Media Bias Against Progressives-- The Story Of Politico

Politico reporters, Sarah Ferris and Andrew Desiderio, presented a webinar Friday in how to please corporate media ownership and upper management by hammering how conservative talking points. The name of their Republican Party message lesson-- which was (seriously) sent out by the NRCC communications department-- is Swing-district Dems face blowback from progressive voters. The first and easiest lesson-- and the most common-place one among Beltway journalists is to refer to conservative Democrats as "moderates," making it seem like mainstream Democrats with widely and overwhelmingly popular ideas are extremists or radicals. That id always a must at Politico, but also used by most Washington Post and NY Times reporters and editors as well.

There was a time when conservative media would always refer to Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the right of workers to organize into union, emancipation of the slaves, the right of women to vote, consumer protection, etc as extreme and radical, socialist and communist. A third of the population of the American colonies in the late 1770s opposed the Revolution and preferred the British monarchy. Many fought on the side of the British and many left the U.S. after the Revolution, skipping out to Canada, the West Indies and the motherland. Unfortunately, they didn't all leave and, worse yet, some of them returned. You'll have to ask Sarah and Andrew-- who referred to opposing Medicare-for-All (i.e., original Medicare) and the Green New Deal (which could be called saving the planet and humanity) as "dodging his party’s leftward drift-- what their antecedents were doing at the time.

They were upset that conservative Democrat Conor Lamb (PA) was approached by constituents asking him to back original Medicare (which includes revolutionary ideas like dental care and hearing aids) and saving the planet and humanity. They called the bills "some of the most liberal legislation the House has ever seen," which didn't include the attribution of the NRCC or RNC or NRSC, which use the phrase daily. "Liberal suburban voters, wrote Ferris and Desiderio, "including in swing districts like Lamb’s, are turning out in droves at town halls to complain about Congress’s inaction on their progressive wish list-- even as their representatives remain firmly in the centrist column. It highlights the quandary the vulnerable Democrats find themselves in: Remain moderate enough to appeal to the middle but risk the ire of the invigorated progressives." (At least they only implied "socialists" and didn't say it)-- though when the NRCC sent their handiwork out within 3 seconds of publication, the subject line was "socialists come for vulnerable Democrats."

Look at all these commies ruing the Politico owners' day: "At public events this week, freshmen in battleground districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California heard from voters clamoring for Medicare for All, drastic climate action, gun control and the impeachment of President Donald Trump, among other priorities. And it’s not just sign-holding, T-shirt clad activists coming to the mics: It’s white-haired men in golf polos, and moms in work dresses and heels."

Heels no less! Gun control. There's a radical idea-- one that around 90% of non-Politico employees back! "But the freshman centrist also rejected calls to back Medicare for All from at least a half-dozen constituents-- a move that’s been repeated by many other moderates, though it frustrates some in their own base who are growing restless on the bigger issues. 'We have a lot of work to do on health care, there’s no doubt about it,' Lamb told a middle-aged nurse this week who urged him to support the bill. 'I happen to think the issue of prescription drug prices is the alligator closest to the boat, the one we absolutely have to deal with in this Congress.' Lamb, instead, said most people in the district are 'pretty happy' with their current insurance plans. Later in the night, he took another swipe at the ever-growing scope of the bill, and at 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'It seems like each time Sen. Sanders introduces it, he adds another thing.' True, Bernie added mental health care-- obviously important for Lamb's moron constituents who believe they are "pretty happy" being ripped off by the current insurance system.

New Jersey Blue Dog Mikie Sherrill, they wrote "also faced an intense push for Medicare for All, impeachment and robust climate action, with many people in the room applauding loudly each time a progressive issue was raised. When Democrats voted for her in 2018, they had idea of what a bag of Republican-lite garbage they were getting. She sure didn't tell them. And all the Republicans said about her is that she's a socialist. Unfortunately, she wasn't. At her town hall, she "turned down multiple requests to co-sponsor the Medicare for All bill, to visible disappointment in the crowd. 'Right now, I think it's critical that we bring down health care costs and get everybody covered. That is my goal,' Sherrill said, who made it clear she understood the pain of rising drug prices and insurance bills with stories about her own families’ costly treatments." She doesn't understand anything. She's a hack who deserves to lose her seat. Unfortunately she has no primary opponent yet.

Even swing-district Democrats who have embraced the progressive agenda, like Rep. Mike Levin of California, are coming home to voters who are irked by the stalled progress. Many are pivoting to McConnell, turning him into the boogeyman in 2020 for his so-called “legislative graveyard.”

That must confused every single Politico employee. I mean what sense does that make?!?!

“[Voters] say, why isn’t the House doing more? Well, we are. We are moving forward. It’s the Senate, and it’s Mitch McConnell specifically that’s unwilling to do his job,” he added. “They didn’t run for positions as a United States senator so that they could watch Mitch McConnell block all of the legislation that we send them.”

With control of just one chamber, Democrats have also struggled to make progress on even on the least contentious of their campaign promises, like drug pricing and infrastructure. That puts a strain on the dozens of freshmen like Levin and Lamb who clawed back their seats from the GOP last fall, largely campaigning on local and pocketbook issues.

But key parts of the base are also keen to show Democrats they’re more interested in fighting Trump than simply trying to fix potholes.

Democratic Party bosses, they say, are still playing it safe on the more divisive issues that are reenergizing voters on the left — an attempt to hold onto a “big tent” base in 2020 and protect vulnerable members like Lamb and Levin without alienating increasingly vocal progressives.

That’s a tough task, especially as trademark ideas, like Medicare for All, have gained prominence with help from a more-liberal-than-ever field of 2020 presidential candidates.

The tone of the town halls is far from the scathing public showdowns of the post-2010 Obamacare era. Still, the events this week drew standing room-only crowds in some cases, with dozens of people looking to take the mic and occasionally prompting outbursts of “impeach now!” or “Moscow Mitch.”

Levin has embraced many of the agenda items progressive voters are pushing. Still, the California freshman was confronted over his support for a Senate-passed humanitarian aid package for migrants at the southern border, which most Democrats opposed over concerns it didn’t go far enough.

Politico is careful to never refer to the concentration camps as concentration camps. And, yes, voters are angry that Democrats like Pelosi and Levin voted to fund the concentration camps which plenty of grassroots Democrats were horrified by. Levin, who is Jewish, noted that he has criticized members of both parties for anti-Semitic remarks... Like when Trump said their were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, the anti-racists and the Nazis. Both sides.

Balls by Nancy Ohanian

Fake Journalists-- Whether At Politico Or The Texas Monthly, Don't Know What A Primary Is

The headline is idiotic. The Texas Monthly asked, trying to be provocative, I suppose: Can Out-of-State Liberals Oust a Texas Democrat? The answer, of course, is NO. Only a solid home-grown progressive Democrat from Webb or Bexar County is going to oust Henry Cuellar. Good candidates aren't found on top shelves in an old WalMart and they don't get invented. No one wins a race who isn't positively driven by inner demons, especially not a primary.

