How Serious Will The Trumpist War Against Paul Ryan Get?

Trump surrogate Sarah Palin was a guest on Jake Tapper's CNN show yesterday, where she endorsed efforts to defeat Paul Ryan's reelection bid back in Wisconsin because of his refusal to embrace Trump yet. "I think Paul Ryan is soon to be 'Cantored,' as in Eric Cantor," she told Tapper. "His political career is over but for a miracle because he has so disrespected the will of the people, and as the leader of the GOP, the convention certainly, he is to remain neutral, and for him to already come out and say who he will not support was not a wise decision of his." She insists Ryan's motivation for not backing Trump stems from his own ambitions to run for president in 2020. Palin admitted she doesn't know the Trump-supporter, Paul Nehlen, who's challenging Ryan in the August 9 primary but vowed to work for his election over the Speaker. "I will do whatever I can for Paul Nehlen," she burbled, like a drooling idiot.

Palin isn't the first high-profile right-wing crackpot to endorse Nehlen over Ryan. Lunatic fringe blogger Michelle Malkin endorsed him last month and is hosting a fundraiser for him May 27 in the district. So far Trump is playing coy but if Ryan doesn't buckle under quickly, Trump could very well weigh in himself, stirring up even more of a intra-party hornet's nest than he already has. It's worth mentioning that the congratulatory call Trump claims he got from Ryan 3 weeks ago, never happened, at least according to Ryan's office. Ryan's spokesman, Brendan Buck, says Trump is lying about Ryan calling him.

Nehlen will need a lot of help. As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline, Ryan had raised $9,192,271, spent $4,189,511, and was sitting on $7,683,081, while Nehlen hadn't reported raising any money at all. Undoubtably the noisy contretemps between Ryan and the Trump mob will boost Nehlen's fundraising capacity. Ironically, the DCCC has failed to recruit a candidate although two implausible Democrats, Tom Breu and Ryan Solen will face off in the August primary. Breu has $2,132 cash-on-hand and Solen has $887. Rob Zerban, the progressive Ryan-opponent who raised $2,265,721 in 2012 and won 43% of the vote would have run this year but was tired of being ruthlessly sabotaged by DCCC power-brokers like Steve Israel and Steny Hoyer in DC who undercut both his previous races.

In an uncharacteristically thoughtful piece, The Hill ran a list of ten policy issues that profoundly divide Trump and Ryan's orthodox conservatism. At best, Thursday's meeting can only paper over them, if they even get discussed at all.

• Ryan on Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.: "This is not conservatism,” the Speaker said, standing in Republican National Committee headquarters. “What was proposed ... is not what this party stands for and more importantly it’s not what this country stands for."

• When it comes to the issue of taxes, Trump has been all over the map. But he recently told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie he absolutely supports raising taxes on the wealthy. Ryan, if he stands for only one thing politically, it is lowering taxes on the wealthy.

• Ryan and Trump are worlds apart on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with Trump insisting it's "a horrible deal" that he's vowing to kill and Ryan being the leader of the congressional establishment forces pushing it through for Obama.

• Ryan and Trump have bioth flip-flopped on Cuba-- Ryan is now opposed to easing trade restrictions and Trump is now OK with it.

• Ryan wants to shut down Planned Parenthood and Trump says Planned Parenthood is helpful to women as a health resource.

• Trump says he'd ship 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the U.S. and Ryan likes the cheap labor for Big Business and backs some version of what xenophobes call amnesty.

• Ryan would like to abolish the minimum wage altogether while Trump is now open to raising it, although in the course of the weekend now says he's ready to see it abolished as well, moving closer to Ryan's orthodox right-wing, anti-worker position.

• Trump is a die-hard proponent of eminent domain, which Ryan sees as a form of tyranny.

• Ryan fights tooth and nail to cut Social Security benefits; Trump opposes any cuts and opposes raising the retirement age, another unpopular right-wing proposal Ryan loves.

• Trump wants to see Medicare negotiating from strength with drug companies for cheaper prices, something Ryan-- who has taken $494,607 in legalistic bribes from drug manufacturing companies-- opposes.

Ryan's southeast Wisconsin district has all or part of 6 counties. Last month's presidential primary saw Ted Cruz win the district; Trump triumphed, with narrow pluralities, in two counties-- Kenosha and Rock. This was Trump's county score in the GOP primary:

• Racine- 32.1%
• Kenosha- 42.2%
• Rock- 41.6%
• Walworth- 34.1%
• Waukesha- 22.1%
• Milwaukee- 26.1%

Nehlen has called Ryan's refusal to endorse Trump despicable and he's very aggressively milking it for all that it's worth. On a right-wing radio show he told the listeners that "Paul Ryan's not a unifier. He's no unifier. He's not on the side of the voters... It's the will of the people that we have to get behind. Paul Ryan has been the never Trump, never Cruz, never Rand Paul, he makes me crazy, that's who he's been. Paul Ryan is the #onlyme guy. That's who he is. He's been cranking up his PR machine. He's been just absolutely despicable I think in this whole thing... I think he either wants to be the nominee himself or he's trying to position somebody else, but I certainly think he thinks he's going to get this and the question I would ask is, why would you promote somebody who's failed in the world we're currently in? Why would you do that?"



This fits in with Nehlen's narrative that hammers Ryan as the face of the despised Republican Establishment. "Paul Ryan is right at the head of a small group of party elites who continue to tell the American people they know better. He’s demonstrated that he’s not the unifier he claims. If he were a unifier, he would look for ways to work with the candidate that the American people have chosen in state after state. It’s clear that he’s right out in front of the establishment’s #OnlyMe team. The people have spoken. But Paul Ryan somehow thinks that the People are incompetent and that GOP elites should step in and guide them. The last time I checked, we lived in a representative republic. Paul Ryan seems to think we’re living in an oligarchy."

Much of Nehlen's case against Ryan could have easily been made by a progressive Democrat-- particularly Rob Zerban-- if the DCCC hadn't been staunchly and overtly protecting Ryan since 2008. It's unlikely that Ryan could be defeated in a Republican primary-- even if Nehlen does manage to fund his campaign adequately-- but WI-01 is a classic swing district where Democrats have won and could win again. All that stands in the way is Nancy Pelosi's ugly little deal to not target GOP leaders. Once she and Hoyer are gone-- if the congressional Democrats manage to break the grip of the K Street/Wall Street axis over their own leadership-- Republicans like Ryan in marginal districts will be swept out of office. Remember, when you hear high-paid, useful idiots like Maddow, the self-proclaimed "smartest person on TV," promise that Democrats can take back the House, you can't beat a candidate-- even one being weighed down by Trump's sewer-- unless you have a candidate running. The DCCC has made sure, once again, the Paul Ryan will have no plausible Democratic opponent.

Raising The Minimum Wage Is A Potent Electoral Issue-- For Those Who Use It

PPP polled minimum wage as an issue in half a dozen battleground states with heavily-contested state-wide races, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana. Support for increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 was strong across the board, ranging from 61% in Illinois to 53% in Wisconsin. Opposition was strongest in Wisconsin, but still weak at just 39%. One key finding should serve as a warning to conservative anti-minimum wage fanatics, like former Illinois gubernatorial front runner Bruce Rauner.

