A Race Too Close To Call-- And Over Two-Thirds Of The Votes Uncounted

Lee Zeldin and his boss-- undermining America

When I lived there is the 1960s, Suffolk County was still to some extent a rural backwater. It was still the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S., although Idaho was coming on strong. I was once dragged in front of a grand jury in Riverhead, the county seat and, judging by the cast of characters and their values, I could have easily have been in Kansas. Today Suffolk County is the 4th most populous in New York State (about a million and a half people), after Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, with more people than the Bronx, Nassau, Westchester, Erie (Buffalo) or Monroe (Rochester). It takes up most of Long Island and is overwhelmingly suburban now, although it is still the most important farming county in New York.

NY-01 is most of Suffolk County, although both NY-02 in the south and NY-03 in the north both have sizable pieces. NY-01 is a swing district with a Republican congressman, Lee Zeldin. Obama won the district-- narrowly-- both times he ran, but in 2016 Trump beat Hillary by over 12 points.

A week ago, Democrats had a primary to pick the nominee who would take on Zeldin in November. Of the 3 serious candidates, two ran as moderately progressive, Perry Gershon and Nancy Goroff, and one ran as a typical conservative Democrat, Bridget Fleming. With all precincts counted, Wednesday showed an election way to close to call-- because most votes had been cast by mail and they had not been counted. This is what was counted:

• Perry Gershon- 5,166 (35.4%)
• Nancy Goroff- 5,002 (34.3%)
• Bridget Fleming- 4,062 (27.8%)

As of the June 3 FEC reports, Goroff had raised $2,342,792 ($1,005,600 self-funded) and spent $1,584,630; Gershon had raised $1,113,460 and spent $925,637; and Fleming had raised $703,116 and spent $591,288. Two dark money groups spent independent money in the primary, Blue Tide NY-1 LLC spent $168,919 in favor of Gershon and a notorious scam-artist/grifter sewer money group, 314 Action Fund, spent $516,670 smearing Gershon and supporting Goroff.

So what do the candidates do while they sit in limbo waiting to see which one of them will be duking it out with Zeldin? He has raised $3,906,970 so far this cycle. An e-mail to her supporters from Goroff helped shed some light on how a candidate navigates this in between time.

This campaign has always been focused on facts, data, and reality. So let me tell you where things currently stand.

Here are the facts: after an incredible election day with almost 15,000 votes cast in person, we’re down 164 votes. There are currently over 35,000 absentee votes still to be counted-- over ⅔ of the votes in this election. We’re very much in this.

Those votes won’t be counted until at least July 1, and depending on how fast the Suffolk County Board of Elections can count, we may not know the winner of our Primary until mid-July. Our campaign has promised to support this process to ensure that votes are counted as smoothly and quickly as possible to help us declare the eventual nominee and move on to run against Lee Zeldin.

As the absentee count progresses, we are cautiously optimistic that once every vote is counted, I will be the Democratic nominee. Here’s why:

On election day, we won the town of Brookhaven, and Brookhaven makes up substantially more of the absentee ballots than of the in-person vote-- 61% compared to 58%.

Our very active field program was exclusively designed to encourage our supporters to vote absentee until right before election day, so there is reason to believe that our supporters heard from us and submitted their votes by mail.

We are modeling these results, and any small adjustments in the margins make all the difference. For example, if we increase our margins by .5% across the district compared to the in-person vote, we win. If the absentee votes are split like the in-person votes, but we do 1% better in absentees in Brookhaven, we win. The uncertainty is greater than the precision we can get in any of our models. The situation boils down to this: we need to make sure every vote is counted, and when they are, we remain hopeful we will win.

But here’s the thing: While we watch the vote counting, Lee Zeldin isn’t slowing down. In fact, he just announced a fundraiser featuring fellow Trump apologist Jim Jordan as a special guest!

The primary is a first stop on the way to our goal of beating Lee Zeldin and replacing him with a scientist who is working to actually make lives better. We need to begin raising money to compete with Zeldin’s $2 Million war chest. With just over 130 days until the General Election, we can’t miss a day, even with the Primary winner uncertain. So we’re going to keep sending emails with updates, we’re going to keep holding Zeldin accountable, and we’re going to keep asking for money to do exactly that. And if it turns out that I am not the nominee, any funds you donate from this date forward will be refunded.

With two-thirds of the votes uncounted, there is no telling who the winner will be, not in a race this close. And one has to wonder how many races from last Tuesday that is true of. It certainly is the case in Kentucky's Senate race, where the Schumer candidate looked like she was leading but, since then, Charles Booker, the progressive, has pulled ahead-- and where most votes are still unaccounted for, but where we should see final results tomorrow.

Trump's "Great People" Are Guaranteeing A Second Wave Far Worse Than The First Wave We're In Now

Remember the Suffolk County protestors we looked at on Saturday? These idiots aren't finished making news... and their very own lovely Trumpist poetry:

Trump was attracted to the same demonstration and rather than "idiots" who will steepen Long Island's curve, he saw them as "great people." Is he unaware that the guidelines they-- and he-- are protesting come from the White House itself-- his White House?

While they were out protesting on Saturday, there were 42,050 confirmed cases in Suffolk County (about the same number as in Pakistan, which is headed towards becoming one of the big Wave II hotspots). Now, 3 days later there are over 500 more confirmed cases in Suffolk County-- more cases than Israel, Japan and Argentina combined, 3 countries that are taking far stronger and more serious steps to contain the pandemic than Suffolk County is.

Yesterday, writing for The Guardian, Jason Wilson reported that U.S. lockdown protests are spreading the virus widely. Why aren't the disease-spreaders being thrown into prisons where they can give each other the disease without killing innocent people? "Cellphone location data," wrote Wilson of protests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida, "suggests that demonstrators at anti-lockdown protests-- some of which have been connected with Covid-19 cases-- are often traveling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighboring ones. 'The behavior we’re seeing at protests carries a high risk of infection. We can see protesters are going from a highly concentrated event and then dispersing widely.'"

One visualization shows that in Lansing, Michigan, after a 30 April protest in which armed protesters stormed the capitol building and state police were forced to physically block access to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, devices which had been present at the protest site can be seen returning to all parts of the state, from Detroit to remote towns in the state’s north.

One device visible in the data traveled to and from Afton, which is over 180 miles from the capital. Others reached, and some crossed, the Indiana border.

In the 48 hours following a 19 April “Operation Gridlock” protest in Denver, devices reached the borders of neighboring states including Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.

In Florida on 18 April, devices returned to all parts of the peninsula and up to the Georgia border. In Wisconsin on 24 April, devices returned to smaller towns like Green Bay and Wausau, and the borders of Minnesota and Illinois.

Following the initial wave of anti-lockdown protests in April, epidemiologists warned that they could lead to a new surge in cases.

In North Carolina in late April, one of the leaders of the state’s anti-lockdown protests tested positive for Covid-19 but said she would attend future rallies.

The U.S. has over a million and a half confirmed cases and over 91 million deaths from COVID, more cases than the 5 next worst-hit countries-- Russia, Spain, Brazil, the U.K. and Italy-- combined. New York alone has more cases than any country in the world. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that states-- egged on by Señor Trumpanzee-- are opening up willy-nilly:

"In Texas," wrote Liza Lin, "gyms and movie theaters are set to reopen on Monday, despite a rise in infections and virus-related deaths there. Idaho on Saturday allowed dine-in restaurants to resume operations under social-distancing rules. New Jersey permitted chartered-boat services and watercraft rentals to resume on Sunday. Warmer weather drew large crowds to beaches in New York City and New Jersey over the weekend, highlighting the challenges that the hardest-hit parts of the country face in enforcing social distancing this summer. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he doesn’t want the city’s beaches to open for swimming by Memorial Day weekend. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday urged New Yorkers to get tested for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Mr. Cuomo said the state is conducting about 40,000 Covid-19 tests a day at more than 700 sites. New York has more than 350,000 infections and 22,600 confirmed virus-related deaths, according to figures from the state."

Memorial Day weekend is likely to see the U.S. blow up the 100,000 death mark. I wonder how many deaths it will take for Trump's "great people" to start taking this seriously. A million? Two million? Ten million?

If Americans Don't Pull Together To Fight The Pandemic, Millions Will Die

This-- above-- was an anti-lockdown protest by right-wing haters/idiots in Suffolk County a few days ago, where there have been 42,050 confirmed cases (4th worst county in New York State) and 1,709 deaths. I know these people. I grew up among them. Believe me, there are no Einsteins in this crowd. In 2016, New York went for Hillary 58.8% to 37.5%. Suffolk County was a very different story. Trump won 328,403 (52.5%) to 276,953 (44.3%). Listen to those ugly voices; that's not Alabama; that's eastern Long Island. They don't get it yet; no idea what a pandemic is.

Over the weekend, the U.S. will pass the 90,000 pandemic death mark. Most people don't personally know anyone who has died. Only about 2,000 people a day are dying. As of Friday morning there were just 263 deaths per million people in the U.S. population. Other countries have been hit much worse:

• Belgium- 773 per million
• Spain- 587 per million
• Italy- 519 per million
• U.K.- 495 per million
• France- 420 per million

But the whole world has just experienced a little over 300,000 deaths. Americans don't really see it as that big a deal, at least not yet. And especially not in places like Suffolk County. Their neighbors, parents, spouses and children have to start dying-- and probably in large numbers-- before it penetrates their thick, thick skulls that this pandemic isn't some TV reality show with a happy ending. I wouldn't care if they all die-- in fact-- the gene pool would be better off without them-- but they seem to insist on dragging the rest of us down with them. Otherwise they'd all just be drinking bleach like their idol suggested they do.

Yesterday Wall Street Journal reporter Harriet Torry wrote that the coronavirus lockdowns have triggered record drop in retail sales. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. Sales, output, taxes are all down, down, down. None of this should surprise anyone who's been awake:

Retail spending fell a record 16.4% in April from March, the Commerce Department reported. And in a separate report, the Federal Reserve said industrial production fell 11.2% in April, its steepest monthly fall on record, as the coronavirus response closed factories, sapped demand, froze supply chains.

The drop in U.S. retail sales, a measure of purchases at stores, gasoline stations, restaurants, bars and online, eclipsed a revised 8.3% drop in March sales, which was the steepest month-over-month decline in records dating to 1992.

Retail sales dropped in every major category in April except at nonstore retailers, a category that includes internet merchants such as Amazon.com Inc. Sales at nonstore retailers grew 8.4% month-over-month. Grocery stores saw a 13.2% decline in sales, while receipts at bars and restaurants were down 29.5% from the prior month.

Sales were weak across a range of categories, but nonessential businesses were particularly hard hit. Sales at furniture stores dropped 58.7% and electronics fell 60.6%. Clothing sales plummeted 78.8% from March. Social distancing, business closures, travel restrictions and other disruptions that started in mid-March have taken a particularly heavy toll on retail stores and restaurants, many of which remain closed or are opening gradually as states begin to reopen their economies.

“April is the ugliest month of data that we’re going to get,” said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. “This is giving us an indication of how much we have to do just to get back to where we were.”

Consumer spending is the main driver of the U.S. economy, accounting for more than two-thirds of economic output, and retail sales account for about a quarter of all consumer spending. In March, when widespread closures started midway through the month, spending on clothing, electronics, sporting goods, furniture and motor vehicles all fell by double digits.

Workers also are losing jobs in record numbers because of the coronavirus pandemic, another factor hitting consumer spending. And declining consumer sentiment has economists worried about how quickly people will return to spending, as the economy opens back up.

...Some retailers are also unlikely to weather the pandemic and face permanent closures.

That falloff in sales and productivity is going to lead to fiscal catastrophes up and down the economic chain. NY Times reporter Mary Walsh explained it yesterday so that even their Suffolk County readers might have a shot at understanding it. No sales = no tax revenues = cuts in state budgets. "In February," she wrote, "Ohio was running a $200 million budget surplus. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck, wiping out the surplus-- and then some. Tax revenue plummeted and public health expenses skyrocketed. By the end of April, there was a $777 million hole, a nearly $1 billion swing in two months. Gov. Mike DeWine ordered immediate budget cuts to close the gap, and he had little choice. The pandemic, he said, 'does not exempt us from balancing our budget, which we are legally obligated to do.' Ohio is hardly alone. Every state is grappling with a version of the same problem, and all but one-- Vermont-- have balanced-budget laws in place. And for most, the new fiscal year starts on July 1, leaving them just a few weeks to come up with a plan and desperate for help."

Three Dollar Bill by Nancy Ohanian

State and local governments need a bailout-- urgently. Otherwise they will be forced to stop funding healthcare programs and start laying off teachers and police. Republican ideologues are salivating at the prospect. Walsh wrote that some Republicans-- including President Psychopath-- "have suggested that Democrat-controlled states are seeking a bailout for poor and costly decisions that predate the pandemic, particularly their enormous unfunded pension obligations. Miss McConnell has suggested the blue states declare bankruptcy.

Stay-at-home orders and frozen economic activity have slashed state sales- and income-tax revenue, while at the same time, costs are going up. Services that are going largely unused, like airports and public transit, must be maintained; while spending has increased on medical equipment, screening programs, hospitals, nursing homes and countless newly unemployed people who need Medicaid.

States and large cities can tap a new Federal Reserve lending program set up in response to the coronavirus crisis. For the first time, the Fed will buy debt from, or lend to, states and cities. The central bank issued rules and pricing guidelines on Monday, suggesting the program will be open for business this month. Because the program is considered a backstop, it will charge higher interest rates to most borrowers, so not to outbid regular investors.

This isn't going away; it's going to get much worse-- much, much worse. A lack of competent leadership guarantees that. The Lancet is the world's premier-- and oldest-- weekly medical journal. It has been criticized for having taken a political stand several times in recent decades, including yesterday when it criticized the Trump regime for a inconsistent and incoherent national response to the pandemic. In an editorial, The Lancet noted that "The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the flagship agency for the nation's public health, has seen its role minimised and become an ineffective and nominal adviser in the response to contain the spread of the virus... Regarded as the gold standard for global disease detection and control," the CDC has been been reviled by anti-science Republicans eager to defund it.

The Trump administration further chipped away at the CDC's capacity to combat infectious diseases. CDC staff in China were cut back with the last remaining CDC officer recalled home from the China CDC in July, 2019, leaving an intelligence vacuum when COVID-19 began to emerge. In a press conference on Feb 25, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned US citizens to prepare for major disruptions to movement and everyday life. Messonnier subsequently no longer appeared at White House briefings on COVID-19. More recently, the Trump administration has questioned guidelines that the CDC has provided. These actions have undermined the CDC's leadership and its work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

...The Trump administration's further erosion of the CDC will harm global cooperation in science and public health, as it is trying to do by defunding WHO. A strong CDC is needed to respond to public health threats, both domestic and international, and to help prevent the next inevitable pandemic. Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics.

How To Use Trump's Impeachment To Win 2020 Congressional Races

Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Trump, welded at the hip

Smart Democratic candidates running for Congress against GOP incumbents have gone on the offense against their Trump-enabling opponents. Nancy Goroff is running to represent the Suffolk County residents of swingy NY-01. The current incumbent gave up trying to pretend to be a mainstream Republican and shifted all the way too the right lately, likely with an eye on becoming a Fox News host in the near future. He became one of the most aggressive and obnoxious of the Trump defenders in the House.

Goroff sent out an e-mail to her supporters Wednesday night right after the vote reminding them that "the House of Representatives just voted to approve articles of impeachment against Donald Trump for his abuses of power and obstruction of Congress. This action was necessary against a President who has proven to be a clear and present danger to our democracy." She quickly turned the discuss to Zeldin:

But Lee Zeldin chose to put party over country. He ignored clear evidence that Trump attempted to bribe Ukraine with taxpayer dollars into interfering in the 2020 election. He voted to protect Trump and uphold corruption at the highest levels.

History will judge politicians like Zeldin for their lack of principle. But right now, we need to hold them accountable at the ballot box.

We need honest leadership in Congress - not unbridled partisanship.

...Tonight's vote is not about Democrats or Republicans. It is not about our personal opinions of Donald Trump's character. It is about affirming that no President is above the law, that we have co-equal branches of government, and that foreign interference in our democracy must be stopped.

By opposing the articles of impeachment, Zeldin showed that he cares more about his political networks than upholding free and fair elections. It's up to us to hold Zeldin accountable.

Two day earlier, Goroff had effectively set Zeldin up for what she knew was coming. She wrote: "Breitbart News-- the extremist news outlet which aligned with the alt-right under the leadership of Steve Bannon-- just came out with a glowing profile of my opponent in NY-01, Republican incumbent Lee Zeldin. They called him a 'legend' and 'impeachment’s biggest star.' Zeldin continues to see his job as a way to raise his profile in right-wing media-- not to represent the people in Suffolk County. Zeldin has grown more and more radical at the same time the district is growing rapidly more Democratic. The New York Times recently reported the profound political shift, and there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans on Long Island. The good news is that we can win: In my first quarter, with your help, I outraised Zeldin by $70,000 in individual contributions. Next November, I’ll unseat him to become the first female Ph.D. scientist in Congress, but as Trump’s GOP props up Zeldin, I will need your help."

She ended with an appeal to people "as frustrated as I am with Trump, Zeldin, and the rest of the GOP circus in Washington." Later, Nancy told me that "With his vote, Zeldin cemented his place on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of his constituents. There has never been energy and activism in NY-01 like we've seen due to Zeldin's votes to protect the president while harming his constituents (ie. not signing on to remove the SALT tax cap). Just this week, on a cold rainy night, over 600 people came out across Suffolk County to call for impeachment-- numbers at protests we've never seen before."

Mike Siegel is the progressive candidate running against far right Trumpist Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered central Texas district. Like Nancy Goroff, Mike saw an opportunity to draw a contrast between himself and his opponent on the question of impeachment. "Yesterday was a historic day," he wrote. "The House impeached a president for the third time in the history of our nation. But here in the Texas 10th, instead of standing up to the President’s abuse of power, Rep. McCaul abandoned all dignity and common sense. He said, 'some 63 million Americans voted for President Trump,' and therefore he should not be impeached. Complete nonsense. McCaul has failed to uphold his oath of office. He claims to be a foreign policy expert-- then he must know how important foreign aid is. He knows that when Congress appropriates aid and the President withholds it to advance his personal agenda-- that is an abuse of power. Michael McCaul swore an oath to defend our constitution but he has done nothing but protect his own political ambitions. While McCaul has been sucking up to Trump, our district is in need. Tens of thousands without health care and closing rural hospitals. Several counties with polluted groundwater due to coal ash contamination and fracking fluids. Closing public schools and a growing homeless population. What has McCaul done with his time in office for the people of Texas 10? Nothing. I am committed to fighting for the people of this district. To ensure their needs are put first. And to fight to protect democracy in the United States, from all threats, foreign and domestic."

The GOP Doesn't Have Enough Congresswomen. Lara Trump To The Rescue?

How smart could Lara Trump be? After all, she married the dumbest member of the Trump clan, their Fredo. Lara Yunaska was born in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1982, and has only ever lived in Manhattan and North Carolina... but she's been to the Hampton's frequently enough to have a general idea where Long Island is. Lucky, because there's a week-old rumor circulating that wife of Eric may run for Peter King's seat, now that he's retiring. The rumor started at Bereitbart and has oozed into legitimate media like the New York Times and Newsday, Long Island's most widely read newspaper. The district includes much of blue-leaning Suffolk County and the south shore of Nassau County. As we saw a week and a half ago, swingy NY-02, is trending blue.

Last year, Nassau County’s white population dipped below 60% for the first time ever, as Latino, African-American and Asian populations across Long Island grew while the number of non-Hispanic white residents continued to decline. Less than 30 years ago, Long Island--then classic white flight suburbs-- was more than 84% white, according to the 1990 census. In 2018, about 59% of Nassau County residents and 67% of Suffolk County residents were white, according to the new estimates. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on Long Island, a once unthinkable development in a traditional conservative stronghold where voters backed every Republican presidential candidate, bar two, from 1900 to 1988… The numbers on Long Island enumerate the challenges for Republicans. In 1996, registered Republicans in Nassau County outnumbered the Democrats, 360,000 to 257,000. By this year, the number of Democrats had rocketed to 411,000. The number of Republicans, by contrast, had dropped by more than 30,000. In NY-02, once all all-Nassau district is now mostly a Suffolk County district and the Democratic Party now has a registration advantage over Republicans. Obama won the district both times, although Hillary lost it to Trump by almost 10 points. Peter King was reelected in recent years because he was Peter King, beloved by the transpartisan super-corrupt Long Island establishment, not because he was a Republican per se. All things being equal, a Democrat is likely to win it in 2020.

The Republicans are looking for a candidate to replace King and the Trumpist wing of the GOP is floating Lara Trump's name. There are 16 other Republicans in the primary-- Islip Town Councilwoman and ex-TV news reporter, state Assemblyman Mike LiPetri and Suffolk County election commissioner Nick LaLota-- or looking at it, particularly former Congressman for the North Shore district, Rick Lazio. The Democratic establishment seems to have settled for Babylon Town Councilwoman and Afghan War vet Jackie Gordon, a centrist, which is just what the DCCC wants.

The shady Club for Growth poll that Breitbart claims to have seen shows Lara Trump with 53% compared to 19% for Lazio. The poll showed that 60% of respondents had a favorable opinion of her while only 13% had an unfavorable opinion of her and 18% never heard of her. Although Trumpanzee's own approval rating on Long Island is in the dumpster, 78% of Republicans in NY-02 favor him and only 19% view him unfavorably. (And since this is an all GOP poll, yes, 1% said they have never heard of Donald Trump.)

These are the November 1, 2019 NY-02 registration numbers by party:

• Suffolk part of the district

Democrats- 38,110
Republicans- 59,075
Decline to state- 33,238

• Nassau part of the district

Democrats- 124,904
Republicans- 93,231
Decline to state- 85,086

• Total, district-wide, shows that if Democrats turn out their base and continue turning independent voters against Trump, the district is unwinnable for a Republican, especially one with the last name Trump.

Democrats- 163,014
Republicans- 152,306
Decline to state- 118,324

Now, remember, this Obama district flipped red for Trump (or against Hillary) in 2016. A Biden nomination might be as bad but there's no way to be certain what made NY-02 voters turn against Hillary so strongly. Over a year ago, John Pavlovitz had already begun giving up on the hardcore Trump fanatics. "There's an old saying," he wrote: 'When the horse is dead-- dismount. It’s time to stop beating that horse, America. It’s not going anywhere. I’ve tried for three years now. I’ve tried to understand them. I’ve tried to listen to them. I’ve tried not to assign motive to them, not to speculate as to why they voted the way they voted, not to believe they consented to every cruel thing their vote birthed and enabled. I’ve tried not to caricaturize them; not to make them into one-dimensional stereotypes, not to treat them as some fictional other whose presence posed a threat. I’ve tried appealing to their sense of decency, to their capacity for compassion, to their faith in Jesus." As I'm sure you can imagine, basically none of that has worked for Pavlovitz.

I’ve quietly endured thousands of their racist outbursts and homophobic rants on Twitter and at neighborhood picnics and across the Thanksgiving dinner table-- in the hopes that I could find some vulnerable place beneath their fear to access later.

I’ve tried buoying pep talks and firm tough love and expressions of kindness and straight-talking challenge and attempts at affirmation.

I’ve tried discussing theology, tried sharing stories of oppressed communities, tried to offer facts in the face of a million lies generated by their President, tried to show the lessons History has already taught us about the slope we’re currently sliding precipitously down.

They have all failed to reach fertile ground.

Nothing has worked.


It’s all been fruitless.

I think it’s time to stop saying that we need to understand these people. I think we do understand them:

We understand that they have dug in their heels so deeply, they will not be moved by anything-- not facts or data or truth or their own eyes.


We understand that there is no political scandal massive enough, no President’s Tweet reckless enough, no legislation predatory enough to alter their allegiance.


We understand that the past two years of viciousness and ineptitude haven’t tempered their passions but ignited them.

We understand that the image of an angry white, American male God is so burned into their brains, that they see no conflict with a religion devoid of love or a world absent diversity or a theology made of malice. 
We understand that infidelity, dishonesty, obscenity, and cruelty are no longer liabilities to those they would have lead them.


We understand that the FoxNews poison has so fully circulated through their systems that truth is no longer necessary.

We understand that white supremacists in the Cabinet and Russian infiltration in our elections and children separated from their parents are acceptable collateral damage to winning.

We understand that their capacity to rationalize away human rights atrocities now borders on complete delusion.

People have warned that we should treat these people with kid gloves; that explicitly expressing anger or pointing out criminality or vocally opposing injustice right now will only drive them deeper into their entrenched positions. That’s a fairly dire assessment.

If adults are that fragile in the face of reality, that willing to deny country and humanity simply because they’re offended, that thin-skinned and prone to mutiny-- their dispositions aren’t really a burden the rest of us should or could bear.

We don’t come to this understanding with any joy or self-satisfaction-- we come to it with sober despair and the deepest grief, because we know practically speaking that right now they are unreachable.

It’s one thing to have held out hope for them on November 9th, 2016, but at this point, I’m not sure any miraculous moral awakening or conversion of the heart is possible.

If their consciences and compassion and reason have not been accessed and unearthed by now, I’m concerned those things will never be forthcoming.

And since these people will not be moved, the rest of us need to move together.

Democrat, Republican, and Independent, the deeply devout and the passionately irreligious, people of every pigmentation and persuasion-- we need to move in concert, to affirm our shared regard for one another, and to vote to restore balance in something we all love that is teetering wildly.

This isn’t a battle to change the minds of the few who refuse to be changed. That horse is dead.

It also isn’t a test to see if we can manufacture the same hatred and vitriol for them as they dispense toward us.

This is a golden moment for the vast, sprawling army of good people who believe in the beauty of diversity and in a fully accessible America to speak unequivocally-- on our social media profiles, at family gatherings, in our church meetings-- and most of all, in the voting booth.

We don’t need to convince or coddle or win over hatred, and we don’t need to outdo it either.

We need to outnumber it.
We need to outlast it.
We need to outlove it.
We need to outvote it.

Is Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin Throwing Away His Career Defending Trump?

I went to college at Stony Brook University in Suffolk County. Before I started school there, Democrat Otis Pike was the congressman. And when I graduated in 1969 he was still Suffolk's representative in Congress, a job he kept for another decade. I was never a big fan. He was too conservative and way too militaristic-- and at the height of the Vietnam War. When he retired he was succeeded by a far right crackpot, William Carney, best known for having been the first member of the Conservative Party to serve in the House. He later switch to the Republican Party and then retired after 4 term and was succeeded by Democrat George Hochbrueckner and was beaten by Republican Michael Forbes in 1994. Forbes, noting that the GOP was "tone deaf" to the plight of working families, switched to the Democratic Party in 1999, while still in Congress, but was so right-wing that he lost the Democratic primary to a 71 year old librarian (who was financed by the GOP to the tune of a quarter million dollars). Republican Felix Grucci beat her and represented Suffolk County in Congress for one term before being beaten by Democrat Tim Bishop, who served from 2003 to 2014 when he was beaten by Lee Zeldin, 55-45%, primarily because of a scandal in which a hedge fund manager paid him off in return for getting the family a fireworks permit for their kid's bar mitzvah.

Got it? That's Suffolk County, a quintessential swing district on the high growth eastern end of Long Island. When I lived there, it was the biggest potato-growing county in the U.S. Now it's 99.9% suburban (actual statistic) and 0.1% rural. It's also the 28th richest congressional district-- in terms of median income-- in the country. The more diverse and more Democratic western parts of the county are no longer part of the first congressional district. The northwestern area is part of NY-03 (Tom Suozzi's district) and the southwestern area is part of NY-02 (Peter King's district, soon to turn Democratic). Zeldin's district, which still includes Stony Brook starts at Nissequogue in the north, encompasses Smithtown, the eastern shore of Lake Ronkokoma and Patchogue. Everything to the east of that is Zeldin's district, including Port Jefferson, Brookhaven, Fire Island, the Hamptons, Riverhead and Montauk. It was an R+2 district until Hillary's abysmal campaign resulted in it being reclassified as an R+5. Obama won the district both times but Trump crushed Hillary 54.5% to 42.2%.

Last year Zeldin hung on, beating Perry Gershon 139,027 (51.5%) to 127,991 (47.4%), Zeldin having successfully labeled him "Park Avenue Perry." Gershon out-raised Zeldin, $5,017,361(about 40% of it self-financed) to $4,447,149. This cycle Gershon is trying again, but he has a strong primary opponent he has to get through first, Nancy Goroff, a distinguished scientist from Stony Brook. So far Zeldin has raised $1,855,879 to Gershon's $605,891 and Goroff's $521,006.

This morning, when Robert Reich wrote to his supporters that "Republican members of Congress are shredding reality to protect Trump in the face of mounting evidence that he and his administration are a criminal syndicate" he could well have been referring to Zeldin, who is apparently staking his whole career on Trump coattails. "Here's the truth," wrote Reich: "Congressional Republicans know that Trump is guilty, and they know that they look like damn fools for protecting him. Every day, they are making a calculation of how far they can take this without losing their careers."

Long Island media is covering Zeldin's role as a Trump enabler very closely and it is likely the 2020 congressional election will hinge, at least in part, on how Suffolk County voters view Trump. As of November 1, this is how party registration looked in the first district:

• Republicans- 159,329
• Democrats- 151,357
• Decline-to-state- 131,158

In other words, it will be the unaffiliated voters--who have been turning sharply away from Trump-- who determine Zeldin's fate next year. Last week a high-dollar donor fundraiser Zeldin held in St James-- one of Suffolk County's toniest neighborhoods-- attracted a strong contingent of protestors. Newsday interviewed several of them who complained about how Zeldin had "decided to throw his lot completely into the Trump camp and to adopt, in full, the Trumpian agenda." Some talked about organizing and how determined they are to remove Zeldin from office.

Last night Perry Gershon told us that "Lee Zeldin hasn’t held a town hall in over two years, and is consistently inaccessible to his constituents, which is why there is such dissatisfaction with him. To make matters worse, most people these days only see him when he is on cable news portraying himself as Trump’s #1 defender and cheerleader. I just held my third town hall in three months where we discussed affordable healthcare and the climate crisis we are in, as well as local issues like dangerous drinking water, lack of federal funding for our antiquated sewers and the crippling tax burden Long Islanders face. It has become crystal clear that residents are sick of Lee Zeldin and itching for a change."

This morning we heard from Nancy Goroff. Zeldin, of course, is the issue where she and Gershon are in complete sync. "Zeldin continues to lie and obfuscate in order to protect a corrupt President," she wrote. "He muddles the discussion of timeline, of what the President requested and of who knew about those requests when, to pretend that the President did nothing wrong. Zeldin has shown over and over that he cares more about getting on TV than about helping the people of our district. And by his metric, he has been enormously successful in the last month, because of his willingness to lie on camera on behalf of the President. Unfortunately, he does not show similar diligence when it comes to looking for solutions for healthcare, climate change, or financial security for his constituents. We deserve better!"

Reporting for NBC News, Allan Smith asked one salient question: how could some virtually unknown GOP lawmaker become a point man for Trump's impeachment defense? Zeldin might not be paying any attention to the water crisis in Southampton, but he's spoken more than any other Republican in the House about Trump's impeachment, which he insists is a "charade," a "clown show," and a "cocktail that is" House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's "favorite drink to get America drunk on." He's become as much a Trump favorite as Gym Jordan and Mark Meadows. The difference is that they're both in super-gerrymandered districts created to elect Republicans. Zeldin's district is a true swing district and, unlike them, he's endangering his career. "Zeldin's loyalty to Trump," wrote Smith, "as well as his attacks on the impeachment process, has been met with much chagrin from Democrats. One House Democratic aide said Zeldin was 'maybe the best instance I’ve seen of someone using emulating Trump as a pathway to relevance.'"

Primaries-- Against Long Island Incumbents

Yesterday we took a look at some of the prospective 2020 Democratic congressional primaries in New York City, based on a NY Times piece by Shane Goldmacher. I promised to finish up today with a look at the two possible Long Island primaries. I'll describe both. NY-03 is the North Shore district that starts in Suffolk County around Kings Park and Commack, heads west through Huntington, and into Nassau County towns like Oyster Bay, Hicksville, Glen Cove and Great Neck, winding up in northeast Queens (Douglaston and Beechhurst) ending at Alexandria Ocasio's district. It's a pretty affluent district (3rd wealthiest in the country with a $101,695 medium income) and a D+1 PVI. Obama won twice and Hillary beat Trump 51.6% to 45.5%. The district is 73% white, 13% Asian, 9% Latino and 3% Black. It's Steve Israel's old district and the current congressman, Tom Suozzi, is the former Nassau County Executive.

In 2016, when Israel retired, Suozzi decisively won a crowded primary and went on to beat Republican Jack Martins 53-47%. In 2018, there was no primary challenger and Suozzi has no problem in the general, beating Republican Dan DeBono 157,456 (59%) to 109,514 (41%).

Unlike Israel, Suozzi didn't join the ultra-reactionary Blue Dogs. Instead he signed up with the less reactionary New Dems. Goldmacher highlights his membership in the "bipartisan [albeit misleadingly named] Problem Solvers Caucus," and explains that he "has angered progressive activists, including on immigration, after he went on Fox and Friends last summer to embrace 'some physical structures on the border' and defend the Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency. This is ironic, single Suozzi-- despite his conservatism some things, is pretty much considered a super-star when it comes to progressive immigration policy.

In 1994, as Mayor of Glen Cove, Suozzi created one of the first day laborer centers on the East Coast. When he was honored by the New York Immigration Coalition (for creating an environment of welcome and inclusion for immigrants in Nassau County) in 2011, he told the audience that "Those men who were standing on the street corner looking for work back in 1994 are the same men who now have their own businesses as landscapers and contractors. They have bought their own homes. Their children are now going to the same public schools as my children. They are living the American Dream... What ICE officials were doing [massive raids] was wrong. [He asked the audience to put themselves in the place of immigrant children] "who saw ICE come bursting through the door in the middle of the night, some of them carrying shotguns, to take away members of their family. Do you think that child will ever trust law enforcement again? This issue has become an excuse for racism in this country and we have to constantly work to persuade people that we are talking about human beings and their lives. We have a lot more work to do together. We have a lot of people to convince."

So... someone may want to primary Suozzi for being too conservative or not progressive enough... but immigration is the wrong issue. And so is anything to do with Climate Change. He quickly offered to co-sponsor AOC's GreenNewDeal resolution.

Goldmacher asserts that "some on the left have encouraged Robert Zimmerman, a D.N.C. member who lives in the district and once ran for Congress in the early 1980s, to challenge Mr. Suozzi from the left. Zimmerman, 64, did not rule out a run as he slammed Mr. Suozzi as a 'Trump sympathizer' in an interview. 'I understand it’s unusual,' Mr. Zimmerman said of a party official attacking his local congressman. 'It’s more unusual to have a member not stand up for mainstream Democratic principles.' Friends and relatives of mine in the district laughed at the idea of Zimmerman being encouraged by "some on the left." One told me that whatever I may think of Suozzi, Zimmerman is just an opportunist and careerist hack with nothing to offer.

South of Suozzi's district is Kathleen Rice's-- NY-04. It's where I grew up (Valley Stream and then Roosevelt) and it's entirely within Nassau County. It goes from Westbury, Garden City, Mineola and Floral Park through Hempstead, Freeport, Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and East Roackaway down to Jones Beach, Long Beach and the Five Towns. The PVI is D+4 and Obama and Hillary both won by low double digits. It's the 14th most affluent congressional district in America. Demographically it's 60.5% white, 17.7% Latino, 14% Black and 6% Asian.

Rice was always a very right-wing Democrat who made a career by prosecuting poor people. She's been a horrible careerist and Wall Street shill for her whole career and a nightmare New Dem in Congress. There are several Democrats considering primary challenges. Goldmacher wrote that "Kevan Abrahams, the Democratic leader in the Nassau County Legislature who lost a primary to Ms. Rice in 2014, is considering running again," but he's one of many.

Jay Jacobs, the incoming chairman of the New York Democratic Party, acknowledged that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s success had emboldened potential challengers. But he noted that the primary rules in New York have changed since 2018, when it was the only state in America to hold a separate state and congressional elections, driving down turnout to abysmal lows. Plus, incumbents won't be “caught sleeping.”

“It’s going to be a real fight,” Mr. Jacobs said. “And in a real fight, my money is with the incumbents.”

No doubt Jacobs' money is with the incumbents.

Long Island Gets A New Candidate Today-- And Blue America Endorses DuWayne Gregory

A couple of weeks ago DuWayne Gregory was elected to his fifth term as the Suffolk County Legislature’s presiding officer. I met DuWayne a few years ago when he helped me conduct a forum for political science and economics majors at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. This morning he announced that he is running for New York's second congressional district, a seat that's been held by Republican Peter King since 1992. Although Obama won the Long Island district both times he ran (51-48% against McCain and 52-47% against Romney), Suffolk County was Trump territory in 2016. Hillary lost the county to Trump 328,403 (52.5%) to 276,953 (44.3%) and lost NY-02-- which includes part of Nassau County as well-- by slightly worse margins-- 53.0% to 43.9%. The district's voters wanted change and Hillary was seen as the candidate of the establishment and the status quo. Although DuWayne did better than other candidates had against King, he was swimming against the tide in 2016.

This year he feels he's swimming with the tide and probably along with a strong anti-Trump/anti-GOP wave. The district starts at Lake Ronkonkoma, Islandia, Bohemia, Bayport and Sayville in the east and heads west through Islip, Bay Shore, Babylon and Lindenhurst to Amityville, Massapequa and Seaford. This cycle many in the district-- as well as those of us at Blue America who had gotten to know DuWayne over the last couple of years-- were eager to see him in a rematch with King, especially in the kind of political environment of GOP overreach that Trump and Paul Ryan have created. Their tax bill, for example. is absolutely devastating for working families on Long Island. And the voters there know it, despite Trumps' gaslighting and Ryan's bogus claims. Peter King was given a "pass" to vote NO, but all that did was highlight his ineffectiveness as a representative for the district.

The most Hispanic of any of the Long Island districts (23% Latino), many NY-02 residents were shocked when they read that their own congressman sponsored a bill to deny citizenship to natural born Americans if their parents were not U.S. citizens. Nor were they pleased to see him sponsoring a bill that called for English only in government communications. Needless to say, the bigoted King was not a supporter of the comprehensive immigration bill passed by a wide bipartisan majority in the Senate.

In his own communications to Long Islanders, Duwayne stresses his own record of inclusion and vows to go to Washington "to fight for fairness for all Americans by working to bring about justice reform" and to "ensure that no one is treated differently because of their race or economic status when it comes to our justice system." He's one veteran who has every intention of going to Washington to ensure that "the problems with the VA never happen again to our war veterans" and to "work to provide quality healthcare to every veteran in need."

Over all, his outlook leads in a very different direction from King's. His concerns are about fighting for the middle class, not maintaining a status quo for the very wealthy and for corporate special interests. His goals are to be part of the congressional team that will increase the minimum wage, guarantee college affordability, increase child care credits, provide tax credits for healthcare providers and fight for good-paying jobs. When he was endorsed by New York's Working Families Party, Long Island Political Director Emily Abbott noted that "DuWayne has put politics aside to get things done for working families. Washington needs people like DuWayne Gregory who will fight to ensure that all of Long Island’s families and small businesses have a fair shot to succeed." DuWayne is a strong advocate for Medicare-For-All.

Peter King's antiquated perspective on women doesn't work in NY-02, not in 2016. He voted against equal pay for women and his anti-choice extremism belies his claims to be a "moderate." Moderates, unlike King, don't oppose women's choice even in cases of rape and incest. "The disparity of pay between men and women doing the same work is unjustifiable and I'll never forget when I'm in Congress that my constituents don't want any part of that," DuWayne told us. "Nor will I ever countenance the government coming between a woman and her doctor or her minister or whomever she choses to consult about her intimate health matters. My opponent talks about government getting off the backs of our people. I don't know how he squares that with his extreme positions on women's choice and his shameful, ideological vote to defund Planned Parenthood."

DuWayne reacted strongly when King voted for TPP Fast Track Authority. He would have rejected it. "I have serious concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was largely negotiated in secret. The nations set to sign on to this agreement represent 40% of the world’s GDP. A trade deal of that magnitude deserves to be rigorously debated and amended in Congress, so as to ensure strong protections for American jobs. By sacrificing the power to make changes to this deal, Congress is sacrificing its power to help shape it."

This morning DuWayne told me that "the call for vigorous new leadership in Washington is loud and the enthusiasm for change is inspiring." He added that Trump has degraded America's moral authority while Peter King remained silent. "We deserve a passionate champion for the issues we all care about-- cutting taxes, protecting our environment, and preserving the American Dream... "I hear it from my neighbors and from friends across the country; people are tired of the nonsense, the lies and the failures of Trump’s administration, and the politicians in Washington who let it happen. We know the swamp hasn’t been drained-- it’s deeper and dirtier than ever. And we know that it’s because politicians like Peter King aren’t doing their job."

Last year we had a mobile billboard driving up and down the district and we'd like to step up our participation in DuWayne Gregory's campaign for 2018. We are eager for suggestions from Blue America members and DWT readers. Meanwhile, a remembrance of 2016:

Long Island

Geographically, Long Island consists of of four counties, Kings (Brooklyn) and Queens, part of "the city," and Nassau and Suffolk. Colloquially, every New Yorker who says "Long Island" or "the Island," means Nassau and Suffolk, which have a combined population of 2,846,241. When I lived there in the mid to late '60s, Suffolk County was still the second or third biggest potato farming county in the U.S. with lots of wide-open spaces. Today it is the 4th most populous county in New York, after Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. It has one entire congressional district (NY-01) and part of 2 others (NY-02 and NY-03). Nassau County has one all-Nassau district (NY-04) and shares two districts with Suffolk (NY-02 and NY-03, some of which also spills over into northwestern Queens).

These New York suburbs were once reliably Republican but are now reliably Democratic. All 4 voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012:

• NY-01 (eastern Suffolk)- 51-48% and 50 to 49%
• NY-02 (the South Shore)- 51-48% and 52-47%
• NY-03 (the North Shore)- 54-46% and 51-48%
• NY-04 (the heart of Nassau)- 55-44% and 56-43%

All 4 districts should have Democratic congressmen but in recent years the DCCC ceded total responsibility for Long Island to Steve Israel, congressman for NY-03 and his unique blend of incompetence and mind-boggling corruption has resulted in an even split, 2 right-wing Democrats (himself and New Dem Kathleen Rice) and two garden variety Republicans, Peter King and Lee Zeldin). It's inconceivable that anyone could have done worse than Steve Israel in messing up the Long Island congressional map. And even though he's been driven out of office to avoid being indicted for campaign finance shenanigans and will finally be retiring in January, he is still fucking up the congressional races on the Island. First of all, he has interfered in finding his own replacement by backing an incompetent junior clone of himself, and sowed all kinds of party discord in his attempt to stiff-arm the popular eventual primary winner, Tom Suozzi, easily the Democrat with the best chance to retain the seat for the Democrats.

But it wasn't just Israel's failed attempt to name his own successor this year that has hurt Long Island Democrats. He inserted himself into the NY-01 race, backing a non-Democrat, Anna Throne-Holst, who he is reliably rumored to be having an affair with and she beat the more electable candidate 5,446 to 5,417, probably guaranteeing ambitious Republican Lee Zeldin another term.

But his worst interference, as it is every cycle, was on behalf of his Republican ally and crony Peter King (NY-02) on the South Shore. Israel is a repulsive, small town racist who has used his position at the DCCC to ruin the political careers of African-American politicians who have had the temerity to dare run in non-black districts. Israel personally caused the defeats of Steven Horsford in a blue district in Nevada and John Ewing in Omaha, in each case, starving their campaigns of cash. The candidate running against Israel amigo King this year is DuWayne Gregory, the much respected and admired African-American presiding officer of the Suffolk County legislature. Israel has bad-mouthed his chances and persuaded the DCCC to sit on its hands even though this is the district ripest to go from red to blue on all of Long Island.

Israel has appealed to big donors to not "waste" their money on Gregory's campaign, never admitting, of course, his own ugly, virulent racism. Immediately after he got his girlfriend in NY-01 the Democratic nomination, the DCCC named her a Red to Blue candidate. He even acquiesced to Suozzi being put into the Red to Blue program. But in the bluer 2nd district-- absolutely not. Gregory is the only Long Island candidate not embraced by the DCCC-- conspicuously so-- a little goodbye present to Peter King from fellow crooked operator Steve Israel. On the other hand, both Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn from House leadership and Marcia Fudge from the CBC are now advocating for Gregory and helping him financially, Fudge being one of the few members aware of how Israel's virulent racism has screwed black candidates in the past. I guess it's too late to tell Pelosi, who has kept her eyes firmly shut to Israel's mishandling of the DCCC. If you'd like to help out, Duwayne is the only Long Island candidate Blue America has endorsed: