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

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

-by Peter Daou

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Purity vs Pollution

Thinking Outside the Box by Nancy Ohanian

People living in Flint still don't have pure water to drink. In other words, the water is polluted. The aspiration of doing that-- making it potable and pure-- was just too costly, too idealistic... too much of that liberal purity for Michigan and Trump Regime conservatives to cope with. Is the water in your town pure? Towns with water no one should be drinking are listed below. Taking a sip won't kill you on the spot, but over time... take my word for it, get a good filtration system or buy Fiji Water if you live in any if these places:

• Modesto, CA- agricultural chemicals
• Midland, TX- 13 different contaminants
• Garland, TX- 11 contaminants
• Irving, TX- 10 contaminants
• Pasadena, CA- 14 contaminants
• Plano- TX- 11 contaminants
• Frisco, TX- 11 contaminants
• Lubbock, TX- 12 contaminants
• McAllen, TX- 12 contaminants
• Dallas, TX- 10 contaminants
• El Paso, TX- 10 contaminants
• McKinney, TX- 11 contaminants
• Brownsville, TX- 12 contaminants
• Rockford, IL- 12 contaminants
• Amarillo, TX- 11 contaminants
• Ft. Worth, TX- 10 contaminants
• Corpus Christi, TX- 11 contaminants
• Grand Prairie, TX- 9 contaminants
• Irvine, CA- 11 contaminants
• Fresno, CA- arsenic, ethylene dibromide, manganese, nitrate
• Bakersfield, CA- 6 contaminants
• Arlington, TX- 9 contaminants
• Corona, CA- 12 contaminants
• Pomona, CA- 10 contaminants
• Reno, NV- 11 contaminants

Runners-up, where the tap water is also too polluted to drink, include Pittsburgh, PA (lead), Brady, TX (radium), Omaha, NE (arsenic), Houston, TX (arsenic, lead, chloroform, benzene) and Milwaukee, WI (lead). Helping people should come before-- way before-- partisan political considerations.

Purity gets a bad rap in Democratic electoral politics. We constantly hear conservatives and their shills whining about how progressive candidates, campaigning on policies that are designed to better the lives of the working and middle class, endanger electability because "purity" is a dirty word. Kissing up to big corporations, on the other hand, which is, in one word, pollution, is not a dirty word in their mirror image world-- a mirror image world largely enforced by corporate media. In this CNBC segment from a week ago one of the odious guests is... Bloomberg's former campaign manager, former Rod Blagojevich deputy, Schumer's former communications director and the notorious fixer for early-days Uber-- Bradley Tusk, a conservative shit-head disguised as a Democrat. A multimillionaire, he's consulting Bloomberg's presidential campaign and demeaning "purity" in the linked CNBC segment and warning that unless voters settle for a Republican-lite candidate, i.e., Bloomberg, Trump will win again.

A couple days ago, Peter Daou, a really smart guy and talented writer who is also very reformed Hillary supporter, tweeted that "pandering to GOP voters and seeking 'civility' and 'bipartisanship' with extremists, brought us Bush, Trump, kids in cages, and a right-wing Supreme Court. There's a word for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result..."

Marie Newman and Rachel Ventura are both Chicagoland progressives running for Congress against corporate conservative incumbents, respectively Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog) and Bill Foster (New Dem). "Confusing sticking-to-your values with party purity is frustrating," Marie told us. "They are not the same. I am not sure who decided they were the same. We should always stick to our values and principles. Trying to demonize folks for their values is ridiculous.”

Rachel Ventura has a similar perspective. "One of the first issues I learned about as a candidate for public office was water," she said. "One of the poorest areas of my district was struggling to produce clean water and their local government wanted to privatize their system. It would have doubled the cost for those residents. Working with the Fairmont Community, we were able to stall the township from selling off the water and get the county to invest the money to fix the system and another local government then provided the water. It was good government in action to solve a crucial problem, and just in time! The company that had wanted to buy the water system, Aqua, is now being sued by the state of IL and Will County for poisoning another community, University Park, with lead for 7 months, just like Flint Michigan! My own home town is struggling with the decision of where to get our water for the future as our aquifer is drying up. And where is my opponent in all of this? He has represented Joliet for more than 10 years and not a peep on our water crisis.

