DC Doesn't Like Going After GOP Leaders-- But Who Cares What They Like. Lisa Brown Is Taking On Cathy McMorris Rodgers

It's ironic that notorious Republican closet case and child molester Mark Foley of Florida helped destroy the GOP House majority in 2006, considering that that majority was built with a lie about another Foley, Democratic Speaker Tom Foley. That Foley was a decent, if conventional, politician from Spokane, Washington. In 1964 Foley had defeated Republican Congressman Walt Horan and ably represented eastern Washington in Congress for 30 years, working his way up the ladder to become Democratic Whip in 1981, Majority Leader in 1987 and then House Speaker in 1989. He was defeated in 1994 by some minor and inconsequential character primarily because Newt Gingrich started a baseless whispering campaign that Foley was a closeted gay person, at the very time that Florida Republicans were warning Gingrich that a new GOP candidate for Congress, Mark Foley, actually was a closeted gay person. Gingrich thought it would be fun to "mix up" the two Foleys. Mark, the child molester, won the same day that Tom Foley became the first sitting Speaker of the House to lose his bid for re-election since Galusha Grow (R-PA) in 1862.

Tom Foley's district, WA-05, includes 10 counties, although almost all the votes come out of Spokane County, Stevens and Walla Walla counties being the second and third biggest. WA-05 includes the state's entire border with Idaho. McCain and Romney both beat Obama there, McCain with 51% and Romney with 54%. In 2016 Trump beat Hillary 52.2% to 39.1%, dragging the PVI down into redder territory, from R+7 to R+8. Hillary's status quo, establishment message couldn't have been worse for the district and in the Washington state caucuses, WA-05 went very strongly for Bernie. Bernie took Spokane County 78.1-21.7%. Stevens County was even better for Bernie where he beat Hillary 80.8% to 18.4% and in Walla Walla County, Bernie won 70.8-29.2%. It tells you a little something about the change that Democrats in eastern Washington are looking for.

This cycle many Democrats are also looking for revenge for what Gingrich and the GOP did to Tom Foley-- and the obvious target is Speaker Paul Ryan, who Democrats hope to see defeated by union iron worker Randy "Iron Stache" Bryce in Wisconsin. However, icing on that cake would be also defeating the 4th ranking Republican in the House, rubber stamp Cathy McMorris Rodgers who represents WA-05, Foley's old district. And the candidate eastern Washington  Democrats have rallied around is Lisa Brown, an economist who was majority leader of the state Senate before retiring to become Chancellor of Washington State University Spokane. When I asked her to introduce herself to DWT readers with a guest post, she mentioned that there are 10 counties and that she intends to contest every one of them and decided to do a Letterman-style list of the top 10 reasons voters should engage in her campaign.

Guest Post
-by Lisa Brown

10. Marijuana. I support removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act so states can exercise their rights. That’s a common-sense approach supported by the majority of Washingtonians. But in August, Rep. McMorris Rodgers said on the topic "I’m a mother...It’s against federal law… I would support his (AG Jeff Sessions) efforts….") Despite voter overwhelming support, she says she still needs more information.

9. Net Neutrality. I fully support it and worked to create rural access to broadband in the legislature. She "applauded" the FCC announcement overturning net neutrality. She now says she supports an open internet, but Congress should "come to the table" and write the rules. Don’t hold your breath...

8. Students. One in seven people in Washington owe money they borrowed for college or workforce training. I want to give those struggling with student loan debt a break, but McMorris Rodgers voted for (and promoted around the country) the original House tax bill that took away student loan interest deductions and taxed graduate student tuition waivers. She now says it was very important to her that those provisions not be included in the final bill. Do you see a pattern here?

7. FISA Section 702. She voted for it. I oppose it. We can strike a better balance of individual privacy rights and protecting our national security.

6. Healthcare. In the state legislature I led on creating mental health parity and standing up to Big Pharma to save taxpayers money on Medicaid prescription drug coverage. Then I helped start a medical school headquartered in eastern Washington. She voted dozens of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, then voted for a replacement plan that would’ve kicked an estimated 24 million Americans off their plans.

5. It’s the economy, sweetheart! (because let’s be civil and not call each other losers or stupid). True economic growth and jobs come from investing in people (through education) and in infrastructure. I championed early learning and delivered infrastructure projects to eastern Washington (working with legislators on both sides of the aisle and all corners of the state).

4. The planet. I worked to clean up the Spokane river, lands contaminated by uranium mining on the Spokane Indian reservation, and to create incentives for solar and wind power. Rep. McMorris Rodgers stands silently by as the Trump administration reduces national monuments and rolls back environmental protections.

3. Human rights. I voted consistently for women’s reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and criminal justice reform at the state level for 30 years. She is a leader for anti-choice legislation and is letting Dreamers languish.

2. Leadership and results. I listen and lead, find common ground, and get results, from help for homeless youth to in-state tuition for service members to a medical school. My son, Lucas Brookbank Brown, an infant in 1993, was kicked off the legislative house floor, when, as a single mom, I brought him to my seat for a night session. Now, a kick-ass guitarist and singer-songwriter (he’s in the recording studio now, stay tuned!) I asked him, what do your friends say about this campaign? He said, "Mom, they say you get sh*t done!" My opponent also has the title of leader, many times the only woman at prominent Republican photo ops, but her views are so party-line, there is no daylight between her and Speaker Paul Ryan. She has diligently refused to criticize the President, no matter how vile his remarks, calling him repeatedly, "a positive disruptor." This is not the leadership we deserve.

1. Congress. If we take back this seat, we change the leadership of Congress!




Recruiting Republicans To Run For Congress As Democrats Has Usually Ended Badly For All Concerned

Rahm's revolting stench is still the only smell at DCCC headquarters

I'm going to start talking about a rule of Beltway politics by immediately pointing to an exception: Elizabeth Warren, who today-- along with men and women like Bernie Sanders, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, and Jeff Merkley-- defines what it means to be a real Democrat, was once an Oklahoma Republican! That's a long time ago, the Democratic Party didn't recruit her as a Republican, and, like I said, that's the glaring exception to the rule.

About a decade ago, Blue America was toiling away on behalf of school teacher and union member Dave Lutrin, running for Congress in the Palm Beach area of Florida, a pretty red district represented at the time by hypocritical Republican closet case Mark Foley. We knew that sooner or later Foley would slip up-- they always do-- and expose himself and become very defeatable. But suddenly Lutrin was getting all this intense pressure from Rahm Emanuel, then head of the DCCC, and Steny Hoyer to withdraw from the race. It made no sense. Florida's 16th congressional district was pretty red and not a district that the DCCC ever paid any attention to. It turns out, though, that my hunch about Foley was more than a hunch for Emanuel. Foley's alcoholism and closeted homosexuality were widely known Inside-the-Beltway but it was not as widely known that those two factors had combined to create a very sick yen for being caught molesting underage boys. And he was-- both molesting the boys and caught. But congressional leadership, primarily Republican congressional leadership under fellow closet case Denny Hastert, covered up for him. Rahm Emanuel was very much clued in to what was happening but he saw Mark Foley's tragic crumbling universe as an opportunity to pick up a House seat the Dems weren't counting on. So... he kept his mouth shut too-- complicit in allowing Foley to have his way with young congressional pages (primarily the sons of big GOP donors). Long story, short: Emanuel with Steny Hoyer, froze Lutrin, the legitimate Democratic candidate, out of the race and enticed a wealthy lifelong, conservative Republican, Tim Mahoney, into the race (delivering on their promise of an uncontested primary and a "special circumstance" for the general). The special circumstance was how the media exploded into an orgy of Mark Foley Caught With His Pants Down (in a boys dorm).

Although Foley resigned and checked into a posh clinic for naughty Republicans, it was conveniently too late to get his toxic name off the ballot... and converted "Democrat" Mahoney was elected-- though just barely (49-48%). Mahoney immediately joined the Blue Dogs and reverted to voting with his fellow-Republicans on virtually every crucial issue... and to chase women all over town. His one term ended in scandal, amid sexual escapades, payoffs, hush money and all sorts of things normally associated with Republicans (which, of course, he was, despite the deceptive "D" next to his name). He lost his seat to a Republican. The district was soon redrawn and re-numbered and came to be represented by war criminal and right-wing extremist Allen West who was eventually beaten by yet another DCCC-recruited lifelong corrupt Republican, Patrick Murphy, who Wall Street and Chuck Schumer-- I know, I know: redundant-- picked to oppose Marco Rubio, destroying Alan Grayson in the process and guaranteeing Rubio another 6 year term.

It used to surprise me when crooked conservative Dems like Emanuel, Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen recruited Republicans to run as Democrats. Now it's practically standard operating procedure for the DCCC. Last cycle DCCC-recruited Republicans masquerading as Democratic candidates (like Monica Vernon in Iowa, Mike Derrick in New York, Randy Perkins in that old Palm Beach seat... just a few examples) went down in flames. Unfortunately two former Republican office-holders didn't. Charlie Crist (FL) and Tom O'Halleran (AZ) are both in Congress now and, predictably, both are spending more vote time across the aisle than with the Democrats. O'Halleran is a full-fledged Republican in all but party affiliation. His ProgressivePunch crucial vote score was a ZERO until last week when he finally found something to vote on with the Democrats. His score-- still an "F"-- obviously, is now 27.27-- third worst after wretched Blue Dogs Stephanie Murphy (FL) and Josh Gottheimer (NJ). Crist's score is also among the dozen worst Democrats in Congress-- 40.0. Ryan and McCarthy can count on them both whenever they want to pretend one of their murderous agenda items is "bipartisan."

You would think the Democrats' record of abject failure with recruiting Republicans and trying to pass them off as real Democrats would be something they would have learned not to do. But you'd be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The DCCC believes it's how to win seats and they continue doing it-- in the face of years of evidence to the contrary-- compliments of brain-deficient conservative shitheads on the DCCC recruitment committee like Blue Dog Cheri Bustos (IL) and New Dem Denny Heck (WA). The DCCC's favorite recruits are always wealthy Republicans who they can get to "switch" their registration from GOP to Democrat. Even though Kelly Ward is finally gone as executive director, just watch all the garbage candidates the DCCC drags out from under rocks in the red districts Hillary won in November. They're already up to their old tricks.

For example... they're interested in 2 Austin Republican multimillionaires, Joseph Kopser and Chad Kissinger. (One of the DCCC idiots told me that Berniecrat Tom Wakely is "too progressive for the district," even though he beat the conservative Democrat in last year's primary and then went on-- with no money and no support from the DCCC-- to come closer to beating Lamar Smith than any Democrat ever has previously. You can contribute to Tom's campaign here.) One of the worst of the new dip-shits the DCCC hired, Kyle Layman, is running around trying to recruit conservative candidates for California seats. Perhaps that was how Orange County wound up with "ex"-Republican Harley Rouda running against current Republican Dana Rohrabacher in CA-48, a district where Republicans just couldn't pull themselves to vote for Trump. Though Romney beat Obama there 54.7% to 43.0%, Hillary bested Trumpanzee 47.9% to 46.2%. The DCCC has never run a candidate against Rohrabacher so unless an anti-Trump/Ryan tsunami does all the work for them, they'll fail again in 2018 with their pet Republican. And there are lots of little assholes like Kyle Layman working, coast to coast, for the DCCC, digging up Republicans to pretend to be quasi-Democrats. We talk a lot about the Republican wing of the Democratic Party here but that isn't just Blue Dogs and New Dems; it's also actual Republicans recruited by the DCCC. No quasi-Democrats at the Blue America 2018 thermometer below:

Why Exactly Does Steve Israel Insist The DCCC Fight With One Arm Tied Behind Its Back?

In 1994, the Republican slime machine went after the wrong Foley-- purposefully

Tom Foley, age 84, died Friday at his Washington, DC home. He was elected to Congress in 1965, succeeded John Brademas as Majority Whip in 1981, then Jim Wright as Majority Leader in 1987 and then Wright in 1989 as Speaker of the House. He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Heather, who was at his bedside when he died. Wife, you ask? Don't be stunned. As part of the GOP plan to take over the House in 1994 and install Newt Gingrich as Speaker, RNC Chairman Lee Atwater, started a baseless and vicious whispering campaign that Foley was gay. (How ironic that 1994, the year of that smear and Foley's shocking reelection defeat-- first Speaker since the Civil War to be defeated in his district-- the Republican Party elected another Foley, Mark Foley of Florida.)

President Obama remembered him yesterday by remarking that "For thirty years, Tom Foley represented the people of Washington’s 5th district with skill, dedication, and a deep commitment to improving the lives of those he was elected to serve.  Tom’s straightforward approach helped him find common ground with members of both parties, eventually leading to his election as the 57th Speaker of the House." Anyway, the Republican campaign against Tom Foley was vicious and determined and got so out of control that Foley actually had to publicly deny he was gay. It didn't do any good in a small-town, rural, Church-going district like his. He lost. And Newt Gingrich, one of the most divisive, small-minded Speakers in history, followed him to the big chair.

Compare that to the way the DCCC coddles GOP leaders. When a clean cut, all-American West Point graduate came back from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and ran against Boehner, the DCCC not only refused to support him, they worked to defeat him and publicly humiliated him. No one has dared run against Boehner since. Mission accomplished. Steve Israel refuses to run candidates-- or back candidates who are running anyway-- against any top Republican leaders or committee chairmen, even though several of them are in districts Obama won, like Fred Upton (Energy and Commerce), Buck McKeon (Armed Services), Paul Ryan (Budget), John Kline (Education and Workforce), Darrell Issa (Witch-Hunting), Mike Rogers (Intelligence). These should be easy two-cycle pick-ups but you never get to a second cycle without a first. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's district is now so blue that Obama beat Romney last year 130,020 (53%) to 114,096 (47%)-- his best performance in any "red" district anywhere in America. Steve Israel's (and Debbie Wasserman Schultz's) reaction is to make sure that there is no Democratic candidate running against her.

It is mathematically impossible for the Democrats to take back the House as long as Pelosi insists on keeping Israel as DCCC chair. It can't be done as long as he grants immunity to the likes of endangered Republican incumbents like Ros-Lehtinen, Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, Buck McKeon, Darrell Issa, Joe Pitts, Mike Rogers, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Charlie Dent, John Kline, Pat Meehan, Erik Paulsen, Peter King, etc-- all of whom are in districts Obama won in 2008 and/or 2012-- and all of whom have no 2014 DCCC effort towards unseating them. I ran a large corporation that was pretty lenient with employees. A congenital failure like Steve Israel wouldn't have lasted there for a week.

Instead of going after GOP policy-makers, he spends his time-- and wastes DCCC money-- on pushing centrists like the freshmen who joined the United Solutions Caucus, founded by two Republicans, Bob Pittinger (R-NC) and Patrick Murphy (D-FL). This week, Murphy, was happy to send out a press release giving cover to some of his Republican colleagues-- ALL of whom had voted to shut the government down and who voted to keep it shut down for over two weeks-- because a few of them didn't vote to throw the country into default. Is that what passes for a GOP moderate these days? That's some accomplishment, Patty boy!

As co-founder and co-chairman of the bipartisan United Solutions Caucus, Congressman Patrick E. Murphy (D-FL) joined with 15 fellow caucus members to release the following statement in regards to the bipartisan budget deal reached in the Senate to immediately reopen the federal government and avoid default. The United Solutions Caucus has been meeting regularly during the shutdown to engage in bipartisan discussions on possible solutions to the crisis. Joining Murphy in sending this statement were Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), David Joyce (R-OH), David Valadao (R-CA), Joe Garcia (D-FL), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Beto O'Rourke (D-TX), Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), Scott Peters (D-CA), Daniel T. Kildee (D-MI), Grace Meng (D-NY), Ami Bera (D-CA), and Joaquin Castro (D-TX).

"We the undersigned, as Members of the bipartisan United Solutions Caucus, endorse the plan announced today by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and urge it come to the House Floor expeditiously.

"The United Solutions Caucus is composed of first-term Members of both parties, determined to work together across the aisle to solve problems. During the current crisis we have kept these lines of communication open and discussed possible ways forward.

"The legislation announced by Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell is supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and it would end the current crisis. No legislation can be all things to all people, but we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Passing this bill today also will not stop the honest debate between Members of Congress about important budgetary issues.

"Therefore, it is in everyone’s best interest for the legislation authored by Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell to come to the House Floor without delay. Let the House work its will and provide our country an opportunity to move forward."

Murphy somehow forgot to mention that most of the Republicans in his United Solutions Caucus actually voted against the deal and were more than willing to see the U.S. default and the economy collapse. These are all Republicans in Murphy's little caucus he tried sweeping under the rug so no one would notice:

• Andy Barr (R-KY)
• Mark Meadows (R-NC)
• Tom Rice (R-SC)
• Luke Messer (R-IN)
• George Holding (R-NC)
• Randy Weber (R-TX)

I ran this by a few Democratic congressmen who did actual work trying to solve the problem Murphy's caucus helped create. One was fuming and reminded me that the list of half a dozen Murphyites was only a small piece of a terrible story. "It’s worse than that," he said. Every Republican 'Solutioner' voted to cause the shutdown, and to perpetuate it for two and a half weeks. They all deserve the blame. Those six below are just the bitter-enders." He then sent me a copy of Murphy's latest fundraising letter, blaming "both sides" for the Republican government shutdown.

I am thankful that we found common ground and were able to reopen the government, avoid a default, and get back to the business of the American people.

  Our economy, almost a million government workers, and the seniors, veterans, and other Americans who count on them all paid a high price for this shutdown. One of the reasons I ran for Congress was because I saw too much of the blind partisanship and brinksmanship that took place in the last few weeks, leading to the federal government being shuttered for 16 days and taking our country to the brink of default.

  I am hopeful Congress will come together to reach a long-term, responsible budget deal-- we cannot afford more manufactured crises. Please join me in urging all members of Congress to put partisanship aside in the coming long-term budget negotiations-- we need common sense solutions to avoid another harmful shutdown.

"This is Patrick Murphy’s pathetic take on the shutdown," wrote his colleague. "Nevermind the facts that every single one of his Republican 'United Solutions Caucus' friends voted for the shutdown, and every Democrat voted to end it." That's calling out a false equivalency, a specialty of United Solution quasi-Democrats like Murphy, Kyrsten Sinema, Anne Kuster, John Delaney, Pete Gallego, Scott Peters, Tulsi Gabbard and Ami Bera.