Six of the nine counties that make up Texas' 28th district are deep blue. Tiny Atascosa, Wilson and even tinier McMullen Counties are the exceptions. Trump won Atascosa with 63.2%, Wilson with 72.7% and McMullen with 91.3%. It didn't make any difference. The massive majorities Hillary ran up in the more populated counties-- Webb (74.4%), Bexar (54.5%) and Hidalgo (68.6%)-- gave her a districtwide 58.3% to 38.5% win over Trump.

Last year the Republicans didn't even bother running an opponent against Cuellar, not just because he votes with them more than any other Democrat in Congress, but because the district is too blue for them to win (PVI is D+9). Republicans in TX-28 are lucky if they can get a third of the vote. In Congress, Cuellar's Trump adhesion score is 55.9%, the highest of any Democrat... by far.

Maria Recio wrote, so simplistically as to be almost misleading, that "Now the same group of young activists from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign who boosted Ocasio-Cortez are looking to replace other moderate and conservative Democrats across the country with leftist candidates. Their first target? U.S. representative Henry Cuellar, of Texas’s Twenty-eighth Congressional District. 'His votes and his rhetoric are not upholding Democratic values,' says Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the political action committee Justice Democrats, which launched its 'Primary Cuellar' campaign in January. In arguing why the eight-term congressman must go, Rojas points to the frequency with which Cuellar votes with President Donald Trump-- about 60 percent of the time, more than almost any other House Democrat-- despite representing a district that favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 20 percent in the 2016 election. The Justice Democrats say they believe, contrary to the results of recent elections, that the values of Texans aren’t significantly different from those of New Yorkers-- and, furthermore, that those values are progressive. 'In poll after poll, Americans everywhere want change in immigration, health care, climate change, and income inequality,' Rojas says."

Justice Democrats didn't invent Ocasio-Cortez. Their support for her was very important in her victory. But it was her victory, based primarily on how smart and effective she was as a campaigner and how charismatic she is. The way to do this is to start with a candidate, not with an enemy. "Their effort," wrote Recio, "is something of a proxy war for a larger conflict that has erupted within the Democratic party about the right way to mobilize voters and take the White House back from Trump in the 2020 election. Did Clinton lose the presidency because she failed to excite progressives by not tacking far enough to the left or because she didn’t hew close enough to the center to attract moderates? And is the answer to that question the same in all parts of the country?" Jesus, what a bunch of amateur and idiotic question-- well-meaning, terribly put.

The writer is so inept than she tries to say TX-28 Democrats should be discouraged because Beto didn't win Texas, seeming to have forgotten that he did win TX-28-- and massively so. Beto took Webb County 71.2% to 28.0%, Bexar 59.5% to 39.6%, Hidalgo 68.8% to 30.6% and so on. Of course, she's absolutely correct in pointing out that "Cuellar’s slice of South Texas and AOC’s corner of the Bronx and Queens are culturally worlds apart" and maybe even that "the Justice Democrats may be deluding themselves into thinking that they can replicate in Texas’s Twenty-eighth District the success they achieved in New York’s Fourteenth." There's no replication in politics. The Justice Democrats-- and the rest of use hoping to replace Cuellar with an actual Democrat-- need to find a good solid Texas candidate and then support her or him with all our might.

Recio veers off course though when she implies that the Justice Dems, in "their desire to shift the party sharply to the left could undermine the Democrats’ renewed attempts to turn the state blue." What does "blue" mean to Rechio; she doesn't say in her piece. Cuellar-like? Is that the blue she means. I can't speak for the Justice Democrats, but I sincerely doubt they would consider that electing more Henry Cuellars-- something Cheri Bustos' DCCC has made clear that that's exactly what they want to do-- would equate to turning anything blue at all. Nor is there a need for that. There are dozens and dozens of districts that are less blue than Cuellar's with more progressive congress members than he is. Take a guy like John Yarmuth. Not only is Kentucky (R+15) much redder than Texas (R+8), Yarmuth is, across-the-board, far more progressive than Cuellar despite representing a less blue district. TX-28 has a PVI of D+9 while Yarmuth is far more vulnerable in a D+6 district. Instead of Cuellar's strong Trump adhesion score (55.9%), Yarmuth's is more like a normal Democrat (16.5%). Babbling imbeciles like Recio, shrieking about leftists and mixing up facts-- citing Filemon Vela, for example as a liberal, when Vela is also a right-of-center Blue Dog with a solid "F" ProgressivePunch score in an even bluer district than Cuellar's-- spit out pseudo analyses that just confuse her readers. Vela supports Cuellar, she reports. Wow! Amazing, two right-wing corrupt Blue Dogs support each other. Unheard of!

She did stumble upon a fact worth noting though. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, disagrees with the DCCC policy protecting worthless incumbents like Cuellar from primary challenges. Hinojosa doesn’t believe the Justice Democrats’ efforts pose any threat to the party’s plans because the TX-28 itself is already 'deep blue' and is likely to remain so, regardless of the nominee who emerges from the primary. Exactly what establishment hacks rarely seem capable of grasping.

Politico found someone as hackish and ignorant as Recio, Steven Perlberg, to write a posy for them yesterday, How The Intercept Is Fueling The Democratic Civil War. Because, you know, primaries between progressives and the Republican wing iff the Democratic Party are always terrible civil wars. "For a broad swath of Democrats," wrote Perlberg, a [Mark] Kelly campaign is precisely what the party needs." Really? A Republican suddenly pretending to be a Democrat is just what the party needs? Perlberg described him as "a patriotic, mediagenic, center-friendly liberal who has a rare chance to turn the longtime Republican stronghold of Arizona into a state with two Democratic U.S. senators." He's wrong about "liberal" and very correct about "center-friendly," not as in center of the Democratic Party, but center of the political spectrum... so the place where the GOP meets the Democratic Party, home to shitheads like the aforementioned Henry Cuellar, as well as other corrupted right-wing corporatists who usually join the Blue Dogs and New Dems in the House and vote with Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Tom Carper (DE) in the Senate. You know who was defeated in the midst of the big anti-red wave last year? While Democrats were capturing dozens of Republican-held House seats across the country, "center-friendly" faux-Dems like Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL) and Claire McCaskill (MO) all lost their seats, failing to win their gamble that Republicans would vote for them and that the Democratic base would go with a lesser-of-two-evils strategy. Meanwhile, Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Sherrod Brown (WI), similarly targeted by the GOP, stuck to progressive platforms and won solid reelection battles in states Trump won.

Perlberg is angry that an Intercept reporter reported that Kelly, who pretends to be free of building a political career based on fealty to corporate special interests-- which Democratic and independent voters are demanding nationwide-- "made at least 19 paid corporate speeches in front of audiences including Goldman Sachs" and was enjoying the inherent corruption of having slimy lobbyists raise money for his campaign from DC fat-cats. Perlberg is freaking out because suddenly the less vigilant Arizona Republic and CNN picked up on the story and because the embarrassment caused Kelly to return the $55,000 the Emeratis had given him as a legalistic bribe for services they expect will be rendered. "For The Intercept, wrote the foolish Perlberg who probably never imagined the Republicans would use this kind of thing against Kelly when it would be too late for Democrats to find a better candidate, "it was another notch on an increasingly crowded belt-- mostly decorated with attacks on Democrats."