"Water purity and political purity are two places where Foster doesn't stand a chance of comparing to our platform. What we need to do is ban water privatization in the same way we need to abolish private prisons. Water is a human right and should be a public good. According to Food and Water Watch private water costs an average of 59% more than public water. Additionally, the majority of water purification problems like those in Flint Michigan or University Park happen because of private companies take shortcuts. Those shortcuts have resulted in lead poisoning of residents. And that doesn't even discuss the outrageous cost of medication to treat lead poisoning which has increased 2700% since Flint!

"On the political purity front, I want to point out that today is the day that Rosa Parks chose to sit at the front of the bus, not the middle of the bus. Meaning, one doesn't lead a movement by sitting in the middle of the bus and one doesn't pass meaningful healthcare reform by running on "Medicare for all who want it." We won't fix the climate crisis by tinkering around the edges or asking the fossil fuel industry to cut back on CO2 emissions. Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus and we need to demand a bold, progressive agenda that creates a government and an economy that works for everyone."

Eva Putzova's opponent in an Arizona congressional race is former Republican, now Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran. Just the idea of being a Democrat at all is like a purity thing to him. Eva, a former city councilwoman in F;ahstaff, told us that she's "not aiming at 'purity' in politics by supporting Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, an overhaul of our immigration laws, an end to Wars, a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, and an end to corporate domination of our politics. These are not only popular positions but moral ones as well. My opponent, the incumbent, is the one who needs to answer for his positions or lack thereof on the important issues facing voters in AZ-01 and around the nation. Is it 'practical' and 'reasonable' to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the arms industry, banking industry, health insurance industry, private prison industry, and Walmart and then do their bidding as he does? Voters are tired of representatives from both parties who cater to the needs of corporations. They want to support candidates who put people first, and that is what my campaign is all about!"

In politics, this is the opposite of purity

Welcome Home, Peter Daou

David Dayen's piece in Monday's Intercept, Nancy Pelosi's Drug-Pricing Talks With The Trump Administration Are About Mediating Fights Between Corporate Interests, highlights her balancing the bottom lines for campaign donors at Big PhRMA and the hospital industry and leaving consumers to rot. It would be worse if she was a Republican-- but it would be a lot better if she was still a progressive. She hasn't been-- in over a decade. "The situation," wrote Dayen, "reveals a familiar dynamic in Washington, where political parties don’t debate each other on policy as much as they mediate fights between corporate interests. Almost everything on drug pricing coming out of the Trump administration, whose Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was the president of drug company Eli Lilly, attacks pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals to the benefit of drug companies; almost everything coming out of the speaker’s office attacks drug companies to the benefit of pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals."

As Pelosi slips into her dotage and prepares for retirement, maybe she and her pet lobbyists she stop messing with issues like this and leave it to people like Pramila Jayapal and Bernie Sanders, who actually work for the people, not for the special interests. What a novel idea for a congresswoman who's time is up-- her whole team's time is up; they are stale and their expiration dates are long past due. Time to go. Time to say good-bye.

Peter Daou had a successful career in the music business before he became a prominent Democratic blogger and then Democratic strategist. I always liked the guy and felt sad when he seemed to buy into the corporate Democratic insanity hook, line and sinker. I didn't understand; I looked away. All that Hillary nonsense-- he was always too smart for that. Yesterday he penned a confessional for The Nation, I Was Bernie’s Biggest Critic in 2016-- I’ve Changed My Mind. Today, he writes, Bernie can beat SeñorTrumpanzee "and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to try and hobble his campaign"... which is precisely what some of his old allies are trying to do. "If you had told me in the spring of 2016 that three years later I’d be touting the merits of the Bernie Sanders campaign-- taking flak from Hillary Clinton supporters for not being loyal enough to her-- I would have laughed and asked what alternate reality you lived in. But life and politics have a way of taking unexpected turns, and here I am writing about the considerable strengths Sanders brings to the 2020 election."

Bernie Sanders is unquestionably in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic nomination, and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to plunge into an internecine conflict over his candidacy at a time when they need to marshal every asset to defeat Trump and his GOP cronies. I am calling on Democrats, progressives, and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements, no matter how intense, as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country.

