45% against McCain and just 41% against Romney. Trump couldn't have asked for a weaker opponent there than Hillary Clinton and he eviscerated her 58.7% to 37.9%. This is the area where Peter Hart's now famous focus group on disappointment with Trump came from. By and large, the participants expressed disappointment and even exasperation with how Señor Trumpanzee has handled his time in office. Trump was described as having "no social skills," a disappointing learning curve, lacking in empathy, as feeding off racial divisions and as "crazy," an "abject failure," "unfit," "outrageous" and as unable tp get out of his own way. Christina Lees, an independent who leans Republican and voted for Trump, declared that "everybody knew he was a nut," but that they hoped for him to achieve good things when they backed him. And yet, PA-12 has a strong red PVI-- R+9.

The incumbent Republican, Keith Rothfus is a Wall Street hack who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, taking bribes from the banksters and carrying their water. A month ago a Wall Street lobbyist-written bill, sponsored by Rothfus with the express purpose of hampering the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect bank customers from the kinds of systemic abuse and predatory behavior that led directly to Bush's Great Recession passed. Last cycle Rothfus took $518,489 in legalistic bribes from the Finance sector he's supposed to be overseeing. Since his election in 2012, his Wall Street haul has been $1,567,038. So far this cycle there are at least 4 Democrats who have declared their candidacies. At least one, Tom Prigg, is a progressive. I asked him to introduce himself with a guest post.


Why I'm Running For Congress
-by Tom Prigg

One of the most common questions I'm asked is, "Why are you running for Congress?" I think people ask because I'm not the typical manicured, white-collar candidate with money or powerful connections. I tell people that I’m an Army veteran of the 82nd Airborne. I’m a scientist who has studied the brain for twenty years. I’ve climbed icebergs in the Atlantic ocean, and mountains on other continents. I’ve also completed a professional stunt school and performed stunts in movies. But these are things I’ve done; it is not who I am. They’re not reasons that I’m running for congress, nor reasons anyone should vote for me. These aren’t my values or motivations; they’re stories that exemplify what I’ve accomplished despite where I began. So, the real answer to why I’m running is deeper than the 30-second answer I can usually give, so I would like to take the opportunity to do it justice. It's important to me that people understand where I came from and why I am confident I’ll get to where I intend to go.

Like millions of unfortunate Americans, I was born into a family struggling to make ends meet, and that life was all I knew. My parents worked full-time, but we lived in abject poverty. And, when my father left us in 1980, we inherited what seemed like impossible odds to overcome. I was the oldest of three, so I was more aware than my sisters that our family was living on the edge. We were greatly in debt and lost utilities on a regular basis. When our heat was turned off, I still remember stacking several blankets on top of myself and desperately snuggling with my dog for warmth. I would sleep with the covers pulled over my head so my breath would help keep me warm. Sleep was a sanctuary from the hunger pangs. If the lack of food wasn’t causing my gut to twist, it was the ulcers from worrying that did. At ten, life seemed like an impossible pit to climb out of.

I wish I could say my experiences with poverty and deprivation were uncommon, but unfortunately they aren’t. In my district of six counties, child poverty is as high as 26% in one county. My struggles may be over, but theirs are not. I may have clawed my way out of poverty, but I can’t live a comfortable life knowing that there are kids out there suffering the way I once did, and do nothing to help them.

After high school, I joined the military and fulfilled a dream of becoming a sniper in the 82nd Airborne division. Being an infantryman is a hard life; it’s essentially the blue collar of the military. Our packs and gear could weigh more than a hundred pounds. I graduated high school weighing only 130 lbs, and as an assistant gunner on an M60 team, my pack seemed heavier than I was. Every step I took felt like my legs were being driven through the ground. In the military there is no place for whining, so you rely on character and fortitude to complete the mission. Those are hard lessons, but the military taught me how to carry out an objective and overcome obstacles. That’s how I can now balance a full-time job, my family with two small children and a daughter in college with a congressional campaign that requires me to have meetings or events every single night, seven days a week. I do it because it’s my mission, and I refuse to fail.

