Is Trump's Claim To The Nomination A Signal For A Conservative Migration To And A Take-Over Of The Democratic Party?

When Elizabeth Warren tweeted that there's more enthusiasm for Trump among the leaders of the KKK than leaders of the GOP, she was referring to the same sort of narrow slivver of political elites who have propped up the lesser evil in her own party. GOP elites have deployed $43 million worth of ads against Trump during the later stages of the primary and they made him more-- not less-- popular with the Republican masses. GOP hyperbole and Hate Talk Radio/Fox lowest common denominator pandering have created a base strong enough to overthrow the establishment elites within Republican Party, Inc. What a pity the reasoned arguments of people like Warren, Grayson and Bernie haven't been able to do it within Democratic Party, Inc, where corrupt careerists like Wasserman Schultz, Schumer, Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel and the Clintons still rule the roost.

But, as the NYTimes editorial board noted after Trump's big win in Indiana Tuesday night, It's Trump's Party Now. "That the Never-Trumpers," they opined, "had hoped to fall back on Mr. Cruz, perhaps the most reviled politician in his party, was a measure of their panic about the prospect now before them. With Mr. Trump’s success, 'I’m watching a 160-year-old political party commit suicide,' said Henry Olsen, an elections analyst with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank. Republicans will all but certainly nominate Mr. Trump, who would be the most volatile and least prepared presidential candidate nominated by a major party in modern times. A man once ridiculed by many prominent Republicans will become the G.O.P. standard-bearer."

This is a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party. It’s incumbent on its leadership to account for the failures and betrayals that led to this, and find a better way to address them than the demagogy on offer.

Republicans haven’t yet begun to grapple with this. Instead they’re falling into line.

Republican leaders have for years failed to think about much of anything beyond winning the next election. Year after year, the party’s candidates promised help for middle-class people who lost their homes, jobs and savings to recession, who lost limbs and well-being to war, and then did next to nothing. That Mr. Trump was able to enthrall voters by promising simply to “Make America Great Again”-- but offering only xenophobic, isolationist or fantastical ideas-- is testimony to how thoroughly they reject the politicians who betrayed them.

Now, myopic as ever, Republican leaders are talking themselves into supporting Mr. Trump. At a party retreat in Florida last month, Mr. Trump’s adviser Paul Manafort, brought in to make the candidate seem safer to the old guard, assured them that Mr. Trump will better prepare himself for the presidency. “That was all most of these guys needed to hear,” said an operative in the room. “Maybe he’s trainable.” But within a day, Mr. Trump was back to making vile comments at his rallies. In his confused foreign policy address, he demonstrated nothing but a willful refusal to learn.

...It is the Republicans who are making a clear choice in 2016, one that seemed unimaginable a year ago: To stamp what they still like to call the party of Lincoln with the brand of Donald Trump.

Last night Trump said he's open to naming Cruz his running mate

On MSNBC Wednesday morning, Trump told his preferred audience, people who watch Morning Joe, that he doesn't even want endorsements from the GOP establishment types who have treated him, in his mind, badly. With his usually self-centered, lazy incoherence, he babbled, "I’ve been saying for a long time that there's some people that, I almost don't want their endorsement, Republicans, because it was too rough and they were too nasty, and I don’t think it’s going to matter, frankly. It’s going to be me... from people who were far more brutal than Ted... I said to them, how can you do that after what you said. They said, 'don't worry about, it's not a problem,' because they’re politicians. It's talk."

The most recent head-to-head match-ups, CNN's, show Bernie beating him 56-40% and even the hideously flawed lesser-of-two evils candidate would thump Trump 54-41%. And, remember, Trump hasn't even been thoroughly vetted yet and there is so, so much for the general election voters to learn about him. Erick Erickson, a far right blogger, seems distraught-- and angry at Republican primary voters for, in his words, handing the White House to Hillary in an act of ritual suicide (without the ritual). "Trump," he wrote, "cannot win. 42% of Republican voters have an unfavorable view of Trump. 53% of registered voters have an unfavorable view of Trump. 70% of women have an unfavorable view of Trump. 89% of Hispanics have an unfavorable view of Trump. The Republican Party is on the verge of nominating the least popular politician in American presidential history. Ironically, the party’s voters are doing it to spite its own leaders, but its leaders prefer Trump to the other guy. The result will be Hillary Clinton winning in November. Trump cannot build a meaningful coalition outside of blue collar white voters, white supremacists, and internet conspiracy theorists. The rest of the voting public no more wants Trump than herpes."

Erick is right about the herpes, white supremacists and internet conspiracy theorists but he's not as right as he thinks he is about the blue collar white voters. In fact, on Tuesday Nate Silver called working class support for Trump a myth. "As compared with most Americans," wrote Silver, "Trump’s voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both."

Class in America is a complicated concept, and it may be that Trump supporters see themselves as having been left behind in other respects. Since almost all of Trump’s voters so far in the primaries have been non-Hispanic whites, we can ask whether they make lower incomes than other white Americans, for instance. The answer is “no.” The median household income for non-Hispanic whites is about $62,000, still a fair bit lower than the $72,000 median for Trump voters.

Likewise, although about 44 percent of Trump supporters have college degrees, according to exit polls-- lower than the 50 percent for Cruz supporters or 64 percent for Kasich supporters-- that’s still higher than the 33 percent of non-Hispanic white adults, or the 29 percent of American adults overall, who have at least a bachelor’s degree.