The opposition of Republican candidates to increasing the minimum wage makes voters less likely to support them— and that could make the difference in what are shaping up to be very tight races. Voters in these six states say they’re less likely to vote for the Republican candidate based on their stance on the minimum wage by anywhere from 6 all the way up to 30 points. These contests are all within 5 points right now in the HuffPo Pollster average of polls, indicating that having a position so unpopular with voters could really hurt the GOP candidates in these races:

PPP emphasizes other findings in the six states, including that GOP opposition to increasing the minimum wage “has the potential to keep on hurting Republicans beyond this year’s election. In the 4 states with key Senate races this year, voters say by an average 26 point margin that they will blame the Republicans over the Democrats if no minimum wage legislation is passed this year.” That number is strongest in Iowa where 53% of respondents said they would blame Republicans, while only 22% said they would blame Democrats, a gaping 31% gap. Blue America has been behind one candidate in Iowa this cycle, progressive stalwart, Pat Murphy, basically the only truly excellent challenger the DCCC is helping this year. Pat, a former Speaker of the Iowa House who has a clear record of relentless devotion to the interests of Iowa’s working families, had this to say about the minimum wage issue in his state:

"I have talked to many working families in Northeast Iowa about strengthening our middle class. Their concerns are the same ones I share, providing financial support to the family, putting kids through school and retiring with dignity. Folks working full time shouldn’t live in poverty, it’s that simple. We need to raise the minimum wage to $10.10. Folks across Iowa know its the right thing to do and will help strengthen our middle class. That’s what they are telling me. For too long have we had to endure policies that help only wealthiest in this country. Now its time to help grow our economy and help the hard working families succeed by raising the minimum wage.”

Like Murphy, the two candidates Blue America is backing in Wisconsin, Rob Zerban and Kelly Westlund, have been actively campaigning in their districts on the opposite ends of the state, to increase the minimum wage. Kelly: “For months, Mr. Duffy has refused to support an increase in the minimum wage of $7.25, even though he ‘struggles’ to make ends meet on his congressional salary of $174,000 a year. Recently, he said he could support an increase, but only if it was part of a package deal that included deregulation and tax breaks for employers. I find it appalling that we have a Congressman who isn't willing to help working class people unless it comes with special favors for big business and campaign contributors. We deserve better.”

Rob Zerban has been on the front lines, battling it out with GOP scrooge Paul Ryan for almost 4 years now— and chipping away at Ryan’s support in southeast Wisconsin. This morning he told us that "The popularity of increasing the minimum wage is not surprising. The economic recovery has primarily benefited a relatively small percentage of people. Mainly the wealthy and well connected are benefitting, leaving most Americans behind. Nobody should be working 40 hours a week and live below the poverty line. Profitable corporations need to pay a living wage so that their workers don't need our tax dollars to survive with assistance programs. Housing assistance, heating assistance, food assistance programs that we provide are subsidizing corporate profits when they exploit their workers by not paying a living wage."

There is no one on this page who doesn’t actively support expanding the minimum wage to at least $10.10. Steve Israel’s DCCC has screwed up this election cycle for Democrats. But we can elect these progressives while his reactionary Blue Dogs and Wall Street-owned New Dems sink into oblivion. Can I ask you to step up… again?

Paul Ryan Declares War Against Math-- Steve Israel Declares War Against Rob Zerban

There aren't many-- if any-- Republicans who have been more demonized in those annoying DCCC emails begging for money from lo-info grassroots Dems, than Paul Ryan. Reading them, you'd think the DCCC is gearing up to fight-- if not already in the midst of hand-to-hand combat-- against the despised and much-vilified (rightfully despised and vilified) Ryan. But no, as we saw yesterday, the DCCC has once again-- as in every single re-election race he's ever run-- given Ryan a free pass. There will be no DCCC spending against Paul Ryan. There has never been any DCCC spending against Paul Ryan. In fact, DCCC Chairman Steve Israel, a corrupt lowlife seeking to protect his own posterior, calls big Democratic donors and insists they not give any money to Ryan's opponent Rob Zerban.

And what is it about Ryan's district that makes it so sacrosanct to Steve Israel. Israel's policy is to never go after any Republican leaders or committee chairs, no matter how horrible their policies-- policies the DCCC is always railing against in those misleading e-mails they never stop sending. Ryan, one of the most intellectually superficial corporately-programed zombies in Congress is the head of the House Budget Committee and has presented the Ayn Rand vision of America year after year in his widely-mocked, destructive and insane austerity budgets. And his district is anything but a deep red hellhole not worth battling over.

In 2008 Obama beat McCain 185,855 (51%) to 176,152 (48%). So, it's not like the voters have never pulled a lever for a Democrat. In 2012, Obama's share of the vote sunk to 47% but Ryan was on the national Romney-Ryan ticket and voters were excited about the attention their local yokel was getting. His House race against Zerban-- who he outspent $6,651,221 to $2,250,102-- yielded only 55% of the vote. Before Steve Israel wrecked the DCCC as a functioning organization, it was a rule of thumb that any Republican unable to get beyond 55% would be targeted in the next race. That isn't what happened. Israel is again studiously ignoring Zerban again-- despite polling that showed Zerban narrowing the gap to 2 points between himself and Ryan!

Yesterday, writing for New York magazine, Jonathan Chait took a close look at Ryan's war against math. Dissecting an interview Ryan did with conservative Washington Examiner editor Philip Klein, Chait asserts that "Ryan has found himself caught between his career-long obsession with cutting taxes for the rich and the problem of what happens to the revenue that would be lost. During the 2012 campaign, he swept aside the problem by couching his plan as 'tax reform,' promising not to cut taxes for the rich. Ryan’s new plan is just to go ahead and cut taxes."

He tells Klein, “Those of us who live in the tax system want to lower everybody’s tax rates.” If you lower everybody’s tax rates, then everybody will be paying less in taxes, and then the government will have less revenue, right? That’s where Ryan’s solution comes in: He plans to press the government budget agencies to adopt the optimistic assumption he prefers, which is that cutting tax rates for the rich creates faster economic growth. Ryan spent much of the Bush years assailing what he called “static scoring,” which is the standard budget practice of measuring the fiscal impact of tax cuts as if they do not contain magic pixie dust.

As Danny Vinick has noticed, Ryan has announced his intention to change the rules. Ryan reaffirmed that plan in his interview with Klein: “I’d like to improve our scorekeeping so it better reflects reality,” he said. “Reality” is Ryan’s description for a world in which Bill Clinton’s punishing tax hikes on the rich hindered the economy, which was restored to health when George W. Bush cut taxes.

…Ryan has been warning for four years of an imminent debt crisis and skyrocketing interest rates. Nothing like this has happened. But Ryan speaks as though his warnings have proven true rather than laughably wrong:

The shame of it is, we just wasted eight years of knowing this crisis was coming, it’s the most predictable economic crisis we’ve ever had in this country, knowing about it, and not doing anything about it for eight years because of this presidency.

So Ryan assails Obama for doing nothing about the long-term deficit, which he calls a “crisis” and claimed would lead to interest rate hikes years ago that are still nowhere in sight.

…Obama enacted policies to increase revenue and slow health-care inflation, over the staunch and often hysterical opposition of Ryan, who insisted that budget forecasts showing that Obama’s proposals would reduce the deficit were wrong. The deficit has in fact fallen very fast. Ryan’s response is to deny that any of this has happened, to castigate Obama for failing to reduce the deficit, and to propose new measures that would increase it. And he wants everybody to ignore the budget forecasters because their numbers won’t bear out his claims.

But this is what Steve Israel's DCCC adamantly refuses to confront. It's crucial that when he slinks off into oblivion after another catastrophic cycle, the Democrats pick a strategic thinker and someone not consumed with self-serving corruption. 'Til then, please consider giving Rob Zerban the assistance the DCCC refuses to give him.

Who Voted To Arm Syrian Terrorists-- And Who Voted Not To?

Last night John Amato and I went to the first of two rallies in L.A. this weekend meant to help turn out Democratic voters. The main speaker was Alan Grayson and he was out here supporting CA-33 progressive Democrat Ted Lieu. Without any doubt, the biggest reactions came when Grayson explained why he was one of the leaders of the fight against arming and training the so-called "moderate" Syrian terrorists-- the tragic McKeon Amendment that passed the House Wednesday, 273-156. Grayson went on for 45 inspired minutes on all the reasons why this policy is wrong and destined to fail on so many levels. Ted Lieu concurred and said that had he been in Congress last week, he would also have voted against it. "If the U.S. was unwilling to arm so called 'moderate' Syrian rebels two years ago when they were stronger and fighting only Assad, it makes little strategic sense to arm them now when they are weaker and fighting two enemies, Assad and Isil," explained Ted. "I have a strong fear these rebels will lose and U.S. weapons will end up in the hands of our enemies, AGAIN."

I was on the phone this morning with Rob Zerban, the progressive Democrat running against Paul Ryan, as he was driving home from the Walworth County Democratic Party's new office. Ryan, who has as little comprehension of foreign affairs as he does of budget matters, voted to arm the same "moderate" terrorists who sold one of the American journalists to ISIS-- hey, everyone needs to make a buck, something Ryan feels very passionately about. The Wisconsin delegation was split on the vote. Progressive champions Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore were out front in their opposition. Republicans Tom Petri, Jim Sensenbrenner, Reid Ribble and Sean Duffy-- one of the only times he's ever broken with Ryan on anything-- also voted against the naive and ill-fated amendment. In the Senate, Tammy Baldwin voted NO as well. The only members of the Wisconsin delegation to vote for it were deranged war-monger and Military Industrial Complex shill Ron Johnson plus the two worst corporate whores in the House delegation, New Dem Ron Kind and, of course, Ryan. I asked Zerban how he would have voted had he been in Congress Wednesday.

I would have voted no. Providing more arms to a region embroiled in conflict is not the correct course of action to reduce and minimize the loss of life. History has proven over and over when the U.S. provides arms the blowback and harm that is caused is greater than the desired outcome.

The progressive Democrat running in WA-08, east and north of Seattle, Jason Ritchie-- like Zerban, running in a winnable swing district Obama took that the DCCC is ignoring-- told us he would have voted against the McKeon amendment. Washington needs his kind of independent-minded leadership more than most states. Of the whole state House delegation, only Jim McDermott had the guts and the good sense to stand up to the Establishment and vote NO. All the little party hack zombies-- Rick Larsen (New Dem), Jaime Herrera Beutler ®, Denny Heck (New Dem), Adam Smith (New Dem), Doc Hastings ®, Suzan DelBene (New Dem), Cathy McMorris Rodgers ®, Derek Kilmer (New Dem), and Reichert ®-- need to see what happens when you get another person who thinks for himself in the delegation. Ritchie:

My opponent, Rep Reichert's, vote to arm Syrian terrorists is absolutely wrong. Giving these terrorists weapons will come back to haunt the American people. There is no oversight or control of these weapons. Reichert is shortsighted and arrogant if he thinks that more killing will solve this problem.

Wasting American taxpayer money on another foreign military venture is wrong. The American people demand infrastructure reinvestment at home. We need roads, bridges and new schools not more bombs.

Republicans like Reichert love to bomb but they have no idea how to create middle-class living wage jobs.

Grayson refers to these endless wars in the Middle East that Cheney started as a "War on Error" and he points out that among the "accomplishments" we have

• spent four trillion dollars on the War in Iraq alone, which is roughly eight percent of our entire national net worth, thereby wrecking our economy,
• killed 8000 American soldiers and contractors, and left around 15% of all US troops serving in Iraq with permanent brain abnormalities, and
• killed somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis, and made millions of Iraqis and Afghans homeless refugees.

I have always felt that if our goal is to foil Al Qaeda attacks in the United States, there probably are more efficient ways to accomplish that goal than military occupation of two foreign countries-– two foreign countries that Al Qaeda isn’t even in (as General Petraeus pointed out a couple of years ago).

But we seem to be having a lot of difficulty ending wars, lately. So my modest proposal is that instead of ending the war, we replace it.  We replace the War on Terror with the War on Error.

And-– I must say – the War on Error is a very target-rich environment.  Let’s start with the error that Saddam Hussein was targeting the United States with weapons of mass destruction. Smoking gun, mushroom cloud, etc., etc.  Certainly, that was an error.  Some say an honest mistake, others a lie. No matter. We declare a War on Error, and achieve a quick victory by bringing the troops home.

Then we have this bizarre notion that if we keep stuffing our money into the pockets of Big Business, we might get some of it back. That is a big, big error. It’s not going to happen. Believe me, if corporate welfare could reduce joblessness in America, our unemployment rate already would be minus-56 percent. Corporate income taxes in America have been cut from $354 billion in 2006 to $191 billion in 2010. Then there was the $700 billion in bailouts by the Treasury. Then there was the $15 trillion or so in other bailouts. And how many private sector jobs has all that private sector candy created?

Apparently, none. There are one million fewer private sector jobs in America today than there were ten years ago. Despite the fact that there are 27 million more people in America today.

Corporate welfare doesn’t work. For sure, it doesn’t put people to work. It’s an error to think that it does. Ending corporate welfare will be a huge conquest in the War on Error.

Blue America candidates support peace, not war-- and not harebrained schemes to ease us into wars. Compare the Blue America candidates and their stands with their Republican opponents, a bunch of lockstep warmongers. Aside from Paul Ryan, House members David Joyce (OH), Tom Rice (SC), Dave Reichert (WA), Fred Upton (MI) and John Kline (MN) all voted to arm the Syrians Wednesday. There's only one way to end policies like that: defeat the congressmembers who vote for them and replace them with candidates who do not. You can do that here.

One last thought, the so-called "moderates" Paul Ryan, David Joyce, Dave Reichert, Tom Rice, Fred Upton and John Kline all voted to train and arm are absolutely committed to the destruction of Israel. Are they going to claim ignorance when those weapons are turned on Jews living next to Syria?

Do Steve Israel And Debbie Wasserman Schultz Actually Work Against Democratic Candidates? Oh, Do They Ever!

Today Maggie Haberman did a puff piece on the failed DCCC chairman Steve Israel. "My position as DCCC chair," he boasted, "has given me the opportunity to elevate House races and the midterms to some of the most influential and highest-profile donors in the country. Unlike in a presidential campaign, we’re spending millions of dollars in House races right here in New York." Israel has targeted 8 races in New York, 2 to protect endangered incumbents, Maffei in a deep blue D+5 district (Syracuse) and Tim Bishop in the Suffolk County swing district (R+2). Israel crony Kathleen Rice, another corrupt Wall Street shill like Israel, is running to replace Carolyn McCarthy who is retiring from a D+3 Nassau County district just south of Israel's own. There's no definition of "Red-to-Blue" that includes Rice but she's on the list because she fits Israel's prejudices for turning the House Democratic caucus away from working families and towards Wall Street and Big Business. Oh, and to make Israel's scorecard and success to failure ratio look less dismal in November.

When Israel brags how he elevates House races to some of the most influential and highest-profile donors in the country, he means "certain House races." Others he deprecates, as does Wasserman Schultz. It's how the two of them role. People are shocked when I write that Israel, who is, after all, charged with electing Democrats to the House tells those "highest-profile donors in the country" he's always bragging about having in the palm of his hand to not fund Democratic candidates who don't fit into his loser strategy of backing Blue Dogs and New Dems.

Several of Blue America's top donors used to be among the Israel/Rahm/Wasserman Schultz collection of "highest-profile donors in the country" who realized that they had been, year after year, mislead into backing awful candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- corrupt Wall Street corporatists, anti-Choice and anti-gay reactionaries who they had nothing in common with.

Doug Kahn is not just a progressive activist, he ran for Congress himself against an entrenched Republican and helped introduce the deep red district to progressive political values so that it was eventually won back from the GOP. It wasn't Doug who went to Congress though. More recently, he's worked steadily behind the scenes helping elect and re-elect Democrats like Alan Grayson, Matt Cartwright and Carol Shea-Porter. Before finding Blue America he was contributing large sums to Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party pushed by the DCCC. He doesn't write checks to those kinds of candidates any longer-- nor to operations like the DCCC and the DNC.

If they want my support again, they'll have to start supporting progressive candidates who want to run against people like Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in the House, some of whom are in winnable districts. Winnable for real Democrats, of course, not the 'Republican Lite' hacks they keep recruiting to fill the Democratic line on the ballot.

You see this in state and local party organizations, too. The top positions get occupied, and never voluntarily vacated, by people who just want to be in charge of an organization. Hacks, in other words. Helping working people isn't on their to-do lists. Why should they care about getting new, progressive members into our House delegation? It would just threaten their own little spheres of influence.

Last cycle I spoke with mega-donors who told me flat out that both Israel and Wasserman Schultz had called them and told them not to contribute to Rob Zerban and Lee Rogers (Israel) and Alan Grayson (Wasserman Schultz, although it's reasonable to assume that she just didn't want the gentleman to give the money to Grayson through Blue America and perhaps it wasn't really Grayson she was targeting… perhaps). Let me tell you about one of the instances.

A major Democratic donor who has given and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates had been asking me for an onerous, distasteful and burdensome favor. I declined. The donor went to a mutual friend of ours who suggested persuading me by helping Blue America candidates. Recall that last cycle, when Paul Ryan was totally vulnerable and beatable-- in a district Obama has won 185,855 (51%) to 176,152 (48%) in the last election, Israel took Rob Zerban off the table in a very big way. He was running around frantically telling donors to stop giving money to Zerban (the Democrat) who had raised $2,265,721 from grassroots donors (and needed a little help to be competitive against Ryan-- who wound up spending $6,651,221 on the race). The contributor volunteered to hold a fundraising event at the family mansion for Zerban if I agreed to do the favor. I agreed… with a big smile on my face. And the next thing I knew, I got a call from the donor telling me "Steve" said Zerban wasn't a serious candidate and not to waste the money and effort. Fundraiser cancelled. Do you ever wonder why DWT from time to time offers a slightly negative editorial perspective on Steve Israel (and his ilk)? And no, you will never read a story like this by Maggie Haberman or anyone else who writes for the Beltway trade press.

What Kind Of People Sell Personal Information From Donors?

If someone offered me a huge sum for the Blue America mailing list, I would tell them no. If they doubled the offer, I would tell them to go suck wind. Today I got an e-mail from a candidate in New York who I've never been in contact with, Aaron Woolf, a film producer from New York's North Country who is trying to hold a rough swing district for the Democrats. The current incumbent, right-wing leaning New Dem, Bill Owens, saw the handwriting on the wall and announced he would be retiring. Happy to see him go. His 32.87 Progressive Punch crucial vote score is exactly tied with Republican Chris Gibson's (R-NY) and more right-wing than Walter Jones' (R-NC). The only Democrats who vote more frequently against progressive proposals or with the GOP are Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA) and Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT). Sticking with Steve Israel's insistence on adhering to the moronic "mystery meat strategy," Woolf has no issues on his campaign website. So who knows if he'll even be better than Owens or just as horrible. Or worse.

There was nothing about his stands on issues in the e-mail he sent me and stories about him online are generally devoid of anything to do with issues. He owns an organic deli in Brooklyn, which is a 6 hour drive from Plattsburgh. This from the biggest newspaper in the district, the Watertown Daily Times:

A call to his store/deli yielded the information that he doesn’t spend all that much time there. Calls to leading north country Democrats have so far failed to yield a number at which Mr. Woolf can be reached. He has no campaign committee that anyone can find, even though a Republican frontrunner to be on the ballot in November, Elise Stefanik, has a well-oiled political campaign and has raised a quarter of a million dollars. With sufficient effort, I can reach Ms. Stefanik, or at least someone who can reach her. She’s already been in this newspaper office, met with our editorial board. She has an actual platform, a set of ideals that she can elucidate-- whether you like them or not.

Thus far, in terms of organization and quality of candidates based on what we know about them, it’s Republicans 1, Democrats 0. Ms. Stefanik has worked hard over the past year to make her name known from the Vermont border to Lake Ontario. She waltzed through the Republican selection process and although there is almost certainly going to be a GOP primary for the seat, she appears ready to take on all comers. This is known as a serious candidate.

Is Aaron Woolf a serious candidate? A full day has passed since his name was drawn out of the Democrats’ hat, and the closest anyone can come to answering that question is ... maybe. In an interview posted in an online magazine, Mr. Woolf comes across as a thoughtful man and a talented maker of documentaries. He has a passion for agriculture with a small a, and with his Brooklyn store, he has put his money where his heart is — he seeks locally produced, organically grown products to sell in the big city, and he sells Saranac Brewery products from the Adirondacks. Good for him!

But ... how does he feel about Fort Drum? How does he feel about gun control? How does he feel about economic development for Northern New York, especially given his connection to the Adirondack Park? Can he find Rossie and Rosiere, Lorraine and Lousville, Osceola and Ogdensburg, without a GPS or a paid driver? If he was forced to honestly answer the question “How much time do you spend in metropolitan New York and how much time in Elizabethtown?”, what would he say?

For the north country, these are big, big questions. Fort Drum, the largest single employer in the state of New York, needs a strong and devoted champion in the House of Representatives. The integrity and the ability to easily cross the Canadian border in both directions is a vital issue here. The farm bill, and especially its dairy provisions, has to be a major priority for anyone who wants to represent this region in Congress. We don’t know how Aaron Woolf feels about any of these issues. Until he deigns to come out in public, we won’t know.

Beyond that, however, is a greater concern for the west side of the 21st district, which is about the size of Tennessee: if the ballots the voters see on Nov. 4 bear the names Aaron Woolf on the Democratic line and Elise Stefanik on the Republican row, we will be selecting between a part-time Elizabethtown homeowner with his roots in New York City and a conservative Washington policy wonk who hasn’t wanted to be anything but a politician since she was in eighth grade chorus. And no matter what angle I come at that from, I don’t see how the more than 250,000 people of Franklin, St. Lawrence, Lewis and Jefferson counties can win.

Finally, last month, the mysterious Woolf did an interview with the public radio station. He's pro-Choice and pro-marriage equality. So at least we know that about him. He's as pro-gun as a Democrat needs to be in a hunting district. And it wants to fix-- not repeal-- to Affordable Care Act. All standard Democratic Party fare. Will he turn out to be as bad as Owens? Not likely… but who really knows?

No one in the district may know who he is but Israel put him right on the DCCC's Emerging Races list. This will be a very difficult district to hold. Woolf will not win by saying "I'm a Democrat so vote for me." The PVI is dead Even, though Obama won with 52% in 2008 and again in 2012. Owens squeaked through last time 126,631 (50%) to 121,646 (48%) after an internal Republican bloodbath, followed by two contests against far right extremist (and perverted playboy) Matt Doheney.

The massive 21st CD has a dozen counties. Owens won 4 and Doheney won 8, but Owens' big win in Clinton County, the main Democratic county, neutralized Doheney's narrow wins in Jefferson, Warren and Saratoga counties, the GOP heartland.

So back to that e-mail I got from Woolf today. It was typical DCCC consultant drivel:

He's at it again folks.



Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed another budget akin to his 2010 plan. He wants to cut Medicare, slash K-12 education programs, and eliminate transportation investment by $172 billion over 10 years.



I need your support.

This June, if the Republican establishment has its way, I'll be running against Congressman Ryan's former debate aide, Elise Stefanik. Please click here to contribute $5 or more to my campaign.



Ending the Medicare guarantee and forcing seniors to pay more is not the answer. We must work together to find responsible ways to reduce our debt that don't cripple job creation, burden our seniors and students, or penalize middle class families.



I'm running to ensure that our North Country senior citizens keep the healthcare and physician access for which they have worked so hard.

If the DCCC was serious about the danger of Paul Ryan, they would be helping Rob Zerban win in Wisconsin's first CD. But they're not helping him-- the same way they didn't help him in 2012. I sent the e-mail to Zerban as a laugh. He wrote back asking me if I knew how Woolf got his mother's e-mail address. She got the letter too. Like we warned last December, the DCCC-- or at least the corrupt, revolving-door consultants they're in business with-- steal the lists and sell them to candidates they "work" for. Moral of the story? Um… don't vote for mystery meat candidates and don't contribute or sign a petition that comes from an entities connected to the DCCC. What kind of people sell personal information from donors? The same kind of people who rob their synagogue. That should cover it.

Oh, yeah, so… forget about the DCCC mystery meat candidates but, by all means, contribute to actually stop Paul Ryan-- you can do it by supporting Rob Zerban here.

Ryan's Paymasters Will Never Let Him Give Up Trying To Enslave Ordinary Americans-- Really

Wednesday the House Budget Committee approved Paul Ryan's latest Ayn Rand Budget, which cuts trillions in healthcare spending and repeals the Affordable Care Act. "His budget," reports Hospital CFO, "would make significant changes to Medicare, reducing program spending by $129 billion over the next 10 years. Starting in 2012, it would convert Medicare to a premium support program, under which beneficiaries would receive funds from the government with which they could purchase either traditional Medicare coverage or private health plans." A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan policy organization, reports that "Some 69% of the cuts in House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new budget would come from programs that serve people of limited means." While Ryan claims to want to strengthen Medicare, the CBPP report said $2.7 trillion of the cuts will come from Medicaid and at least 40 million Americans would become uninsured by 2024. None of the popular parts of the Affordable Care Act would survive the Republicans' meat cleaver. He's says they're too expensive and have got to go.

The committee vote to approve Ryan's drastic budget was 22-16. All the Republicans voted for it and all the Democrats voted against it. Several Republicans not on the committee said they will vote against it next week when the full House takes it up. Walter Jones (R-NC) said he will oppose any budget with foreign aid in it and is one of the few Republicans who agrees with the Democrats that Ryan's scheme to convert Medicare into a partially privatized insurance system would be a catastrophe for American seniors. Other likely Republican "no" votes next week include Jack Kingston (R-GA), Justin Amash (R-MI), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Raúl Labrador (R-ID), Tom Massie (R-KY), and Rick Crawford (R-AR). These are the Republicans on the Budget Committee"

• Paul Ryan (WI-01), Chairman
• Tom Price (GA-06), Vice-Chairman
• Scott Garrett (NJ-05)
• John Campbell (CA-45)
• Ken Calvert (CA-42)
• Tom Cole (OK-04)
• Tom McClintock (CA-04)
• James Lankford (OK-05)
• Diane Black (TN-06)
• Reid Ribble (WI-08)
• Bill Flores (TX-17)
• Todd Rokita (IN-04)
• Rob Woodall (GA-07)
• Marsha Blackburn (TN-07)
• Alan Nunnelee (MS-01)
• Scott Rigell (VA-02)
• Vicky Hartzler (MO-04)
• Jackie Walorski (IN-02)
• Luke Messer (IN-06)
• Tom Rice (SC-07)
• Roger Williams (TX-25)
• Sean Duffy (WI-07)

Meanwhile, House Democrats have been furious about Ryan's slash-and-burn Austerity approach to programs that provide services and benefits to the middle class and those least able to afford the cuts. Barbara Lee (D-CA) pointed out yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, and that Ryan's Godless budget cuts are “exactly the opposite of what Dr. King stood for.” Ryan's adolescent ideas, straight from his favorite school girl Ayn Rand novel, have already failed in Europe; he wants to implement them here anyway. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who would become Budget Chairman if Nancy Pelosi removed Steve Israel as head of the DCCC and allowed the Democrats to win back the House in November, said that the Ryan cuts approved by the Republicans on the committee "tells the American public exactly what Republicans in Congress would do to the country if they have the power to impose their will."

"It's the budget that ransacks the future of America's children," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press briefing in the Capitol. "Education is the best investment that a person, a parent, a country can make in its future... This is key to employment, to growth, to innovation and for the success of our economy.

"I view the Ryan budget as an ideological manifesto," she added.

Other Democrats piled on.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the Ryan plan would cut $18 billion in early education programs, $89 billion in K-12 programs and $205 billion in higher education initiatives over the next decade, versus the levels established by December's budget deal between Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, said the GOP budget would eliminate more than 170,000 spots for early education benefits-- "and it gets worse every year after that," he added.

"These are the exact children that we know, if they have an opportunity in early childhood education, they will do much better in school, they're more likely to graduate, they're more likely to get a job, they're less likely to go to jail and they're more likely to earn a higher income than children who don't get that opportunity," Miller said.

"Clearly they [Republicans] don't care about these children."

President Obama doesn't think so either. In his weekly address to the nation this morning, he contrasted his own budget with the Ryan document. "[T]he budget I sent Congress earlier this year," he said, "is built on the idea of opportunity for all. It will grow the middle class and shrink the deficits we’ve already cut in half since I took office. It’s an opportunity agenda with four goals. Number one is creating more good jobs that pay good wages. Number two is training more Americans with the skills to fill those jobs. Number three is guaranteeing every child access to a great education. And number four is making work pay-- with wages you can live on, savings you can retire on, and health care that’s there for you when you need it." He has a very different view of what Ryan presented on April Fool's Day.

This week, the Republicans in Congress put forward a very different budget. And it does just the opposite: it shrinks opportunity and makes it harder for Americans who work hard to get ahead.

The Republican budget begins by handing out massive tax cuts to households making more than $1 million a year. Then, to keep from blowing a hole in the deficit, they’d have to raise taxes on middle-class families with kids. Next, their budget forces deep cuts to investments that help our economy create jobs, like education and scientific research.

Now, they won’t tell you where these cuts will fall. But compared to my budget, if they cut everything evenly, then within a few years, about 170,000 kids will be cut from early education programs. About 200,000 new mothers and kids will be cut off from programs to help them get healthy food. Schools across the country will lose funding that supports 21,000 special education teachers. And if they want to make smaller cuts to one of these areas, that means larger cuts in others.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican budget also tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act-- even though that would take away health coverage from the more than seven million Americans who’ve done the responsible thing and signed up to buy health insurance. And for good measure, their budget guts the rules we put in place to protect the middle class from another financial crisis like the one we’ve had to fight so hard to recover from.

Policies that benefit a fortunate few while making it harder for working Americans to succeed are not what we need right now. Our economy doesn’t grow best from the top-down; it grows best from the middle-out.  That’s what my opportunity agenda does-- and it’s what I’ll keep fighting for.

Did you know Blue America has a special page set up for the sole purpose of defeating Paul Ryan. This isn't to "send him a message" by electing some Blue Dog with values not so different from his in some backward red district. This page is dedicated to defeating him and replacing him with a progressive Democrat, Rob Zerban. Rob on Ryan's budget: "Ryan and his Republican colleagues fail to honestly account for their own policies. Free trade deals that have hollowed out our manufacturing industry, giveaways to Wall Street that have let billionaires accumulate all the benefits of our economy-- these are the things that cause poverty, not food stamps or early education programs. I agree with the New York Times that Ryan's report distorts the facts and that his ideas are ‘small and tired.' As the Times says, ‘most successful programs, including the (earned income) tax credit, Medicaid and food stamps, have been those that are carefully designed, properly managed and well-financed.’ I am a shining example of how smart programs can work. My single mother raised us in poverty, and we needed federal nutrition programs to have enough to eat. I needed Pell Grants and Stafford Loans to go to college, but I used all that help to get an education, and then build two successful businesses and employ dozens of people. The truth is that many of these programs are extremely successful, but years of budget cuts, free trade deals, refusal to increase the minimum wage, and giveaways to Wall Street resulted in the Great Recession and driven more and more people into poverty.”

Beltway Democrats' Failure-- Focus: Wisconsin

Over the weekend, E.J. Dionne suggested in the Washington Post that Democratic Party strategists are blowing the 2014 midterm cycle. "Listlessness is bad politics. Defensiveness is poor strategy. And resignation is never inspiring."

Obama and his party are in danger of allowing the Republicans to set the terms of the 2014 elections, just as they did four years ago. The fog of nasty and depressing advertising threatens to reduce the electorate to a hard core of older, conservative voters eager to hand the president a blistering defeat.

American politics has been shaken by two recent events that hurt first the Republicans and then the Democrats. Republicans have recovered from their blow. Democrats have not.

Last fall’s government shutdown cratered the GOP’s standing with the public and confirmed everything Democrats had been saying about a House majority in thrall to a far right uninterested in governing. Then the Obama administration threw its adversaries a lifeline with the disasters that befell HealthCare.gov, empowering Republicans to remount their favorite hobbyhorse. House Speaker John Boehner used the foolishness of the shutdown to insist that there would be no more tea party adventures this year, no matter what Ted Cruz said.

And Republicans have broadened the assault whenever possible. Shamefully but effectively, many of them made Obama, not Vladimir Putin, the prime culprit in Putin’s invasion of Crimea, hanging the word “weak” around the president’s neck. Democrats thought the killing of Osama bin Laden would forever guard Obama from comparisons with Jimmy Carter. They did not reckon with the GOP’s determination to Carterize and McGovernize any Democrat who comes along.

Dionne wanders off into a discussion of Obama's approval numbers and what the White House could do to get back on offense. He makes one important point after another. I'd like to go in an entirely different direction, the bungled job Steve Israel is doing at the DCCC. We've been talking about how the duo-of-failure, Guy Cecil and Michael Bennet, have been dooming the Democrats' hold on the Senate majority. But, now, let's just take a look at one state. How about Wisconsin? Obama won Wisconsin both times he ran, 1,677,211 (56%) to 1,2662,393 (42%) against McCain in 2008 and 1,620,985 (53%) to 1,407,966 (46%) against Romney in 2012. In that same 2012 election, Wisconsin's most liberal congressmember, Tammy Baldwin, won an open Senate seat against conservative former Governor Tommy Thompson 1,547,104 (51%) to 1,380,126 (46%). But on that same day, incongruously, Wisconsin voters elected 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats to the House. How? Why?

Gerrymandering was a big factor. The state legislature, itself horrifically gerrymandered, which controlled the redrawing on the districts, created them to lock in a Republican majority. The Assembly has 60 Republicans and only 39 Democrats, while the Senate has 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats. Even with one Republican senator, Dale Schultz, sometimes voting with the Democrats to protect basic constitutional rights, the GOP can still-- and still does-- ramrod through all kinds of voter disenfranchisement bills. And the state's Koch-owned governor, Scott Walker, happily signs it all. Let's get beyond the roadblocks due to gerrymandering for a moment and look at the state's 8 districts with their PVIs and Obama's % under these boundaries in 2008.

• WI-01 (Paul Ryan)- R+3- Obama- 51%
• WI-02 (Mark Pocan)- D+17- Obama- 70%
• WI-03 (Ron Kind)- D+5- Obama- 59%
• WI-04 (Gwen Moore)- D+23- Obama- 74%
• WI-05 (Jim Sensenbrenner) R+13- Obama- 42%
• WI-06 (Tom Petri) R+5- Obama- 49%
• WI-07 (Sean Duffy) R+2- Obama- 53%
• WI-08 (Reid Ribble) R+2- Obama- 54%

As you can see, there's only one deep red district that would be a waste of time for Democrats to contest, Sensenbrenner's WI-05 in the western and northwestern Milwaukee suburbs (including northern Waukesha County). But how many districts has Steve Israel targeted this year? None… zero. All the Republican congressmen in Wisconsin have a DCCC free pass to reelection. Israel is refusing to spend any money at all in winning back any Wisconsin seats and he's actively urging Democratic donors to instead spend their money on seats where his garbage conservative are running in far less likely districts, like Blue Dog Jennifer Garrison in an Ohio district with an R+8 PVI and Blue Dog James Lee Witt in an Arkansas district with an R+15 PVI and where Obama won a mere 36% of the vote in 2012.

So far 2 grassroots progressives have mounted credible campaigns despite DCCC intransigence, Rob Zerban against racist Paul Ryan, and Blue America's newest endorsee, Kelly Westlund, who's running against empty suit/showboat Sean Duffy in the northwest part of the state. Last year the DCCC refused to help Zerban against Ryan-- and Rob came closer to beating him than any Democrat since he first took Les Aspin's blue seat when Aspin became Clinton's Secretary of Defense. With no help-- and plenty of interference-- from the DCCC, Zerban still managed to raise $2,265,721. Ryan spent $6,651,221. And Zerban still beat him in Kenosha Co. (his own home county) and Rock Co. (Ryan's home county). Sunday, the country's foremost Ryan expert, Paul Krugman, wrote that Ryan is an expert too, "an expert at sounding as if he knows what he’s talking about." Apparently that's enough for Steve Israel. In regard to Ryan's racist remark implying that African-American men are lazy, Krugman admits there’s no evidence that Mr. Ryan is personally a racist, and his dog-whistle may not even have been deliberate. But it doesn’t matter. He said what he said because that’s the kind of thing conservatives say to each other all the time. And why do they say such things? Because American conservatism is still, after all these years, largely driven by claims that liberals are taking away your hard-earned money and giving it to Those People… [S]ince conservatives can’t bring themselves to acknowledge the reality of what’s happening to opportunity in America, they’re left with nothing but that old-time dog whistle. Mr. Ryan wasn’t being inarticulate-- he said what he said because it’s all that he’s got."

Writing for the Times' SundayReview, Timothy Egan also took Ryan to task for his ugly appeal to gross racism, Paul Ryan's Irish Amnesia. "[Y]ou can’t help noticing," he wrote, "the deep historic irony that finds a Tea Party favorite and descendant of famine Irish using the same language that English Tories used to justify indifference to an epic tragedy. The Irish historian John Kelly, who wrote a book on the great famine, was the first to pick up on these echoes of the past during the 2012 presidential campaign. 'Ryan’s high-profile economic philosophy,” he wrote then, “is the very same one that hurt, not helped, his forebears during the famine-- and hurt them badly.'… You can’t make these kinds of heartless remarks unless you think the poor deserve their fate-- that they have a character flaw, born of public assistance. And there hovers another awful haunt of Irish history. In 2012, Ryan said that the network of programs for the American poor made people not want to work."

The DCCC refusal to engage flies right in the face of recent polling that shows both Ryan and Duffy vulnerable to Democrats running well-funded campaigns. Look at this polling MoveOn has PPP do after Duffy voted to shut down the government:

His approval numbers were already underwater-- 46% disapproving, only 40% approving and when asked "if the election for Congress were held today, would you vote to re-elect Republican Sean Duffy, or would you vote for his Democratic opponent," 48% picked the Democrat and only 45% picked Duffy. After voters were informed that Duffy voted to shut down the government, the results tilted even more in favor of the Democrat. If you don't know much about Kelly, read her guest post here and consider giving her and Rob Zerban a hand in turning Wisconsin blue… while Blue America continues looking for candidates to take on Petri and Ribble.

Paul Ryan's Attack On Military Pensions Has Helped Make The GOP Even More Toxic

You've probably read that Paul Ryan's plan to screw over military families with cuts to compensation and pensions has been backfiring, making the apostle of Randian greed and selfishness even more toxic than he's been in the past. Wednesday, when the Senate voted 95-3 to throw out Ryan's wretched calculations to steal from military veterans for the sake of his Big Business paymasters who hate paying their share of taxes, even the worst of the right-wing extremists like Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) voted with Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Boxer, Al Franken and Bernie Sanders against Ryan's ideologically-driven determination to wreck the social safety net.

Now it's becoming clearer to voters in the first district. Last year voters in Kenosha and Rock counties rejected him outright for Rob Zerban and his margin in Racine was tiny. This year voters in Walworth and the Milwaukee suburbs have been telling Democratic canvassers that they're dismayed that Ryan has taken the ax to the pensions of the military men and women who have sacrificed for the country while young Ryan was memorizing his talking points from the Ayn Rand books he reads instead of the Bible.

Wednesday, Politico said Ryan's proposal has backfired-- "highlighting," they wrote, "the perils of scaling back entitlement programs… [M]any of his fellow conservatives jumped ship amid a backlash from powerful advocacy groups for service members and veterans."

The Wisconsin Republican’s gambit was viewed as an attempt to get the ball rolling on military compensation reform-- something top commanders say is badly needed-- and to show that entitlement cuts are possible, that nothing is sacred.

So far, it’s had the opposite effect, unleashing a massive lobbying campaign and forcing vulnerable incumbents to explain to constituents why they voted to cut benefits for those who’ve sacrificed for their country.

Congress has now overturned the short-lived pension cuts, providing political cover for members in both parties up for reelection this fall but undoing a rare victory for those seeking to scale back entitlements.

On Tuesday, Ryan blasted the House bill as taking “a step back” after he cast one of just 90 votes against it. “Compensation costs are hollowing out the Pentagon’s budget,” he said in a statement. “They are taking resources away from training and modernization-- and putting our troops at risk.”

…Under December’s budget deal, working-age military retirees-- some of whom retire with pensions in their 40s after 20 years of service-- would see those pensions grow at a slower pace. Their annual cost-of-living adjustments would be pegged to the rate of inflation minus 1 percentage point. But once they turned 62, they’d go back to receiving cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the full rate of inflation.

Zerban isn't shy about clobbering Ryan over the head with this kind of approach. "We've come to expect intense political pushback whenever Paul Ryan tries to insert his extreme agenda into legislation. While his 'ideas' might be popular with Tea Party groups in Washington DC, voters throughout Wisconsin's 1st district understand that Ryan's policies will have devastating consequences. It was bad enough when he tried to end Medicare as we know it, but not even his fellow Republicans could support his attack on hard-working military families."

If you'd like to help Rob extend last year's victories in Kenosha and Rock counties into Kenosha, Walworth and Milwaukee counties... no contribution is too small.

Will A Growing And Unrestrained American Surveillance State Become A Real Issue In The Midterms?

Yesterday's Politico featured a post by Manu Raju explaining how both Democratic and Republican candidates are running against the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda-- the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda that Obama has largely kept intact. Raju's top example: Maine progressive Shenna Bellows, who has talked with us about this last October and again in November.

Maine Senator Susan Collins has been a lockstep captive of the Military Industrial Complex and an unwavering supporter of the very unpopular Surveillance State and of all the abusive NSA excesses. Maine libertarians hate her. And Bellows, a former executive director of Maine's ACLU, has been going up and down the state explaining why Democrats should be as concerned as libertarians on this one. Collins has infuriated constitutionalists in Maine with her awkward statements about Ed Snowden. She harps on him being responsible for one of the most “serious national security breaches” in modern history. “He’s no hero,” she insists. “He’s no whistleblower.” Bellows, like critics on the right and left do see Snowden as a whistle bower, a position most Americans agree with. “I think she was wrong to vote time and time again to renew the PATRIOT Act without meaningful checks and balances, … she was wrong to vote in November 2013 to legalize the NSA program in the wake of these revelations of abuse,” said Bellows about Collins.

The Democratic candidate didn’t think much about running for Senate against the popular GOP Sen. Susan Collins — until the aftermath of the Snowden revelations prompted tougher restrictions on warrantless surveillance on the state level that she now wants to replicate in Washington. Bellows wants an end to the NSA’s bulk data collection program, along with the PATRIOT Act. She argues the country needs stronger whistleblower protections. She even believes Snowden deserves clemency.

“Constitutional freedoms is how I win the race,” said the 38-year-old Bellows, who headed the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for eight years and now faces a very steep climb to catch Collins. “I think the erosion of constitutional freedoms exemplifies how Washington has become out of touch with some of the values that we share as communities.”

Candidates across the country are using a similar playbook as they run against an unpopular Washington. Primary candidates running against incumbent GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas have seized on this controversy, hoping to woo Ron Paul-minded libertarian voters worried about government overreach. The main GOP and Democratic candidates in Montana are both bashing the agency as they jostle for an upper hand on the issue.

And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a likely 2016 presidential candidate who has led the charge against the NSA in Congress, is reviewing candidates’ positions on surveillance as a condition of offering his endorsement to upstart challengers.

…Also in the West, Sen. Mark Udall-- the Colorado Democrat and early critic of the NSA-- is quick to point out the alarms he sounded even before the Snowden revelations. That, he said, will be a big selling point to voters as he faces what could be a tough reelection battle. “I think it will be one of the reasons I’ll ask to be rehired-- I want to protect Coloradans’ privacy,” Udall said. “They know I will, they know I have. They know I was on this cause before it was popular, before anybody paid any attention.”

The divisions are far starker in the GOP, with competing libertarian and national security wings battling for the future direction of the Republican Party. In a sign that the GOP is heading in a more libertarian direction, the Republican National Committee called on Friday to investigate the NSA for what it called the “invasion into the personal lives” of American citizens and their constitutional rights.

Paul said in a brief interview that the issue of privacy is “a popular one” that “appeals to people who aren’t traditionally in one camp or the other.” Asked if he would base his endorsement of 2014 Senate candidates partially on their views on the NSA program, Paul said simply, "Yes."

In North Carolina’s contested GOP Senate primary, Paul has endorsed physician Greg Brannon, who called Obama’s latest proposals “nothing more than slight modifications to an unconstitutional program.”

But the issue is becoming a bigger flash point in South Carolina, where Graham-- a longtime national security hawk-- has previously said he was “glad” the government was collecting the phone records of Verizon customers.

"I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States," Graham said last year.

Those comments have made it difficult for Graham to appeal to libertarian-leaning conservatives, who could be a critical bloc in this year’s primary, according to one of his GOP opponents, state Sen. Lee Bright.

"That crowd and Lindsey Graham will never get along,” Bright said last week, adding that the senator’s Verizon comment “pretty much finished off any hope he had for the folks who were really concerned about the Fourth Amendment."

Fortunately, voters in South Carolina have an alternative to voting for an extremist anti-Choice, antigay, anti-environmental, anti-working family lunatic like Bright, if they want to oppose Graham's support of the Surveillance State and NSA domestic spying. Like Bellows, Blue America has endorsed progressive Democrat Jay Stamper. Although Politico is ignoring his campaign, he told us last night that "[t]here is no U.S. Senator more hostile to the Bill of Rights than Lindsey Graham. As his likely opponent in the 2014 general election, I will continue to draw attention to his attacks on our constitutional civil liberties, including his enthusiastic support for the NSA's warrant-less surveillance programs.

"Lindsey Graham says he doesn't mind if the NSA tracks his phone calls. This year, voters across the political spectrum in South Carolina have the opportunity to send a message at the polls that we do mind.

"Sen. Graham can always be counted on to support new wars and the escalation of existing conflicts overseas. He says we need to fight for our freedom. I would remind Senator Graham that protecting freedom starts with standing up for our civil liberties here at home."

And, of course, it isn't just Senate candidates who are talking with voters about these issues. Later today we'll be meeting the Oklahoma Democrat running against Tom Cole, Tae Si, and hearing in some depth how he differs from Cole-- and President Obama-- on the NSA domestic spying. It's a winning issue in Oklahoma and the Blue America-endorsed candidate in the 5th district (Oklahoma City), Tom Guild, has come out strongly in favor of the Constitution and against unwarranted intrusion on Americas' privacy rights. "As the venerated Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, 'The right of the people to be secure…against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated…except upon probable cause…particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.' Unrestricted and unrestrained power concentrated in the government to the seize personal information of Americans, who have not been reasonably suspected of any crime, leads inevitably to a system where government overreach, abuse and mischief are invited and encouraged. We are a government of laws and not of men. Legal restraints should be placed on the NSA program to ensure that the privacy of ordinary Americans is not violated without sufficient and reasonable legal restraints. We need to restore the constitutional balance between national security and the cherished right to privacy enshrined in our Constitution."

Rob Zerban, who is running against NSA-backed Paul Ryan in southeastern Wisconsin agrees with Guild that warrantless wiretaps go beyond the intentions of the Founding Fathers when they put together the Constitution. "Everybody," he told us, "should be concerned when their government is collecting random personal data. With the 2014 midterm elections quickly approaching the electorate needs to educate themselves on where the candidates stand on such an important issue. I personally am adamantly opposed to such spying on American citizens. National security is critical to protecting our country and our freedoms, but must we give up those freedoms in order to protect them? I can not find a justification for the program and the way it has been used. Anybody that has supported such efforts needs to be voted out of office as it is a complete breach of trust and a violation of the constitution and our right to privacy."

Pennsylvania's Liberal Lion, state Senator Daylin Leach, the leading candidate for the open PA-13 House seat, is another advocate of a closer adherence to the Constitution. "I've been a member of the ACLU since I was 18 years old," he told us last night. "I taught and practiced Constitutional Law and named my daughter Brennan after my favorite Supreme Court Justice. Civil Liberties mean a great deal to me. I have seen no evidence that the results of the NSA spying program in any way justify the intrusion inherent in such a program. Our Constitution guarantees individualized suspicion that we have done something wrong before we are investigated. The NSA data collection program flies in the face of that basic right. It's time we rebalance our approach to place more emphasis on respecting basic liberties."