I was inspired to run for Congress four years ago after a life experience that harkened back to my childhood. In 2013, I found myself in the position of losing my job due to the nonrenewal of my scientific grant. In science we call it “soft money,” because it’s only there as long as the government desires to keep funding your research. If the grants run out, your job and benefits go with it. That’s just the nature of the beast in academia, and we accept that. But 2013 was different. At that time scientists were only getting ~5% of their grants funded. Today it’s even less. At the time, my lab at the University of Pittsburgh was working to develop a way for people to feel sensations of “touch” through their prosthetics by stimulating a subcortical region of the brain. You may be thinking, “Well, that’s potentially groundbreaking work, of course his funding would be renewed.” Well, that is sometimes true, but usually not. For example, the Pierce lab at UT Austin has turned to crowdfunding on more than one occasion to support Alzheimer's research. To drive home the point that it’s not necessarily about the quality of research, they successfully published their results from those crowdsourced funds. In other words, their science was good enough for a high impact peer-reviewed journal, but somehow it wasn’t “worthy” for grant funding at the time of review. This is not how science should progress, but it’s how the current system works.

On February 1st, 2013, I joined the ranks of the unemployed, and remained there for a year. I was unable to find a job despite having a good education and sixteen years of experience in neuroscience. I applied for everything under the sun. Biology, psychology, emergency management, writing jobs...anything and everything, yet nothing panned out.

It was at this time I realized, “If this is so difficult for me, what is it like for someone without a college education or a marketable skill, experience, or a good employment record?” While I recognized that others probably had a harder time, that didn’t stop me from feeling cheated, just like I felt when I was growing up poor. I always felt behind the eight-ball, and to be honest, why shouldn’t I? The Economic Mobility Project has shown that low-achieving, wealthy students are more likely to advance to college compared to high-achieving, low-income students. This pattern persists after college as well: low-achieving, wealthy students received better jobs than their high-achieving, low-income counterparts. This system is, and always has been, rigged.

I began thinking about how dysfunctional our system had become. It seemed futile to protest or complain about politicians, laws, or the direction of the country. It was clear that our elected officials weren’t listening to us. Millions of people were struggling and they didn’t seem to care. They said they did, but their policies told a different story. I felt the only way I could fix this was to become a lawmaker myself. If my voice and vote as a citizen couldn’t change things, I would become a person whose voice did matter. It was with this rationale that I set out to ultimately run for US Congress, and despite my unemployment status, I began the prep work to make this seemingly unattainable goal, especially for a middle-class worker, a reality.

Ten months later, I’d never felt so depressed and powerless in my life; I had no job prospects and my daughter, Riley, had just been born on December 20th, 2013. The ceaseless worry of being able to support my family while unemployed paired with the persistent brain-fog and exhaustion that always accompanies caring for a newborn cumulated into what felt like a constant vice-like tightness in my chest making it difficult to breathe. I frequently thought about my unattainable goal. I questioned my motives and my ability to pull this off. I was nobody; what chance did I really have? My wife, Kathy, encouraged me to press on. I refused to let her down, and so I persisted in laying the groundwork for a congressional campaign as I continued to apply for jobs. Months passed before I was called for my first job interview. When the call finally came, it was from a grocery store. It was May of 2014, my daughter was now six months old, but I was determined to spin my new situation in the most positive way. I decided that I’d learn a new trade and eventually become managment, all the while with plans for Congress on my mind.

They started me on the counter as a part-time meat guy. It didn’t take long for one of those weird, demoralizing customer encounters. It was my second night on the job when an older lady walked up to the counter. She looked like the 101 Dalmatians character Cruella de Vil. Her lipstick was a bit smeared and her hair was barely styled with sprigs of loose hair sticking out at weird angles like springs from a worn mattress. As I wrapped up her three pounds of sausage into two packages, just like she had instructed, she stopped me and asked, “Did you remember the discount?” Whole Foods gives a dollar off per pound of sausage when the order exceeds three pounds.

“Yep, I got it.” I answered. I handed her the order and she looked at it then looked back at me with a stone hardened face.

“You forgot the discount,” she said.

I didn’t think much about it, it was my second day on the job so maybe I mis-punched the numbers. I took the sausage back and looked at the labels. Nope, the discount was there. “The discount is right here,” I said pointing at the price per pound.

Her face wrinkled into a sneer, “If you gave me the discount, the price would be three dollars cheaper.”

“It is three dollars cheaper, it’s just distributed between two packs of sausage.” I realized there was no way she was going to understand this, her eyes were wild with anger, but void of comprehension. I could sense that all those missed math homework assignments she skipped as a child were going to doom me into a sales clerk beatdown of sausage induced rage.

Each package weighed a little more or less than a pound-in-a-half. It was clear that this customer wasn’t doing the internal math to understand this relatively simple transaction. At this point, Rick, a longtime employee walked over from down the counter and asked, “Can I help you ma'am?”

“Yes, he didn’t give me my discount.”

“Oh, I’m sorry ma’am, Tom is new here. He’s a good guy; he’s not going to cheat you,” Rick told her.

“Oh, I know he’s trying his best.” Her face stretched into a plastic smile, or maybe her face simply cracked; I’m still not sure to this day.

After she had left, I pointed to the label and explained to Rick, “I did give her the discount, but she doesn’t understand the discount is between these two packages. She thought that she would see the three dollars on a single label and just lost her mind.”

“I know, Tom, you’re going to get that a lot more.” He said before returning to the back.

This is when I realized that my new job was not going to be like academia at all. In fact, by all accounts, it was going to be a constant demeaning, patronizing, condescending lesson in life. Your paycheck is a direct reflection of your intelligence. It doesn’t matter if that is true, but it’s going to be how everyone on the customer side of the counter will measure you. I think this is probably why so many people in the service industry joke about “crazy customer” experiences. It’s a coping mechanism, like the dark humor of police or soldiers. It’s a way to hold onto our sanity, and, in this case, our dignity as well.

My experience was not unique. In fact, our government predicted these circumstances would happen. Alan Greenspan told Congress in 1997 that he believed the economic boon for the financial sector was largely due to workforce insecurity. Meaning that workers will accept pay and benefit cuts when they’re afraid they won’t be able to find a better job. Cuts like these are something that Unions traditionally fight against, and why corporations have always lobbied government representatives to favor union busting. At Whole Foods, there was always a constant fear of being fired. It’s a side effect of having one of the best of the worst jobs. People know that it’s bad, but it’s the best of the bad, so getting fired was a constant fear. It seems silly for that to be the case. If you come to work and do your job there shouldn’t be a problem, but there is. A constant cloud of judgment hangs over you.

One day I while I was cutting up some chickens, my co-worker, Jess, looked up at me and said, “Regional is coming in. Her eyes were wide as she scanned my face for recognition of this potentially impending doom. Regional seemed to be a bi-monthly occurrence that I grew accustomed to by the second or third time, although most of my co-workers never seemed to adjust.

“I’m not worried about it. I do my job. Why should I get myself worked up. I do this same job everyday, it’s a non-issue.” I said to her. Jess’s face went from informational to annoyance.

“You’ll care if they find a problem. You better have your shelves stocked.” She snapped back.


“I’ll be fine. I do my job. I’m not going to live in fear.”


They worked people below 32 hours so they wouldn’t have to pay for benefits. They did this despite the fact that they claimed to “care” about their workers, and even though they could see that their employees were struggling. Most major corporations do this, so up to this point those small “cost savings” and “corner cuttings” were annoying, but it wasn’t too far out of what I expected. Then, it was November of 2014. The air was getting chilly and Christmas was around the corner. At Whole foods, we had just wrapped up our Thanksgiving push. Working in the meat department was always a busy job, but nothing compares to a meat department at Thanksgiving. We had teams of people running back and forth delivering turkeys from semis parked out back to the front counter. There never seemed to be a moment’s rest. Besides the constant request for certain cuts of turkey, we got our normal meat requests on top of that, too.

Being partially bent over at the butcher’s table made your spine feel like it was being crushed in a vice. But, as difficult as the work may have been, we were fine with it. We knew we’d get one hell of a Gains Share going into Christmas. “Gains Share” is a type of financial motivator for employees to work hard for high sales. Whole Foods describes it as, “a program that rewards teams based on labor productivity.” Each department is granted a labor budget, and from there the managers figure out the schedules. When our sales exceed some expected average number of sales based a given labor pool, bonuses are paid out in the form of Gains Share. We were working our butts off to maximize our bonuses because, let's face it, working a $23,000 dollar/year job doesn’t exactly buy much at Christmas.