This is not to say that Trump voters are happy about the condition of the economy. Substantial majorities of Republicans in every state so far have said they’re “very worried” about the condition of the U.S. economy, according to exit polls, and these voters have been more likely to vote for Trump. But that anxiety doesn’t necessarily reflect their personal economic circumstances, which for many Trump voters, at least in a relative sense, are reasonably good.

Now, what about the existential threat Trump poses to the GOP? Far right web-site, the Washington Examiner reported yesterday that "the Republican donors who helped Mitt Romney raise $1 billion in 2012 [and wasted hundreds of millions of Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, Christie and the rest of the laughable "Deep Bench"] have a target figure in mind for Donald Trump: zero. Repelled by Trump and convinced he can't beat Hillary Clinton, wealthy GOP contributors are abandoning the presidential contest and directing their lucrative networks to spend to invest in protecting vulnerable Republican majorities in the House and Senate... [O]n policy and fitness for the presidency, the party's most active contributors and bundlers simply can't bring themselves to support their front-runner, reluctantly preferring a Clinton administration that is checked by a GOP congress."

Wealthy Republican donors are typically successful business people who approach politics pragmatically. They tend to support candidates most likely to win, with less regard to ideology, often to the chagrin of committed conservative activists. So in many ways it's unusual that establishment contributors in New York, Washington and around the country aren't preparing to open their wallets to Trump, now that he appears more likely to be the nominee.

But their issues with him are twofold.

On the issues, Trump's populism bothers donors, who tend to support the GOP because it has been the party of free markets, free trade, and lately, shrinking the size and scope of government through reforming Medicare and Social Security. On foreign policy, they prefer robust U.S. leadership abroad, making Clinton a preferable commander in chief when measured against Trump's isolationism.

Then there's Trump's behavior. Republican donors see a U.S. that is evolving demographically and becoming less white. Trump's harsh rhetoric directed toward illegal Mexican immigrants and Muslims, and long history of publicly insulting women and his critics, leads them to believe he will inflict long-term damage to the GOP, and worse, that he is unfit for the presidency.

Given their options, Republican donors prefer Clinton in the White House and Republicans controlling the House and Senate.

Responding to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Bill Kristol, who is advocating for a conservative to challenge Trump and Hillary on a conservative line, made his point crystal clear: "Trump shouldn't be POTUS. Wall Street Journal can't say it. We can, do say it." Also yesterday, just as Kasich was raising the white flag, Paul Waldman was asking his Washington Post readers, "So now that Trump has taken control of the GOP, how is the image Americans have of this party going to change? Right now, he points out, "the Democratic Party is viewed unfavorably by 50 percent of the public and favorably by 45 percent, for a net favorability of minus five, the Republican Party is viewed unfavorably by 62 percent and favorably by 33 percent, for a net favorability of minus 29. The latest Gallup poll shows that more Americans call themselves Democrats than Republicans by a margin of 49-41." Can Trump make it worse, not just lose the election but tarnish the already tarnished brand? Does it even matter to Republicans and the GOP that Trump is "making it absolutely clear that he is leading a movement of, by, and for white people?" Waldman likens the difference in approach as being "the difference between a guy in a trench coat saying 'Psst, buddy, want to buy some racism and xenophobia? Follow me into this alley…', and a guy standing on a soapbox in the middle of Times Square shouting 'Get yer racism and xenophobia here!'"

For decades, the GOP has built its identity on what I call the Four Pillars of Conservatism: small government, low taxes, strong defense, and traditional social values. They provide an easy-to-understand template for every Republican running for any office from dog catcher to president, they bind Republicans with different agendas in common cause, and their constant repetition cements the party’s image in voters’ minds. But Donald Trump, now the leader of this party, has shown only sporadic interest in any of them, with the possible exception of a strong defense.

...[Trump] alienates moderates who don’t want to think that they’re voting for a reactionary party. That’s something Karl Rove and George W. Bush understood-- when they created “compassionate conservatism” and had Bush take endless smiling photos with black and Hispanic people, the real target wasn’t minorities themselves but white moderates who wanted reassurance that they were voting for an open, inclusive party.

But that idea is dead, at least for this election. Trump likes to come out after a primary win and say how great he did among various demographic groups (even if much of the time he’s just making up results out of nowhere)-- I won with women, I won with “the blacks,” I won with “the Hispanics”! But if the election were held right now, Trump would not just lose but likely lose by record margins among women, among African-Americans, among Hispanics, among Asian-Americans, among people with college educations-- basically among every group except blue-collar white men.

So Trump takes what was a challenge for the party-- their reliance on a diminishing portion of the population and their struggles appealing to all the portions of the population that are growing-- and makes it dramatically worse.

How persistent will the effects be? At the moment it’s impossible to tell. It might be that Trump will tarnish the GOP brand for a generation or more, particularly among voters just now coming of age. Republican candidates at all levels are going to be confronted with the question of not just whether they support Trump’s election, but whether they support anything he might do. Do you think Donald Trump should appoint the next Supreme Court justice? Do you think Donald Trump’s finger should be on the nuclear button? Do you think Donald Trump is a good role model for children?

Lowest Democratic vote for a Democratic nominee in last 4 elections was Gore with 87%; lowest GOP was G.W.Bush in 2000 with 91%. Last month an NBC/WSJ poll showed Hillary with 87% of Dems and Trump with just Trump 72% of Republicans

Oh, yeah, now we're back at my "life's losers" scenario where the only people who back Trump are the ones with nothing to live for and who want to take the cruel world down with them when it ends for them. But are there really anti-Trump Republicans ready to help Hillary in greater numbers than the usual odd ducks who desert their parties for one reason or another in every election? Sean Sullivan addressed that in the Post yesterday too. "For some Republicans, the prospect of a President Clinton is more palatable than a President Trump-- not because they like Clinton, but because they could fight her on familiar terrain, rather than watching an unpredictable Trump use the power of the White House to remake the GOP."

They should just forget the primitive tribalism and embrace the conservative Clinton for what she is, a socially forward-thinking conservative who stands with them on a whole range of issues, from national security hawkishness and a devastating anti-family trade agenda to standard corporatism and elitism. As Shaun King explained in yesterday's New York Daily News, "Hillary Clinton represents the political establishment... Hillary Clinton is as establishment as establishment gets. The machine is behind her. Her campaign against Bernie Sanders has only advanced this sentiment... Independent and new voters are flocking to Bernie Sanders and even to Donald Trump, but not to Hillary Clinton." Charlie Crist told his fellow Republicans right after Trump's victory that the water in the Democratic Party pool feels just right. And look at an unaccomplished do-nothing like Patrick Murphy-- speaking of "former" Republicans from Florida. After amassing a socially-forward Republican voting record in the House, Schumer is insisting Florida Democrats abandon Alan Grayson and elect Murphy to the U.S. Senate! So will GOP establishment types not just abandon Trump, but realign with the conservative Republican/Clinton wing of the Democratic Party?

Republican War On Women Turning Into Another Battlefront In The Republican Civil War?

Erick Erickson disinvited Trump from his for-profit GOP presidential forum today. "I am just not willing to give up being a decent person for Donald Trump," the notorious sexist pig Erickson told Red State attendees. Some applauded, some booed. But, ironically, Megyn Kelly had taken him on for his own grotesque misogyny last year on Fox (see video above above.) Planned Parenthood notes that Trump-slayer Erick Erickson compared pregnant women to “female animals” and called Texas state Senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis "Abortion Barbie." Dave Zirin tweeted this morning that "Since Erickson is a noxious, vulgar, grandstanding bigot, his anti-Trump posture appears like a case of self-loathing." Remember when he called First Lady Michelle Obama a "Marxist harpy?" And he's the head of the GOP tone police now?

Trump-- not to mention the Kochs-- have forced the presidential contenders to rush headlong away from the political mainstream and way over towards fringe right-wing positions they will have trouble defending in future general elections. The candidates are alienating potential general election voters to compete with Trump for the extremists in the Evangelical-dominated Iowa GOP. As yesterday's Washington Post put it, "In the span of a few days this week, Scott Walker emphasized that he opposes abortions, with no exceptions in cases of rape or incest or to save the woman’s life. Marco Rubio shot down a suggestion that he advocated exceptions for rape or incest."

[I]n the most wide-open Republican presidential field in memory, most of the contenders continued a rush to the right this week in the hope of capturing the attention of the GOP base. The strategy is clearly aimed at primary contests in states such as Iowa and South Carolina, which are dominated by large blocs of evangelicals and other conservative voters.

But it could also cause the eventual nominee problems in a general election with a more moderate electorate. On social issues ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage, much of the Republican field has now taken positions that are at odds with mainstream American opinion. For example, 3 out of 4 Americans say a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she becomes pregnant as a result of rape.

Moderate Republicans said Friday they are concerned about the potential for Democrats to revive their “war on women” line of attack from 2012, when they successfully portrayed presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republicans as out of touch with or even hostile to the concerns of women.

Hillary isn't missing a beat. She sent out an e-mail after the debate that noted that "Ten men stood on stage and ignored 51% of the American population."

Yesterday's NY Times addressed the Republican Party problem with women even before Trump and Erickson got into their mud wrestling match last night.

Republican Party leaders, whose presidential nominees have not won a majority of female voters since 1988, are setting their sights on making electoral gains among women in the 2016 presidential race and trying to close the gender gap in swing states like Florida and Colorado. But the remarks and tone about women at Thursday’s debate-- and the sight of 10 male candidates owning the stage-- may have only damaged the party’s standing among female voters in the 2016 general election, according to pollsters and some Republican leaders.

“So much of the debate was all about appealing to male voters and other parts of the Republican base, rather than doing anything to help the party’s general election goal of trying to be more inclusive,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “By being callous or showing disregard toward women, and then laughing it off with a charge of political correctness or simply saying they’re taking conservative stands, the Republicans could win over some of the older male Republican voters out there. But what about female voters?”

Democrats were gleeful at the tone of the debate, already imagining future campaign advertisements featuring debate cutaways with Mr. Rubio saying that future Americans will “call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies.”

...With the possibility that a woman could be the nominee of a major political party for the first time, Republicans are facing the likelihood of an even more complicated environment than they have had in recent presidential elections. Gallup polls show that female voters have been favoring the Democratic presidential nominees since the 1990s, often by increasingly large numbers.

...“Not one candidate attempted to persuade women voters,” said Margaret Hoover, a Republican consultant and author. “The G.O.P. needs to fight for women votes because it believes our policies are better for women. There’s a difference between pandering and vote-courting: Thursday night, G.O.P. candidates did neither for women weary of the Republican brand.”

Of course, some might point out that the Koch's candidate, Scott Walker, was not disinvited to the Red State conclave even though he had just told the American public that he would rather see women die than be allowed to have an abortion to save her life.



Maybe Erickson was just angry Trump attacked a Fox News colleague... or maybe he was being paid off... in one way or another. After all, that's all that has ever motivated Erickson and even GOP propagandist and right-wing hack Byron York admits that Trump walked into a trap set for him by GOP Establishment desperate to resuscitate Jeb Bush. Or Scott Walker. Does anyone think Rove couldn't have had a handing this? As Laura Ingraham tweeted this morning, "GOP ought to pause & ponder this Q today-- Can Jeb, Scott, Marco or Kasich win WH w/out Donald Trump supporters?" The Wall Street Journal never mentioned a Rove/Ailes trap but they sure painted a picture of one Friday. The GOP Establishment had to get rid of Trump and the Fox anchors had it pretty well figured out. "Trump’s refusal, before a national audience, to rule out an independent White House bid sent a wave of anger and anxiety through the GOP ranks, stretching from conservative grassroots activists to veteran party insiders."

The Republican nominating contest has revolved around Mr. Trump for much of the summer. The billionaire reality-television star entered the first debate in the 2016 primary with big leads in most public-opinion surveys and a stranglehold on the media narrative. He stole the show again Thursday, dominating a debate in which the first-time candidate was flanked by three senators, three governors and the son and brother of the last two Republican presidents.

“Donald Trump remains the main story, and that is not necessarily good for the Republican Party,” said Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman who is supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “It distracts from these other candidates being able to establish their own brand.”

...In an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, Mr. Trump did not back away from the threat to wage an independent bid. “I’m a natural negotiator, and I like leverage,” Mr. Trump said. “If somebody gets in that I like and if I’m treated with respect, I would not run as an independent. But I want to leave the option open, just in case that doesn’t happen.”

Most Republicans are reluctant to attack Mr. Trump or pressure party leaders to force him from the main stage in the next candidates’ debate in California in September in part because they want to win over his supporters if he falters. Even Mr. Trump’s detractors and rivals for the nomination said it would be futile to pressure him.

...Trump’s strength has been giving voice to the party’s legions of rank-and-file members frustrated with Washington and professional politicians. A drop off in their support could be what ultimately forces Mr. Trump to directly address the third-party option.

"My concern is that he’ll split the party or go the independent route and hand the election to Hillary,” said Chuck Rabe, 71, a retired financial planner from Cincinnati.

No, It's Not Likely Jack Kingston (R-GA) Will Switch Parties

Rep. Kingston (R-GA) is the one on the right

It would be a very alternative universe, indeed, if Georgia Republican Congressman Jack Kingston were ever looked at as anything other than a hard-right conservative-- except of course if you compare him to other Georgia Republicans. I'm not sure how fine-tuned ProgressivePunch is in measuring how conservative right-wing voting records are but there are the records of the 14 Georgia Congressmen based on their lifetime votes on crucial roll calls. It goes from most liberal to most conservative:

• John Lewis- 94.92
• Hank Johnson- 84.74
• David Scott- 68.47
• Sanford Bishop- 58.71
• John Barrow- 35.93
• Paul Broun- 9.23
• Tom Graves- 6.99
• Rob Woodall- 6.79
• Dog Collins- 4.76
• Jack Kingston- 3.95
• Austin Scott- 3.80
• Phil Gingrey- 3.19
• Tom Price- 2.62
• Lynn Westmoreland- 2.27

First a brief note: John Bircher Paul Broun is so extreme that he often votes against Boehner because the Republican positions are "too liberal" for him. That explains his relatively "progressive" score, although it would be more accurate to say that he's is the most right wing and most extreme member of the Georgia delegation and in contention as the most right wing member of the House. A better way of judging Kingston on the issues is to keep in mind that since being elected in 1992 he has zero scores categories like Corporate Subsidies, Family Planning, Health Care, Justice, Union Rights, Pension Protections, Occupational Safety, Air Pollution, Clean Water, the Iraq War, Nuclear Energy, Renewable Energy, Wilderness Conservation, Humane Treatment of Animals… You get the picture. That's a long career of zeroes. When it comes to being an anti-Choice fanatic, count on Jack. The Affordable Care Act? He voted against it and voted to wreck it all 46 times it came up. He voted against raising the debut ceiling, against extending the payroll tax cut, and for every crackpot version of the Paul Ryan budget. And yet, the headline at RedState yesterday was Jack Kingston Has Surrendered On Obamacare.

Coming to terms with Obamacare is nothing new for Kingston. At the beginning of the year, he said “I don’t want to go in there saying, ‘By golly, there’s a new sheriff in town.’” “Obamacare has been the law of the land, and it is getting implemented. We have to work in that context.”

The scary thing is that Kingston is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on healthcare. What is ever scarier is that he wants to be the next U.S. Senator from Georgia. We all know that the Senate has a way of turning those who are conservatives into statists. See Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for a vivid example. If Kingston is starting out his campaign with a mindset of surrender on Obamacare, it is clear he will never move this seat one inch to the right from Senator Saxby Chambliss. And that is an extremely low bar to cross.

