Rushin’ To Destruction, 2019 In Review Part 9-- Quotes From The Front

-by Noah

1. Sarah Huckabee Sanders:

President Trump has a different leadership style and the results speak for themselves. While he spends much of his average day in scheduled meetings, events, and calls, there is time to allow for a more creative environment that has helped make him the most productive president in history.

Sarah, you are to be commended for being able to pack such a staggering amount of bullshit into such a brief statement. I note that, just a few days before, you claimed, with a straight face, that Trump was chosen by God. Charlie Manson’s girls said the same about their guy.

2. Donald Trump:

An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.

Donnie, I’d like to remind you of what another crook of a president, Richard Nixon, said back in 1974 when he had put himself in a similar predicament:

I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.

Both presidents were speaking during their State Of The Union addresses. Trump’s 2020 address promises to be a real ratings winner, complete with pardoned war criminals in the Be Best seats in the House.

3. More Donald Trump: 

Speaking of State Of The Union speechifying, here’s more President Mental Case during his 2019 “speech:”

If I had not been elected President of the Untied State, we would right now in my opinion be in a major war with North Korea.

4. $enator Tom Cotton:

Not surprisingly, the Republican $enator from Arkansas has a disgraceful defense of his idol’s tariffs and how they hurt American farmers. He sees nothing shameful about using our dead war heroes in the cause. This is one sick asshole.

There will be some sacrifice on the part of Americans, I grant you that. But also I would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas, that our fallen heroes who are laid to rest in Arlington make.

Well, Tom Cotton, how about you make a sacrifice. Maybe you’d like to sacrifice some money from whatever bribes you’ve taken in this year under the guise of “campaign contributions” or otherwise. Or, maybe you could donate a couple of your limbs. C’mon, Tom, at least a kidney and a few fingers!

5. Republican Strategist Rick Tyler:

Back in March, Tyler claimed to be upset at what he’d just heard from Trump at CPAC, an annual confab of conservatives. He also claimed to be upset and even surprised about the enthusiastic reception that his boy received.

I thought of saying conservative nutjobs but, really, the word nutjobs isn’t necessary. It’s a give now whenever describing today’s conservatives. Tyler, who obviously lacks the ability or desire to be honest with himself, would like us to forget that it is conservatives who nominated Trump to head their party, nominate far right judges, push a white supremacy agenda, push the biggest tax scam of all time, etc.

It’s interesting about CPAC. It used to be the confab of conservatives who would get together once a year but it’s not CPAC anymore, it hasn’t been since 2016. It’s now Trump-pac and should be TPAC. The people there talk about pro-tariffs, anti-justice, anti-law enforcement, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, pro-Russia, pro-autocrat. It’s unrecognizable what Donald Trump has done to the party and what he’s done to the conservative movement. It’s a shame.

Let’s hear it for the sincerity of conservatives everywhere.

6. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise: 

As the meme above shows Scalise, a republican from Louisiana, is a top-level hypocrite. In July, he took exception to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley staging a July press conference to call for the impeachment of his beloved president.

We expressed our disagreements in a respectful way.

Scalise said he felt that “The Squad” was being disrespectful but he was, of course, wrong. “The Squad” was being respectful of the Constitution and the oath that they swore, something Scalise and his kind seem incapable of. Scalise’s own squad certainly wasn’t at all respectful of President Obama when they called him a liar, even during one of his State Of The Union speeches, and sent each other emails with picture of President Obama with a bone in his nose or carrying a watermelon, plus going on FOX “News” to push their birther conspriracy.

7. Donald Trump, Again:

We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they’re loaded up with money.

Really? Are all those MAGA hat-wearing loons at his rallies feeling loaded up with money? Really? The saddest and most frightening thing is that they hear this from their god Trump and they cheer.

8. Stephanie Grisham, Current White House Press Secretary:

Stephanie Grisham is a one-woman insane quote machine. For whatever reasons, she doesn’t appear in public like her predecessor, but she’s at least the equal of Sarah Huckabee Sanders when it comes to “the crazy.”

I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.

Republican Establishment vs Justin Amash

In 2012, the Democrats decided to try beating Justin Amash with someone more socially conservative, an especially vile Blue Dog type (think Lipinski) named Steve Pestka. How much more conservative is Pestka? Amash isn't homophobic. Pestka is a real hater and refers to gay people in incredibly vicious ways ("fudge-packer," etc). They're both anti-Choice but Pestka doesn't allow for an exception for rape and incest and Amash does. When David Malone, PAC Director of Right to Life of Michigan was asked why they didn't endorse Amash that year, he said "Right to Life of Michigan PAC has chosen not to endorse the candidacy of Representative Amash in the 2012 primary election. While he was previously endorsed in the 2010 general election and during his time in the state legislature, his voting record in Congress led the state board of the Right to Life of Michigan PAC to decide to not endorse his candidacy in the upcoming election. In his first term in Congress, Representative Amash voted "present" twice on legislation to defund Planned Parenthood (America's leading abortion provider) and voted "no" on legislation to outlaw sex-selection abortions." Michigan Right to Life rated Pestka's voting record 100% when he was in the state legislature and he did join the extremists in voting to defund Planned Parenthood. Pestka was the only Democrat in a congressional race to win the Michigan Right to Life endorsement.

Blue America doesn't endorse Republicans but we urged our members in MI-03 to not vote for Pestka, who spent $2,076,680 to Amash's $1,193,611. Amash beat him handily:

In 2008, Obama beat McCain 49.7% to 48.6% in the district. Romney beat Obama in 2012-- 53.1% to 45.8%. And in 2016-- after Bernie won the district in the primaries-- Hillary was decisively beaten by Trump, 51.6% to 42.2%. The PVI is R+6. Most people in the district live in Kent County (Grand Rapids, Michigan's second biggest city). These were the totals on primary day, 2016:

• Bernie- 43,375
• Ted Cruz- 35,185
• Hillary- 25,899
• Kasich- 25,562
• Señor Trumpanzee- 22,742

The presidential election saw Trump win districtwide with 51.6% while Amash won his race among the same voters on the same day, beating Democrat Douglas Smith 203,545 (59.5%) to 128,400 (37.5%). When the Republican establishment has gotten behind primary challengers to Amash, they never got too close. In 2014, the last big one, the establishment helped recruit a multimillionaire businessman, Brian Ellis, and Amash beat him 39,706 (57.4%) to 29,422 (42.6%).

Trump allies-- basically the whole GOP-- were in freakout mode after Amash made the case for impeachment over the weekend. McCarthy and Scalise ran to Trump TV to attack Amash. You can imagine how Trump-- already getting testy with Fox-- feels about his base seeing and hearing stuff like this that they wouldn't normally see and hear. Watch Scalise attempt to reiterate all the false talking points that Fox viewers/the Trump base are brainwashed with. Not even a mention of Fox when responding to the first question, just the rote party line lies.



But that's just the beginning. The GOP also has another primary opponent for Amash, an obscure right-wing state Rep from Montcalm County, Jim Lower, who has to give up his state House seat to run. Lower's district has a tiny part of the MI-03 district's voters. Last year, for example, 210,525 people voted in the MI-03 congressional election and 48,925 people from Calhoun County voted. Way in the northeastern part of the district, Montcalm provided just 1,758 votes.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Lower says he's been planning to run for some time and had expected to make an announcement closer to July 4. Amash's tweet storm against Trumpanzee was too big an opportunity to forgo. Lower: "I am a Pro-Trump, Pro-Life, Pro-Jobs, Pro-2nd Amendment, Pro-Family Values Republican. Congressman Justin Amash tweets yesterday calling for President Trump’s impeachment show how out of touch he is with the truth and how out of touch he is with people he represents. He must be replaced and I am going to do it."

Like most Beltway reporters, the Washington Post's Isaac Stanley Becker is impressed that Amash "enlists social media to do something unusual: explain why he bucks his party in terms his constituents can understand." Amash explains his approach on his Facebook page: "I defend liberty and explain every vote here." According to Becker "The simple formula has turned the libertarian, who rode into the House on the tea party wave, into something of a sensation. In 2012, the Independent Voter Network called Amash the 'coolest member of Congress.'"

But Lower doesn't think he's cool at all. He accused him of joining hands with "radical liberals"-- naming Detroit Democrat Rashida Tlaib in particular-- "to try and bring down our President."

In an interview with Becker, Lower came off just like every other GOP zombie, admitting he hadn't read the Mueller report but has already decided there was "no collusion, no obstruction." A friend of mine in Congress told me she hasn't spoken to a single Republican who has read it other than Amash. "Trump tells them what to say, what to think and they're too scared to do anything else. So why bother reading hundreds of pages? Sometimes I ask myself," she continued, "how many of them have read the Constitution since graduating from high school."

On Sunday, Lower changed his profile picture on Facebook to an image of himself standing in front of a Trump 2020 banner.

Amash has stood under a different banner. At the top of his Facebook page, he has pinned a warning from President George Washington about the “baneful effects” of party loyalty, delivered in his farewell address in 1796.

...[Amash] served one term in the state House in Lansing before he was elected to Congress in 2010. There, he allied with hard-line conservatives to form the House Freedom Caucus, whose members have mostly fallen in line with Trump.

A darling of conservative and libertarian groups, Amash has only once faced a credible primary challenge. He beat his Republican rival, Michigan businessman Brian Ellis, in 2014 by nearly 15 percentage points. Trump won the district handily in 2016, even flipping one county that had been secured by Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.

The congressman’s survival may now depend on whether he has cultivated devotion among voters sufficient to override their loyalty to the president. His political prospects run through Facebook, where he has labored to convince constituents that he is accountable to them at a time when public trust in the government is mired near historic lows.

His heterodox moves have been the ones requiring most careful explanation on social media. He bucks his party in not voting for measures he supports, such as approval of the Keystone XL pipeline or the preservation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because he disagrees with the underlying legislative approach.

Social media, the very tool used by Trump in 2016 to bypass media and party gatekeepers and speak directly to voters, could be a bulwark against the president’s attacks. It could help test whether Republicans can break with their standard-bearer and survive. Each Facebook post, in which voters add comments and raise questions, serves as a miniature, and digitized, town hall. Amash has more than 136,000 followers on the platform, about one-fifth of the total number of people 16 and over in his district, according to census estimates.

“Social media is revolutionizing government and making Congress more accountable,” Amash said in 2012, when he emerged as a winner of a Republican new media challenge. “I use Facebook to explain every vote I take on the House floor, and I personally interact with my constituents online. This not only empowers people at home but also shapes me into a better Representative.”

The social networking site has also been a powerful tool of personal branding, helping Amash earn his nickname, “Mr. No,” based on the sobriquet “Dr. No” embraced by Ron Paul, the former Texas congressman whose small-government philosophy the Michigan lawmaker shares.

Amash uses Facebook to make Star Wars jokes and flaunt his literacy in emoji. Some of his posts are personal, thanking God for his family or extolling the memory of Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and apostle of the free market.

But mostly, he explains his “no” votes. No to executive action on immigration. No to federal aid to Flint, Mich., during the height of the water contamination crisis. No to budget plans to keep the government open. No to the National Security Agency’s dragnet collection of phone records.

He even declines to approve the record of House proceedings, protesting, “we are never given adequate time to review the Journal.”

On the question of impeachment, however, Amash answered in the affirmative. Not only did the president’s conduct meet the constitutional standard for impeachment, he argued, but the attorney general, William P. Barr, had “misled the public” about the special counsel’s findings as they pertained to Trump’s possible “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

“While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct,” the congressman wrote.

Instantly, voters took to the congressman’s Facebook to register their reactions, both positive and negative. He was by turns lauded as an independent thinker, with the best interests of the country at heart, and castigated as a turncoat, interested only in attention.

A professor at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., thanked him for representing the state with “honesty and honor.” Another woman wrote, “Thank you so much for the courage to speak the truth.”

But he was also told, “You’re fired,” and instructed by an incensed Republican to, “Register immediately as a Democrat and turn in your man card.” Several critics invoked his father’s Palestinian heritage in questioning his loyalty to the Trump and to the United States.

Amash has yet to respond.

Sunday, Seattle progressive Pramila Jayapal, an influential member of the House Judiciary Committee was on State of the Union and say that Amash's statement of conscience is "a watershed moment. For weeks, Speaker Pelosi has saying this needs to be bipartisan if it's going to move forward just from the practical perspective of impeachment moving forward. And I think Justin Amash coming on board means that there is now bipartisan support for really understanding the seriousness of what is in the Mueller report." Adam Schiff was on Face the Nation where he noted that Amash is showing "more courage than any other Republican in the House or Senate." But Pelosi is Trump's bulwark against impeachment and she is unmoved and unwilling to do her duty. She should be removed.

Amash's ProgressivePunch crucial vote score for 2019 is 42.86%. The next highest Republican score is 21.43%, a 3-way tie between Nrian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), John Katko (R-NY) and Will Hurd (R-TX). All wish they had the guts to make an announcement like Amash's. But what I wanted to point out is that there are two Blue Dog freshmen-- Kendra Horn (OK) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM)-- with the same score as Amash and five Democrats who vote less progressively than Amash. From terrible to worst:

• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 35.71
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 35.71
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 35.71
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)- 35.71
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 28.57

Cathy Albro, the garden variety Democrat who Amash beat in 2018, is running again. He'd beat her again if she's the nominee, but a more progressive Democrat, Doug Booth, has announced his candidacy as well. He's certainly not a DCCC-type candidate, more of an independent thinker. This morning, the first page of his website had this message:

"Having read the report, I am in agreement with Representative Justin Amash’s tweets regarding the Mueller Report. The acts committed by the President are impeachable while Attorney General Barr intentionally misled the American public on findings within the report. Amash has now joined a majority of Americans who have come to this same conclusion. Congress must take meaningful action now to ensure that behaviors exemplified by Trump will not become the status quo for the Office of the President.

There is no specific call for action in Amash’s series of tweets. I believe that the full unredacted report should be made available to the American people. Furthermore, Congress must begin additional investigations to address any findings of wrongful acts and formally begin the impeachment process.

Our district deserves a Representative whose words are followed by meaningful action. Upon election, I vow to focus on policies that benefit working families in our country and build a democracy that works for all Americans."

In a series of 10 rapid fire tweets late this afternoon, Amash made it clear he's not backing down. Here they are in a pre-tweet presenation:

He began simply enough, in answering a White House rationale for why Trump shouldn't be impeached: "People who say there were no underlying crimes and therefore the president could not have intended to illegally obstruct the investigation-- and therefore cannot be impeached-- are resting their argument on several falsehoods:"

1- They say there were no underlying crimes

In fact, there were many crimes revealed by the investigation, some of which were charged, and some of which were not but are nonetheless described in Mueller’s report.

2- They say obstruction of justice requires an underlying crime.

In fact, obstruction of justice does not require the prosecution of an underlying crime, and there is a logical reason for that. Prosecutors might not charge a crime precisely *because* obstruction of justice denied them timely access to evidence that could lead to a prosecution.

If an underlying crime were required, then prosecutors could charge obstruction of justice only if it were unsuccessful in completely obstructing the investigation. This would make no sense.

3- They imply the president should be permitted to use any means to end what he claims to be a frivolous investigation, no matter how unreasonable his claim.

In fact, the president could not have known whether every single person Mueller investigated did or did not commit any crimes.

4- They imply “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” requires charges of a statutory crime or misdemeanor.

In fact, “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined in the Constitution and does not require corresponding statutory charges. The context implies conduct that violates the public trust-- and that view is echoed by the Framers of the Constitution and early American scholars.

I found this nice meme a few times in Amash's Facebook page's comments section:

Do You Ever Look Forward To Reading Campaign E-Mails? Here's A Tip For You

There are very few campaign e-mails with opening, even if it's from one of your favorite candidates. The candidates don't write them and the campaign e-mail-writing industry is the most hackish piece of the political business. The e-mails can ruin the image of even the most authentic candidates. The formulas come directly from the party committees and it's sad to watch even good candidates eventually give up and buy into their general tenor of deception, hysteria and stupidity. Although there are a few candidates who refuse to buy into the approach-- very few-- two exceptions whose e-mails are usually a joy to read are Alan Grayson's and Bernie Sanders'-- coincidentally, two of the only candidates who have been successful at racing money from the grassroots. You'd think more candidates could add 2 and 2 and come up with 4. I want to give you two examples from the last couple of days. First Grayson, who writes the e-mails personally and who asked what if Democrats win?

The national polling is forcing us to contemplate an extremely important question:

What if the Democrats win?

What if the Democrats win the House-- and the Senate?  What if the Democrats win the White House back in 2020?

My answer is simple.  It’s not just enough to win. You have to make the lives of ordinary people better.  You have to get good things done.

As July draws to a close, think about that.  We need to have someone in Congress who is determined to carry our progressive banner to victory, and GET GOOD THINGS DONE.

Eight years ago, when Scott Brown won Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat and deprived the Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, certain people said, “OK, well, that’s it; let’s concede that the GOP will filibuster everything to death, and we’ll just have to see what happens after the next election.”

And certain other people said, “to hell with that. We have 50 million Americans who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick. We have to solve these kinds of problems, or we’re not worth a damn. Power without progress is pointless.”

I was one of those certain other people. (So was Nancy Pelosi, by the way.)

In the beginning, the middle and the end, it’s all about the good things you can do for people.

Frankly, having been through it once, I’m concerned about what might happen if we win. For too many Democrats, all it will mean is three more staffers, a larger office, and a couple of nice “congressional delegation” trips.

I want to be in Congress because, whether the Democrats win or we lose, someone has to do his best to get good things done.

Because that’s what it’s all about.

That makes more of a case to vote for him than an e-mail that says "I need you to contribute before midnight's deadline," don't you think? E-mails like that are disrespectful and usually cause me to unsubscribe from the candidate's list.

The dumbest e-mail I got today came from Republican majority whip, Steve Scalise (R-LA). I'm glad to see it isn't only Democrats who write this kind of repulsive garbage to their grassroots. Does this make you want to throw up? Most e-mails from establishment Democrats are just as bad-- exactly just as bad; only the cast of characters change:

Now Bernie's e-mail from yesterday. It goes along with this video he made about Medicare-for-All:



This explains why Bernie should be the Democratic nominee in 2020 and why congressional candidates who don't pussyfoot around with "but we should fix Obamacare first" should be our nominees. Bernie's e-mail, starts with the assertion that "our ideas are winning," something that drives the establishments of both political parties-- and the donors who underwrite the careers of their leaders-- up the wall.

Earlier this week, a Koch brothers-sponsored study shared widely with the corporate media tried to scare people into thinking Medicare for all would be too expensive for our country.

But what the study did was show that Medicare for all would actually save the American people $2 trillion over 10 years. And it would do so while providing health care for 30 million Americans who don’t have it today and eliminating premiums, deductibles and co-payments to private health insurance companies.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

So I want to thank the Koch brothers. I do not think their study had its intended effect.

This year, more candidates than ever before are campaigning on the idea that health care should be a right for every man, woman and child in this country, and not a privilege. They are campaigning on that issue not just in places like New York and Vermont, but in Kansas, Texas, and states traditionally thought of as “red” and “purple.”

And I intend to support them, because they are sure to face unlimited sums of money from the insurance and drug companies, from Wall Street and the Koch brothers and from all those fighting to protect their profits and the status quo.

...Medicare for all is an idea that's time has come.

This is no longer a “radical” or a “fringe” idea. The last poll I saw showed that it is an idea supported by 63 percent of the American people.

And why?

Because people understand that the function of a rational health care system in this country should be to provide quality care for everyone in a cost-effective way, not to make health industry CEOs richer or drive up stock prices on Wall Street.

Let me also be clear that a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system will increase wages and expand employment by lifting a major financial weight off of the businesses burdened by employee health expenses.

Americans who are currently in jobs they don't like but must stay put because of health care access would be free to explore more productive opportunities as they desire. That is real freedom.

Today the United States remains the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all while spending more per capita than any other nation. If every major country on earth can do it, please do not tell me the United States cannot.

So I am going to spend the rest of the year campaigning not just for my re-election, but for candidates who agree with us on this issue.

In this pivotal moment in American history, we must go forward to guarantee health care as a right and not a privilege. This is a struggle not just about health care but about the heart and soul of our country, about what we stand for as a people. And it is a struggle we are winning.

Good campaign e-mails tell what candidates are going to do for you, not just what they want from you. I love the way Bernie signs his letters too: "In solidarity." And then this:

Republicans Ready To Give Up The House, Circle The Wagons To Save Their Slim Senate Majority

Albatross by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, Politico made it sound like the McCarthy vs Scalise battle to take over as Speaker is breaking news. It isn't. The two of them have been aware Ryan won't be running in November and they have been quietly courting supporters for the better part of a month as Ryan gets ready for the big announcement. Rachel Bade and John Bresnahan wrote "House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise have started courting Republicans in case the speaker retires." and "Two top members of Paul Ryan’s leadership team, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, have begun angling for his job in the event the speaker calls it quits after the election." He's leaving-- and it's fairly common knowledge. And what about before the election? After all, after the election, it isn't likely to be voluntary, since the likelihood of Randy Bryce beating him-- despite Inside the Beltway deluded punditry-- is overwhelming.

They also wrote "Neither man is actively rounding up votes at this point, and both of them downplayed the possibility of a looming clash." That is false and several GOP congressional staffers have told me each one is rounding up votes. In fact, McCarthy, one of Congress' biggest bribe-takers (after Ryan), has been spending and steering big money to Republican members he thinks have a chance of serving the wave and could be around after the election to vote for leader. Saclised is touring the country trying to help GOP loons win their reelection battles. "Scalise said in an interview that he would not challenge McCarthy for speaker-- 'I’m not running against Kevin for anything,' he told Politico-- while McCarthy said he’s focused solely on keeping the House in November and pursuing President Donald Trump’s agenda." More bullshit. And the far right fringe of the party is trying to round up votes too-- for Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC).

On the other hand, more and more Republicans are starting to face up to the fact that whomever replaces Ryan will be Minority Leader of a greatly diminished caucus, not Speaker. This morning, the Washington Post reportedthat "Republicans are increasingly worried they will lose control of the House in the midterm elections, furiously directing money and resources to hold and potentially boost their narrow majority in the Senate. To many, the Senate is emerging as a critical barrier against Democrats demolishing President Trump’s agenda beginning in 2019. Worse yet, some in the GOP fear, Democrats could use complete control of Congress to co-opt the ideologically malleable president and advance their own priorities. Democratic enthusiasm is surging in suburban districts that House Republicans are struggling to fortify, causing GOP officials, donors and strategists to fret. They have greater confidence in the more rural red states Trump won convincingly that make up the bulk of the Senate battlefield." GOP donors are starting to ignore House battles and putting everything into holding on in the Senate.

Yesterday, Republican pollster told Fox News that the party's over-- possibly in both Houses. "I think the Republicans are in deep trouble in the House and the Senate as well. If the election were held today, frankly, I think Republicans would lose both."

The new poll from Reuters confirms that, particularly because older, educated white voters are joining the kids and the minority voters in their distaste for all things Trump. Older, white, educated voters helped Trump win in 2016 but are now "trending toward Democrats in such numbers that their ballots could tip the scales in tight congressional races from New Jersey to California."

Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points.

The 12-point swing is one of the largest shifts in support toward Democrats that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has measured over the past two years. If that trend continues, Republicans will struggle to keep control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, in the November elections, potentially dooming President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white, and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who closely tracks political races. “If that continues to November, they’re toast.”

...Nationally, Democrats plan to campaign strongly for older voters, focusing on issues such as taxes, healthcare and the economy as campaigns heat up later this year, party strategists said. Republicans, meanwhile, are touting the benefits of their tax cuts and the improved economy.

In an ad that began rolling out last week in Indiana, Priorities USA Action, the largest Democratic Party fundraising group, highlights increases to the federal deficit caused by Republican tax cuts. “Now there’s a plan to cut Medicare to pay for it,” the ad says, a line designed to raise older Americans’ anxiety about the government healthcare program for over 65s.

Priorities spokesman Josh Schwerin said it plans to spend $50 million on such ads in several states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Voters between the ages of 60 and 65 are particularly worried about healthcare, said Brigid Harrison, a political scientist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, because they are paying ever higher private health insurance premiums and are not yet eligible for Medicare.

The Trump Wing Of The GOP-- David Duke Says He's Serious About Challenging Republican Whip Steve Scalise

David Duke has had almost as much plastic surgery as Herr Trumpf

So Bernie endorsed Hillary yesterday. No surprise there. It's what he had to do, I guess. I mean who would want to be complicit in electing Donald J. Trump-- aside from a very one dimensional Paul Ryan? Ryan's excuse is that he wants to sell his party's deadly and toxic austerity agenda. Poor Ryan thought he could be the GOP's "voice of moral clarity," but the base picked Trump for that job and "he now finds himself in the most chaotic climate his party has seen in more than a generation."

“The underlying dynamics that drove out John Boehner remain,” Mr. Dent said of the former speaker. “Now you have Donald Trump and all his rhetoric, and he knows most of his members want him to support Trump while others like me want to keep their distance. Then, not being able to pass a budget may be one of the greatest frustrations for the speaker. A lot of members don’t want anything to do with firearms or the budget. They want to cancel the session after the election. That is where we are.”

...It is particularly rankling for Mr. Ryan, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, that he is unable to pass a budget. The most conservative House Republicans do not want to honor a deal struck by Mr. Boehner and the White House last year, which raised statutory budget caps to increase government spending. Many have made it clear they will not vote for a budget with that higher spending level.

This has made the appropriations process equally charged. But that is where Mr. Ryan has other problems. Those bills have failed because of fights over an amendment to bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, fights over the use of the Confederate flag and other social issues.

With Republicans likely to lose seats in November, narrowing their large majority in the House, the most conservative members are likely to make up a larger, not small percentage of his conference after November. Gerrymandered Republican House districts, which produce very conservative members, and the probable sweeping out of moderate members in a presidential year combine to make it so.

No one in their right mind could describe Ryan's chief whip, Steve Scalise of a backward, blood red-- and whitest-- Louisiana district, as a "moderate." He's a hard right ideologue who was forced on the leadership so that the lunatic fringe would feel they had their own man in the decision-making process. But, no one ever accused David Duke, former KKK Grand Dragon or High Wizard or something of being in his right mind. And now Duke, who used to represent the heart of Scalise's district (Metarie) in the state legislature, claims he's going to run against the whip and Cantor him. (The filing date in Louisiana is just over a week from now, July 22.)

Scalise once campaigned in the district by calling himself "David Duke without the baggage." Duke is running on a purely racist platform and his statements sound a lot more like Trump's than like Paul Ryan's. He calls Scalise, who recently voted to ban Confederate flags in V.A. cemeteries, "sellout Steve Scalise" and issued a Trump-like statement: "I don’t take any satisfaction in the fact that I was right, but I have been right. Unless European Americans stand up, they are going to lose everything they care about in this country. There are millions of people across the country who would like to have me in the Congress. I’d be the only person in Congress openly defending the rights and the heritage of European Americans. We are on the offensive today. There’s no more defenses."

He accused Scalise of crawling "on his hands and his knees to the black caucus," and there are few things you can about a politician in that part of Louisiana that is more insulting. He's said similar crap about the Newtster for his recent speech that intimated that blacks are human, and told the media that he would be a better VP pick for Trump. But he claims that Trump "won’t reach out to him because the candidate fears 'offending the oligarchs,' a term Duke uses for the political establishment he said is controlled by Jewish, Hispanic and African American interests." By the way, McCain won LA-01 with 73% and Romney won the district with 71%. Last cycle, Scalise was reelected with 78%.

David Duke Says Scalise Is Far From The Only Right-Wing Politician Who Played Footsie With Him

Thanks to the exposure of his neo-Nazi group's relationship with Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), David Duke is enjoying a moment of national quasi-relevance again-- long after most people thought the expatriate Austrian resident would never be heard from again. Duke joined the KKK when he was 17 and formed his first neo-Nazi group, the White Youth Alliance, when he was a college student in Baton Rouge in 1970. He gained notoriety by parading around the LSU campus in a Nazi uniform. His first run for political office was in 1975 in Baton Rouge when he ran for the state Senate as a Democrat. His campaigns have been primarily hustles to make money and he has widely been regarded as a scam artist, ripping off morons in the Klan, Nazis and Republicans. He kept running for any office he could file for and wasn't taken seriously until 1989 when he officially joined the GOP and won a Louisiana state House seat in Metairie near New Orleans, after a run-off against John Treen, the brother of former Governor David Treen. Treen was endorsed by President George H.W. Bush and former President Ronald Reagan but the Nazi was popular with the angry racist Republican base and he he won anyway.

With the Republican Party-- and mainstream conservatives in general-- having migrated away from overt anti-Semitism by the 1960s, Duke's neo-Nazi mania hurt him with garden variety GOP racists who feel completely entitled to just hate blacks and Hispanics. One of Duke's campaign managers explained that "The Jews just aren't a big issue in Louisiana. We keep telling David, stick to attacking the blacks. There's no point in going after the Jews, you just piss them off and nobody here cares about them anyway." Duke, however, was a devoted anti-Semite and Nazi and he sold copies of Mein Kampf from the state Capitol while he was a Republican legislator in Baton Rouge.

Even today, Duke's official website, is filled with the kind of hysterical Jew-hatred that was popular among American conservatives before Duke was born. Duke sees the whole kerfuffle over Scalise as a Jewish plot. In his world, Scalise is being "excoriated by the Zio-dominated media."

[T]he attack on Dr. Duke and Rep. Scalise is completely hypocritical.

The President of the United States of America, Barak Obama, has for a lifetime supported his radical, racist preacher, Rev. Wright who has literally screamed “God damn America” and spouted the most vicious hatred against white people!

But the Zio mass media does not condemn Barak Obama for maintaining his close relationship with Wright to this day!

The truth is that Dr. Duke shows how the establishment fosters hatred between both groups in a divide and conquer strategy that harms both African Americans and European Americans, and diverts attention from the real controllers of the media, the trillions stolen from both blacks and whites by the international Zio bankers such as Goldman Sachs and the FED.

The establishment which has spent trillions of dollars needed by both blacks and whites-- in insane Zionist Wars such as war in Iraq, fought only for the interest of Israel.

Zionists also control the politics of the United States domestically, and the real reason they have attacked Scalise is because he said he endorsed Dr. Duke’s policies. They are afraid he might might someday spill the beans on the Zionists because he may have dared to to speak at meeting where Dr. Duke spoke. And remember that the keynote speech Dr. Duke made at that meeting was primarily about the organization’s opposition to the insane Iraq War—which was vociferously supported by the Zio media and government.

And that is why the media lies about Dr. David Duke, and why they scream the lie that he supports “racial supremacism” and “hate.”

...Now let’s go over the lies of the media in directed at Steve Scalise for possibly meeting with his constituents-- constituents who also supported David Duke. Remember that  Dr. Duke received over 60 percent of the popular vote in the Scalise’s district. They voted for Dr. Duke to be their U.S. Congressman, and a year later, to be their Governor.

The media attack is not against Dr. Duke and Rep. Scalise but also against the millions who support Dr. Duke in Louisiana, the United States and all over the world-- to which the millions of views of his videos provide evidence.

As Dr. David Duke has repeatedly pointed out in a number of radio shows on the topic, the facts are quite clear:

1- There is no clear evidence that Rep. Scalise even attended a European Rights Organization (EURO) meeting in 2002.
2- Dr. Duke personally never attended the meeting in question, never saw Rep. Scalise or even knew that he had been invited.
3- Some people who attended the meeting said that Rep. Scalise had not been present, while others recall him being present early and leaving.
4- Rep. Scalise has repeatedly said that he does not remember specifically attending the meeting, as he addressed a large number of groups in his constituency, and did not have the staff to vet every single invitation.

...After all, what the Zio-media is actually saying is that Rep. Scalise is not allowed to meet with his own constituents! How is that “democracy”? Since when did it become a crime for a Congressman to meet constituents?

So why then the media fuss over Rep. Scalise?

Would the media make the same fuss if Rep. Scalise had spoken at a La Raza Hispanic advocacy meeting?

Would the media make the same fuss if Rep. Scalise had spoken at a AIPAC Jewish lobby advocacy meeting?

...So why they the fuss over Rep. Scalise allegedly addressing a small meeting of European-American rights advocates?

...The answer to this question lies, of course, in the fact that Dr. Duke is the world’s leading opponent and exposer of Jewish Supremacist racism-- and although the Zio-media tries to ignore him, or continuously slander him, the internet has undermined all their efforts to control the news and what people can read, see and hear... The reason for the Zio-media lynching is clear: it is only because the Jewish Lobby fears that their control of the US political process, their control of the mass media and of the banking system, will be exposed and come to wider public knowledge.

For this reason, and this reason alone, they seek to stamp on anyone who has even the slightest, most improbable and unlikely connection with Dr. Duke-- and in this case, their sacrificial lamb is the totally innocent Rep. Scalise.

Scalise has already made a half-assed apology for speaking at the neo-Nazi rally and the House Republican leadership has declared the case closed. But Duke isn't letting go so fast, not when he can use the notoriety to sucker racist Republicans out of money. Now he's threatening to expose other politicians who have been to his racist rallies-- and not just Republicans. He claims he's met with Democratic politicians at least 50 times as well and he's threatening to release a list of Republicans and Democrats who've been tied to him in one way or another. "If Scalise is going to be crucified-- if Republicans want to throw Steve Scalise to the woods, then a lot of them better be looking over their shoulders." Jarvis DeBerry at the Times Picayune:

I'd imagine that a threat from a white supremacist is pretty much like the bark of a dog.  One doesn't know if that barking will be followed by any meaningful action.

But as I wrote earlier, the news that links Scalise to a Duke event is a reminder of how many politicians thought Duke's supporters could help them politically.  Mike Foster paid $150,000 for a Duke mailing list during his successful 1995 gubernatorial run. Woody Jenkins, who ran for U.S. Senate the following year, paid $82,500 for a telephone list of Duke supporters.

I'm guessing that politicians today would be willing to pay that much-- if not more-- to keep Duke from exposing them as friendly to him and his supporters.

That is, if Duke isn't just blowing smoke, and really has a list of names that he could reveal.

But does he? How many Louisiana politicians might be trembling at the idea of their names being on Duke's touted list?

Louisiana racists David Duke and Steve Scalise

Before The Selma March Massacre There Was B. Bumble & The Stingers And... Tchaikovosky

With apologies to Ken-- and in recognition of all the work he's done to make sure everyone at DWT knows everything there is to know about The Nutcracker-- I wanted to mention something not many people do remember about the score to that 1892 ballet. First though, by way of a little refresher, this is a performance by the Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Volker Hartung, filmed in Hamburg, February 1, 2009.



Officially Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite op.71a, it is better known in America as the March of the Toy Soldiers. And there was a 1962 version, "Nut Rocker," by Los Angeles-based session musicians calling themselves B. Bumble & The Stingers (which included the great drummer Earl Palmer whose work you might recognize from albums by Neil Young, Frank Sinatra, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Sam Cooke, the Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, Tim Buckley and dozens of others). The single went to #23 in the U.S. and #1 in the U.K. Emerson, Lake and Palmer recorded a somewhat overblown version a decade later in 1972, although here they are, in all their glory, live in Switzerland in 1970, doing the song after their first album was released:



In between B. Bumble & The Stingers' version and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's cover, a different march was gripping Americans-- 3 marches that attempted to go from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965. The ferocity of the police brutality against the peaceful, non-violent marchers by the racist and fascist beasts led to a national feeling of disgust towards the vicious thugs still dominating The South and, soon after, to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, apparently not something LBJ was eager to get behind. Listen to him and Alabama's sick, racist governor, George Wallace, discussing the march on the phone:



I was a college freshman during this period and the impact on my soul was tremendous and existential. I still can't not cry when I watch depictions of that march. Everyone I know who has seen Selma is raving about it:




By the way, Louisiana's racist Republican congressman, Steve Scalise, Boehner's Majority Whip, is not accused of forgetting whether or not he spoke at a gay rights convention or of wandering into a conclave advocating economic justice for all Americans. David Duke, whose organization Scalise addressed, was a well-known Republican politician who ran for statewide and local office and served as the state Rep for the Metairie area, near where Scalise lived, an area he later served in the state legislature himself. While there, Duke distinguished himself by espousing neo-Nazi ideology on the floor of the legislature and selling copies of Mein Kampf in the state Capitol. There is no one in Louisiana who didn't know this at the time. And no one who didn't know Duke was the Grand Wizard of the KKK or what the KKK was advocating for blacks, Latinos and Jews. It was on TV, radio and on the front pages of the newspapers. Today, the third-ranking Republican in Congress, Scalise doesn't have what it takes to admit he was wrong and promise to mend his racist ways.

Boehner solemnly accepts Scalise's excuse that he thought he was addressing a bedsheet manufacturers' convention

Steve Scalise Admires Patrick McHenry's "Judgment"

The House Republicans' new odd couple-- with whips, no less

One of the all-time silliest congressional debuts was made by bombastic little North Carolina closet case Patrick McHenry in 2005. He went to school at a Benedictine monastery that doubles as a religionist "college," Belmont Abbey. He was president of the Young Republican Club there and made a name for himself by dressing up like Abe Lincoln and waving a sign that read "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?" somewhere near a Bill Clinton appearance. A couple years later he started and ran a website called notHillary.com, for which Bush rewarded him with a sinecure at the Department of Labor. McHenry had previously worked for Karl Rove on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign and he was eager to get to Washington and make a name for himself. An unimpressive and diminutive figure he started bragging that he would be the model for how Republicans should vote and vowed to never vote with the Democrats. Although his 1.86 lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is pretty horrible, there are now several dozen Republicans with even more right wing voting records, including Eric Cantor (1.41), who was just disowned by the party for not being right-wing enough.

McHenry took a more garden variety conservative approach after several career threatening scandals. He seems to have made a deal with the devil and was given a seat on the very lucrative HouseFinancial Services Committee, which he has used to further his ambitions by taking $2,068,336 in legalistic bribes from the finance sector he's supposed to be overseeing.

Yesterday at this time, Steve Scalise, the new GOP Whip-designee, appointed the clownish, bowtie-wearing McHenry his chief deputy-dawg. Under Scalise and McHenry, the senior whip team is made up of Kristi Noem (SD), Dennis Ross (FL), Aaron Schock (IL), Steve Stivers (OH) and Ann Wagner (MO), a lackluster team of hawkish right-wingers. Like McHenry, Schock is also a closet case and Stivers' normally quiescent office was shaken up by a scandal involving photos of his chief of staff's penis. Schock was widely expected to get the Chief Deputy Whip job but he's a "confirmed bachelor" and McHenry found a beard and married her.

When Chad Pergram, a reliable reporter who covers Congress for Fox News, tweeted out the news before it hit the transom, I took the opportunity to share a couple of good-natured laughs at McHenry's expense, especially when he mentioned how Scalise, seeking to calm Schock down, mentioned that McHenry's role as Deputy Whip "gibes him the invaluable experience, insight and judgment to help me lead." Wow! Where does he think he's leading the crackpot House Republicans to? It wasn't long after McHenry was elected that he was implicated in a string of Republican gay murders. That's what happens when you get too involved with gay escort service, I guess.

The murdered gay Republicans include Ralph Reed's purported ex-lover, Ralph Gonzalez (former head of the rabidly homophobic Georgia Republican Party), David Abrami and McHenry guy-pal Robert Drake, the shooter. All three were found last week in a murder-suicide in an Orlando apartment. According to right-wing website, the North Carolina Conservative "All three men were active in Republican politics." They mention that Drake is "an associate" of McHenry's but don't define that. McHenry is alleged to be an associate of quite a few younger men, some of whom are gay and some of whom are just gay-for-pay.

Gonzalez was an influential political consultant, who owned Strategum Group, and managed Congressman Tom Feeney’s 2002 campaign. The house was owned by Gonzalez; Abrami lived with Gonzalez. Newspapers and political websites have been abuzz with posts from friends and associates of Gonzalez, who speculate the motive for the murder-suicide as being a gay love triangle gone wrong.

...Another, more sinister motive has been put forth by several sources, including CrimeBlog.us. Reports there say that Drake was associated with the owner of a gay escort service in the Virginia Beach area. The owners of that escort service are facing charges that they murdered the owner of a rival company catering to the gay community. A source for the Crime Blog reporter states:

“My solid, but unconfirmed, sources say that Drake was trying to hit Gonzalez up for cash to raise money to defend a kid (Harlow Cuadra) who is on trial for murder up in Pennsylvania. The 26 year old “kid” ran a gay escort and porn business in Virginia Beach and may have had several Republican clients–Drake being one. (See www.norfolkmaleescorts.com and www.boybatter.com). . . My sources say Drake may have approached Gonzalez for funds for Cuadra’s defense, threatening to blow the lid off everything by MAKING THE REPUBLICAN CLIENT LIST OF THE GAY ESCORT BUSINESS PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.”

There are jailed Republicans, dead Republicans, outed Republicans... And McHenry's office... well, when I called McHenry's congressional office, the guy who answered the phone confirmed that Drake "worked" there but said he didn't know what his duties were. When I asked to speak to the congressman or someone who would know, he put me on hold, then came back, audibly upset, and said he was mistaken and that he didn't know anything and no one else was in the office and then quickly hung up on me. The murder was completely covered up by the Orlando police department and everything about it pretty much disappeared.

In 2012, McHenry's primary opponent, newspaper publisher Ken Fortenberry, showed up at a McHenry town hall and started peppering him with questions about McHenry's overt corruption on the House Financial Services Committee. Nothing phased the smug little McHenry until the end of the meeting when Fortenberry pulled out the photo of McHenry's murdered love, Jason Robert Drake (below). He asked the startled McHenry if he could deny any knowledge of the murdered ex-Marine. McHenry, looking like a rainbow flag, stammered and stuttered, said nothing intelligible and the meeting came to a screeching halt. I guess Scalise didn't look into it-- or didn't care.

McHenry is fond of rough trade

Establishment Republicans May Be Winning The Primaries But The Tea Party Wing Controls The Argument

Louisiana teabagger Steve Scalise isn't the biggest win for the Ted Cruz wing of the GOP

The reaction from ugly Republican racists to the embarrassing Tea Party losses in Oklahoma and Mississippi Tuesday-- two of the most brainwashed and extreme right-wing states in the U.S.-- was, to put it mildly, ungracious. McDaniel, of course, is refusing to concede. Limbaugh was screaming about Uncles Toms on the radio the next day and, as the National Memo pointed out, Palin declared that the Mississippi election had been tampered with, the results were illegitimate and that it is pointless for people like her to support the Republican Party.

"Ruh roh! In order to save an entrenched 42-year member of the good old boys club what kind of 'Scooby snacks' has 'DC' promised to Mississippi Democrats to intervene in the GOP runoff for U.S. Senate?" she asked. When the enticing treat of not having Chris McDaniel as their senator proved too much for Democrats to pass up, Palin was predictably displeased.

"If Republicans are going to act like Democrats, what’s the use in getting all gung ho about getting other Republicans in there?" she pouted to Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.
The next day, she took to her Facebook again to voice her displeasure.

"When an election is questionable, with potential legal violations, politics MUST be put aside and the irregularities MUST be fully investigated. Regardless of party, we owe it to voters and to democracy within our Republic," Palin wrote.

This morning Sheryl Gay Stolberg was reporting from Tennessee that the Ted Cruz wing of that state's GOP is undaunted and ready to triumph over Lamar Alexander and install a lunatic fringe neo-fascist, Joe Carr, as the state's next U.S. senator, despite polling that shows 64% of Tennessee Republicans happy with Alexander. Alexander has the poll numbers, Newt Gingrich and the state Republican Party but Carr has… Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Jim DeMint and a motley crew of delusional, drug-addicted Hate Talk Radio hosts.

Given that Chris McDaniel, Mr. Cochran’s Tea Party challenger, lost Tuesday, such optimism might seem out of place. But Tea Party conservatives here and in Washington say that, if anything, the close call in Mississippi-- and what appeared to be Mr. Cochran’s reliance on Democrats to win his runoff race-- has only emboldened them.

...In many ways, Mr. Alexander’s approach, Republican strategists say, is a model for how incumbents should prepare to rebuff a challenger. With his penchant for deal-making with Democrats, a voting record that infuriates Republican purists and a long history in Washington, Mr. Alexander knew he would be vulnerable.

So, unlike Mr. Cochran, Mr. Alexander started laying the groundwork for his re-election early. In January 2012, he quit his Republican leadership post, saying it would “liberate” him to work on issues he cared about. But it also freed him to spend more time at home in Tennessee. Aides hope this will help him avoid the impression, which plagued Mr. Cantor, that he is too entrenched in Washington.

Of course, the real story of the Tea Party defeats this year is that it cost the Republican Establishment an immense amount of money-- for which the Chamber of Commerce, which footed the bill, is getting precious little in return in terms of their agenda-- and, worse yet, has moved the party's center of gravity far to the right, making it harder to go into general elections outside of the Old Confederacy and appeal to normal voters. Tea Party candidates aren't winning-- although they did managed to insert Steve Scalise (R-LA) into the House leadership-- but the Tea Party agenda is now the Republican Party agenda.

The scope of the effort to suppress activist-backed candidates has been broader and costlier than is widely understood, covering at least 20 House and Senate primaries from North Carolina to California, and from coastal Mississippi to the outer tip of Long Island. The loose coalition of establishment forces encompasses two dozen advocacy groups, industry associations and super PACs that have raised and spent millions on behalf of Washington’s chosen candidates. Former Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the “quote ‘establishment’” had successfully divided up the primary map this year to avoid duplicating one another’s efforts. Eventually, Duncan said, outside groups on the right may realize that they’re better off working with the national party than raging against it. Indeed, in many cases this year, national party favorites have tacked well to the right to win their primaries.

“I think we have to keep on winning. I think we have to show up and make sure that our candidates are not going to be complacent and that they start early,” Duncan said. “That wake-up call certainly seems to have gotten through.”

Nearly a third of the establishment money has come from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The business lobby’s spending in this year’s toughest primaries has about equaled the $7 million that the conservative Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund have spent together on the most fractious elections-- excluding races, like the Senate campaigns in Arkansas and Alaska, where there’s been no meaningful clash between establishment-sanctioned outside groups and the activist right.

And the $23 million figure isn’t even close to a full accounting of what D.C.-backed candidates spent to win their nomination fights. Candidates themselves, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, have collectively spent tens of millions more from their campaign accounts.

Top Republican strategists and party officials say they have no regrets about going all-in against flawed primary candidates. In a perfect world, they say, the whole expensive ordeal would be unnecessary. With conservative outside groups routinely bumping off incumbent lawmakers and prized recruits, it’s simply the cost of doing business-- now and perhaps for the foreseeable future.

Patrick O'Connor, in this morning's Wall Street Journal was more analytic: Tea Party's Poll Setbacks Don't Limit Its Washington Clout. He asserts that the battle of the Export-Import Bank, in which Tea Party Republicans and House progressives are mounting a challenge to the corporate whores of both party Establishments, is the latest example of the Tea Party being far from dead and buried. "[T]he disconnect between tea-party election losses and the movement's continued power in Washington," he wrote, "underscores deep divisions inside the GOP that show no sign of abating after a busy spring in which so-called establishment candidates won far more intraparty contests than they lost. The GOP leadership, for example, benefited from millions of dollars in campaign spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote leadership-backed candidates in nearly a dozen primaries, part of a broad effort to stem tea party momentum. And yet three of the Chamber's top legislative priorities-- an overhaul of immigration law, a replenished Highway Trust Fund and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank-- are in jeopardy because of conservative resistance in Congress."

My guess is that Thad Cochran has no intention-- if he even has an understanding-- of granting the NAACP the reciprocity it is asking for. That just isn't how Republican politics is working at a time when the Tea Party can cost the Establishment millions and millions of dollars just by growling some nonsense with a southern drawl.