Everything that year was looking great, until word came down just a few days after Thanksgiving: “Hey guys, I’m really sorry, but our Gains Share was cut at the beginning of November.” Management knew about it, but didn’t tell us because they wanted us to work hard for Thanksgiving. Our hard work earned them massive profits, but earned us nothing. Right before Christmas, too. It was a pretty devastating blow to many of us behind the counter, where every penny earned was important.

“Wow, talk about social engineering. The corporations don’t give a damn about us.” I said to Dave, the butcher.

Dave looked back at me, “You know, Tom, those poor executives need their Christmas bonuses this year.” His knife slammed down on thigh of meat. His hands sawed in short, choppy strokes back and forth. He didn’t say another word and neither did I.

The final straw came shortly after Thanksgiving. My six month job evaluation period had come and past. Usually people don’t like getting job evaluations, but I knew that I did my job and every day I worked without a raise was a day I earned less towards the next pay check.

I finally got my job dialog for my self-evaluation. I was still a little bitter about Whole Foods cutting our Gains Share before the holidays; that entire ordeal made me suspicious of the company's dedication toward their workers. Kathy and I were counting on my getting a decent raise. Hell, I took over a position they wanted to improve, and I did just that! I was a reliable worker-- I had never been late to work or called off, and I got my job done, and I did it well. I worked hard to make sure I met and exceeded their standards and tried my best to keep improving the position. A raise should be a no-brainer, right?

I asked my manager Dan, “Did you get a chance to look over my self evaluation?” It was more of a question to get a vibe of where they were with their portion of the job dialog.

Dan said, “Yeah, it was interesting.” Then laughed nervously and plastered an awkward grin across his face. I thought for a second and realized that he didn’t appreciate me scoring myself as “Excellent” in all categories. It’s not that I believe that I’m the best thing since sliced bread, I just didn’t want to fall for the game that corporations play to trick employees into giving themselves a lower raise than they deserve. By scoring myself lower in some categories, I would disqualify myself for a maximum raise. This is because the manager will average the self-scores with their scores for the actual raise. So, the only sensible tactic was to give myself the highest scores available to give myself the best position to bargain from. All this angling for a max raise of fifty cents an hour.

Dan brought me into a room with my other manager, Scott. They were both quiet so I knew something was up. They were dreading this meeting. Scott pulled out his evaluation onto the table. Penciled circles lined up in the row of threes. I could taste my anger.

“Threes? I’ve never called off a day. I’ve increased our sales in my section. I’ve done nothing but bust my butt!”

Scott started, “Well there are some things...” He paused, “People don’t get your jokes.”

That statement completely blindsided me. I didn’t know what to say. Writing this now, I’m still bewildered that was the best excuse they could come up with to cut my raise.

“What are you talking about?” Mind you, we had some snarky people in our department, including the very manager who’s taking away my full raise.

“Yeah, sometimes you can irritate people,” he said.

“Do you mean Rick? Come on, the guy dishes it out just as much. Everyone jokes around. This is really about you not wanting to give me a full raise,” I countered.

The two managers glanced at one another, and then Dan spoke up. “We’re giving you a forty cent raise. That’s more than most people get.”

“I don’t care what most people get. I want what I should get.”


“It’s based on this scale of your evaluation. We can’t do anything about that.”
“A scale that you set by giving me crap scores. And I don’t care what other people are getting. Frankly you’re ripping them off too.” I looked down at the tabletop. I already knew this was useless. “This is what happens when we don’t have Unions,” I thought to myself. We went back and forth a bit more before Dan agreed to an additional five cents, but my time at Whole foods was over. I was done with Corporate America. Later, before I left the store, Dan told me that I was right. He wasn’t allowed to give a fair wage or raises. He told me managers were reprimanded in their own evaluations for giving their employees fair wages - this is what the job market is like these days. Get as much as possible from your workers. Get them as close to slavery as possible. Keep driving down wages and benefits. Profits are for the executives and CEOs, not the working class.

I went home that night and told my wife Kathy, “Forty-five cents.”


“Really? You barely make anything now.” Her voice trailed off. We felt utterly defeated.

“I can’t believe this crap. I’m getting back into science and I’ll run for Congress. I’m so sick of the way we’re treated. These corporations and politicians don’t give a damn about us.”

Four years later, here I am running for Congress. I’m running both because of, and in spite of, my history of being the little guy in a system built to break people down and extract all possible value from them. These experiences have made me strong, and taught me to overcome long odds in a struggle that’s stacked against me. A lifetime of witnessing injustices-- both against myself and other citizens like those in PA’a District 12-- have given me both the tools and the passion to fight for better and fairer outcomes for working-class people like me who have been marginalized for too long. We can do this, but we, as citizens must come together and start fighting for each other, not against each other. I am ready and able to lead that fight.

The GOP Ramps Up Their War Against Consumer Protections While Everyone Is Looking At The Horrors Of Trump And TrumpCare

The vote in the House Tuesday evening was 231-190. Every Republican but Walter Jones of North Carolina voted to hamper the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect bank customers from the kinds of systemic abuse and predatory behavior that led directly to Bush's Great Recession and destroyed the financial stability of millions of American families. Every single Democrat-- even the worst paid-off Blue Dogs and New Dems-- opposed bankster-pawn Keith Rothfus' bill.

What the Republicans are doing is stripping the rights of consumers to use class action lawsuits to protect themselves from the big banks. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyists who wrote Rothfus' bill for him, were dancing for joy. They are furious that over 34 million bank customers received $1 billion in payments from lawsuits over the past 5 years and want to destroy the Bureau.

Here in California, several progressive Democrats running for congressional seats alerted voters in their districts that their own congressmen had betrayed their interests once again. The architect of the CFPB was Elizabeth Warren, who noted that the rule the Republicans just voted to repeal "allows working families to hold big banks accountable when they’re cheated and help discourage the kinds of surprise fees that consumers hate." The Orange County candidate who has worked with her on this issues is Katie Porter, who is running for the seat held by rubber stamp Republican Mimi Walters. This issue is part of Porter's field of expertise and we asked her for a reaction last night. This is what she told us:

As the Senate voted to take away health care for millions, Congresswoman Mimi Walters and the House GOP were taking away justice for all consumers. Today, they rewrote the rules in order to protect Wall Street banks that cheat consumers, no matter how outrageous the banks' conduct. "Mandatory predispute arbitration" agreements ban consumers from telling their stories to judges, instead forcing them into an arbitration process that exists only to protect the big banks from being held accountable.

I've fought against arbitration in my decades of work as a consumer advocate. That's a fundamental difference in this race. I have stood up to powerful financial institutions that break the law and hurt families. In Congress, Mimi Walters has done the opposite. She is as consistent of an ally for big banks, as she is for President Trump's agenda. Wall Street banks can count on Walters' support 100% of the time. Our district needs a congresswoman who will stand up to powerful interests, and that's my pledge to Californians.

Ironically, Porter isn't the only stalwart progressive in the CA-45 race who worked on this issue. Kia Hamadanchy worked on the staff of another top Democrat concerned with Republican collusion with Wall Street predators, Sherrod Brown. Hamadanchy told us that "Once again Mimi Walters has put the interests of her donors and those in Wall Street who have ripped off consumers time and time again above the people of Orange County. If this rule is repealed it would mean that a bank like Wells Fargo could avoid being held accountable for its actions despite a clear evidence of a pattern and practice of wrongdoing. Every American deserves their day in court when they are taken advantage of by the financial services industry and its not surprising that Mimi Walters doesn't agree. Time and time again she continues to vote against the interests of her constituents and in November 2018 she is going to see where that gets her."

North of CA-45, we get to Wall Street puppet Ed Royce's congressional district. Since 1990 Royce, who is a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, has taken an astounding $7,116,597 in legalistic bribes from the Financial Sector. The only current members of the House to have taken bigger bribes than Royce are Paul Ryan ($9,781,835) and House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling ($7,468,190). All three should be rotting in prison.

The DCCC is trying to run some qualification-less "ex"-Republican lottery winner and self-funder, Gil Cisneros, against Royce. Fortunately there's an eminently qualified progressive determined to take on Royce instead, Sam Jammal. Yesterday he pointed out that "If you're wronged, Americans believe you should be able to have your day in court. It's a fundamental check on absuses by the most powerful. This apparently doesn't apply to the biggest banks. It's hard to tell who Ed Royce really represents. Common sense would say that consumers should know their rights and have options to preserve those rights. But, if that is upsetting to his big donors, it looks like Ed is perfectly fine forgetting about consumers in Buena Park or small businesses in Walnut. We need our voices heard again in Washington."

No one ever doubted CA-25 Rep, Steve Knight, would vote to repeal the amendment protecting financial consumers. He's perversely dependable in that sense-- the perfect little rubber-stamp for Ryan and Trump. His progressive opponent, Katie Hill told us "This is yet another example of Steve Knight putting special interests-- in this case big banks-- ahead of working Americans. I personally know so many people in the 25th district who have been taken advantage of or harmed by Wall Street in some way or another. This simple rule would give every day people some small protection and a way of banding together to fight back-- but Steve Knight and other Republicans are too concerned with protecting the profits of their own financial backers. We need representatives in Congress who will once again return power to the people."

Some good news in regard to the Republican war against consumer protections-- yesterday Allied Progress launched the CFPB Action Tracker, a new interactive website that tracks, state-by-state, the CFPB's enforcement actions against big banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions that have preyed on consumers. The website is a great resource for elected officials and organization in the states, allowing them to see what the CFPB has done to benefit local consumers and arming them with important information in the fight to protect the CFPB from attacks by Wall Street special interests and their allies in Congress, like Ed Royce, Paul; Ryan, Jeb Hensarling and Mimi Walters.

Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress: "The Consumer Bureau has played a pivotal role in bringing justice to consumers over the past six years. They have cracked down on big banks, payday lenders, and other financial bad actors and put an end to the irresponsible practices that caused the great recession that cost so many Americans their jobs, their homes, and their savings. Lawmakers in the pockets of big banks have spread misinformation in their efforts to eliminate the Consumer Bureau, but the truth is in the data. Our new interactive Consumer Bureau Action Tracker shows just how much the Bureau has put back into the pockets of Americans. In just six years, the Consumer Bureau has taken $12 billion from predatory financial institutions and returned it to the more than 29 million Americans they ripped off."

The DCCC, of course, is doing nothing about targeting Rothfus and his traditionally blue district (PA-12) north and east of Pittsburgh. The second biggest veterans' district in the country, it was John Murtha's seat forever but has been abandoned to the Republicans by a DCCC eager to woo white collar suburbanites while ignoring the legitimate interests of blue collar workers. Hillary did worse than Obama had both times he ran and she was crushed by Trump, 58.7% to 37.9%. But a progressive veteran who was knocking on doors for Bernie last year, Tom Prigg, has every intention of replacing Rothfus in 2018... running on a progressive platform geared for the people in his district.

This morning Prigg told us that "It's absolutely unacceptable for our Congress to, once again, expose the American people to the unfair banking practices exercised that led to the 2008 housing crash. During that time, America saw the loss of ten million American homes-- that’s five-times more than during the Great Depression. It is bad enough that none of the perpetrators of this crash faced criminal charges; but now our representatives are trying remove any possible class-action litigation to protect the public. The dissolution of this agency is a direct attack on the American public. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in just 5 ½ years of its existence, has awarded five billion dollars in lawsuits against unfair banking practices for twenty-nine million Americans. Not only are those impressive numbers for such a young agency, it’s also a testament to how important this agency is for the American public. It’s this type of irresponsible behavior and special-interest policy making that we can no longer accept. I will never let the American people, and our families, take the fall for irresponsible banking practices like we saw ten years ago. We must vote out politicians who’ll sacrifice the security of American citizens in favor of greed. This is one of the reasons why I’m running against the author of this bill, Keith Rothfus."

Expect to hear more from Tom Prigg here at DWT.