The Politico hit job on The Intercept is funny. I wonder if The Intercept is encouraging it. Politico, like The Hill and other Beltway trade publications exist to puff up the establishments of both parties. That's very, very different from the actual reporting The Intercept does. Real journalists don't write for Politico and Politico isn't able to grok what writers like Ryan Grim, Lee Fang, Kate Aronoff, David Dayen, Akela Lacy and Mehdi Hasan do. Politico is a press release-based operation. The Intercept isn't part of their sad little world.

Let's Look At How Lazy "Journalists" Heather Caygle And Laura Barrón-López Misled Politico Readers By Stuffing A Story On Cheri Bustos Full Of DCCC Talking Points

Does anyone outside of Bustos' office seriously think that slogan won the Democrats back the House?

Politico ace reporters Heather Caygle And Laura Barrón-López should go to journalism school-- or somehow get it through their heads that reporters aren't actually supposed to be mindless cheerleaders for the establishment.

"Cheri Bustos," they wrote of the woman quickly turning herself into her party's next Debbie Wasserman Schultz, "isn’t afraid of the insurgent left." That's so cute! I wonder if Bustos paid extra for that. "The chairwoman of House Democrats’ campaign arm has found herself in a very messy-- and public-- spat with progressives over the past week and a half. But the Midwestern moderate"-- ah, yes, Politico's favorite put down of progressives: calling corrupt conservatives like Blue Dog Bustos a "moderate," the most admired political term among American voters. What makes Bustos a moderate? That she votes with Republicans? That she opposes the most popular Democratic initiatives of the time-- like Medicare-For-All, free state colleges, the $15 minimum wage, and the Green New Dream? In Beltway conservative circles, opposing those initiatives is what makes someone "serious" and, apparently, "moderate."

Bustos, they continued "is refusing to budge, despite drawing ire from prominent progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has encouraged her millions of social media followers to halt donations to the campaign committee in retaliation." [Notice how the boogey man was just created in the narrative, the boogey man who the "moderate" shall vanquish.] Let's see what can they do to make Bustos sound all-American and heroic?

“I’m pretty transparent, I don’t try to do things behind people’s back, I don’t try to mislead,” Bustos said in a brief interview Wednesday, when asked about the intraparty conflict.

At issue is a new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee policy that prohibits Democratic consultants and vendors from working for a primary challenger to a sitting incumbent if they want the lucrative business of the DCCC.

That stance was considered an unwritten rule for the party, but Bustos decided to codify it at a time when the prospect of left-wing primary challenges looms large among House Democrats.

Despite the outcry from some progressives, many Democrats have rallied behind Bustos-- approaching her on the floor and privately commending her for being willing to confront the left wing of the caucus when others have cowered, fearful of becoming the Twitter target du jour.

Really? Has AOC been bullying Democrats on Twitter, Politico? Who? I must have slept late that day. Who has been a "Twitter target du jour?" I mean other than people hated by Trump? Who? Show me.

Bustos has indeed become a public punching bag for progressives, absorbing blows for moderate and vulnerable Democrats. In return, Bustos has privately encouraged members to voice their support for her actions-- particularly progressives who back the policy-- according to multiple sources.

“We don’t have time for games, we don’t have time for hugs and kisses,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in an interview, praising Bustos for taking a hard line to protect the party’s incumbents ahead of a difficult 2020 campaign.

The episode underscores Bustos’ approach to the job as DCCC chairwoman amid an ideological clash that has defined the early months of the new Democratic majority. She is the first line of defense in Democrat’s battle to hold onto the House, tasked with protecting more than two dozen seats in districts won by President Donald Trump, including her own.

Her sometimes blunt attitude is a dramatic departure from previous DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján, who is known on Capitol Hill for being nonconfrontational and eager to please. But Bustos’ style is one several members said is needed in this moment, as Democrats wage war against Trump and hope to not only hold the House but flip the Senate and White House next year.

“What you see is what you get,” said Lacy Clay (D-MO), who fended off a liberal primary challenger last cycle. “She’s up front about her positions and you have to respect that.”

Added Clay: “She’s brought a new perspective and sometimes you need to change the way you do things around here.”

Lacy Clay pretends to be a progressive but he's a grotesquely corrupt sack, who will always be facing primaries because of how he treats his constituents. It's only a matter of time before some lands the right blow at the right time. He's perfect for Bustos. Couldn't be better.

But other lawmakers, even the ones defending Bustos, have privately questioned her move to “poke the bear,” as one member described her swipe at the left, and put in writing a rule that was essentially followed by the campaign committee anyway.

Three months into her tenure as DCCC chairwoman, Bustos said she wanted to lay down the “ground rules” and follow through on a commitment she made when she ran for the post to do everything she could to protect incumbents. Some lawmakers even specifically raised the vendor issue last fall during the DCCC race, according to one Democratic source. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other members of leadership have also defended the move.

“We’ve got a policy that the caucus supports, the leadership supports, and it plays the long game,” Bustos said Wednesday when asked if she would reverse course on the new vendor policy. “That’s where things are right now.”

But the issue has clearly touched a nerve within the caucus.

Democrats in the centrist New Democratic faction and more conservative Blue Dog Caucus are pleased with the Illinois Democrat’s show of force against primary challenges. But, tellingly, many did not want to publicly comment on the change for fear of escalating what has the potential to become a civil war.

Progressive Caucus leaders Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal have vocally condemned the policy change, calling it “undemocratic” and an effort to “blackball” talented consultants. Donors warned the two leaders that they would stop contributing to DCCC if the policy remained in place.

In a heated meeting with Bustos last week, Pocan, Jayapal and Ro Khanna of California voiced their displeasure. Bustos stood her ground and appeared unwilling to change course. Khanna came out of the meeting angry, vowing to fight the policy until it was nixed.

But in the days since, progressives have shifted tactics, saying they want to keep the debate private, with Khanna saying, “these things take time.”

“We’re having ongoing conversations, but dealing with it in the public is counterproductive,” Pocan said, when asked whether Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets to her 3.8 million followers was helpful. “I’m dealing with it in the responsible way to make sure we get rid of the policy and that means dealing with it within the family.”

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez told Politico on Wednesday she doesn’t have any additional plans to blast the DCCC on Twitter and said she’s “not sure” whether she is going to pay her member dues to the campaign arm.

Though Pocan and Jayapal insist the conversations are not over with Bustos are not over, the three lawmakers appear to be talking past one another. Bustos said she would ask progressives to “play the long game.”

“If we’re going to be successful as Democrats, and going into 2020 with a very, very fragile majority, we got to be on the same team,” said Bustos, adding that the new policy ensures the DCCC will spend “every cent we can to hang on to our majority and not work against ourselves.”