...My political and personal evolution since 2016 has caught some people off guard. I’m often asked how a staunch Hillary Clinton advocate and former Sanders critic could reverse course. The answer is simpler than it appears. I spent fifteen years before the 2016 election as a progressive activist, a critic of the Democratic Party’s meekness in the face of GOP extremism, and a supporter of the policies Bernie Sanders promotes.

After months of self-reflection about my own role in the 2016 primary, I realized I was among the far too many Clinton and Sanders supporters who got caught up in an ugly family dispute that spiraled out of control. We’ve all experienced those explosive fights. In the heat of the moment, we see each other as enemies rather than human beings who largely share the same goals. So I began to reach out to repair what had been broken. On Twitter, I unblocked Sanders supporters who I had argued with. I tried to see things from their perspective and I asked them to do the same. There’s still some residual anger and skepticism, but the healing process has given me invaluable perspective, and I can now look at the 2020 primary through a clear lens.

...Virtually every state and national poll shows Sanders at or near the top of the Democratic field. Polls are fluid at this stage, but Sanders is a known quantity and his base of support is solid. His proven appeal to young voters and independents is a powerful asset, and his ability to deliver a well-crafted and unapologetic progressive message to Americans across the political spectrum is crucial if Democrats hope to take on an increasingly extremist GOP.

...Sanders has played a central role in advocating enlightened, compassionate, forward-looking policies like Medicare for all, free public college, a living wage, and more. In the heat of the 2016 primary, I was reluctant to give Sanders credit for moving the national debate to the left. But it is impossible to deny the important role he has played, and continues to play, in countering the far right’s extremist ideas.

During the most ferocious debates of the Clinton-Sanders contest, I repeatedly implored Sanders supporters who disliked Clinton to focus on the ultimate prize: defeating the authoritarian right. I argued that her positions were immeasurably superior to Trump’s and that tearing her down was a grave mistake when we faced the prospect of white nationalist rule. The same holds true today for Sanders. Trying to hobble his campaign is a reckless mission.

...Alarmingly, the ferocity of the GOP’s attack on our norms and values is met with timidity from the Democratic Party leadership. Even after grassroots activists and voters generated a 2018 blue wave that swept Democrats back into power in the House, the party leadership has proven incapable (or unwilling) to rise to the historic challenge of facing down encroaching fascism. There are no saviors coming to rescue us. We must become our own leaders. To defeat Trump and to reverse the rising tide of white nationalism that threatens the foundations of our democracy, we must have the courage to set aside old grievances for the greater good. Bernie Sanders is not the only candidate who can defeat Trump, but he’s certainly one of them. And he should not be treated as the enemy.

Will Clinton Attempt to Bring Sanders Supporters into the Democratic Fold?

Clinton to Sanders: "No, you come to me." Can you read that headline any other way?

by Gaius Publius 

Something to keep your eye on in the lead-up to post-East Coast voting, and something that could well affect the voting after that. Will Clinton move toward Sanders' positions, as an appeal for his supporters, or will she, as I've said elsewhere, insist the mountain (of his voters) come to Mohammad?

Seems the latter.

First, Clinton operative Peter Daou, in the headline above, makes the position clear:

"If Bernie Wants Real Progress He'll Align His Message With Hers"

No link, but the google will find the piece for you if want to read it.

Second, note this from Josh Abramson, in a Huff Post piece called "5 Things We’ve Learned About Hillary Clinton Since She Won the New York Primary". I'll let you read the other four things he says we've learned (do read; it's a nice piece). But here's the fifth point (my occasional emphasis):

5. There will be no attempt whatsoever to bring Sanders supporters back into the Democratic fold.

Sanders supporters knew Clinton was angry at them for voting for Bernie — they could tell by her comment saying that she “feels sorry for” young voters too misinformed to vote for her; or by Bill Clinton saying that Sanders voters are so unsophisticated that they just want to “shoot every third banker on Wall Street”; or by David Plouffe (a Clinton ally) saying that every person who donates money to Sanders is being taken in by an obvious “fraud”; or by the unnamed Clinton staffer so certain she or he was speaking in a tone and manner consistent with the view of the Clinton campaign that she or he told Politico that the Clinton campaign “kicked Bernie’s ass” in New York and that Sanders can “go fuck himself.”

And so on.

But who knew that, with almost twenty primaries and caucuses left, and more than 1,400 delegates left to be awarded, Clinton would start vetting potential Vice Presidential picks in full view of an electorate she says she’s still working hard to win over? And who knew that not only would Sanders not be considered for a unity ticket, but — apparently — her top picks for VP, Cory Booker and Julian Castro, are reliable Clintonites with no ties whatsoever to the Sanders campaign or the movement he heads? And who knew Elizabeth Warren would almost certainly be frozen out of the VP conversation due to her decision to stay neutral in the primary race rather than endorse Clinton?

Well, everyone.

Everyone who knows the Clintons, that is.

So, if you’re either a Sanders supporter, sympathetic to the Sanders campaign, or a Hillary voter desperately hoping she’ll do something to bring into the Democratic fold the 40 percent of Sanders voters who say they won’t vote for Hillary in the fall — all but ensuring a Trump presidency — here’s some news for you: the signals are now being sent that Sanders and his people will, by calculated design, get absolutely nothing.

Hillary lost in 2008 and received the second-most powerful position in the world [note the assertion of a trade for SoS].

Sanders will be ignored and shunned.

What lies behind this “strategy” for the fall election — if we can call it that — is the same hubris that permitted Secretary Clinton never to reveal her Wall Street transcripts, to condescend to millennials at every turn, to refuse to apologize for bad judgment in the whole email-server affair, to refuse to apologize for her 1994 crime bill vote, to try to get away with (during the Michigan debate) the lie that Sanders had opposed the auto bailout, and so on.

In other words, America is already seeing the Hillary Clinton they’ll get during the fall election campaign — and also, should Clinton somehow manage to squeak by Donald Trump in November, the sort of Nixonian White House we can expect in consequence.

And it isn’t pretty.

Is Abramson right? He could well be. Everything through the second large paragraph is true. Will his conclusion prove true as well?

To test it, I'd look for this — Sanders and Clinton will have the discussion they've started to have. Sanders is saying, in effect "I can't snap my fingers and make my supporters vote for you. You have to convince them yourself." As evidenced by her response to Maddow in their recent town hall, this goes up Clinton's back. Her response, in effect, "I'm winning because of my own positions."

My suggestion, watch as this plays out. It's a clear dividing line. Clinton seems to want Sanders to "throw some words her way" (my phrase, but it reflects the way candidates like Clinton seem to campaign, by figuring out in an advertising sense which words to throw out); wants Sanders to bless her with a kind of public holy water that (she thinks) will magically erase the voters' memory of his reservations on policy. And she thinks his supporters will accept it if he does that and consider her new-blessed and suddenly known-good.

I think she's wrong, that this is an issues campaign, not a cosmetic or personalities one, and to win Sanders supporters, she has to at least appear to bend his way. Will she do that? Will she at least "throw some words" at his supporters? It's really a test of wills and dominance at this point. Will she see it that way and harden her will against him? Or soften and surrender just a little? The election could turn on that decision.

Finally, did you notice the word "hubris" in the Abramson piece above? So did I And I've been using the word a lot myself as well. This isn't just about wills and dominance, or calculation and policy — it's about Zeus and his lightning bolts getting revenge, or more mundanely, spiking the ball in the end zone in your defender's face. Hubris, and a decision to make.

American Crossroads

The path is littered with them these days. This is one more American crossroad, this time for her. What will Clinton do? Will she swallow her hubris and pride and at the very least pretend? Or will she carry on with talk like, "Rachel, can't you see I'm winning?! Now let him come to me."

If she can't, in pride or the flush of victory, make herself move in substance to the mountain of Sanders voters, can she win in the general election? Place your bets. The answer is just months away.

GP
  

The Best Things Are The Most Difficult To Achieve And You Have To Work The Hardest-- Like A Bernie Presidency

The new CNN poll of likely Iowa Democratic caucus participants showing Bernie trouncing Hillary, sent Team Clinton off the deep end. Forget their insane claims that Bernie is an NRA shill and a woman hater. Now they''ve all been instructed to call him a racist. The last poll CNN poll had her leading 54-36% and now Bernie's ahead 51-43%. Momentum is important with the caucuses just over a week away. But at least the Clinton campaign has its own media outlet to shape the news any way it likes. Blue Nation Review, a website owned by professional slime machine David Brock and run by Peter Daou, Clinton's former digital director who is now consulting the campaign.