Here's the Monday morning radio interview that is freaking out the lunatics at RedState:



The Hill reported that Kingston mentioned the “Small Business Fairness in ObamaCare Act" that he introduced, which would exempt some small businesses from the mandate to provide insurance to their employees under ObamaCare.

"And there’s some criticism, 'Well, are you helping improve this law when you make that change? And should we be doing that?'" Kingston said of pushback to his bill.

"A lot of conservatives say, 'Nah, let’s just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own.' But I don’t think that’s always the responsible thing to do," he added.

"I think we need to be looking for things that improve healthcare overall for all of us. And if there is something in ObamaCare, we need to know about it."

…While he had some criticism for the law-- he said he believes the demand on Medicaid could overcrowd the system-- he also expressed hope that Democrats would bring to the hearing some good feedback they've received on ObamaCare.

"If you get a lot of letters that say, 'Hey, back off, it works. I have a special needs child and here's why its been good for me,' we want to listen to that," he said.

Time for the Republicans to amp of their civil war again, I guess… against this flaming liberal"

Sedition, Secession... Right Wing Dogs Are Not Giving Up No Matter What The Polls Say

Please watch the Bill Moyers video above. We're going to talk a little about it in a moment. But before we do, I want to remind you who Paul Ryan is. If you had just landed from Uranus or Neptune and perused the Beltway media, you would come away thinking Ryan is a "serious" and "thoughtful" mainstream political leader. He isn't. He's a phony, a fraud and a film flam man, just like Paul Krugman has been pointing out for years. And now he's leading the House Republicans in a dangerous game of chicken with the economic well-being of the entire world. While Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was acknowledging that “You can blame us [Republicans], we’ve overplayed our hand, that’s for damn sure," Eric Boehlert tweeted that "If you think GOP is unpopular now wait until they default and gut every retirement fund and every college saving plan in America." You may not have to wait long-- not if Ryan and his deranged and desperate colleagues keep up the game-playing. When the House Republicans met in conference Friday, Boehner and Cantor "began the meeting trying to prepare their troops for the likelihood that they would have to adopt a deal cut in the Senate. Both leaders explained that the White House is no longer willing to negotiate with the House, that McConnell and Reid were talking, and that a bipartisan agreement is likely to emerge that will need the House’s approval.

But instead of absorbing this painful reality, some rank-and-file Republicans grew visibly excited about the prospect of opposing such a deal, said one person in the room. This defiance was fed by Ryan, who stood up and railed against the Collins proposal, saying the House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year.

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause”-- allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds-- and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

With such fervor still rampant among House Republicans, there was bipartisan agreement in the Senate that Boehner’s House had lost its ability to approve anything that could be signed by Obama into law. Republicans decided the Senate must act first, hoping that the pressure of the Thursday debt deadline would lead to the House passing the measure even if it meant just a small collection of the GOP’s House majority joined with the Democratic minority to approve a deal.

“At this point, they have dealt themselves out of this process. They cannot agree among themselves,” Durbin said. “And that makes it extremely difficult to take them seriously.”

This might be a good time to mention that though Ryan has no opponent yet in his 2016 reelection race-- Rob Zerban is likely to announce he's running again next week-- and though the DCCC gave him immunity last year and is likely to give him immunity again this year (unless Pelosi fires Steve Israel as head of the DCCC), Ryan is more vulnerable to defeat than ever. Even with no opponent, new PPP polling shows him leading an unnamed Democrat 48-46% when voters are made aware that Ryan voted for and backs the Tea Party government shut down. And that brings us back to the ever-prescient Bill Moyers. Did you watch the video?

"Republicans," he reminds us, "have now lost three successive elections to control the Senate, and they've lost the last two presidential elections. Nonetheless, they fought tooth and nail to kill President Obama's health care initiative. They lost that fight, but with the corporate wing of Democrats, they managed to bend it toward private interests… Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen, they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control coverage to female employees; they demand Obama cave on the Keystone pipeline; they demand the watchdogs over corporate pollution be muzzled and the big bad regulators of Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The debt ceiling is next. They would have the government default on its obligations and responsibilities.

When the president refused to buckle to this extortion, they threw their tantrum. Like the die-hards of the racist South a century and a half ago, who would destroy the union before giving up their slaves, so would these people burn down the place, sink the ship. …At least, let's name this for what it is: sabotage of the democratic process. Secession by another means." And Republicans are hearing this kind of seditious and secessionist talk from many of the media outlets they go to for their opinions. Crackpot right-wing blogger and Georgia secessionist, Erick Erickson, sounded on Friday like he's ready to fire on Fort Sumter.

Surrender should not be an option. This fight has been and remains about Obamacare. A Republican Party fretting over polling should consider that polling will rebound in their direction with a victory. The GOP should also consider that some of the negatives in the polls are from their own side angry at their reluctance to actually fight the good fight.

Republican leaders who have never wanted this fight have tried at all costs to avoid fighting it. They have tried to wrap the continuing resolution into the debt ceiling then into a grand bargain.

Conservatives should keep the fight squarely on Obamacare.

What is most eye opening is that the Republican leaders have grown so detatched from their base that they will willingly push a medical device tax repeal on behalf of K Street lobbyists while ignoring the very people who actually vote for them.

Republicans reeling from polls should consider what the reaction of their base will be if they have gone this far and surrender with nothing-- or with only a sop to special interests on K Street.

The path forward is simple. Keep the debt ceiling and continuing resolution separate... The GOP should have this fight and make this case. It is sellable. The only problem is the GOP leadership does not want to sell it. They’d rather surrender and shift blame to conservatives.

Speaker Boehner has previously said he would stop doing back room deals with the White House. He should do as he said. He should keep the government closed until Democrats agree to delay Obamacare.

Everyone Agrees-- The Republican Committee Chairs Really Suck

Lucky for them Steve Israel gives all GOP committee chairs free passes to reelection-- and even luckier, Nancy Pelosi just reappointed Israel to head the DCCC next cycle, despite the abject failure he just presided over in "trying" to win back the House. Earlier today we were complaining because the GOP committee chairs are all white, all male, all corporate whores. Conservatives are fine with the lack of diversity but they're also uncomfortable with what a bunch of corrupt corporate whores Boehner managed to come up with for his A-Team.

Republicans don't care that the Senate, run by the Democrats, will have 6 committee chairwomen while the Republican House has none, one less than this year, because they refused to keep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (their one chairwoman) on-- although they sure did re-up a lot of males, from Ryan, both Rogers and McKeon to Kline, Issa, Hastings, Camp and Upton. Very few men got dumped. Boehner's main criteria was how much the chairmen were able to wring out of their committee's special interests and how much the chairmen spread that around the other members of the Republican caucus.

But right-wing website, RedState, had a different way of looking at it and they seem unhappy with the crap Boehner came up with. The complaint, as voiced, is that most of the chairmen aren't right-wing enough. "None of the important economic policy committees are chaired by conservatives," although he admits in the paragraph before that that Jeb Hensarling, one of the most deranged wingnuts ever elected to Congress, has replaced notorious Wall Street hooker Spencer Bachus as head of Financial Services.

Republicans in Washington are looking for ways to change the face of the party following their defeat in the presidential election. However, one thing that will not change is the face of GOP leaders in the House.

Last week, John Boehner stacked the Steering Committee, which is responsible for selecting committee assignments, with like-minded stooges. He also gave himself 5 votes. Not surprisingly, there aren’t too many changes from the array of weak committee chairmen. Dave Camp is still at Ways and Means; Fred Upton is still at Energy & Commerce; Hal Rogers is still chairing Appropriations. The only positive change for conservatives is that Jeb Hensarling will be replacing Spencer Bauchus [sic] at Financial Services.

Most of Boehner's stooges, as RedState calls them, have failing grades from Heritage Action and for Club for Growth. The only chairmen right-wing enough to be able to hold their head up in the company of Michele Bachmann, Paul Broun and Benito Mussolini are the aforementioned Hensarling plus Ed Royce (who was vulnerable this year but who Steve Israel refused to go up against despite a well-funded and energetic opponent in Jay Chen), Jeff Miller, and, barely, Paul Ryan.

The Madison Project rated each one and the scores really are pretty abysmal from a right-wing perspective. All but two of them have negative scores! Here's the list, starting with the worst:

Frank Lucas, Agriculture -38.5
Hal Rogers, Appropriations -38
Doc Hastings, Natural Resources -35.5
Bill Shuster, Transportation & Infrastructure -35.5
Lamar Smith, Science & Technology -31
Buck McKeon, Armed Services -26.5
Dave Camp, Ways and Means -20.5
Fred Upton, Energy and Commerce -18.5

Sam Graves, Small Business -16.5
Mike McCaul. Homeland Security -14
Darrell Issa, Oversight -11
Mike Rogers, Intelligence -10.5
Bob Goodlatte, Judiciary -10
John Kline, Education and Workforce -8
Pete Sessions, Rules -7
Jeb Hensarling, Financial Services -4.5
Jeff Miller, Veterans Affairs -1.5
Paul Ryan, Budget 2
Ed Royce, Foreign Affairs 8.5

Don't look for any any more productive House this year than we had last year. In other words, lots of pointless bills targeting women's reproductive health and further redistributing the nation's wealth to the biggest corporations and richest families.

The Fight To Break Up The Mega-Banks Is Bi-Partisan... But So Is The Fight To Protect Them

I have to admit, I don't read RedState much but this David Diapers Vitter tweet early yesterday got me to take a look. And, I admit, I was surprised. It looks like the far right-- or at least the populist version of it-- is picking up one of the key threads progressives have been working towards. I suspect that for them, like for our own left-leaning populists, the whole idea of breaking up the banks, transcends partisan politics.


The Republican Establishment adamantly opposes the idea, of course-- but what about Establishment Democrats like Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Joe Crowley, Rahm Emanuel... all that DLC/Blue Dog/Third Way garbage? On the day that vote is taken the Democratic and Republican careerist Beltway Establishments will stand together against America's working families. This is how Erick Erickson put it:

BREAK UP THE BANKS

I hope the Romney campaign seriously takes on this idea. We have created a financial situation in this country, with Dodd-Frank and other policies, that have stacked the banks against the American people. They have become so massive that they can do pretty much what they want because they can hire all the lobbyists they need to get what they want from Washington and if they falter or fail, the nation goes belly up.

It is absolutely a conservative imperative to break up the big banks. Conservatism should eschew public-private partnership at this level. The banks have, in effect, become an extension of the government in that they now exist in a wholly symbiotic and unhealthy relationship with Washington. If we want smaller government, we need smaller banks too.

Romney isn't going to care what Erick Erickson says and they're not going to care what Simon Johnson said-- which is that link that Erickson is reacting too and with which he starts his post. The big banks are Romney's world and they're the toxic world his campaign is being financed by. Erickson's analysis might sound off-kilter-- and it should; it is-- but the route the right takes is bringing them to the same goal sane people want as well... breaking up the big banks. Robert Reich has been talking about it for a long time. And the most trustworthy man in the U.S. Senate, Bernie Sanders has as well. Three months ago:

"The debacle at J.P. Morgan Chase reaffirms my view that the largest six banks in this country, including J.P. Morgan Chase, which have assets equivalent to two-thirds of our GDP, must be broken up.  This is important in order to bring more competition into the financial marketplace and to prevent another ‘too-big-to-fail' bailout. At a time when 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, huge financial institutions should not be involved in ‘making wagers or high-stake bets.' They should be investing in the productive economy creating jobs and improving our standard of living." 

Earlier Bernie was in the well of the Senate explaining why the big banks have to be broken up. It makes a lot more sense than Erick Erickson while bringing us to a similar goal:



Bernie castigates conservatives, but I suspect Erickson and his pals would agree that the Establishment shills standing in the way of breaking up the banks feels towards them the way progressives feel towards Harold Ford, Rahm Emanuel, Joe Crowley, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel and other "Democrats" in the employ of the banksters. How about if I told you that earlier this month Vitter and Sherrod Brown co-wrote a letter to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke urging the Fed to increase the capital requirements of megabanks and force the mega-banks to bear their own risks? The Wall Street Journal reported it a couple weeks ago. It's a long letter and I've taken a few excerpts, although you can read the whole thing on Brown's website.

We write today to impress upon the Board the importance of robust and reasoned capital standards that will preserve the safety and soundness of our financial system for years to come. Your proposed rule on capital standards misses a huge opportunity to address the too-big-to-fail issue by setting the so-called SIFI-surcharge too far low. We urge you to revisit your proposed rule and modify it so that mega banks fund themselves with proportionately more loss-absorbing capital per dollar of assets than smaller regional or community banks. The surcharge on the mega banks should be high enough that it will either incent them to become smaller or help to ensure they can weather the next crisis without another taxpayer bailout.

Placing higher capital requirements on megabanks is a common sense way to fix the dangers of too-big-to-fail. As you have said in the past, research done by the Federal Reserve and other regulators shows the tougher capital requirements will "significantly reduce the threat of a massive financial crisis" while doing little to limit economic growth. The mega banks should bear their own risks and have their financial incentives positively aligned in a way that protect the taxpayers. 

...The largest U.S. banks have substantial footprints in both commercial banking and capital markets activities.  George Washington University Law Professor Arthur Wilmarth estimates that these firms were responsible for, “about $9 trillion of risky private-sector debt … in the form of nonprime home mortgages, credit card loans, CRE loans, LBO loans and junk bonds … [and] $25 trillion of structured-finance securities and derivatives whose value depended on the performance of that risky debt, including MBS, ABS, cash flow CDOs, synthetic CDOs and CDS[.]”

There is still a high degree of concentration among the largest institutions across various financial products:

• As of September 30, 2010, the six biggest banks accounted for 35 percent of all U.S. deposits and 53 percent of all banking assets;

• The six largest banks also service roughly 56 percent of all mortgages, and nearly two-thirds of the mortgages in foreclosure;

• In 2011, the top 10 banks underwrote 70 percent of the municipal bond offerings, with the top three-- JPMorgan, Citi, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch-- underwriting 38.3 percent of all business.

Finally, the largest U.S. bank is also the second-largest player in the settlement of contracts in the $1.8 trillion-a-day tri-party repo market.

...As we have discussed at length, robust capital buffers will more appropriately align financial incentives and prevent future financial sector bailouts. However, in order to do so properly, you must have the Board to revisit the proposed rule to implement Basel III and modify the rule to include a SIFI surcharge significant enough to change the incentives for the largest banks. 

We agree with the Board’s belief that enhanced capital requirements for the largest, most complex institutions will “meaningfully reduce the probability of failure of the largest, most complex financial companies and would minimize losses to the U.S. financial system and the economy if such a company should fail.” And, we further agree that G-SIFI capital surcharges “would help require that these companies account for the costs they impose on the broader financial system and would reduce the implicit subsidy they enjoy due to market perceptions of their systemic importance.” However, the proposed rule is ultimately just a baby step in the correct direction. The Board must do more in order to protect taxpayers and the financial system. Properly constructed capital standards will take into account the extent to which institutions are already subject to capital requirements imposed by their respective regulators. Regulation of these institutions should not dramatically scale up or fall off a cliff once particular benchmarks have been reached. As Governor Tarullo has argued, $51 billion bank holding company should not be treated significantly differently from a $49 billion bank holding company, and we are encouraged to hear him say that that, “the supplemental capital requirement for a $50 billion firm is likely to be very modest.”

Oversight should not remain constant once particular thresholds have been crossed, so that a large regional bank that makes loans to consumers and small businesses is not treated the same way as a trillion-dollar money-center bank. Rules for capital and leverage should move on a sliding scale, with a focus on the largest and most complex megabanks.

That was signed by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R-LA). Here's Brown on the floor of the Senate.

Yes, Fundraising Is Tight-- And Ending The War In Afghanistan Is Important

Tomorrow Blue America will be launching an effort to raise awareness about the 8th year of occupation and war in Afghanistan. One aspect of the effort will be a fundraising effort on behalf of the 32 Democratic members of Congress who voted against the supplemental financing for the war and occupation on June 16. At the same time Blue America is still raising money to keep our Blanche Lincoln ads on TV in Arkansas; money to oppose reactionary Blue Dogs; and we're still moving towards our $450,000 goal in the campaign, Standing Up For the Public Option. (Currently 6,928 donors have contributed $422,141.88.)

And we're in the middle of a recession.

And some netroots activists are unsure if they're ready to break with the president they worked so hard to elect over Afghanistan, or if "maybe we should give him a little more time." The next few months should see a lot of discussion around that premise. We've been having it internally and we war goes beyond political considerations. Ron Paul may be a nut-job surrounded by zombies (and racists) but when it comes to Afghanistan, it's got it right... more so than plenty of Democrats. Listen to him discussing how wrong American policy in Afghanistan is:



When he says "it isn't going to do any good," he's hit the nail on the head. Ron Paul sees no change in U.S. policy; do you?

Back to fundraising. Tomorrow another member of Congress who wants to end the occupation of Afghanistan, Alan Grayson (D-FL), will help us kick off our campaign with a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars (3pm, PT, 6pm back East). Aside from getting the discussion going about Afghanistan, we want to thank the Democrats, like Rep. Grayson, who have already demonstrated their committment to ending the occupation by voting against the supplemental 3 months ago. I know that money is harder to come by. America is worth it. The alternative will be members of congress with no ethics-- men like Duke Cunningham (R-CA) and Mike Ross (D-AR) who take bribes to vote for special interests. Even $10 and $20 contributions help add up to significant grassroots impact of campaigns. Please give what you can.

And you might be interested in knowing that over on the far right, there has been almost no success in raising money for the extremists and loons who the teabaggers and obstructionists have decided to back in Senate races: right wing kooks Chuck DeVore (CA), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Michael Williams (TX). Erick Erickson is leading another failed fundraising drive at Red State for a pack of lunatic fringe candidates. His goal is $250,000 and he's somehow managed to scrape up $12,000. He's been whining regularly to a readership that would rather yell about Kenyan and Indonesian birth certificates than work for their candidates. (Of course they don't really need to. Unlike progressives, reactionaries get immediate support from Big Business PACs who still do control the GOP agenda.) Erickson:

Yes, yes, we can go to the polls in droves, etc., but cash is king in politics. And if we want to be taken seriously, we need to step up to the plate. I know that hacks some of you off. Every time I write stuff like this I get dozens of angry emails from people suffering due to Barack Obama’s economy. I get it. But you need to get it too-- you want to change the Republican Party and have a seat at the table, you’ve got to launch a coup against the establishment. And the best way to do that at the present time is support these candidates who are running against the establishment.

Today, give at least one dollar to each of our anti-occupation candidates and we'll send you a special thank you-- a two CD set, Quixotic from Matt Keating, his most recent release. (You can preview the tracks here.)

Right-wingers Vow Revenge Against Mary Bono Mack AND Her Husband

I never thought I'd step up to defend Mary Bono Mack, a very mediocre absentee representative from California's High Desert (Riverside County)-- and don't worry, I won't. She inherited her increasingly blue congressional district based in Palm Springs from her then-husband Sonny Bono after his fatal skiing accident. Since then she's married one of the most far right extremists in Congress-- a lunatic fringe kook named Connie Mack IV from Florida-- while managing to stay in office by voting 2 or 3 times a year with the Democrats, especially on gay issues, not because her marriage to Connie is a lesbian match but because Palm Springs is almost as gay as San Francisco, NYC, Miami Beach or West Hollywood. In a district that embraced Obama, Progressive Punch shows her lifetime voting record on crucial, substantive issues to be more mainstream conservative than radical right, but by no means moderate.

There are 33 Republicans-- including dependable rightists like Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Jimmy Duncan (R-TN), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Ed Royce (R-CA), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and even full-fledged-no-foolin'-around fascist stooge Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)-- who vote more frequently across the aisle than Bono-Mack. When it comes to economic issues facing ordinary American families-- like fair taxation, labor rights, equal justice, and corporate subsidies-- you'd have to search pretty hard to find many Republicans in Congress more reactionary and anti-family than Bono-Mack.

So it was probably a bit of a shock to her when she saw the headline above that I captured in a screen shot from the Republican Party blog, Red State: Mary Bono Mack Should Be Burned In Effigy And Voted out Of Office. It was written by Georgia Republican Party operative Erick Erickson and something tells me Erickson isn't about to endorse Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, who's not just gay, but married (to another man) and happily raising their two children! Too far a stretch for Republicans who seem to always be involved with "opposite marriages," or whatever they call the degrading situations traditional marriage sanctity defenders like Mark Sanford, David Diapers Vitter, Larry Craig and John Ensign are in.

Erickson and the fringe loons on the furthest reaches of the non-criminal right are so upset with Bono Mack that they are threatening to not just defeat her but to go after the right-wing extremist husband to boot! He demands that she vote against health care reform and against the energy bill when it comes back from the Senate-- where it will probably be watered down and look more acceptable to mainstream conservatives!!!-- or face the consequences.

Otherwise, we beat her and her husband at the polls.

Yes, you heard me. We can get at Mary Bono Mack in two ways-- her district and that of her husband. He should feel the heat just as much as her.

I bet they're trembling in their boots.