While running for the DCCC post, Bustos pitched herself as a Democrat with a unique ability to appeal to Trump voters while not shying away from taking on the president. The fourth-term lawmaker hails from a rural district in the northwestern corner of Illinois that Trump won in 2016 even as it reelected Bustos by 20 points.

Only a Democrat as tragically lacking as Hillary could lose that district, which was gerrymandered by the Democratic-controlled state legislature so that Bustos would never lose her seat. Hillary's 1 point loss to Trump brought the PVI down to D+3, hardly the red district the Bustos cheering squad makes it out to be. Obama beat McCain there by a whopping 60.0% to 38.5% and then beat Romney 57.6-40.6%. Last year Bustos beat Republican Bill Fawell 142,659 (62.1%) to 87,090 (37.9%). Politico-- and most House Dems-- are too dull-witted to look into the bullshit Bustos has spewed about her epic battle to win the hicks in Trump country. IL-17 may not have embraced Hillary, but this district was drawn for Democrats, and very successfully so. You want Bustos to teach you how to win in a red district? All she can tell you is to make sure your state legislature gerrymanders the Republicans out of it and into IL-18, where the PVI suddenly shot up from a stable R+11 to a blood red R+16. Easy as pie. Now elect me DCCC chair too.

A former journalist and public relations executive, Bustos first impressed other Democrats as a co-chair of the caucus’ communications arm last cycle. She, along with Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and David Cicilline of Rhode Island, helped craft Democrats’ winning message-- encouraging members to focus on economic issues instead of running solely on an anti-Trump platform.

It worked. Democrats swept back into power in the House, flipping more than 40 GOP seats and electing the largest Democratic freshman class in four decades.

Hey, what can I say? If I was editing Politico, Caygle and Barrón-López would have been looking for new jobs 5 minutes after handing in those 3 sentences of patently ridiculous crap that is either stupendously naive or professionally dishonest. How about something to follow it up with-- like people clamoring for Bustos to lead them to the promised land?

Now Bustos is mentioned as a potential future leader of the caucus when Pelosi and her longtime deputies move on. But much of her future in Democratic leadership hinges on how she navigates her role as DCCC chairwoman-- and whether Democrats hold the House.

A natural and constant friction exists between the DCCC and lawmakers, no matter who holds the post. Members have to pay dues to the campaign arm-- fees that Bustos raised across the board after taking the job. And the DCCC has been criticized for not doing more to defend incumbents from primary challenges in the past.

But Bustos is steering the ship at a unique time: Trump is in the White House, Democrats hold the House majority for the first time in nearly a decade, and there is a new, combative progressive wing on bullhorns as dozens of newly elected moderates fend off claims that they’re “radical socialists.”

“We have 50 different groups, and all of whom are screaming for attention from the DCCC and most of them believe that the DCCC is not responding sufficiently to their desires and requests, which is why I’d never want the job,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO.), adding of Bustos, “I’ve not experienced her wavering on anything, even the difficult and controversial issues.”

An actual journalist, Alex Kotch, in a piece-- As it Works to Stifle Primary Challengers, DCCC Takes More Money from Corporate Lobbyists-- for a nice, more trustworthy publication than Politico, Sludge reports on issues that challenge the DCCC, rather than by licking it's proverbial ass. He makes the case that corrupt conservatives like Bustos can alienate the DCCC (and Democratic Party?) from grassroots activists, because she, the committee and the party's establishment are in the process of selling themselves to Steny Hoyer's amigos on K Street. What the lobbyists expect in exchange will continue the Democratic Party's downward spiral. The DCCC, he wrote "is relying more heavily on corporate lobbyists to collect checks. Lobbyists whose clients include health care, oil, gas, and coal interests, raised almost $440,000 for the DCCC in January and February, Federal Election Commission records show. Many of their clients oppose progressive priorities like a Medicare for All health-care system or a Green New Deal to mitigate climate change."

The DCCC refused to answer questions about it but Ro Khanna did: "I do not take money from corporations, PACs, or lobbyists. The DCCC should not, either."

In February 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) quietly reversed an Obama-era ban on contributions from federal lobbyists and political action committees. Lobbyists raised roughly $100,000 for the DCCC in 2015-16, before raising close to $1.9 million for the committee during the 2018 election cycle. This year, led by centrist Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, the DCCC has already received almost as much money via donations bundled by corporate lobbyists than in all of 2017.

While most of the Democratic presidential primary candidates support Medicare for All, and 108 House Democrats have signed on to single-payer legislation, the party’s congressional leaders have resisted calls for sweeping changes to the nation’s health-care system. They have instead pushed for improvements to the Affordable Care Act-- the 2010 health-care law-- and lower drug prices.

I don't think Kotch realized it, but when he was reporting on former California Congressman Vic Fazio, now a notorious lobbyist, he was reporting about not just a former congressman but on a pivotal former chairman of the DCCC. Fazio took over as DCCC head in January of 1991 and served 2 terms until January of 1995. Fazio sucked as DCCC chair. Despite Clinton beating George HW Bush during his first term, the House Dems lost a net of 9 seats. Fazio was rewarded for being so bad with another term, a DCCC tradition. Fazio's second term as DCCC was one of the worst in history for the Democrats and he managed to steer the party into a 5 million vote shortfall, a net loss of 54 seats and the loss of the House. An utter failure, Fazio works for the largest, one of the most notoriously corrupt, lobbying firms in history, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Fazio's clients include Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the nation’s largest pharmaceutical trade association and Gilead Sciences, a company that has earned billions of dollars from sales of a drug based on government research to prevent HIV infection. So far this cycle-- which is just getting started-- Fazio has raised $73,500 for the DCCC.

Kotch also noted that "While the DCCC is trying to keep its vendors from aiding primary challengers, there has been no such push to prevent its consultants from advising corporate clients, whose goals are" [supposedly or formerly or partially or in a make believe land far away from the Beltway] "often at odds with much of the Democratic Party [albeit not Cheri Bustos' part]. Global Strategy Group, which conducted polls for the DCCC last cycle, has worked with the health insurance lobby AHIP. The firm was also a consultant for the coalition that successfully defeated a single-payer ballot measure in Colorado in 2016." For members like Cheri Bustos, that's a a plus, not a flaw. Similarly, another shady firm progressives are WAY better off without, "SKDKnickerbocker, a media firm that’s worked for the DCCC, has provided public affairs support for controversial corporate mergers like the one between AT&T and Time Warner."

Common Dreams also covered the story better than Politico. Eoin Higgins seems more... like a reporter than the Caygle And Barrón-López. Apparently he wrote his story, a bit of a critique of the dreck Caygle And Barrón-López puked up, without any help from the DCCC comms department. "Framing the vendor policy as a way to ensure the Democrats remain in power in the House moving forward," wrote Higgins, "Bustos said the party needed to concentrate on not working against one another. 'If we're going to be successful as Democrats, and going into 2020 with a very, very fragile majority, [we've] got to be on the same team,' said Bustos."

Rep.  Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, broke her public silence on the vendor decision Thursday morning in response to Bustos's interview with Politico. 'It is not playing games for the Democratic party to be inclusive of all its members perspectives,' Jayapal said in a tweet.  'I have refrained from commenting publicly on this issue until now, but I am extremely disappointed that there is no movement on this issue.' Jayapal also made the case that progressives represent a large section of the Democratic caucus overall and took issue with Bustos' characterizing the CPC as 'the far left.' Gee, it made perfect sense in Politico world.

Higgins also figured that policy concerns are part of this story as well. Imagine that! "The imbroglio over the DCCC's move to undermine primary challenges is not the only evidence of tension between the progressive and centrist factions with the party. On Thursday, Common Dreams reported on another point of conflict between the two sides: attempts by the Democratic Party's centrist wing to water down a $15 minimum wage proposal. 'Being in Congress means leading, and we need to lead on minimum wage,' said Jayapal."

Nancy Pelosi Is Whipping "Almost Daily" for TPP

Pelosi was a perp on Obama's failed Chained CPI proposal as well — another Obama–Paul Ryan pro-wealth project. Not a great choice for a "San Francisco liberal" to be making.

by Gaius Publius

It looks like this early statement, about which I got some pushback, is proving true. Just as Chuck Schumer was the behind-the-scenes enabler on Fast Track and TPP in the Senate — he voted No but privately organized the Fast Track set of bills so they would pass — Pelosi is the behind-the-scenes enabler of TPP in the House. According to one report (see below), she might even vote No, so long as it passes with votes other than hers.

Publicly, Pelosi has said both (a) she's neutral and (b) she's seeking a "path to yes." Sounds like a contradiction, and it sounded so at the time. About her supposed neutrality, here's the New York Times (my emphasis throughout):

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, who has yet to declare her position, has told House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio that he will have to produce 200 Republican votes to win the 217 he needs. In other words, she is not promising a single new convert.

That's the spin, and it's being repeated elsewhere as well. It's also not true. According to two sources, in private Pelosi is working "almost on a daily basis" to get Fast Track to pass, and with it, TPP. Evidence comes from Greg Sargent at Plumline and from Politico. Let's start with Sargent and the problems around Fast Track's associated Trade Assistance bill.

If the Trade Assistance Bill Fails, Fast Track and TPP Will Fail

Everyone knows, though only opponents will say, that it's mostly Big Money who wants TPP to succeed, because Big Money will make a killing from the deal. Everyone knows, though only opponents will say, that TPP will do what NAFTA did — move jobs abroad and continue to impoverish American workers.

Which means, to get Democratic votes for Fast Track and TPP, they need to enact a so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill along with it, to lessen, if only slightly, the damage to American workers. Republicans hate lessening damage to American workers, however — remember all those unemployment compensation fights — so there are a lot of Republicans who don't want TAA to pass.

And the TAA bill passed by the Senate is "paid for" by cuts to Medicare. (Yes, you read that right — Medicare cuts.) So right now, TAA is in trouble from both the left and the right. Bottom line, no TAA, no TPP. Enter Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi Is Working to Keep the TAA–plus–Fast Track Deal Alive

Many Democrats hate the Medicare cuts (or can't afford to seem not to). Many Republicans hate the TAA itself. So the deal is in trouble — remember, no TAA, no TPP. What does Nancy Pelosi do? When it looks like the deal could fail, she goes to bat for the deal.

Greg Sargent:

Pelosi is taking the possibility of a failed TAA vote in the House seriously. A Pelosi aide tells me that she is negotiating with GOP leaders to find a new pay-for to replace the Medicare cuts, since keeping them could end up killing it.

If Pelosi is opposed to Fast Track, she could let it die by letting TAA die. That's what Alan Grayson would do. After all, if there's no fast track for a job-killing "trade" bill, there's no need for worker assistance to mitigate the damage. Pelosi is working to enable the Fast Track and TPP deal, to keep it alive. She obviously wants it to pass.

Nancy Pelosi — The White House "Secret Weapon" on TPP

Now from Politico, this gut-churner on Obama, Pelosi and TPP. It opens with the bottom line:

White House’s secret weapon on trade: Nancy Pelosi

Administration officials have been so impressed by Nancy Pelosi’s approach to negotiations over giving President Barack Obama “fast-track” trade authority that they’ve started to consider a crazy possibility: She could even vote for it herself.

But only if she has to.

"But only if she has to"? If she's in favor of TPP why should she hide her hand in passing it? Feel free to make your best guess at the answer. Mine is, for the sake of appearances. For more on Pelosi controlling appearances, see the last quote in this piece.

The next few paragraphs are very Pelosi-friendly, but hard to credit once you get to these passages:

Obama aides say they don’t know how Pelosi will vote in the end, but they gush about how hands-on she’s been, how accommodating she’s been in letting them make their case, how critical she’s been in saying nothing about her position to give her fellow Democrats cover to get to yes.

“I applaud the leader for creating enough space to really evaluate this legislation,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), who announced his support for TPA last month and has become the anti-TPA effort’s top target to scare others into voting no. “She’s done a good job creating that space.”

That's "New Democrat" Ami Bera, who's being hit hard in his district for his declared Yes on TPP. Ami Bera wants to publicly "applaud" Pelosi for her work with Democrats, to "create that space" so Democrats can "get to yes."

The White House agrees:

The White House hopes Pelosi’s going to put her thumb on the backs of however many necks she needs, forcing yes votes among the more reluctant but safe members, letting the more endangered members off the hook, finding votes and trading votes until she gets to the 24, or 25, or 26 that she needs. ...

"Her position is that she wants to get to yes and she is talking about this almost on a daily basis," said a senior House Democrat.

Ignore the schizophrenia in the article about how she doesn't know how she's going to vote despite everything else it says about her effort. All she cares about, based on her reported behavior, is controlling her own appearance, her brand, as being "pro-worker" — and helping other pro-TPP members control their own appearances, as the above quote makes abundantly clear.

And ignore articles to the contrary; they just report what Pelosi is saying about herself. Sargent and this Politico piece report what Pelosi is doing — working hard to make TPP happen. She's the lead enabler in the House of the "next NAFTA" trade agreement, someone working almost daily to keep the deal alive in the House.

If she doesn't want to tag herself that way — and apparently she doesn't — it falls to us to tag her. Nancy Pelosi, lead House perp on the biggest anti-worker bill of this generation. Considering the damage TPP will do, I'd gladly pay to put that on her tombstone.

GP

Shakeup Coming At MSNBC

Analysis you'll never hear on MSNBC

by Gaius Publius

I don't know what to make of this news — in the sense that I don't know for sure what it augurs — so I'll just present it. I do know what to make of MSNBC — it's the Party-first equivalent of the Movement-first Fox News (note the difference) — though that varies from host to host. That is, some hosts will be more aggressive in criticizing Democrats than others, but only on narrowly selected topics. Ed Schultz, to my knowledge, is the only one covering the biggest billionaire-fueled wealth-transfer story of the day — TPP — though if I'm wrong, please do send me links.