As HuffPo reported in early December, Brock, an ex-Republican operative who runs one of the shadier of the Clinton SuperPACs, bought 80% of Blue Nation Review and named Daou CEO. Since everyone knows it's just a propaganda site for the Clinton Machine, it isn't taken at all seriously. Yesterday their lede was typical, President Trump-- Get Used to It Unless Hillary Stops Him, written by the CEO himself, Daou, not Trumpf.

Same ole/same ole reasons why Hillary is electable and Bernie's not, despite consistent head-to-head general election polling that shows Bernie doing much better than Hillary against Trumpf and against every other possible Republican nominee. DOA claims none of that matters because the Republicans haven't attacked Bernie yet-- actually they have; he was just too busy to notice. "Bernie," he warns, "will be turned into an aging cartoon Commie, a flip-flopping America-hater, a 60s holdover writing bizarre essays about free sex and child rape fantasies, a non-Democrat Democrat whose embrace of the NRA undermines his claims to purity, a politician who voted against the Amber Alert system, a draft dodger, and a man who thinks women’s rights are a distraction.  There’s an entire library of fresh, juicy opposition research on Bernie Sanders tucked away in RNC headquarters, awaiting the mother of all oppo drops." Actually that scenario is what Bernie has been laughing off from the Clinton campaign for the last 6-7 weeks. But Daou had more useful warnings:

My friend and business partner Eric Burns made a fascinating observation today: Trump is the master at taking down other men, but clueless when it comes to competing with a woman. He made a mess of his exchange with Fox’s Megyn Kelly and put his foot in his mouth with Carly Fiorina. He’s been flailing with Hillary, claiming she lacks “strength and stamina”-- perhaps one of the least believable political attacks of the entire cycle.

Trump eviscerates male opponents with a few tweets. He’ll have a field day with Bernie Sanders, and so will the GOP attack apparatus.

Elections are about choices, about weighing pros and cons, about picking a candidate judiciously. Hillary’s capacity to withstand direct hits from the GOP’s smear machine and come out stronger every time is a crucial asset.

President Obama faced John McCain and Mitt Romney, neither of whom were remotely as scary as Donald Trump. “President Trump” isn’t an option for America. And Democratic voters now have to decide who can face him should he remain on track to win.

I’ve spent the day fielding a torrent of outrage from Bernie fans who take any criticism of their candidate as a deep personal insult and who spew volcanoes of venom toward Hillary, revealing their obvious issues with powerful women. But my advocacy for Hillary is undeterred.

Electing the first woman president in American history won’t happen without a struggle. I want my young daughter to know I fought tooth and nail to elect Hillary. I’ll continue to do so until Election Day. And I do so knowing she’ll make an exceptional president who is more effective at advancing the progressive cause than Bernie or any other Democrat.

People think Joe Manchin (WV) is the most right-wing Democrat-- and he is pretty damn conservative-- but according to ProgressivePunch, the Democrat who has voted with the GOP most frequently against important progressive initiatives is Claire McCaskill (MO). She earned her overall "F" rating by voting against 2015-16 progressive bills 58.33% of the time. Yep, she's with the GOP more often than with the Democrats on crucial votes. And the Clinton campaign offered her as an example of "progressives" who back Hillary this week. Her backing includes red-baiting Bernie to the media. "The Republicans won’t touch him because they can’t wait to run an ad with a hammer and sickle," she babbled snidely to the NY Times.

There are basically two rational reasons to vote for Hillary: first woman president and lesser-of-two-evils, although the latter is just a general election rationale. I'd like the first woman president to be a great woman president so I'll pass on that one. And lesser-of-two-evils is still too evil. So... if it comes to that, I'll have to sit out another one. But it may not come to that because we have the opportunity to elect the greatest president since FDR and I didn't believe it would be possible at first and now I do. (You can contribute to Bernie's campaign here.)

Last week we asked whether it would be possible for Bernie and for Jeremy Corbyn to drag their respective parties into the new century. We may get to find out but yesterday Glenn Greenwald looked at the intense establishment backlash buffeting both men. "The British political and media establishment incrementally lost its collective mind over the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the country’s Labour Party," he wrote, "and its unraveling and implosion show no signs of receding yet. Bernie Sanders is nowhere near as radical as Corbyn; they are not even in the same universe. But, especially on economic issues, Sanders is a more fundamental, systemic critic than the oligarchical power centers are willing to tolerate, and his rejection of corporate dominance over politics, and corporate support for his campaigns, is particularly menacing. He is thus regarded as America’s version of a far-left extremist, threatening establishment power... For those who observed the unfolding of the British reaction to Corbyn’s victory, it’s been fascinating to watch the D.C./Democratic establishment’s reaction to Sanders’ emergence replicate that, reading from the same script."

Just as was true for Corbyn, there is a direct correlation between the strength of Sanders and the intensity of the bitter and ugly attacks unleashed at him by the D.C. and Democratic political and media establishment. There were, roughly speaking, seven stages to this establishment revolt in the U.K. against Corbyn, and the U.S. reaction to Sanders is closely following the same script:

STAGE 1: Polite condescension toward what is perceived to be harmless (we think it’s really wonderful that your views are being aired).

STAGE 2: Light, casual mockery as the self-belief among supporters grows (no, dears, a left-wing extremist will not win, but it’s nice to see you excited).

STAGE 3: Self-pity and angry etiquette lectures directed at supporters upon realization that they are not performing their duty of meek surrender, flavored with heavy doses of concern trolling (nobody but nobody is as rude and gauche online to journalists as these crusaders, and it’s unfortunately hurting their candidate’s cause!).

STAGE 4: Smear the candidate and his supporters with innuendos of sexism and racism by falsely claiming only white men support them (you like this candidate because he’s white and male like you, not because of ideology or policy or contempt for the party establishment’s corporatist, pro-war approach).

STAGE 5: Brazen invocation of right-wing attacks to marginalize and demonize, as polls prove the candidate is a credible threat (he’s weak on terrorism, will surrender to ISIS, has crazy associations, and is a clone of Mao and Stalin).



STAGE 6: Issuance of grave and hysterical warnings about the pending apocalypse if the establishment candidate is rejected, as the possibility of losing becomes imminent (you are destined for decades, perhaps even generations, of powerlessness if you disobey our decrees about who to select).

STAGE 7: Full-scale and unrestrained meltdown, panic, lashing-out, threats, recriminations, self-important foot-stomping, overt union with the Right, complete fury (I can no longer in good conscience support this party of misfits, terrorist-lovers, communists, and heathens).

Britain is well into Stage 7, and may even invent a whole new level (anonymous British military officials expressly threatened a “mutiny” if Corbyn were democratically elected as prime minister). The Democratic media and political establishment has been in the heart of Stage 5 for weeks and is now entering Stage 6. The arrival of Stage 7 is guaranteed if Sanders wins Iowa.

Just in case Bernie should need a tiny bit of help when Stage 7 arrives in just over a week...

 

In The End, It All Comes Down To Taxes

The Koch brothers even looked like fascists when they were kids

Last night two Hillary partisans, Peter Daou and Tom Watson, authors of July's persuasive The Great American Brainwash: Half a Billion Dollars to Turn the Public against Hillary. published a follow-up, Republican Billionaires Bankroll Shadowy New Anti-Hillary Group. They start by quoting Rebecca Ballhaus' piece at the Wall Street Journal yesterday about "[a] collection of top GOP operatives, financed by prominent Republican donors... launching two new groups to take aim at Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton."

The groups-- Future45, a super PAC, and 45Committee, an issue-advocacy organization-- will be bankrolled by some of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes, including hedge-fund billionaires Ken Griffin and Paul Singer and the family of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts. Ron Weiser, a former finance chairman at the Republican National Committee, will serve as chairman of Future45, heading up the group’s fundraising efforts.

These billionaires are investing their money into an effort meant to define Hillary's character in such a way as to make her unpalatable to American voters: "calculating (scheming, crafty, manipulative), secretive (suspicious, paranoid, uncommunicative), polarizing (divisive, alienating), untrustworthy (corrupt, deceitful, dishonest, unethical), over-ambitious, inauthentic (disingenuous, fake, unlikable, insincere), inhuman (machine-like, robotic, abnormal, cold), over-confident (inevitable, defiant, imperious, regal) and old (out of touch and representing the past)... talking points crafted for maximum impact, designed for the kind of mindless repetition that can turn falsehoods into conventional wisdom."

Although fanatic right-wing billionaire sociopaths-- the Wilks brothers ($15,000,000), Robert Mercer ($11,000,000) and Toby Neugebauer ($10,000,000)-- have made the biggest contributions so far this cycle, each to Texas neo-fascist Ted Cruz, their status at the top of the shit-pile is only because the Kochs and the Adelsons haven't committed yet. The Adelsons are committed to cementing Rubio's vapid Zionism with a massive infusion of cash into his weak campaign. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Kochs are biding their time to decide how to deploy $750 million. " [Charles] Koch," they remind their readers, "is chief executive of Koch Industries, one of the nation’s largest privately owned companies, and his calls for reduced taxes and regulations have long found a fruitful home among Republican politicians... 'How much I give to the political side will depend on to what extent the candidates out there are going to make a difference on the things I care about.' ... Detractors have called the Koch brothers modern-day robber barons whose energy business pollutes the environment and whose political spending represents all that is wrong with money in politics."

Koch admitted to Journal reporter Rebecca Ballhaus that he and his brother are especially terrified of Bernie Sanders. You get the idea that a Hillary presidency, although far from desired by the plutocratic brothers, isn't going to be looked at as the end of the world for them. It really does all come down to taxes, for the Kochs, for the Adelsons, and almost all the billionaires underwriting the campaigns of the GOP extremists. When Zach Carter exposed how the new budget deal mandates the very rich to pay a bit more... well, it is exactly the kind of thing the billionaires do not want to hear. "Boehner may be reluctant to acknowledge it," wrote Carter, "the latest budget deal between Congress and the White House includes a provision that will require wealthy Americans to turn over more money to the IRS... The proposed deal is expected to generate $11 billion in new federal revenue from what both sides are calling "tax compliance" measures, including $9 billion from new auditing standards for hedge funds, law firms and other business partnerships. In plain English, that means the IRS is going to be getting more money by improving its tax collection policies for rich people." There was some grumbling about that during last night's CNBC Republican debate. One of the crazy people on the stage-- Cruz, I think-- vowed to abolish the IRS, to the cheers of the Republican faithful in the audience.

Raising taxes on the rich-- forcing them to pay their fair share-- is at the heart of every single political policy dispute. Conservatives (i.e., all Republicans and the New Dem/Blue Dog Republican wing of the Democratic Party) represent the interests of the wealthy and oppose raising taxes on their benefactors and progressives have come to understand that there is virtually no other way to deliver on the promise of even the barest modicum of social and economic equality. The billionaire class is funding the candidates-- whether Jeb, Rubio, Clinton, Cruz-- who will conserve and expand their place-- and their future generations' place-- at the top of the food chain.

A couple of days ago, Jesse Drucker, writing for Bloomberg, pointed out that the top 100 CEO retirement savings vehicles equals that of 41% of American families. That's what Bernie is talking about when he rails against economic inequality.

The retirement savings accumulated by just 100 chief executives are equal to the entire retirement accounts of 41 percent of U.S. familie -- or more than 116 million people, a new study finds... the 100 largest chief executive retirement funds are worth an average of about $49.3 million per executive, or a combined $4.9 billion. David C. Novak, the recently departed chief executive officer of Yum! Brands Inc., is at the top of the list, with total retirement savings of $234.2 million... Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, used to offer pensions to most workers but eliminated that option for employees who joined after 2002, replacing it with 401(k) plans.

Novak is not a huge political player but he helps fund the YUM! Brands PAC which used to give money to Republicans and conservative Democrats but lately only hands out the cash to right-wing Republicans. The last "Democrat" they funded was Oklahoma Blue Dog Dan Boren, now retired but once the most far right Democrat in the House. Somehow YUM! and Novak never got around to contributing to Bernie Sanders. How about you?

Obama's Got A Good Rap But No Stomach For Battle; We Need Democrats With Both

Yesterday Peter Daou was at HuffPo discussing why it seems as though conservative Republicans retook the House and Senate and McCain's crusade for 4 more years of the Bush agenda was triumphant. "Things have changed" he assures us. "But the dynamics and tensions of the past decade remain firmly in play: right-wing noise machine (albeit denuded) versus progressive activists, old-school pundits and politicians versus online powerhouses, netroots versus DLC, frustrated outsiders versus back-scratching insiders, partisanship versus bi/post-partisanship, media versus bloggers, and so on. This isn't entirely surprising: political mechanisms change, human nature doesn't.

The assumption that the new presidency would transform the political process, usher in an era of unprecedented citizen empowerment and decimate the old conventional wisdom-making machinery, has been undermined by the reality of entrenched power structures, deep-seated rivalries, die-hard habits and Beltway business as usual.

..Obama's Internet savvy cannot overcome the CW Machine. The grassroots infrastructure his campaign built may be able to influence some of the commentary, alter portions of the debate and mitigate some of the effects, but overall, the CW Machine, composed of myriad online and offline components, will grind away and do its business, larger than any one candidate, leader, party or movement.

Ultimately, the grand political battle in the coming years will be the same as it's always been: a contest over the shaping and reshaping of public perceptions-- both with respect to politics and policy. For Democrats, taking comfort in Obama's online successes during the campaign is a losing bet: in recent days, Republicans have demonstrated that despite being in the minority and clearly behind in the Internet game, it's possible for the CW Machine to work in their favor.

If hindering the Democratic agenda by exploiting missteps is a core mission for Republicans, Democrats would do well to note how effectively Republicans have done just that in the nascent days of the Obama presidency and how unpredictably the CW Machine has operated (or how predictably for those who are less sanguine about the fungibility of a web-fueled grassroots campaign).

Perhaps the best strategy in light of all this is simply to govern based on solid Democratic principles and let the results-- and history-- trump the CW Machine.

At roughly the same time Daou was figuring this out, ThinkProgress was counting heads-- literally. They were counting talking heads... on TV. Who was speaking about the Stimulus Package and influencing the conventional wisdom? It should surprise no one to read that "Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1.

And even when I see Democrats on TV, half the time they're the Democrats who don't understand the issues or can't express themselves or who agree with the Republicans or want to split the difference. We need more Democrats like Donna Edwards (D-MD), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Phil Hare (D-IL), Jared Polis (D-CO), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Eric Massa (D-NY) on TV making the progressive case. They know what they're talking about and feel it in their gut. I can't show you a video-- because there isn't one-- but read what Massa e-mailed to his constituents yesterday about the Stimulus Package:

The fact that we've just seen 598,000 jobs cut in the month of January is unacceptable. Our recession is deepening and we need real action right now. If passed, the economic stimulus package would create and protect 3-4 million jobs, lower taxes for working Americans and creates a new standard of transparency and accountability in the process.
 
Our friends, neighbors, and families are suffering because of 8 years of failed economic policies from the Bush administration. I was elected to help the people of Western New York and that's why I voted to pass the economic stimulus package.
 
If this bill is signed into law, it's been projected by the Governor's office that nearly $400 million will be spent right here in New York's 29th Congressional District. This money will be used to rebuild our roads and schools, keep teachers in the classroom, and create good jobs right here in Western New York. We need to take direct action to slow the recession and lower our unemployment figures before this recession deepens.
 
I call on the Senate to put partisan politics aside and pass the economic stimulus package so we can start strengthening our economy.

And then there's the race for the Illinois congressional seat that was given up by Rahm Emanuel. There are some decent enough Democrats running, but only one, Tom Geoghegan, is an innovative and dynamic leader who can craft and push forward a worthwhile message for a progressive Democratic Party and a progressive America. Watch him-- and imagine that he's the one on TV instead of... Ben Nelson. There's no way that Tom Geoghegan would ever agree to cut out a million and a quarter jobs from the Stimulus Package just so he could run around pounding his chest and saying "Me Bipartisan" the way Nelson just did.