Max Rose Sounds Like An Asshole And Picks Fights With Progressive Women Because He Thinks That's What His Constituents Want In A Congressman

 

One of my childhood homes was on East 17th Street between Avenues O and P in Brooklyn. Manny Cellar was the powerful congressman from that district from 1923, long before I was born, to 1973, long after I had moved away. The district has been redrawn many time since then and it is divided between the current 8th (Hakeem Jeffries), 9th (Yvette Clarke) and 11th (Max Rose) districts. About 2 blocks from my old house, Yvette Clarke's district ends and Max Rose's begins-- the corner of East 15th Street and Avenue P. All three congressmen are Democrats-- although Rose is a Blue Dog, not an actual Democrat-- but NY-11 is a swing district, blending Republican-leaning Staten Island with diverse Brooklyn neighborhoods that are traditionally Democratic but have seen an influx of very far-right Russian immigrants in recent years. The PVI-- a lagging indicator of reality, like everything that comes out of Cook-- is R+3. Obama won the district 51.6% to 47.3% in 2012 and 4 years later Trump won it 53.6% to 43.8%. The district keeps flipping back and forth from a bizarre set of Republicans to a just-as-bizarre set of quasi-Democrats. I couldn't imagine every moving back there, even though I have family still living in the 11th.

When Max Rose won the seat in 2018, it was always a career step for him, never about the people of the district; only about Max Rose. The DCCC was looking for a win for their "majority maker" program, not for someone who would represent the legitimate interests of the people in the district and not for someone to help push any kind of Democratic Party agenda. They got what they wanted-- a seat in their new majority and someone willing to do and say whatever it takes to hold onto it, including badd-mouthing his own party and kissing up to Trump.

Rose is saved from being New York's worst Democrat in Congress by Anthony Brindisi, another New Yorker, who happens to be America's worst Democrat in Congress. Progressive Punch rates both their voting records "F" (as it does half a dozen other New York members-- Brian Higgins, Joe Morelle, Kathleen Rice, Antonio Delgado, Tom Suozzi and Sean Patrick Maloney). Brindisi's crucial vote score is a jaw-dropping 24.69%, further right than several Republicans! Rose's is the 25th worst among House Dems-- 55.56%, far to the right of an average Democrat, but right about what the average Blue Dog/New Dem gets. Max Rose sits in the center of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

He's in a fight for his political life right now, but is likely to win in 3 weeks-- and then lose his seat in the 2022 midterms, when Democratic voters will be discouraged by a do-nothing Democratic White House/Congress and just stay home and not vote. Rose picks fights with progressive Democrats-- usually, though not exclusively women-- to show Staten Island conservatives he's one of them. Rose is working hard to create an image for himself that fits how he sees the unfocussed and very disparate district. He apparently thinks-- not without reason-- that most of the district is made up of assholes (it was after all the district that enthusiastically elected and reelected Mafia thug Mikie "Suits" Grimm, even after Grimm was indicted), so he has cultivated the demeanor of an asshole. Last week he was a guest on Peter Hamby's Vanity Fair podcast, Good Luck America to curse a lot, show he can be as much a boor as his Staten Island constituents and to talk about "why the presidential polls are bullshit, why police need more funding-- not less-- and why it’s cool to be a 'swagger-filled' moderate." Here are some excerpts from the interview that capture Rose's Blue Dog careerist mentality:

Peter Hamby: I want to ask you about some national politics. Talks fell apart between the president and the House over a second coronavirus stimulus deal. Who do you blame for that?

Max Rose: Well, first of all, everyone is to blame. I’m so sick and tired of this notion of finger-pointing in our politics. But with that being said, the president did walk away, and the president is the one that gave up. Now, I was a part of a bipartisan coalition that announced a significant, bold framework for COVID relief: $1.6 trillion. It’s clear that we don’t need something skinny that doesn’t match the scale of this public health and economic crisis, and it’s clear that we don’t need something that is blindly partisan, that is going to be dead on arrival. But we need everybody to rise to the challenge here, and that is clear. State and local aid, extended unemployment, direct stimulus checks. This ain’t rocket science at this point. It’s just not.

... PH: So you’re from the most conservative House district in New York City. It includes Staten Island, parts of Brooklyn. Trump won your district. So what’s it like when you say you support Trump on some things? Because you have. If you go into Manhattan, if you go to the halls of Congress and run into a lot of Democrats, are they like, “Hey, man, don’t say that stuff”?

MR: No. And it’s just so weird about the Democratic Party, and it’s weird about the state of partisanship today that people’s opinions become defined by their partisan affiliation. Just look at the war in Afghanistan. It’s like the perfect example, right? It’s a conflict that’s deeply personal to me, and I am of the belief that it’s got to end. It’s America’s longest war. We have soldiers enlisting today-- today-- who were not born on 9/11. Who were not born when we sent our first soldier to Afghanistan. Donald Trump stands up and says, “It’s clear that we need some type of peace, reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and we’ve got to get out of that war.” And suddenly the freaking Democratic Party becomes the pro-war party? Saying, “No, no, we should stay there longer.” It’s the oddest thing. It was the same with the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian terrorist, who was someone that deserved to be killed. The blood of over 600 soldiers, American soldiers, on his hands. So yeah, I’m not dictated by blind party commitment and dedication. It’s always got to be country first.

PH: One thing I was thinking about before this interview was the Democratic presidential primary. In a lot of ways, [Joe] Biden emerged from that as kind of like the perfect nominee for Democrats, because he has a little bit of a traditional view of politics, not just policy but also dealmaking, reaching across the aisle. He's pretty inoffensive, quite frankly, to a lot of people. What’s your biggest takeaway from the Democratic primary, which seemed like it was sometimes fought over certain issues that were either unpopular or uninteresting to a lot of Americans?





MR: Well, yeah, the Democratic Party is allergic to show business at times. So you can always rely on the Democratic Party to be fundamentally uninteresting at times. I think that what certain segments of the party learned, and have to relearn this lesson over and over and over again, is that politics is not about bullet points. Politics is about trust-building, and politics is about presenting a bold vision for the future. But it’s also, when you boil it down, right, it’s about trying to instill the message that if it matters to you, it matters to me, no matter how small, no matter how big. In that sense it’s like a job interview, right? Very rarely on job interviews do people say, “Oh, give me your 10-point bullet plan for this very specific problem 18 months from now.” So I am of the belief that when it came to that primary, when it comes to any election, it’s fundamentally a question of: Who do you believe down in your soul and down in your gut? And then I guess that’s what we saw here. But going forward, though, it is critical that the Democratic Party-- there will come a day when Donald Trump’s not the president. That day will come, and it’s critical that the Democratic Party not be just defined by anti-Trumpism. It can’t just be what we’re against. It has to be: “What are we for?” And this idea that if you’re a moderate or you’re a centrist, it means that you’re some shy, milquetoast incrementalist, I think is total bullshit. Rather, what you need is you need to figure out what are the bold and nonetheless unifying policies that we can put into place that will allow for us to address climate change, allow for us to address gun violence, allow for us to position America as the preeminent global power of the 21st century, all the while having an inclusively just capitalist economy. Being moderate or centrist cannot be shy. It can’t just be focused on what you’re not. Has to be what you’re for too.

...PH: Trump announced he’s got COVID. It's spreading throughout the White House and D.C. among his aides. The national polls are kind of opening up for Joe Biden as a consequence of that. But how is it playing in your district on Staten Island?

MR: I mean, for all we know, these polls are B.S. The only thing that matters is what happens on Election Day. So I think anybody who ever becomes arrogant in this business quickly regrets it. But with that being said, COVID is an unprecedented security crisis and health crisis, unprecedented in nature, but also no different in terms of the unifying and bold response that it warrants, whether it came to the world wars that we have fought in the past or to the counterterrorism fight that we’ve undertaken over the last 20 years. It requires strong government action. It requires solidarity. It requires resources. It requires a strategy. And it requires our leaders to rise above the political fray and not think about how they can divide us, but think about how they can unify us. Mitch McConnell came out with a skinny COVID bill a month ago. It’s a good thing we didn’t have a skinny plan to beat the Nazis. A skinny plan to get to the moon. That’s never what this country has been about. Never has been and never should be.

...PH: I know you think polls are bullshit, but one trend that seems pretty unmistakable is that Biden is opening up a nontraditional lead among senior citizens and older voters. You’ve got a lot of old folks in your district. Are they...

MR: Don’t call them old folks. They’re just getting started. All right, bro? Sixty-five is the new 45. But look, no one’s vote in this country should be taken for granted, and the Republican Party certainly has taken the senior vote for granted. There’s no doubt. The Democratic Party is guilty of taking the union vote for granted. It’s guilty of at times taking communities of color for granted, only going into some communities right before Election Day, treating them like fully owned subsidiaries. We hear so much in politics about: “Get out the vote.” It is the most messed-up terminology in politics today. Everything should be about earning the vote, not just communicating with someone 96 hours before an election, making sure they know where their polling booth is. It’s everything that is wrong with our system, that it’s become so bifurcated. You see all these wonks in politics that say, “Well, you don’t have to be on the ground anymore. You don’t have to talk to people. The off year doesn’t matter because I’ve got digital targeting. I’ve got the analytics behind me.” Fuck you and your analytics, okay? This is about people; it’s about trust; and it’s about finally positioning this country to fulfill its promise.

PH: From what I’ve read, I think the murder rate is up, like, 50% in New York City. Shootings are up almost 150%. Where is this crime wave and the violence coming from? What is it a result of?

MR: Well, if it were as easy as one thing, it would certainly be simpler to solve. Part of it is most definitely attributed to the failures of this mayor’s leadership, and I regret that I’m on Snapchat, because 15 seconds ain’t enough to describe how he is the worst mayor in the history of New York City. But with that being said, COVID certainly also plays a role. Skyrocketing unemployment. An absence of unity in the city. Right now an emerging sense of us against them. I think that there is a federal role here as well. The vast majority of the guns retrieved from crime incidents in New York City come from out of state. They flow up the iron pipeline from down south, from areas with lax gun laws, and they end up in inner-city New York City. We need federal action when it comes to gun legislation, but nothing should take us away from the fact that we can concurrently and simultaneously and boldly pursue justice for all and safety for all, all while supporting our police. I think defunding the police is 100% the wrong decision. I’m of the belief that we should be thinking about how to pay our cops more. We should be thinking consistently about, How do we invest in our public institutions, invest in our public servants more, make sure that they are the highest-paid public servants not just in the country, but in the world? Because that’s how we can truly have the most effective and just government and public services.

PH: Are you worried that police-- not just in New York, but in this country-- that police forces are becoming almost radicalized? That only certain kinds of white folks are going to sign up to become police officers at this point, that there’s a war now between police and communities, and it’s driving people in different directions?

MR: When you go to visit a police precinct in New York City, and I have more than a number of times, what you see when police officers line up, for 2020-- NYPD cops line up before they go out onto the street that day on to, on to their beat-- you see a group of people that represent the beautiful cultural mosaic that is New York City. You see folks who are striving to be in the middle class, stay in the middle class, serve their family, serve their communities. So from that vantage point, I think that there’s no public institution in America that can’t continue to improve. But on the same hand, I am of the belief that when you look at our cops, many of them represent exactly who New York City is in this modern day and age. But it is clear as well that if you want to continue to think about, How do we improve policing in America? Just like, How do you improve any public institution in America? And they all can improve, every single one of them, most especially Congress. You have to consider, How do you further invest in that institution? Not, How do you abandon the institution? How do you turn your backs on people who are putting their lives on the line each and every day? Rather, in my book, it is, How do you develop further strategies and how do you resource them?

...PH: You rail against Bill de Blasio on the campaign trail.

MR: Am I too subtle? Is it too nuanced? Is it nuanced?

PH: Not at all. Just define your loathing of him. Where does it come from? Why is he such a bad mayor in your mind?

MR: He’s not a leader. He’s not decisive. He doesn’t show a love for New York and a love for the job that I think the job requires. He doesn’t realize that if you’re antibusiness, then you can’t generate the tax revenue necessary to raise union salaries and help people who need help. And I don’t think people take pride in him, and that’s why New York City needs better than that. New York City can be the city that can run circles around every other city in the world. We could be showing the rest of the world how to have a testing strategy that actually works, that’s proactive, not reactive. We can show how you can build out an integrated health care system that’s ready for the next pandemic. You can do things like run and build out the best and most well-resourced and most efficient public housing units in America. Now, none of this, though, none of Bill de Blasio’s failures should take away from the fact that the federal government should not be telling New York to drop dead, should not be establishing federal aid for cities and states like New York and New York City as a blue-state-versus-red-state issue. And there is a moment in time, and I believe we are in it right now, where it requires bold federal action to be there for people. Thankfully, when a state or a city down south goes through a tornado or a superstorm, we’re not saying, “Oh, that’s a bunch of Republicans." That’s never what this country has been about, and it shouldn’t be now.

PH: Last thing: When a lot of people see you attack the mayor, they kind of see it as a political tactic. That he’s unpopular, he’s easy to run against. But when I hear that, I hear you want to run for mayor one day. I know you’ve got a tough race right now, but is that something you’d want to do one day? Be the mayor of New York?

MR: No. Look, man, I got an election ahead of me right now. I ain’t running for mayor. And you got to have a conversation with Leigh Rose about anything like that, all right, buddy? But with that being said, though, my North Star from the very beginning has been two things: Party cannot matter. If it matters to you, it matters to me. And who runs city hall, whether he’s a Democrat or not, his failures, the mayor’s failures, directly impact my own constituents. I’m not going to remain silent to the mayor’s failures just because he’s a Democrat. That to me represents a failure of leadership and a failure of public service.

PH: All right. Thanks, Max. Favorite Wu-Tang song before you go?

MR: I ain’t telling you, man. I’m not getting into it, man. I’m not getting into it. I love you, though, buddy. Thank you again.

That's not part of Rose's image. But this is, after all, Staten Island's contribution to culture:

Is The Democratic Party Tent Too Big To Offer Voters Anything?

A new poll done by Change Research-- a very good firm-- found that 60% of voters in rural counties in 9 states-- Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and West Virginia-- approve of the way Trump is doing his job. Democrats need to work harder in rural districts, which they've largely abandoned. And when they haven't abandoned them, they've left them to right-of-center Blue Dogs, New Dems and other conservaDems who don't represent the Democratic Party and its values at all. These are the only Democrats whose districts are at least 25% rural. Non-conservatives G.K. Butterfield (NC) and Bennie Thompson (MS) represent districts that, though rural, are over 50% African-American. Most of the others oppose Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, even a $15 minimum wage. Perhaps that helps explain why Trump does so well in rural areas-- no one to fight back. This list shows what percentage of each district is rural and the grade at the end of each line is how ProgressivePunch rates the congressmember.

• Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL)- 29.8%... F
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- 52.4%... F
• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- 40.95... F
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)- 27.6%... F
• Cheri Bustos (New Dem-IL)- 42.7%... F
• Abby Finkenauer (D-IA)- 47.7%... F
• Dave Loebsack (D-IA)- 60.7%... F
• Jared Golden (D-ME)- 71.9%... F
• Bennie Thompson (D-MS)- 75.3%... D
• Ann Kuster (New Dem-NH)- 57.6%... F
• Xochitl Torres-Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 73.1%... F
• Antonio Delgado (New Dem-NY)- 45.7%... F
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 28.9%... F
• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)- 48.6%... F
• Peter DeFazio (D-OR)- 36.8%... B
• Peter Welch (D-VT)- 69.5%... B
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)- 27.8%... F

And speaking of no one to fight back, Blue Dog Max Rose, represents Staten Island and a substantial chunk of south Brooklyn. A few days ago he wrote an OpEd for the Staten Island Advance on why he opposes an impeachment investigation. It also demonstrates why I oppose supporting Blue Dogs running for office as Democrats. He starts with some whiny "why can't we all just get along" bullshit, seemingly not cognizant of the Republicans impeaching Bill Clinton over nothing at all, Moscow Mitch making refusing to allow a vote of President Obama's Suprme Court nomination, Moscow Mitch allowing the Russians to help Trump steal the 2016 election... little things like that. Even yesterday... Trumpist Cory Lewandowski obstruction at the House Judiciary Committee. As always, Rose follows that up by breaking out his Republican Party talking points and singing them as loud and he can:

For the past decade, the American people have been sending a clear and unmistakable message: End the hyper-partisanship and do your jobs. Yet, both parties have taken electoral victories as mandates to ignore that message to do what they want. It must stop.

Republicans across the country ran on a proactive agenda in 2016: To drain the swamp, rebuild our roads and bridges, and protect Social Security and Medicare. What they did instead was pass a trillion-dollar tax cut for the very companies that created the opioid epidemic. I fear the Democratic Party is now at risk of repeating a similar bait-and-switch mistake by focusing on impeachment instead of infrastructure, healthcare costs, and putting people to work with livable wages and benefits.

Let me be clear, we have made real progress this year, including permanently extending and fully funding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, passing the most sweeping anti-corruption legislation in a generation, and bipartisan gun safety reforms.

This Rose stinks

But there’s far too much work left to be done and we are in danger of losing the trust of the American people if we choose partisan warfare over improving the lives of hardworking families. I made a promise to my constituents to focus on making their lives better, and I won’t break it.

There is no doubt that this Administration is one of the most corrupt in history. From taxpayer dollars propping up Trump Organization properties to the mass exodus of Administration officials who have been forced to resign, are facing serious ethical investigations, or have sped through the revolving door to become federal lobbyists for the same industries they oversaw. It’s clear as day, the swamp is alive and thriving.

But pursuing a partisan impeachment process won’t address any of those serious issues. The truth is impeachment will only tear our country further apart and we will see no progress on the enormous challenges we face as a nation. Impeachment will not fix our roads and bridges or lower the costs of drugs. Impeachment will not keep our kids safe from gun violence or end the opioid epidemic. Impeachment will not improve the lives of the hardworking Staten Islanders and South Brooklynites that I fight for every day.

That’s why I implore my Democratic colleagues to focus on making our case that we are the party that will put the interests of working families first. Because in just over 400 days, men and women across the country will go to the polls and render their judgment on this administration. I have faith in the American people and believe that they will-- and should-- make the final decision as to who will lead this country.

Rose hasn't accomplished a thing since he got to Congress-- unless you call holding back accomplishments accomplishing something. He's been against virtually every progressive initiative proposed. The video above, released this afternoon by the Kina Collins campaign in Chicago, shows a very different end of the Democratic tent, a young woman who has every intention of getting things done for her constituents. The theme of this one is gun violence prevention and Kina is on fire to get it done-- done for real. Kina is running in Chicago, in IL-07 for a seat held by do-nothing incumbent Danny Davis-- and it's a tragedy that there isn't someone like her running against Rose.

"We have to go beyond the gun," she said, "to address systemic issues of poverty and neglect. It's time to pursue a bold progressive platform that includes Medicare-for-All, a Green New Deal, criminal justice reform and future free of gun violence... It's time; it's our time." Please consider contributing what you can to Kina's grassroots congressional campaign by clicking on the 2020 Blue America House  thermometer on the right. We desperately need more activist members of Congress like Kina Collins and far fewer like do-nothing reactionaries like Max Rose. This is a time for independent-thinkers like Kina, not for passive follow-the-leader shills like Danny Davis and Max Rose, sitting around and ignoring the urgent issues of the day while they collect their unearned paychecks.

Staten Island Blue Dog Max Rose, Who Opposes Medicare-For-All And The Green New Deal, Gets Lucky

Another colorful lesser of 2 evils race shaping up in NY: Rose v Grimm?

There's a subway stop on the corner of Kings Highway and East 17th Street in Brooklyn, a few feet from the famous Dubrow's Cafeteria where JFK came for a rally in 1960. Back then that area around Dubrow's was the heart of Brooklyn's liberal Jewish bastion. The nearest high school was James Madison which graduated Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer-- and me. I didn't see any of them at Dubrow's the evening JFK was there, but my mother brought me to see the next president. A policeman on horseback accidentally stepped on my foot and I was carried into the cafeteria-- which was reserved for the local politicos and donors-- and Kennedy came over to me and offered my mother and I some solace for my wound. A few months later he defeated Vice President Richard Nixon-- massively so in that part of south Brooklyn.

That area is the furthest corner of NY-11, the "Staten Island district," currently represented by Blue Dog freshman Max Rose. The actual furthest corner of the district is Avenue P and East 17th street, 3 doors down from what was then my family's house. The congressional district itself is the most heavily-Italian district in America. But the eastern part of the Brooklyn section is still predominantly Jewish, although no longer liberal Jewish. They've all moved and the neighborhoods are filled with right-wing Russian immigrants; huge Trump supporters. The precincts that had traditionally given liberal Democrats immense margins turned out to give Trump his biggest wins in New York City. It broke my heart.

NY-11 itself, was the only New York City congressional district that Trump won-- beating Hillary 53.6% to 43.8%, a shanda. 4 years earlier, Obama had beaten Romney there, 51.6% to 47.3%. The PVI is R+3 and it's a pretty classic swing district. In the last few years there have been two Republican congressmen-- Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm and Dan Donovan-- and two Democratic congressmen-- Mike McMahon and now Max Rose. Rose flipped the district after a bruising GOP primary in which Grimm, straight out of prison-- and all Trumpified and with Bannon's blessing-- tried unsuccessfully to displace Donovan. In the general, Donovan was a dead man walking and Rose eviscerated him in the Brooklyn third of the district and even beat him, albeit narrowly, in the Staten Island bulk of the district. It was a 101,823 (53.0%) to 89,441 (46.6%) Democratic win.

But it's still a Republican-leaning district where Trump has a big following and Rose is definitely at the top of the GOP list of Democrat-held seats they hope to flip. The NRCC and the Republican establishment in general has rallied around popular state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who ran for mayor of NYC in 2017. Although she only took a minuscule 27.6% of the vote citywide, her win against Bill de Blasio in Staten Island was massive: 70,125 (70.6%) to 25,466 (25.6%).

She seems like the perfect candidate for the GOP to take on Rose. But that clashes with Mikey Suits' career plans. There's been a buzz on Staten Island for months that Grimm was thinking about running again but yesterday Laura Barrón-López broke the news for Politico readers: The former GOP congressman and tax felon says he's "90% of the way there to run" against freshman Max Rose on Staten Island. The Mafia congressman "is trying," she wrote, "to come back from the dead-- again." She interviewed him and he told her "he’s very close to launching the second bid for his old seat in as many years... Grimm says the shadow cast by his felony guilty plea is no longer a factor. He’s spoken to multiple people at the National Republican Congressional Committee, Grimm said, and he's in the process of setting up a meeting for an upcoming trip to Washington. 'The cloud is gone. It’s over; it’s in the past,' he said. 'I’ve had a lot of colleagues call me and tell me they’d love to have me back.'" (Another GOP criminal congressman, wanted to have his backside; I remember that.)

The move by the scandal-tainted tough guy, who once threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony, could jeopardize Republicans’ chances in a district key to the party’s hopes of recapturing the House in 2020.

...The one-time FBI agent said he was railroaded by his political enemies-- “They don’t want rising Republican stars in New York City,” he said-- when he was sentenced to less than a year in prison. And Grimm’s opponents all happen to have one thing in common: They’re President Donald Trump’s enemies, too.

“Who signed off on my indictment? James Comey,” Grimm, stirring his tea at the Z-One Diner here, said of the former FBI director whom Trump fired. “It’s the same exact players and the same exact playbook.”

He compared his felony charges for tax evasion to the “witch hunt” Russia investigation carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller, Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. But there are obvious differences: Grimm pleaded guilty to concealing more than $900,000 in gross income and admitted failing to report hiring busboys “off the books” when he owned a Manhattan restaurant, Healthalicious.

...In what could be a sign of the battle to come, Grimm and Rose are already attacking each other gleefully more than a year before the start of the general election.

Grimm took issue with Rose boasting about passage of legislation that allows construction and maintenance of a seawall along the east shore of Staten Island. He said he’s the one who got the plan and the funding for the wall approved. What Rose passed was equivalent to pulling a permit, said Grimm.

“If [Rose] was a gentleman, and he wasn’t insecure because I know he is about me-- he’s terrified I’m going to run-- he’d be honest and say, ‘My congressman, Grimm, funded this wall, and I’m now making sure it’s getting done,’” said Grimm.

Rose-- a blunt-spoken Army veteran-- gladly fired back at his would-be opponent.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that Mike played a part, and then he had to pass the baton to Dan Donovan when he took a vacation in federal prison,” said Rose. “And then Dan Donovan passed the baton to me after I beat him.”

"God bless him," Rose added of news that Grimm is close to launching a campaign. "He's just the gift that keeps on giving."

Nearly three months on the job, Rose hasn’t shied away from defying party leaders. He voted against Nancy Pelosi for speaker. He isn't embracing proposals championed by leading progressives in the party and sided with Republicans on a symbolic procedural measure saying authorities should notify ICE when an undocumented immigrant buys a gun.

At the same time, Rose is being squeezed by an emboldened left flank of the party that dominates the news cycle and increasingly threatens primary challenges. And Rose, in particular, may end up feeling more of the heat because his district is just miles away from the one represented by fellow freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Speaking to fewer than 100 constituents at his second-ever town hall last weekend in the auditorium of a high school in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, Rose got five questions about freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), two about the Green New Deal, and went round for round with a constituent about why he opposes "Medicare for All." (Rose supports lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 50, instituting a nationalized system of all-payer rate-setting and a public option.)

Rose was pressed the most on policies boosted by Ocasio-Cortez and his response to comments made by Omar that were widely considered anti-Semitic. “Someone in this country does have a right to criticize Israel. Someone in this country does have a right to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Rose said. “All I ask is that they do it without causing Jewish people pain by bringing up anti-Semitic comments."

Rose panned the "economic unorthodoxies" of the Green New Deal and said instead, he wants an “Apollo project for battery technology” to advance solar and wind energy and a cap-and-trade system to get the U.S. to a carbon-free economy by 2050.

While Rose works to position himself as more centrist than some of his Democratic colleagues, Republicans are eager to hit him from the right. As with other Trump-district members, Republicans plan to tag Rose as the tip of a socialist spear-- hoping that by tethering Rose to Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi they can make him a one-term member. That playbook failed in 2018, after Republicans spent millions labeling Democrats running in red districts Pelosi soldiers.

“As the daughter of a Cuban refugee, the threat of socialism is something I don’t take lightly," said Malliotakis, who calls Rose "a Park Slope liberal," labeling the Democrat an off-island Brooklynite. "When I see individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's from New York City, trying to move our country more to the left, it really bothers me."

Rose has an answer to that charge at the ready, one he test-drove at a Staten Island town hall earlier last week. “I’m not a socialist. Everyone here knows I’m not a socialist,” he said in an interview. “It’s very obvious I’m not a socialist.”

But Rose could also benefit from a fractious Republican primary. Malliotakis touted establishment Republican support she’s quickly lining up, noting that New York Reps. Lee Zeldin and Elise Stefanik are backing her bid. Stefanik’s new Elevate PAC, formed to boost female Republicans in primaries, is “supporting” her. Malliotakis has also met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy “personally,” she said, and “he’s very supportive.” (McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.)

Looming large over any Republican primary is Trump, who endorsed Donovan over Grimm in the 2018 primary. Grimm said he doesn't harbor a grudge, but he'd be less enthusiastic about a run this time if the president is going to back another candidate in the race.

"The president got involved to save an incumbent, which I respect," Grimm said. "I wouldn’t want to be in a position now where the president would jump in again."

Malliotakis wouldn't necessarily be a natural fit for a Trump endorsement, but neither was Donovan, who voted against Trump's tax overhaul. In her failed campaign for mayor in bright-blue New York in 2017, Malliotakis said she voted for Trump but later regretted it.

“I agree with the president on most policies," Malliotakis said in an interview at a The Coffee Club Diner in South Brooklyn. "When I disagree with him, I’ll disagree with him. I’m not anybody’s rubber stamp. I’m my own individual person.”

Grimm thinks he's the best shot at taking the seat back, calling Malliotakis too "liberal" to win. And he claims his recent history as a criminal defendant makes him the right person to send back to Washington during Trump's reelection campaign.

"Bad things happen to good people every day, and my experience would make me a better legislator because I look at how it's happened again to Donald Trump," said Grimm, returning to his felony. "My love for this country just exudes from me. It just comes out of me."

See it exuding?

Like Al Capone, they put Mikie Suits away for tax evasion but never charged him with murder, etc

Reactionary Blue Dogs And Wall Street-Owned Corporate Dems Want You To Know They're Not Socialists

Blue Dog Max Rose and progressive Democrat Ilhan Omar

It should be no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention that the Republicans are going to run against Democrats next year by asserting they're all "socialists" who want to turn the U.S. into Venezuela. I asked Alan Grayson about the problem that Democratic candidates will be facing as they endeavor to combat these pernicious tactics. He told me he sees it as "part of a conscious propaganda strategy in demonizing Democrats, formerly known as McCarthyism. One side of the coin is decrying real news as 'fake news,' and the other side of the coin is slinging fake metaphors as real metaphors. Republican shills have weaponized analogies, trying to play upon a cognitive bias called 'illusory correlation.' Similes aren’t always similar. Not everything is like everything else. Likes can be deceiving."

The other, day Dave Weigel's Washington Post column mentioned that conservative Democrats want their constituents to know that they're not socialists. Blue Dog Max Rose has accrued a ProgressivePunch "F" since coming to Congress. Only 12 freshman Dems have worse voting records so far. And none of them want anyone to think they're socialists. No one will. These are all corporate Dems with natural affinities to Wall Street, not to working families.

At Rose's first town hall a Republican lawyer accused the Democratic Party of becoming "a forum for anti-Semitism" and left-wing extremism, causing Rose to pivot into throwing Ilhan Omar under the bus: "I have to make a confession: I’m not a socialist. I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m the person who you all elected, and there are members of the Democratic Party who have said things I vehemently oppose. I was the first member of the Democratic Party to come out and criticize someone who, I believed, had made an anti-Semitic comment."

There was a brief and loud round of applause; Rose did not need to mention that he was talking about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The congressman, who ran nine points ahead of Hillary Clinton to win the swingy 11th Congressional District, did so as a moderate [the Post and its writes purposefully term even the most conservative, right-wing Democrats "moderates'] with a military record who would not take orders from his party. Rose, who is Jewish, told the audience that he had joined Democrats in condemning "acts of hate, acts of divisiveness, no matter where they came from" but that he would criticize his peers when they deserved it.

“The Democratic Party is a big tent, isn’t it?” he asked, rhetorically. “They’ve kept it interesting for me.”

It was a nice way to describe a problem that dozens of House Democrats are confronting every time they head home. Rose, one of the 41 Democrats who flipped Republican-held seats last year, is near the top of the GOP’s list of 2020 targets. The president’s party has signaled that it will run against the Democrats’ left, represented less by its White House hopefuls than by stars like Omar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). This week, the first real congressional recess of the year, is seeing the first test of that strategy, as new Democrats with strong local images get asked about those other Democrats-- the ones constantly on their TV screens.

At this stage in any congressional cycle, the party committees like to dream big. The Republicans’ target list includes not just the 31 Democrats whose districts backed the president in 2016, but also Democrats whose districts voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. After watching dozens of competent Republicans fail to separate themselves from Trump, they are betting that vulnerable Democrats will not be able to distance themselves from the party’s energized left.

The essential epithet, borrowed from the president, is “socialist”-- a press memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee last week used the phrase “socialist Democrats” no less than 21 times. And Republicans have gotten unexpected air cover from former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz, who has roamed the country threatening to run a centrist campaign for president because of the "mainstreaming of socialism" inside the Democratic Party.

The evidence from some of the new Democrats’ town hall meetings is that the message has broken through, with a caveat-- new members from swing districts are happy to separate themselves from the party’s left. At a Sunday town hall meeting in Virginia’s 10th District, Rep. Jennifer Wexton, one of the Democrats who flipped a seat in 2018, got questions on “anti-Semitism,” why more Democrats did not applaud the president during his State of the Union address, why Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had not resigned over revelations that he wore blackface and had a picture of a Klansman outfit in his medical school yearbook, and even why she hung a transgender flag outside of her office instead of a flag raising awareness of American prisoners of war.

“I chose to hang the transgender flag because that’s a community that’s been under attack,” Wexton said. The man who asked the question and had been recording her answer, packed up and left in a huff.

The hot-button questions did not dominate Wexton’s town hall; the only obviously organized groups that attended represented the health-care and disability rights group Little Lobbyists and the gun-safety group Moms Demand Action, both of which she had supported in the past. The diverse and highly educated 10th District has trended strongly Democratic since it was drawn, and Wexton is not seen as one of the most vulnerable new Democrats.

Even so, the Republican plan of attack against Wexton has been to blur any differences between her and the high-profile left-wing members who dominated the last month of news about the House. An NRCC digital ad running in the district asks if Wexton would impeach the president-- not because he is popular in Northern Virginia, but because Republicans see a chance to define the low-key congresswoman before she can define herself.

“I represent the interests of my constituents,” Wexton said after the town hall. “I know that we hear a lot in the press about certain other people in our class, but each of us has our own agenda and our own constituents that we’re out here representing.”

Rose, whose constituents have voted Republican in recent elections, is in a trickier spot. He was one of the first new Democrats to draw a credible Republican opponent-- Nicole Malliotakis, a member of the state assembly who lopsidedly lost a 2017 run for New York  mayor but carried Staten Island.

In an interview, Malliotakis repeatedly called Rose a “Park Slope liberal” who had won only because a nasty 2018 primary weakened the Republican incumbent. (Rose was raised in that part of Brooklyn, but when his 2018 opponent brought it up, the Democrat said he would have moved to Staten Island sooner, had he not been serving in Afghanistan.) Sure, he criticized Omar, said Malliotakis-- but he voted with her more often than not, and he didn’t call for her to be bounced from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“I’m running against Max and the entire crop of new progressives who have come into the Congress who are trying to move the country toward socialism,” she said. “I thought it was great when he denounced Ilhan Omar, but I was disappointed later that day when he called her a friend with whom he shares values. I think the people of this district deserve to know what values he's referring to.”

Over 90 minutes in a Staten Island church, Rose didn’t distance himself from the Democratic Party. He excoriated the president for leaving the Paris climate accords; he pledged to protect the Affordable Care Act; he stood his ground against a constituent angry that he had opposed a Republican amendment to the Democrats’ omnibus voting rights bill, which would have prevented undocumented immigrants from voting in any election, federal or local. (They already are banned.)

“A lot of people are afraid to actually vote to drain the swamp, so they decided to play games,” Rose said.

But Rose also jumped at the chance to distance himself from the party’s far left. He defended his vote for a different Republican amendment, to the Democrats’ popular background checks bill, which required gun sellers to notify ICE, the immigraiton enforcement agency, if undocumented immigrants tried to make a purchase, by saying that "if someone is buying a weapon who shouldn’t be, authorities should be notified." That did not change his opposition to some of ICE's tactics, he said.

And Rose-- like Wexton-- was dismissive toward the Green New Deal, a climate-change measure proposed by Ocasio-Cortez. Wexton called it an “aspirational” document that didn’t have enough details for her; Rose, just miles from Ocasio-Cortez’s district, said that he wanted to “transition responsibly to a carbon-free economy" and that the major left-wing project of 2019 did not work for him.

“The Green New Deal in so many ways takes a socialist economic agenda, and puts it under the veil of environmentalism,” he said. “That’s not who I am. That’s never who I was. That’s why I’m not a signatory to the Green New Deal-- but, give me a plan to tackle climate change, and I’ll be the first one to sign on.”

I hope Rose understands that it doesn't matter to the Republicans if he supports the ultra-popular Green New Deal or not; they'll blanket the airwaves implying he's a socialist-- and worse-- anyway. No mention in his town hall about the accomplishments of the last president the GOP continuously attacked as a socialist: FDR.

Weigel wrote that "To get to Congress, Rose had dispatched a number of more left-wing challengers" but didn't bother mentioning that the DCCC and Democratic establishment backed Rose and did everything they could to bury the other candidates.

Mike Siegel is a candidate running in a red Texas district, TX-10, that Obama lost both times and where Trump beat Hillary by about 9 points. Last year only 4 points separated Mike and the entrenched GOP incumbent, Michael McCaul. Rose may be afraid of his R+3 district but Siegel is in love with his R+9 district and feel confident he can flip it in 2020 with a strong populist message tailored very much for Texas voters. And he has no fear of the GOP's strategy of calling every Democrat-- the conservatives and the progressives-- "socialists."

At a campaign event with Ted Lieu last night, Mike told the crowd that "according to the GOP, Social Security is a 'socialist' program. Medicare and Medicaid, too. Basically, any program that cares for the poor, for the elderly, for those needing a little extra help to have a fair shot at success. When Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple, and gave alms to the poor and sick, I guess that was 'socialist' too. But it's not 'socialist' when megacorporations, whether Big Tech or Big Oil, get hundreds of millions in subsidies from the American taxpayers. The good thing about this Republican fear-mongering is that at a certain point voters tune it out, and it loses its effect. My plan is to run on a strong progressive platform that serves the needs of the people of the Texas 10th Congressional District. The Republicans refused Medicaid expansion in Texas, and as a result we have rural hospitals closing and sky-high maternal mortality rates. The alternative I support is a commitment to universal healthcare, in the form of Medicare For All. The Republican budget would cut just about every essential social program to pay for tax cuts for the rich. We will campaign on a program of caring for people, not corporations."

Anyone who would like to help Mike bring this message to central Texas, please consider contributing by clicking on the Turning Texas Blue thermometer on the right.

Tomorrow's Primary Day-- And Crowley Is A Villain Not Just In Queens And The Bronx, But In Staten Island And Brooklyn Too!

Today, the furthermost corner of NY-11 is at Avenue P and East 15th Street. When I was a pre-teen, my family had a house on 17th right off Avenue P. One of my friends, Anne, lived with her family on East 14th Street between Avenue P and Kings Highway. We both went to PS 197. Back then we were also in the same congressional district-- Manny Celler's. First elected in 1923, Celler's district was redrawn at least 4 times and back in the early '60s it was NY-11, as it is now-- albeit without Staten Island-- when Anne and I lived in it. Actually she still does. I didn't know that until this week. I hadn't heard from her since we went away to college. We hadn't been in touch. She e-mailed me, inspired to finally reach out by Fred Moguls' WNYC piece, and told me she reads DWT everyday. She told me something I didn't know anything about-- that Grimm called Rose "a pussy" in public, and that mister "courage to lead" said nothing in retort and went on to whine to multiple people about it. That's not a guy who's ready to take on Grimm in a general, and when there was a candidate forum in the very red South shore of Staten Island and it was confirmed Grimm would be there, Rose was a no-show coward. I called her and we caught up. We exchanged pictures. She said she would recognize me instantly. Something like sixty years have passed. I would never have recognized myself. Anyway, Anne said she agrees with everything I write... everything. I love her; no one else agrees with everything. No one. She's petrified the DCCC is going to wind up giving NY-11 back to Michael "Mikie Suits" Grimm by supporting a crummy Blue Dog, Max Rose. She had written a post about her fears but was nervous about sending it to me. Why, I asked, you were always a much better writer than I was. She used to help me with my homework. Here's her guest post. Please encourage her to write more.

The 2 bad guys in the NY-11 race-- Grimm and Rose

Please, Stop Michael Grimm... And The DCCC
-by Anne From Brooklyn

The Darwin awards for political ineptness have yet to be invented, but the DCCC is doing everything it can to win the coveted Most Embarrassing Congressional Election That Doesn't Have To Be Lost category in a landslide.

In 2015, it took the grand prize without breaking a sweat. Never content to settle, the D-trip now aims to break its already impressive record-- in the same district, against the same flawed Republican. It may very well work. But it may also fail spectacularly; particularly if The People have their way.

In 2015, they put up the most clownish Democrat they could think of to screw their hopes so shamefully that Candidate Recchia earned star status on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Recchia went on to raise more funds than any Congressional candidate in history, right before setting another record when he suffered an epically humiliating loss to Republican Michael Grimm. Grimm was not only under indictment at the time, but had just threatened (on live tv!) to break a reporter "in half-- like a little boy" and throw him "over this balcony." The balcony was DC's Congressional Rayburn Building and Grimm ultimately resigned his seat, pleaded guilty to felony tax fraud, and served an eight-month sentence.

Now that he's out and wants his seat back, he is Trumpily primarying the Trumpiest schlump representative, Dan Donovan (the DA who could indict a ham sandwich, but not the NYPD officer who caused the death of Eric Garner with an illegal chokehold).

The DCCC can glide to November victory with the most populist Democrat the district has known in decades by working to help elect Michael DeVito, a guy well-known for his deep integrity, empathy and non-partisan service throughout the district. He's mentored Donovan's own stepson, and, as a Marine, serves as the perfect foil to Grimm. The DCCC is far too masochistic to ever do anything so sensible, though. Instead, they dropped a Blue Dog elitist unknown into the mix to alienate every voter with Nancy Pelosi-isms and empty platitudes. Max Rose isn't just the perfect picture of a limousine Blue Dog, he's a plastic puppet devoid of substance who has in his remarkably short time living amongst the plebs of NY-11 already dropped enough Trumpian whoppers on voters to qualify as the hollowest of candidates, straight from the Build-A-Politician Factory located on K Street.

Max Rose is a compact package of arrogance, spitting out lines fed to him by his D.C. handlers, and while he does, obfuscating that fact at every turn, presenting himself as some sort of anti-establishment everyman. In the early days of his campaign (at least as it was announced; he's been secretly running for office for years) he launched a 100-day "listening tour," which is exactly what you do when you don't know anyone in and anything about the district you're trying to represent. At the beginning of this stunt, he issued his first public lie,"All too often politicians-- both Democrats and Republicans-- develop their policy platforms behind closed doors with lobbyists and truckloads of polling data guiding their decision making. That's not who I am and that's not what this campaign will be about..." Yet just seven days prior, he announced his campaign team, a roster full of D.C. troupers from the revolving door of the DCCC and its consultant class, with one exception: his campaign manager, Kevin Elkins. And if we are the company we keep, then Rose is already a dirty rat.

Elkins' involvement as a Rose staffer didn't happen through old fashioned recruiting, but through a backroom deal akin to extortion that filters through the local county committee. Elkins, formerly the Executive Director of the County Committee, approached the Chairman, John Gulino, to inform him that he would primary the City Councilwoman, Debi Rose. Debi Rose was-- and remains-- the only woman of color elected to office in Staten Island history. With Elkins' notoriety as a dirty player, Gulino had to know the race would get ugly fast, and that the very popular and progressive Debi Rose would get dragged through the difficulty of a filthy campaign-- ostensibly risking the loss of the seat to a Republican in an already strongly-held Republican borough. Gulino offered Elkins the campaign manager slot on Max Rose's team as a way to keep him at bay. And it was this that led the tail to wag the dog, from before the Congressional campaign was announced to the present day.

Elkins is so reviled in Staten Island politics that after he was revealed to be the target of a $10,000 hit by Richard Luthmann (a Staten Island attorney who is himself notorious for suing for the right to a trial by combat), the dark joke throughout the borough was that the $10,000 plan to shoot Elkins failed because there were too many people willing to do it for free. Elkins would use the "hit" revelation for public sympathy, as is his modus operandi, morphing the story that there was a plot into,"I survived an assassination attempt." Elkins remains closely tied to Mike McMahon, having worked on his successful Congressional campaign (followed by his failed one, which he lost to Michael Grimm in 2010), and when Luthmann was remanded without bail, a propensity for violence was presented as grounds for remand, based on the story about Elkins. With McMahon's connections, and a personal aversion to Luthmann (McMahon's wife, Judge Judy McMahon, was a target of online bullying by Luthmann,) it is suspected that the bail revocation and "hit" story may not be entirely as it appears.

Kevin Elkins has a petty history as well in his nefariousness, having a years-long reputation for campaign lawn sign shenanigans, which was unable to be proven until he was caught-- himself-- on camera removing an opponent's lawn signs under cover of night in 2015. The race was for District Attorney, the opponent was Joan Illuzzi, and the candidate Elkins was working for-- Mike McMahon. Not content to end his lawn sign pettiness three years ago, he seems to be continuing his scheme on Max Rose's campaign, directing staff to engage in lawn sign destruction and removal, and planting his candidate's signs where they are not wanted or requested, in an effort to give the appearance his candidate is more popular than he is (lawn signs are a big deal on Staten Island.) With the dearth of local press coverage in the race, this all plays out on Facebook and Twitter, where voters air their grievances.

It is likely Kevin Elkins' language that Max Rose deploys when he issues his pretentiously folksy utterances of "you bet!" And "I'm running because I'm fed up!" and deploys a manufactured Brooklyn accent which doesn't exist in the elitist circles in which he grew up. It's all part of dumbing things down for the lowly voters. And it is Elkins' condescension and detachment from voters, combined with the typical DCCC arrogance and tone deafness that created the narrative of Rose's campaign that he has gleefully followed from Day One. By presenting himself as a soldier hero with the "Courage to Lead," co-opting the Army's motif and logo for his campaign, and talking about his purple heart and Afghanistan at every step, Rose and his ilk are counting on appealing to the militant right wing of the base for the General election, and to scrape through the primary by attempting to scare the bejesus out of anyone left of Reagan: if you don't vote for me, you'll get a convicted felon! I have more money than anyone!

Rose's entire persona is manufactured. Any fans he has parrot "his résumé" which includes a one-year stint at a couple of patronage jobs, respectively, that he touts as the experience needed to advocate for some 700,000+ constituents. He and his handlers have tried to avoid referencing his organic history, so the "elitist" label can be dodged, but his non-political biography reveals the holes of the conceit.

A product of the tony Park Slope section of Brooklyn with a sprinkling of the Hamptons, Rose did not have an association with CD-11 outside of his prep school education (Poly Prep, where his family's ties to the Board and connections with other affluent Brooklynites would provide a deep-pocketed fundraising base.) According to past acquaintances, he was looking for a district to move into run for Congress, and parts of New Jersey were contenders. One such prospect may have been Hoboken, where Leigh Marsanico-Byrne, who he introduced as his fiancee (and now his wife), resided or resides. According to neighbors in the luxury waterfront apartment building he moved into upon his transplantation into Staten Island, she has not lived there throughout their courtship or his campaign, and indeed she is rarely seen on the campaign trail. Further investigation revealed that she owns a property in Hoboken, New Jersey. She registered to vote at Rose's address on November 3, 2017, having never voted in an election (nor been registered to) before in New York or New Jersey. A "child stylist" by profession who runs in socialite circles, it is possible that her absence is a strategy as much as it is a byproduct of her residency.

Rose is sure to highlight his Wesleyan education with his Masters from the London School of Economics. But he quickly zooms to emphasize his work with those he presents as the poor and downtrodden-- lest we forget he actually has a little consideration for people of color and those in poverty (his public statements and answers to questions posed reveal him to believe they are one and the same.) There are three pieces of background he emphasizes repeatedly: his one-year-ish stint as Chief of Staff at Brightpoint Health, his job as "Special Assistant" to Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson, and his membership in Occupy the Block. Ken Thompson was a beloved district attorney who died in the course of his tenure. Rose does not reveal the length of his employment there, but touts his indispensable involvement in the "Begin Again" program which was designed to help clear low-level offenses. The program was launched in July 2015; Rose was working for Brightpoint by the following June. Despite an exhaustive online search to find Max Rose's name on anything associated with the program, he appears on a single piece of correspondence, in minutes of a meeting. As Brooklyn lost its cherished DA, checking the facts with him about Rose's "invaluable" role is impossible.

Rose was at a women's breakfast in Staten Island on Saturday... demonstrating his "stamina to lead?"

Rose repeats his talking points about his position at Brightpoint Health, that he "helped deliver" healthcare to low-income patients and those suffering with addiction and that he "helped bring a medical clinic and drug recovery center to the island." But there was ALREADY a clinic functioning before Brightpoint acquired it, and the grants reveal that funding was in place years before Rose was ever involved. In March 2016, ostensibly around or before the time Rose became involved with the organization, the collaboration between the existing entity, Community Health Action Staten Island ("CHASI") and Brightpoint was already in the works. In Brightpoint, Rose attempts to claim credit for accomplishments he didn't earn. Whether the healthcare "delivered" by Brightpoint is even altruistic at all is another question. Max makes hay of his dedicated volunteerism with Occupy the Block, a neighborhood watch-type initiative that sets up dedicated volunteerism with Occupy the Block, a neighborhood watch-type initiative that sets up twice weekly in the most challenged areas of Staten Island where violence can build. He uses his "Occupy" status in ample photo ops, campaign materials, and speeches. Many of the men of Occupy the Block will tell you they've never heard of him, or that they saw him a few times before he declared his run for office. Others will change the subject immediately to Michael DeVito, and how he's "the real" volunteer for Occupy the Block (a fact specifically cited in DeVito's induction into the NYS Senate Veterans' Hall of Fame.) They may tell you even more about DeVito, and they may tell you nothing else about Max Rose but shoot you a glance that tells you they are not happy with opportunists.

And as with every Blue Dog, that gets right to the root of it all: opportunism. Max Rose is neither a Democrat nor a Blue Dog for his principles. He certainly isn't the progressive he purports himself to be, nor does he have the "courage" he said he has to lead. He is credibly a pro-choice candidate, and that appears to be the sum of his authentic convictions, so the label "Democrat" seems convenient enough. The blind ambition within him makes him a natural choice for the Blue Dog team, and the zeal he has to perpetuate the Military-Industrial Complex at great taxpayer expense and huge profit to the Defense PACs which provide his benefaction makes him a perfect New Dem as well. A perfunctory amateur analysis of the Blue Dog/New Dem combo yielded a predicted "Trump Score" in legislation for of New Dem/Blue Dog cross-endorsed candidate of 43.44, meaning that Rose could be more of a Republican in a House voting record than the existing Congressman, Donovan, and even out-flank from the right Grimm's legislative voting history.

When challenged on his positions, the source of his funding, or to explain his actual experience, he quickly rushes to his combat veteran credentials. "Afghanistan" seems to be the safe word he and his consultants are counting on; that, and to sow enough fear for Democrats and discord between voters of Donovan and Grimm to split the vote and squeak into place. And while he sprinkles his GI Joe tales around, he often forgets his audience. The 11th District has a large population of Muslims of varying ethnicities and origins. It's not surprising to learn that the presentation of the candidate in combat fatigues talking about shooting people in the desert has not resonated pleasantly in congregations of Pakistani-Americans, at Muslim festival celebrations, and among memberships of organizations where peace is fervently pursued.

And then there is the money. Max Rose has only one notable opponent, the aforementioned DeVito. He has made it his business to hit Rose publicly about the sources of some of his funds. Rose had already publicly announced his "corporate PAC money pledge" and subsequently received the endorsement of End Citizens United, the AstroTurf organization that runs a circular conveyor belt with the DNC, Emily's List, and now VoteVets. Let it be stated for the record that this decoy was not deployed until after Rose's overlords were able to ensure they could funnel enough corporate money effectively through other Democratic "leadership" PACs such as the JOEPAC of his chief benefactor, Joe Crowley, and through the joint fundraising agreement Rose shares with Crowley.

On February 15th, the day after the Parkland massacre, a Twitter user later determined to be New York physician Matthew Brown tagged both Rose and Anthony Brindisi for the Blue Dog PAC's $20,000 in NRA cash since 2016 with, "you really want to be supported by blood money? Will you repudiate the NRA's dirty cash?" DeVito issued a scathing rebuke immediately, and apparently earned a reputation for being a shit-stirrer in the district-- something that Centrist Democrats didn't welcome. Rose's handling of the question, however, fared worse. Rose continued to get pressed on the matter on social media, yet never answered. A March for Our Lives group had formed locally with the leadership of a Parkland survivor's cousin, and when a town hall was requested to Donovan and rejected as is the norm, the "MFOL" group began to assemble one of their own, inviting all Congressional candidates to participate, including Grimm and the present Congressman. Max Rose attempted to reclaim his image as a guy against the NRA (some arguments from his surrogates included that it's only a little bit of NRA money in his PAC) and offered to pay for a town hall out of his campaign funds. Both the town hall organizers in Staten Island, and a smaller town hall organization that followed in Brooklyn (which he did not attend) refused his offer and privately expressed their disgust at the hypocrisy.

On April 7th, the "Town Hall for our Lives" proceeded at a Staten Island college, with recitations and tears and statements and elected officials, all surrounding the Parkland massacre and what legislative steps are necessary. Max Rose was able to get through the entire town hall without the question of the Blue Dog NRA funds until the end, when a woman was able to plead for a last question. She posed it, and he answered, "I'm so glad you asked this question," (as if anyone was stopping him from answering at any moment before.) "The Blue Dogs gave it back, and he went on to offer more platitudes and rehearsed sentences about the "F-U" rating he is going to get in Congress, but not before declaring that "an opponent on this stage with me" spread "this lie." With crocodile tears welling up that he had rented from Kevin Elkins, he proceeded to explain how hurtful it was to be damaged by "lies." "We have to be done with these lies" he whined, and declared himself "a proud Blue Dog" while the audience shuffled out.

The Blue Dog's NRA money no longer a focus, a debate was hosted by Swing Left on April 26th, and the subject of PAC money was raised-- once again by DeVito, but this time, with fire, as part of his closing remarks."The Blue Dog Democrats take money from corporations, from Big Pharma, from Monsanto... Max Rose has signed a fundraising agreement with Joe Crowley. THAT'S where the money comes from. You need to believe in your candidate." The moderator allows the microphone to return to Rose for an answer, and his retort was a pompous, "I have raised more money in this race than all of the candidates" [heckles and boos; an audience member shouts, "FROM WHERE?!" And a chant of "from where, from where" begins.] DeVito grabs another mic, "from the oligarchy, from corporate donors, that's from where," and Max Rose shuts down his comments for the rest of the evening, unable to face the criticisms of the voters.

If the notion of Rose's mendacity hadn't yet spread far from the debates and town halls, the trade unions have been tenacious in getting word out throughout the working class voters of the district that he has been particularly disloyal and dishonest regarding Local Union No. 3 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and their strike, which began in March 2017. Near the beginning of Rose's announced candidacy, he was already made aware of the strike that was in effect and published a cursory statement of cheer for the union. He did not join the strike line. Over the course of the following months as the strike continued, he would occasionally send out a tweet or post on social media in statement of support to the Local #3 workers. But on October 27th, he sat down for an interview with the network owned by Charter/Spectrum and said on air that he was proud not to take money from unions. Amongst workers, this caused an outrage. But it was a photo he posted on December 17th that sealed his dishonor among Local #3, and the wider population of trade unionists, "all the political pros told me not to worry about speaking with voters until 3 months before the election" he captioned it, with a fundraising list he purported to represent a voter list. Local #3 workers and family members, who have been using Twitter to publicize their plight during the media blackout about it, began slamming him about the Spectrum remote they spied on his table. He offered an empty "you bet" response to whether he would cancel his service, and claimed he had already called upon the Mayor to cancel Spectrum's franchise agreement in July. A scan of his tweets revealed that he had merely tagged the Mayor in a tweet and considered the matter handled. As a protege of Crowley, who directly accepts campaign funds from Charter/Spectrum as well as Related-- the company union busting at Hudson Yards-- he will soon see that "Union Strong" is a term that brings voting voices with it.

In an atmosphere that is ripe with disgust over corporate greed and politicians who lie; at a time when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is challenging Joe Crowley in a primary that she just may win, the DCCC needs a mandate this year to send them packing and hand the business of being a Democrat back to the voters. The Ivory Tower has proven itself haughty and clueless for long enough, and this season, when a comedian asks, "How the fuck does that happen?!" about CD-11, let's hope it's about how a working-class Marine veteran outraised by nearly a million dollars got a Blue Dog to lie down.

UPDATE: Curtains For Grimm?

There's been a lot of bullshit journalism out in NY-11 about how folks in Staten Island see Mkey Suits as Jesus-reincarnated. Maybe that's because the "journalists" involved were only interviewing his rabid, mentally ill supporters. Yesterday, a Remington Research poll came out and it told a very different story. Interviewing likely 2018 Republican primary voters, they found 83% with favorable attitudes towards Trumpanzee, 55% with favorable attitudes towards incumbent Dan Donovan and just 45% (remember, of Republicans not of normal people) with favorable attitudes towards Grimm. 47% of these Republicans said they will vote for Donovan in tomorrow's primary, 40% said they'll vote for Grimm and 13% are still undecided. Republicans in the Staten Island part of the district say they'll vote for Donovan 47-39% and in the Brooklyn part of the district they'll vote for Donovan 59-26%.