Maybe if the geniuses at MSNBC are wondering why people like me are less eager to tune in, it's because when it comes to coverage of the Democratic Party, mostly what you get is the party line (literally), and that's as predictable as the taste of your morning coffee, and a lot less necessary in daily doses.

Politico:

As ratings plunge, MSNBC faces shakeup

Insiders say to expect more news, less bombast, and fresh voices.

It would be hard to imagine a news event better tailored to MSNBC’s Venn diagram of “lean forward” liberals and “place for politics” political junkies. Yet when Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ presumptive 2016 presidential nominee, held a news conference about her private email use last week — a media frenzy that functioned, albeit inadvertently, as the informal launch to her highly anticipated campaign — less than 13 percent of the total cable news audience was tuned to the network.

The low turnout wasn’t a fluke: Year-to-date, MSNBC’s daytime viewership is down 21 percent overall and 41 percent in the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic, putting it in fourth place behind Fox News, CNN and CNN’s sister network HLN. Its prime-time ratings are down 24 percent and 42 percent, respectively. In both daytime and prime time, MSNBC is bringing in its smallest share of the demo since 2005, the year before Keith Olbermann’s scorched-earth admonitions of the Bush administration ushered in the current era of Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton.

In a memo to staff in December, MSNBC President Phil Griffin conceded that the network is suffering: “It’s no secret that 2014 was a difficult year for the entire cable news industry and especially for MSNBC,” he wrote. But change was coming, Griffin promised, with “more announcements in the New Year.”

Stop briefly and reread the first paragraph. Does Griffin, or Politico, really not know why Democrats aren't tuned to MSNBC for Clinton email news? Does anyone really expect anything but Dem-protection (and in this case, Clinton-protection) in their coverage of the story, especially with Republicans on the attack? There is a scandal there, several of them, just as there's a scandal in the Loretta Lynch nomination (see video at the top). But I could write MSNBC's coverage of the email news in my sleep, just as I could write their throaty praises of Loretta Lynch. I just wouldn't publish them as analysis.

MSNBC is vague about what's coming:

The extent of that change could be vast: In the months ahead, MSNBC is likely to shake up the bulk of its programming, moving some shows and canceling others, high-level sources at NBCUniversal told POLITICO. With a few exceptions — notably “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Morning Joe” — every program is at risk of being moved or canceled, those sources said. “All In with Chris Hayes,” a ratings suck that currently occupies the 8 p.m. time slot, will almost certainly be replaced. Network execs are also considering moving some weekday shows, like “Politics Nation with Al Sharpton,” to weekends.

“The plan is to re-imagine what the channel is,” one high-level NBCUniversal insider with knowledge of the network’s plans said, “because the current lineup is a death wish.”

Note that the guy who's going to drive those changes thinks MSNBC has "drifted left" (my emphasis):

The changes, which Griffin has already set in motion with the cancellation of the little-watched daytime shows “Ronan Farrow” and “Reid Report,” are likely to be hastened by the arrival of new NBC News Group Chairman Andrew Lack, who will serve as Griffin’s boss.

Lack, a former NBC News president, is likely to rein in MSNBC’s ever-leftward drift and focus instead on creating more news-driven programming, with more involvement from NBC News talent. This could become a radical change of course for MSNBC, where partisan, opinion-based programming has come to dominate the vast majority of the network’s lineup in both daytime and prime time.

"Partisan"? Certainly. "Leftward"? Not so much.

The Network Covers Justice Issues Well

I don't want to minimize how valuable much of MSNBC's coverage is — Chris Christie corruption (yes, I know; low-hanging Republican fruit, but still, good coverage of an important story); prosecution-free killings by FBI agents (huge props to Maddow for those stories); relentless killer cop–after–killer cop exposés by Chris Hayes — to name just a few examples of the excellent work they've done.

But note — this is not left-leaning coverage. These are stories of corruption and murder. This is coverage of justice. True left-leaning coverage attacks the uses of great wealth by both parties to serve the interests of great wealth and undermine the interests of everyone else in the country. Of that, I've seen almost none on MSNBC.

Are they covering Rahm Emanuel's rape of Chicago? As news, but not as analysis; and certainly not with an Obama endorsement in Emanuel's pocket. Do they cover TPP and the attempted corporate rape of national sovereignty? Not that either; and certainly not with a full-court press by Obama and big corporate CEOs (like Comcast's?) as an ongoing part of the story. Have they covered the relationship between carbon wealth and fact that the administration's "solutions" to the climate crisis involve ... enriching holders of carbon wealth? That would violate almost all of MSNBC's apparent restrictions.

What does Phil Griffin, or Andrew Lack, think of Rahm, or TPP, or Exxon's push to sell methane? Can you guess?

The real market for cable television — its owners (source)

Where will this go, this move for change at MSNBC? I can't say, though I can begin to guess. The clue, for me, is here:

This could become a radical change of course for MSNBC, where partisan, opinion-based programming has come to dominate ...

"Opinion-based programming" at MSNBC consists, in practice, of calls for justice — prosecution of murder by police, for example — not calls to respond to the world in a Chomskyite, genuinely leftish way. Justice always discomforts the unjust and comfortable. Perhaps that's what they'll offer less of — fewer stories about killer cops and the ravages of carbon-caused climate change. We'll just have to wait and see.

Me, I want more "capture by wealth" stories, but then again, I'm watching the actual news.

GP

​Hillary Clinton Meets Privately With Elizabeth Warren; Politico "Speculates" Why

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Elizabeth Warren
in 2013.  Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

by Gaius Publius

The Hillary Clinton–Elizabeth Warren story has always been complicated. Clinton has stood for Wall Street, for example, and Warren against. The Clintons as a group and a Foundation have stood for income redistribution to the rich (via NAFTA, "free trade" and deregulation) while salving the rest of us with promises of education that will, as some say it, "prepare 21st century workers for 21st century jobs" (in Asia?). Warren, on the other hand, has consistently stood against wealth redistribution away from the middle class, and for debt relief for the middle class. A tale, as they say, of opposites.

Yet in 2013 Warren signed a group letter supporting Hillary Clinton:

All the female Democrats in the Senate [including Sen. Warren] have jumped on the "Hillary for President" bandwagon — even though some of the liberal lady lawmakers on Team Hill are thought to have presidential ambitions of their own come 2016.

The group of 16, reportedly led by veteran Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) lended their signatures to the note, encouraging their former colleague to try again for the White House.

And Warren repeatedly refuses to fuel speculation that she's considering giving thought to a possible White House run. According to her pronouncements, she's not even thinking about giving consideration to this thought.

Yet Warren has taken an activist role in the Senate — an anti-Obama role at times, and clearly an anti-Clintonian one — by her failed attempt to sabotage the weakening of Dodd-Frank derivatives regulation, and her successful attempt to derail the appointment of Wall Street heavyweight Antonio Weiss to Undersecretary of the Treasury. This puts her, as some say, in the Populist wing of the Democratic party, with Clinton aligned with the Wall Street wing, both by word and deed.

Clinton seems determined to run, if not eager to announce early. There certainly are a number of "friendly" PACs doing fund-raising on her behalf. Yet the Wall Street wing has never been more unpopular with voters, both Democratic and Republican, and Elizabeth Warren has a great deal of support.

As to their candidacies, it's presumed by most that Clinton will run for the White House, and it's hard to think, at this point, of Warren taking that step — certainly while Clinton is not out of the race, if even then.

As I said, complicated. In sum:

▪ Clinton is likely running, Warren is likely not.
▪ Clinton is less popular with Democratic voters, Warren considerably more.
▪ Clinton is thought to want the White House badly, Warren to prefer the Senate.

But, because they would both potentially be the "first woman president":

▪ Warren can win a larger share of Democratic voters than Clinton can ever hope to.

This is a tough problem for Clinton. If she's truly running, she needs to figure out how to paint herself with "Warren cred" while not abandoning her moneyed supporters. She could give "Populist wing" speeches, as Obama has recently done, but would she be believed? What would you do in her position?

Clinton Asked For a Private Meeting With Warren

In this context, we find this news via Politico. First, just the headline:

Hillary Clinton, Privately, Seeks the Favor of Elizabeth Warren 

Compare Politico's headline with my heading for this section. See the difference? This is Politico putting intention to the action. Clinton is not just seeking a meeting, she's seeking some of that "Warren cred" I just mentioned. Now from the piece (my emphasis):

Hillary Rodham Clinton held a private meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren in December, seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential senator and to grapple with issues raised by a restive Democratic left, such as income inequality.

The two met at the Northwest Washington home of the Clintons, without aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation.

Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren, according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and productive.” Mrs. Clinton, who has been seeking advice from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask Ms. Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.

Is Clintons seeking ideas, or innocence by association? Feel free to make up your own mind, as I have done mine. And while you're asking yourself questions like these, ask yourself this — what's the source of the three bolded phrases in the final paragraph quoted above?

There's much in the piece that you already know, including:

Ms. Warren has repeatedly said she is not running for president, and she has taken no steps that would indicate otherwise. Still, she is intent on pushing a robust populist agenda, and her confidants have suggested that she would use her Senate perch during the 2016 campaign to nudge Mrs. Clinton to embrace causes like curtailing the power of large financial institutions.

The get-together highlighted an early challenge for Mrs. Clinton, who as the Democrats’ leading contender for 2016 has all but cleared the field for her party’s primary. She is intent on developing an economic platform that can speak to her party’s populist wing and excite working class voters without alienating allies in the business community.

That Mrs. Clinton reached out to Ms. Warren suggested that she was aware of how much the debate over economic issues had shifted even during the relatively short time she was away from domestic politics while serving as secretary of state.

That's Politico doing its contextual due diligence. But again, you knew all that. The piece I bolded above is a giveaway, though, just as Politico's headline was, and the word "cultivate" from its very first sentence. What does Clinton want? Policy ideas, an endorsement, or some second-hand credibility? Policy ideas are free and obvious — rein in Big Money, take away some of their plunder (yes, that's the right word for it), and give that recovered loot back to the people they took it from.

Since Clinton's not stupid, one has to presume she wants the other two. Would she welcome an endorsement? I think she'd kill, in the virtual sense, for it. Would she settle for some of the cred to rub from Warren's shoulders to hers, as they stood side by side smiling at the cameras? Of course.

But she wants something else as well. The Politico article suggest that Clinton wants more than just "cred" from Warren — she wants a bit more silence:

The one-on-one meeting also represented a step toward relationship building for two women who do not know each other well. And for Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles.

About Warren and "insiders," consider what she told Bill Moyers. And again, where did the writers get such an idea?

What's the Source of Politico's Many "Speculations"?

Now let's look at the layer below the Clinton-Warren layer. This article came from somewhere. Does it contain a large amount of speculation on the writers' part, or is there an "unacknowledged source" from the Clinton team whispering into the writers' combined shell-like, helping to feed the article that helps to feed Clinton's cred?

Again, feel free to make up your own mind, but know that pieces like these don't come out of the wild blue, and the writers, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin, are connected to people who know the people who know how to get things in the press. With that question about "unacknowledged sources" in mind, note the writers' ending:

Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appeared eager to keep a close eye on Ms. Warren; Bill Clinton has appeared sensitive to her oblique criticism of his deregulation of financial institutions.

The word "appeared" appears twice in this sentence. Under what hedge do you have to be looking for these appearances to be seen? Or is it a matter of to whose mouth your ear is tuned? I'd be shocked if this piece — with all its insider-y motive-guessing — came from any source but the Clinton camp. If so, with Ms. Clinton's knowledge? On that, your speculation is as good as anyone's — and as obvious.

If you do think Clinton is ultimately the source of so much in this article, I strongly suggest you reread it carefully with that in mind and find, phrase by phrase, Clinton's likely contributions to it. What information can only come from Team Clinton? You too can hear like an insider.

GP

New PPP Poll Shows Democratic Base Lukewarm to Clinton

"Shine Bright, Jamie Dimon" — written and performed by Lauren Windsor

by Gaius Publius

I haven't seen this very widely reported, so I'll take it on here. This is a Warren story, a Clinton story, and a "What are we gonna do?" story.

The Warren part of the story is clear and clean. According to Politico, a group of people who are clearly Not Ready For Hillary have commissioned a poll by the highly respected firm PPP to find out just how vulnerable Hillary Clinton is. What's the Warren part? Politico wants us to know that the group commissioned the poll because, among other reasons, they want her hat in the ring. Politico spills much digital ink on this aspect, as you'll see below. Decide for yourself how much that matters.

It's the Clinton part of the story I find interesting though. Note what the pollsters found (and note also the difference between Politico's headline below, and mine above). Politico (my emphasis):

Elizabeth Warren backers fund poll stoking Hillary Clinton doubts

A group of major liberal donors who want Elizabeth Warren to run for president have paid for a poll intended to show that Hillary Clinton does not excite the Democratic base and would be vulnerable in a 2016 general election.

The automated poll of nearly 900 registered voters, conducted last week by Public Policy Polling, found that 48 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, compared to 43 percent who viewed the former secretary of State favorably.

While Clinton — the prospective favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination should she enter the race — holds leads over every major GOP candidate tested in the poll, she doesn’t break 50 percent against any, and some are well within striking distance. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker comes closest, with Clinton leading him by a margin of 45 percent to 42 percent (with 14 percent not sure who they’d vote for) – within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percent. ...

The piece goes on to detail the inside-baseball aspect of the funding of the poll. Read if you like, but my summary above of the "Warren part" covers their point. If you do read, though, pay attention to the slight "these donors have a preference" tone in the article. Not to put too fine a point on it, Politico has a preference also — Warren is not an insider candidate, and Politico is as much an insider as Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews — and as Hillary Clinton. And what's the first rule of insiders? (Click and read how insiders love them their insiders.)

Back to the "Clinton part" of the article:

Several questions in the poll cast Warren as a champion for the working and middle class, while others highlighted Clinton’s support for the invasions of Iraq and Libya, and suggested she is in Wall Street’s pocket.

One question – which found 49 percent of voters more likely to support a presidential candidate “who wanted to bring the big banks under more control” – began by noting that Warren “has said that special interests like Wall Street have rigged the system in their favor.”

Another – which found 57 percent of respondents less likely to support a candidate “who doesn’t want to hold Wall Street accountable for its financial speculation” – begins by pointing out that Clinton has been paid as much as $200,000 per speech from big banks. And, it asserts, she “has failed to call for accountability by banks for speculation which led to the financial collapse in 2008.” ...

David Brock, founder of Media Matters, author of Blinded By the Right (a terrific book, by the way), and a "Clinton ally," disputes the poll's conclusions (of course; that's his job) and points to several offsetting Clintonian positions. Decide for yourself about whether those points matter.

For those who, like Politico, find some of the poll questions leading, consider that everything mentioned by the pollsters — for example, "Clinton has been paid as much as $200,000 per speech from big banks" — will be mentioned again and again during any political campaign featuring Ms. Clinton.

Again, decide for yourself what you think this adds to. For those who commissioned the poll, this could add to the prospect of insider bank-friendly Democrats nominating a third insider bank-friendly Democrat — Hillary Clinton — and losing the White House to the "hated" Republicans ... all on their own and with no help from progressives. If Clinton really is vulnerable, you'd think actual party-first Democrats might care.

The third part of this story, which I called the "What are we gonna do?" part, is unaddressed in the article, but hanging in the open like a full load of bedroom sheets on a neighbor's clothes line. There clearly is a group, including some big Democratic donors, who are very Not Ready for Hillary, so not-ready that they're working hard to pull Elizabeth Warren into the race.

Consider:

The argument against Clinton, is on principle (i.e., "It's immoral, almost criminal, what mainstream Democrats are doing"), not just on practical politics ("Could Clinton actually lose?").

If Warren doesn't enter the race, many of these people are prepared to stand aside, to vote by not voting, to rebel against the coming blackmail alongside the disenchanted and rebellious Democratic voters the poll was commissioned to sample.

Now pretend you're one of them — if my test-of-the-waters at Netroots Nation is any guide, you may well be one of them, even if you're not ready to tell your friends quite yet. So ask yourself ... "If Elizabeth Warren doesn't enter the race, what are we gonna do?"

It's a problem, isn't it? If eight more years of enabling rule by bankers, rule by predators, rule by billionaires, eight more years of unprosecuted looting by the virtual "40 families," is a prospect you can no longer stomach, and if Elizabeth Warren is not a choice ... what are we gonna do?

The time to think about that might be soon, right? Just a thought.

GP

Cross-posted with permission from Digby's Hullabaloo.

Will Their Opposition To Obamacare Help Defeat Any Of The Last Wretched Blue Dogs In Congress?

Georgia Blue Dog John Barrow has one of the most reactionary voting records of any Democrat in Congress-- to the point where he defines the term "DINO," Democrat in Name Only. For 2013-14, ProgressivePunch has scored him a dismal 27.73, just fractionally worse from Utah Blue Dog, Jim Matheson who decided to retire rather than face certain defeat in November. Three principled conservative Republicans have more progressive scores than Barrow: Justin Amash (MI-29.09), Chris Gibson (NY-40.00) and Walter Jones (NC-41.23). His overall voting record, for a Democrat is putrid.

That hasn't stopped the DCCC from dedicating a significant amount of money to try to reelect him in November. In the first round of TV time reservations, Barrow's fellow Blue Dog, DCCC chair Steve Israel, has reserved $490,000 on Augusta broadcast and cable from Sept. 2 to Oct. 6, and $670,000 on Savannah broadcast from Sept. 9 to Oct. 6, a total of $1,160,000 one of the biggest commitments to anyone running for Congress in 2014.

The slick graphic up top is community outreach to African-Americans in Augusta. It's a Health Fair! Of course, if it were up to Barrow, his constituents could die in the streets for all he cared-- but before election day, he suddenly takes a big interest his Augusta African-American constituents. He votes against their interests for 20 months and 4 months before election day he feigns concern. Barrow was one of only 4 Democrats who voted against the Affordable Care Act who hasn't be kicked out of Congress.

On March 21, 2010, Barrow voted with all 178 Republicans and 34 wretched Blue Dogs and New Dems to deny health care to poor people. The bill passed 219-212, a close call. Most of the right-wing Democrats lost their seats 8 months later because their Democratic bases refused to come to the polls to reelect them; it was the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse. These were the NO votes:

• John Adler (Blue Dog-NJ)- defeated, then killed by God
• Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)- defeated in a primary
• Mike Arcuri (Blue Dog-NY)- defeated
• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)- hanging on by a thread
• Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR)- retired rather than face certain defeat
• Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)- retired rather than face certain defeat
• Rick Boucher (VA)- defeated
• Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL)- defeated
• Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)- defeated
• Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS)- defeated
• Artur Davis (New Dem-AL)- defeated in gubernatorial primary/switched parties
• Lincoln Davis (Blue Dog-TN)- defeated (by GOP medical rapist Scott Desjarlais)
• Chet Edwards (TX)- defeated (in a landslide)
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD)- defeated
• Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)- defeated in a primary
• Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)- defeated
• Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD)- defeated
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)- still waiting to be primaried
• Stephen Lynch (MA)- defeated by a progressive in a Senate primary
• Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)- defeated
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)- retiring this year rather than face certain defeat
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)- retiring this year rather than face certain defeat
• Mike McMahon (Blue Dog-NY)- defeated by mafioso Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm
• Charlie Melancon (Blue Dog-LA)- lost Senate race
• Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID)- defeated
• Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA)- defeated
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- hanging on/DCCC triage
• Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)- retired rather than face certain defeat
• Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)- retired rather than face certain defeat
• Ike Skelton (MO)- defeated
• Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH)- defeated
• John Tanner (Blue Dog-TN)- retired rather than face certain defeat
• Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS)- defeated (twice)
• Harry Teague (Blue Dog-NM)- defeated

An intern or some other novice at Politico, Jennifer Haberkorn, tried covering this yesterday from the perspective of Beltway conventional wisdom that all these conservative Democrats lost their seats despite voting against the Affordable Care Act instead of because they voted against it. That's what Politico is all about: Beltway conventional wisdom, more often than not, wrong conventional wisdom. "Even those who opposed the law had trouble surviving the highly partisan atmosphere it helped to create," she marveled, not bothering to check the inordinately large drop off rates among voters in deep blue precincts. These people didn't switch to the GOP; they just didn't come out to vote for fake Democrats, many of whom had been recruited by Rahm Emanuel in 2006 and had amassed horrifying conservative records.
And while she was wrong on the overall gist of the story, she also made a hash out of the specifics. Mayabe she was only 10 or 11 in 2010 but Stephen Lynch did not vote against the Affordable Care Act "from the left." Democratic primary voters knew that in 2013 when the handed Ed Markey a stunning 57-43% victory of the conservative Lynch.

This is the garbage Steve Israel will spend at least $2 million on this year, money he tricks donors to contribute to the DCCC thinking they are supporting Democrats with their values: