The DCCC Is A Powerful Source Of Great Evil And Corruption Inside The Democratic Party

The DCCC raised $11.6 million last month, more than they ever raised in any February-- even more than in any presidential election year! Tragically, online donors gave nearly $3 million, at an average contribution of $18 in February. Most of these donors have no idea they're feeding their money into the ravenous, bloody maw of Moloch.

Two stories came out yesterday that we must get into: Ally Mutnick's for National Journal--House Democrats Move to Hobble Primary Challengers-- and Akela Lacy's for The Intercept-- House Democratic Leadership Warns It Will Cut Off Any Firms Who Challenge Incumbents. But let me take you on a little tangent first. Eric Swalwell probably won't become president in 2020 but he's been edging closer to running. Beto, on the other hand, has a much better chance to become president. But if it had been up to Nancy Pelosi, both of these guys would have had their political careers smothered in their cribs-- or these two, as babies, fed right into Moloch's jaws. Both committed a sin Nancy Pelosi just does not countenance-- running a primary campaign against one of her allies. Pete Stark and Silvestre Reyes both represented deep blue, very safe districts, respectively with PVIs of D+20 and D+17. Incumbents in districts like these can go decades without every feeling any kind of accountability because of political vulnerability from a Republican. Only the fear of a primary challenge can keep them on their toes. Swalwell primaried Stark and Beto primaried Reyes and, as they always do, the DC Democratic establishment freaked out and tried to destroy both challengers. That's what they do; that's what they always do. Because they're fuckers. [This blog started in 2004 and I don't recall having ever used that word before, except once to note that Tom DeLay was, in his day, a notorious pig-fucker-- although I would point out that a "fucker" and a "pig-fucker" are two entirely different descriptions.] I also how furiously the leadership fought to defend corrupt insiders like Al Wynn and Tim Holden when Donna Edwards and Matt Cartwright primaried them. This is standard Democratic House leadership modus operandi.

In the wake of spectacular victories by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley against powerful, entrenched incumbents, some of today's unaccountable insiders are in serious threat of primaries, including top Pelosi lieutenants like Richard Neal (D-MA), the corrupt chairman of the immensely powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

OK, tangent over. Let's get right into Mutnick's report that the DCCC "rolled out new hiring standards to deter firms from working with candidates who run against incumbents... [in] an an early move to deter primary challenges against sitting incumbents in the caucus with a new policy aimed in part at protecting the new majority." How about the old policy of protecting their own asses?

The campaign arm on Friday sent out a list of hiring standards to more than 100 political firms, including one provision that made clear it will neither contract with nor recommend to House candidates any political vendors that work to oust sitting members of Congress. That offers key protection to the caucus’s moderate members in battleground seats, where House control will be won or lost.

It is intended to help stymie attempts by insurgent progressive groups who plan to primary incumbents deemed insufficiently liberal on key issues, but also to shield members of the party's ascendant liberal wing who represent safe Democratic territory and could face intraparty challenges of their own.

"The core mission of the DCCC is electing House Democrats, which includes supporting and protecting incumbents,” the committee wrote in a memo.

The new protocol, intentionally debuted early in the off-year before most campaign hiring begins, presents a stark financial deterrent to the country’s top firms that provide essential services ranging from polling to TV advertising to strategy. It could cripple would-be primary opponents’ ability to entice top talent to join their staff. The DCCC independent-expenditure arm doles out millions in contracts to consultants and drives more revenue toward them by connecting campaigns with vetted operatives.

“The DCCC is often times the gatekeeper for consultants to get to candidates,” said Ian Russell, a campaign media strategist and former top official at the committee. “Unless you have a steady stream of income coming from another source, it would be very difficult to navigate the House world if you were shut out by the DCCC.”

...The change is likely to spark backlash from the constellation of liberal groups that are plotting against incumbents. Their central argument is that primary challenges are healthy for the party and bring in crucial perspectives, particularly from young women of color.

"The DCCC can do anything it wants to try to prevent the next generation of Democrats from taking power. They will not succeed," said Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, which is helping recruit primary challengers. He said his group would help those opponents find firms with which to work: "There are plenty."

Alexandria and Goliath by Nancy Ohanian

The midterms demonstrated not all campaigns needed large-scale operations to be successful. Now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted then-House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley on a relatively bare bones campaign budget in a low-turnout David-and-Goliath race.

...In practice, some prominent Democratic firms already have an internal policy not to work against incumbents, consultants said.

But other political outfits haven't shied away from it. They could not do so again without penalty.

Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts lost a primary bid for his eleventh term to Ayanna Pressley, who hired both AKPD Message & Media, which was founded by consultants that worked for Obama's two campaigns, and Anzalone Liszt Grove, a top-tier Democratic polling outfit.

And in suburban Chicago, Rep. Dan Lipinski, a Democrat who opposes abortion rights, nearly lost to Marie Newman, a progressive challenger who worked with Mothership Strategies, a firm also used by DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos.

Cheri and Rahm (not photo-shopped)

The standards are largely preemptive and will not retroactively apply to firms that worked with primary challengers in past cycles.

Newman is exploring a 2020 rematch, and received help from abortion rights groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America. Individual firms that work for an outside group on a campaign against an incumbent would not be penalized, a DCCC official said.

Both Newman and Pressley challenged members in safe Democratic districts that would not threaten their party's majority. So far, liberal groups, such as the Justice Democrats and Data for Progress, have largely trained their efforts on incumbents in Democratic territory, like Cuellar and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts.

This policy could stifle similar attempts in competitive districts, though it may not deter those who are already prepared to wage underdog campaigns. At least one swing-seat Democrat will face such a primary opponent.

Eva Putzova, a former Flagstaff city councilwoman who waged a successful effort there to raise the minimum wage, plans to run to the left of Rep. Tom O’Halleran, a Republican-turned-Democrat who holds a sprawling rural Arizona district that Trump carried in 2016.

Putzova is in talks with progressive organizations, including Democracy for America and Brand New Congress, and said she’s not concerned that establishment groups sometimes ignore her attempts to reach out. Putzova said she's hired a Phoenix-based firm to help with fundraising.

“I’m choosing partners who we are on the same page with politically,” Putzova said in an interview this week. “We don’t have to rely on the Democratic Party usuals.”

Akela Lacy also noted in her Intercept piece that "It’s no secret that the DCCC and national party leaders often interfere on behalf of preferred candidates... The DCCC is known for prioritizing candidates and direct them to its own consultants, most of whom are alumni of the DCCC, which is known in Washington as a 'consultant factory.'" It's part of DC's thoroughly corrupt revolving door which somehow didn't get addressed in Pelosi's much-vaunted and doomed HR-1 hullabaloo.

D-trip’s claims its top priority is protecting the majority, and that in order to do so, they must keep internal discord at a minimum. But as progressive candidates, organizers, and members build grassroots campaigns and prove they can hold their own, the D-trip’s old playbook is having the opposite effect.

The strategy isn’t new. Though it did bring a few more hiccups in 2018 than expected, which makes the rollout all the more puzzling. “There was never an enforcement that I’ve ever seen,” the strategist told The Intercept. “This is the first time that they are ever making it open policy.”

After their coordinated attack on Laura Moser in Texas’s 7th District, she raised $86,000, got an endorsement from Our Revolution, and made it to a runoff. She eventually lost to current Rep. Lizzie Fletcher. But the episode gave fodder to progressive groups like the Working Families Party, Justice Democrats, and Collective PAC, which had formed for precisely that occasion-- the party’s increasing inability to make space for new voices, many of them progressive. D-trip proved their point, and Our Revolution and WFP stepped in instead.

And in Nebraska’s 2nd District, the DCCC backed former Rep. Brad Ashford over Kara Eastman, who ended up winning the primary and losing the general election. Ashford was a former Republican who flip-flopped on access to abortion throughout his time in the state legislature and later as a Democrat in the U.S. House, and opposed single-payer healthcare. Eastman was a staunchly pro-choice progressive who supported Medicare for All. She was one of only two insurgents to beat DCCC-backed candidates last cycle. In the Democratic primary for Kentucky’s 6th District, Amy McGrath beat Jim Gray, and later lost to Republican Rep. Andy Barr. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is now recruiting her to run against Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2020.

Strategists and congressional staffers with knowledge of the change say it will disproportionately impact vendors and candidates who are women and people of color, as the consultants who work with incumbents are the ones who’ve come up through the party at a time when its commitment to diversity was even dimmer than it is today.

The committee is telling firms they can’t oppose sitting members, the strategist said. “I’d rather keep the majority too, which is why to me this is kind of stupid to have a blanket rule. Because, if it’s a safe incumbent seat, why does it matter?”

The DCCC’s move also creates a new niche business, paradoxically, opening the door for consultants who don’t want to be under the thumb of the party. “From here on out let’s refer to the DCCC for what it is, the White Male Centrist Campaign Protection Committee (WMCCPC),” said Sean McElwee of Data for Progress. “My e-mail is seanadrianmc@gmail.com. Any challenger looking for firms to work with them can feel free to reach out. There are plenty.”

Rebecca Katz, a longtime Democratic consultant, also said she’d be happy to work with the challengers. “The people who can’t understand the Party is stronger because we have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley in Congress should not be in the business of choosing who can run for Congress,” she said.

Alex Rojas, the head of Justice Democrats, the bane of the DCCC, is backing a primary challenge to incumbent Henry Cuellar in Texas, while looking for other candidates across the country. “Make no mistake-- they are sending a signal that they are more afraid of Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning primary challenges than Henry Cuellar who votes with Trump nearly 70 percent of the time,” she said.

For both parties, campaigns are a big business, and it has created an ecosystem that feeds those within it, and starves those outside of it. “The Democratic and Republican parties are commercial enterprises and they’re very much interested in their own survival,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) previously told The Intercept. “The money race is probably more important to them than the issues race in some cases.” The main beneficiaries are the consultants in the good graces of party leadership. “It’s a commercial enterprise,” said Lynch.

This is the kind of pernicious garbage the DCCC is seeking to protect from accountability

My biggest worry is that the DCCC will feel a sense of empowerment when they get away with this and then start systematically applying it against progressives running in primaries where the DCCC is trying to put a conservative in place to face the Republican. Not that that doesn't already happen. One progressive Democrat who ran for Congress recently, but he chose to remain anonymous in this instance told me that when he "made a job offer to a well-liked organizer from the district, word got out. Within 6 hours he was getting  job offers from incumbent Representatives, and threats that he would never work again if he supported my campaign. (He took the job anyway.) The sad truth is that DCCC operatives and incumbents don't support Democratic primaries. They will seek to load the dice every time. On the bright side, they've been doing this all along. So I guess there's something to be said for transparency?"

One former U.S. Senate candidate-- also on condition of anonymity-- told me that "it’s very true. I had several vendors, including two former vendors of our own, tell me that they wouldn’t work with my Senate campaign because I was going against a party pick, and they expected repercussions if they did. In fact, our former direct mail vendor wouldn’t even give us our own lists. And I had one quit in mid-campaign after receiving a phone call about it. They [the DCCC] also used a carrot, offering party work to one vendor if he dropped me." By the way, this might be a good time to ask you to visit the Blue America Primary A Blue Dog page; just click on the ActBlue thermometer on the right.

The PCCC is one of the independent progressive groups furious over the DCCC's new rule and quoted Frank Luntz in an e-mail to their members: "This policy would’ve blacklisted anyone who worked on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary campaign last year." They continued, explaining that "Dems in blue districts who oppose Medicare For All. Right now, some old-timer House Democrat committee chairs in deep blue districts are blocking action on Medicare For All. This past week, the PCCC publicly said we would support primaries to them if their obstruction continues. (Remember the name Richie Neal from Massachusetts.) To move issues we care about in Congress, primaries matter. In 2018, bold progressive Marie Newman ran against Dem Congressman Dan Lapinski in a blue Illinois district Hillary Clinton won by 15%. Lipinski serves as co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, voted against Obamacare, and is a corporate conservative Blue Dog Democrat. Marie came 1% away from winning the primary, she's running to finish the job, and the DCCC is trying to block consultants who want to help put a real Democrat in this seat."

Adriel Hampton, a prominent California political strategist and advertising consultant, told me that "In 2016, San Francisco progressives were evaluating a strong 2018 challenge to then-Leader Nancy Pelosi. However, simply finding a polling vendor was impossible-- not insurgent professionals, not even national robo-pollers. They said they would lose DCCC business. Three first-time Democratic candidates went on to challenge Pelosi, splitting the left and allowing a Republican to squeak into the top-two primary (a first-time independent candidate faced Pelosi in the 2016 General Election). So this isn't news to Californians, and yes, incumbent protection works and stifles the debate. It is especially galling in a top-two state like California where two Democrats can and do appear on the general election ballot together-- it is how Reps. Swalwell and Khanna won their seats.

A prominent progressive congresswoman pointed out that "What’s missing is any sense that the best vendors should get the work. As far as I know, the DCCC never does any post-mortem to determine which vendors were effective and which were not. Instead, they just keep the door spinning at the DCCC revolving door. I used one of their vendors once, to make an ad that required a technique our own media person didn’t know how to do. The [expletive deleted] clearly was loyal to the DCCC, not me. When the ad was finished and I made suggestions on improving his TV buy given what we knew from our polling, he complained to the DCCC about me." It's a refrain we've heard here at DWT over and over for years.

Another candidate who decided to stay anonymous, is running against a well-entrenched Democratic screwball who he's likely to beat. "The DCCCʻs mission," he said, "should be flipping red seats to blue seats. Going up against an incumbent is never easy which is why the DCCC should leave those campaigns up to the grassroots efforts of the congressional districts, especially in safe blue seats. Again, the focus should be on putting Democrats in Congress and sending Republicans packing, not meddling in primaries."

Tom Wakely, a long-time progressive Texas activist, who ran for Congress and for governor without the backing of the party establishment, is no fan of the DCCC. "When you have someone like Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar here in Texas who votes more often with Republicans than Democrats he is a legitimate target for a primary challenge," he told us this morning. "I believe the DCCC is out-of-touch with what is going on in red states like Texas. If they had, as we would say down here in the Lone Star state, the cojones to do something, they would back progressive primary challenges against conservative Democrats all across the South and Southwest rather than punishing those who believe the time for meaningful change is long past due."


UPDATE: OK City

Tom Guild's supporters are urging him to challenge Blue Dog freshman Kendra Horn-- one of the worst Dems in the House-- to a primary this year. I asked him what he thought of Bustos' "new" party rules. "The DCCC is trying to play God in intraparty affairs," he answered. "The party shouldn’t be a dictatorship, but a democratic institution. To blackball consultants or consulting firms that assist congressional house candidates running against incumbents is just wrong on so many levels. I’m not high on consultants to begin with, but they should be able to work for candidates of their choice without being punished by a formal arm of the Democratic Party. Not all incumbents are good. Not all incumbents vote like they should. Not all incumbents embrace the party platform. Not all incumbents should be protected. Not all consultants hired by non-incumbent candidates should be punished. This is Trumpism at its worst. He’s the one systematically trying to destroy basic American institutions. The DCCC can’t fight Trump on the one hand and put forth Trump-like authoritarian and unfair edicts on the other hand. What the DCCC is doing will weaken the party, reduce their contributions, and leave progressives and other Democrats outside the tent pissing in, instead of inside the tent pissing out. When will they ever learn?"

Rocking Out In South Texas-- Help Tom Wakely Beat The Conservatives Running To Be Governor Of Texas

-by Tom Wakely,
Democratic candidate for Governor of Texas

The filing deadline for the 2018 March Democratic primary has closed. We now know who all the Democratic candidates for Texas Governor are. The question that needs to be asked I will argue is this: do we want the Texas Democratic Party to move further to the right, return to the center or move to the left. But that question needs to be answered within the context of another question: how do we bring the 62% of registered voters not voting into the party because without them we don't win.

The Democratic gubernatorial primary line up offers Texas Democrats a very clear choice. Will moving the party farther to the right, nominating multi-millionaire Andrew White as our candidate to challenge Abbott, bring all those non-voters into the party? I seriously doubt it. Perhaps triangulation is the right strategy. Stay in the center, present your political platform as being above or between the left and right wings of the Texas Democratic party. Wendy Davis tried that in 2014 and she only got 13% of the registered voters to support her, so I guess that’s not the winning strategy.

So what is the winning strategy? Well, first off, we need to look at what binds all of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates since Ann Richards together: they all have been millionaires. So while Republicans don’t mind electing wealthy people to office, Democrats sure do. I would argue then that among disqualifying factors for a Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate is wealth. If we are truly committed to bringing the 62% of non-voters into the party our candidates for governor must have more in common with the 99% than the 1%.

Anyway... Let’s take a look at another Democratic candidate for governor, Lupe Valdez; who is she and what does she stand for? Well, it is hard to tell where she stands on the issues given that as of today, December 20th, she has no policy positions published on her website. However, we might be able to guess where she stands on some issues by published media reports. For example, the Austin-American Statesman reported that “Dallas County Sherriff Lupe Valdez, whose county ranks sixth nationally in deportations with more than 30 per week, said ICE has an office in the Dallas County Jail and that agents can come and go as they please. She said she isn’t sure how many people are deported for Class C misdemeanors but that she doesn’t think that it’s many.” We also know, according to the Dallas Morning News, that Valdez was given a $100,000 Telsa as a present on her 69th birthday.



Now, let’s go back to my original question, do we run from the right, the center, or from the left. In my opinion, we run from the left. So, how do I know that running from the left is a winning strategy? I don’t. But what I do know is that when I ran for Congress last year from the left, our campaign received more votes that any Democrat in the State of Texas running against an incumbent Republican member of Congress.

I am telling everyone and anyone who will listen to me, if we want to win elections, we must run on bold, progressive ideas like providing healthcare not health insurance to every Texan. We need to end the death penalty, we must raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, we cannot afford not to offer free community college tuition, we must ban fracking and flaring in Texas, it’s crazy not to repeal open carry-- it’s there for one thing only, to intimidate Government. It’s also imperative that we scrap our state’s franchise tax system and replace it with a business income tax.

That all said, there are three groups of voters that have traditionally voted in the March primaries in Texas. White progressives, like myself. Black women, and Latino’s in the Rio Grande Valley. The number of voters in a primary election is roughly 500,000. I am running on a progressive slate with Michael Cooper whose running for Lt. Governor. We both will need a good 250,000 plus votes to win the primary and avoid a runoff. For close to 5 months now I have been reaching out to white progressives across the state. Michael’s been reaching out to Black voters. Where we are lacking in outreach is to Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley. But we have come up with a plan, but we can’t do it alone. We need your help.

Our campaign has hooked up with Jorge Guevara, former lead singer with Elefante, a Latin rock band who was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2005. Jorge, who now lives in San Antonio, my home town, has pulled together a new band that includes past and current members of Mana, a Gualdalajara rock band who have earned 4 Grammy’s as well as 8 Latin Grammy’s. They will be doing a Latino GOTV rock tour through the Rio Grande Valley next February. Michael Cooper’s campaign for Lt. Governor and my campaign for Texas Governor will be the beneficiaries of this GOTV tour by way of our being introduced to the thousands of voters who will attend these free concerts.

Tentative tour dates and cities are as follows. Except for San Antonio, all of the other cities are located on the Texas/Mexico border.

Eagle Pass: Sunday Afternoon - Feb 18th
Laredo: Monday Evening - Feb. 19th
Del Rio: Tuesday Evening - Feb. 20th
McAllen: Thursday Evening - Feb. 22nd
Brownsville: Friday Evening - Feb. 23rd
San Antonio: Sunday Afternoon - Feb. 25th

Tom told me he estimates the cost of this 6-city tour at $30,000. Your help in making this Latino GOTV rock tour of South Texas a reality will be greatly appreciated. The Act Blue Take Back Texas thermometer on the right includes Tom, as well as Michael Cooper, the Lt. Governor candidate who's running with him, and other progressive candidates like Ted Cruz's opponent Beto O'Rourke and the best House candidates in the state, like , to name a few, Derrick Crowe (TX-21), Jason Westin (TX-07), Lillian Salerno (TX-32), Dayna Steele (TX-36) and Hector Morales (TX-29).

It’s An Obama Moment In Texas

-by Tom Wakely
Candidate for Governor, Texas

The 2018 election season is officially underway in Texas.

Candidate filing began Saturday, November 11th for next year's March 6 primaries. The filing period runs through December 11th. While many candidates have announced that they are running for Texas governor as a Democrat only three have officially filed the paperwork with the state party and paid their filing fee of $3,750 or submitted 5,000 ballot petition signatures in place of the filing fee.

Grady Yarborough, a 75 year old perennial candidate, who has been a thorn in the side of the Texas Democratic party’s for decades, has filed. A fellow by the name of Adrian Ocegueda, a principal with Lone Star Investment Advisors, which, according to their website is a Dallas-based private equity firm that specializes in leveraged acquisitions and recapitalizations of strategically viable, middle-market businesses with strong potential for growth, has filed. I am the third candidate that has filed. Dubbed the Berniecrat with the Panama Hat by the Austin-American Statesman, I submitted my paperwork and paid the filing fee (which I borrowed from my wife) on Saturday, November 11th, opening day of the filing period. On the same day I filed for Governor, Michael Cooper filed to run for Lt. Governor as a Democrat. Mike Collins, a Republican has also filed to run for Lt. Governor but he has filed to run as a Democrat-- but more on this later.

Next year’s election season will be an Obama Moment for Texas. Let me explain.

This past September 1 was in El Paso, Texas for a week. While there, I had a chance to meet a man by the name of Donald L. Williams. Donald was the first Black to be elected as president of the Student Government Association at the University of Texas, El Paso back in 1972. He is a lawyer, an Army veteran, past chair of the Tejano Democrats of Texas and served as El Paso’s first African-American judge. Donald has been and still is a very active member of the Texas State Democratic party, serving on many committees including, most recently, as Vice-Chair of the party’s Finance Committee.

Anyway, last month we kicked off our campaign for Governor on the Mollberg Ranch over in Blanco County, Texas, a rural area community of about 10,000 people and about an hour north of San Antonio. Among those speaking at the kickoff was Donald L. Williams, the fellow I had met up with in El Paso the previous month. After he introduced me to the assembled crowd and after I had spoken, Donald button-holed me before he took off to the airport to fly back to El Paso. He strongly suggested that I talk to a friend of his who was running for Lt. Governor, a man by the name of Michael Cooper. I took his advice and a week later my wife and I drove over to Katy, Texas, a booming city just west of Houston, to meet Michael for lunch. To make a long story longer, Michael and I hit it off and for the past month we have been campaigning together, almost exclusively in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where his sister and much of his extended family live.

This past week, we made our affiliation official with this press release:

IT’S AN OBAMA MOMENT IN TEXAS

San Antonio - Tom Wakely’s campaign for Governor announced today that they have teamed up with Michael Cooper’s campaign for Lt. Governor. The two campaigns have forged an alliance and the two men will now be running together on a slate forged by their common desire to address income inequality and the healthcare crisis in Texas.

“We are the dream team,” Cooper said, referring to the fact that he is Black political activist and his running mate, Tom Wakely, is a seasoned white progressive. “Together, Tom and I can reach out to the 62% of non-voting Texans because we both have lived the struggles of the working men and women of this state. Daily struggles like worrying if my child is getting a proper education in our woefully underfunded public school system or if my neighbor is getting enough to eat because I know she is on a fixed income. These are the things the people in Texas are concerned about, school rooms not bathrooms. Rebuilding the Texas coast after Harvey, not protecting insurance companies from lawsuits.

Cooper went on to say, “Look, I was born Black, I am Black today and I will die Black. I know what discrimination is all about. Like my Latino brothers and sisters, I’ve faced it all my life. So when I say that SB4, the show-me-your-papers law that both Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick championed is racist, take my word for it, it’s racist."

"The Dream Team, yes,” Wakely said, “but I would take it one step further by saying that turning out Black voters is the key to winning statewide elections in Texas. We all know what happened in April 2014 when Wendy Davis who was running for Texas Governor at the time snubbed President Obama by skipping a well publicized luncheon in Austin. She lost the Black vote. Well, we are not going to make the same mistake the Democratic party made back then and is posed to make once again. I say that because the party establishment, led by Gilberto Hinojosa, State Democratic Party chair is pushing Mike Collier for Lt. Governor. Mike voted for Sarah Palin and John McCain against our nation’s first Black President and then four years later he once again voted against Obama by supporting Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. Collier admits he only became a Democrat three years ago. On the other hand, we have an exceptional candidate, a man I am proud to call my friend who is also running for Lt. Governor, Michael Cooper. Michael is a retired auto-industry executive whose finishing up his Master’s Degree in Sociology. He is the pastor of the non-denominational Church of I AM and Executive Director of the Beaumont branch of the NAACP. Michael has been a Democrat all his life and just recently was part of the team that elected the first Black and first woman as Sheriff of Jefferson County. Look, whether or not the Texas Democratic party wants to admit it, this is an Obama Moment for Texas. When Michael wins the nomination for Lt. Governor he will be the first African-American ever to be nominated by the Texas Democratic party for any state-wide elective office and I for one will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

So there you have it. The choice is clear for voters in the 2018 Democratic primary. Do you want to elect a life-long Republican who voted for Sarah Palin over Barrack Obama or do you want to elect Michael Cooper, a progressive Texas Democrat for Lt. Governor who is running on a slate with the Bernicrat with a Panama Hat. We are the winning team or as Michael has put it, the dream team. So why isn’t the Texas Democratic party on board? Beats the hell out of me. But I guess it really doesn’t matter, It is what it is.

Look, I can beat our neo-fascist Governor Greg Abbott and Michael can beat our white supremacist Lt. Governor Dan Patrick but we can’t do it alone. The stakes are high. The next Texas Governor and Lt. Governor will jointly determine who sits on the 2020 congressional redistricting committee. The balance of power in Washington will either be tilted further to the right, further towards the authoritarian ne-fascist, white supremacist Trump administration or it will be moved to the left, towards a more just society, a society where people come before profits. In closing, all I can say is this. It is sad, very sad indeed, that the Texas Democratic party can’t see that this is a watershed moment for our state, an Obama Moment, pure and simple.

If Trump Is Willing To Stiff Texas On Disaster Relief, Imagine How Blue States Would Fare!

Dayna Steele virtually put her campaign for Congress on hold for nearly a month in the aftermath of the devastation Hurricane Harvey brought to the Houston area so she and her campaign volunteers could work with their neighbors on the immediate effects of the storm. Now Texans-- not to mention folks in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands-- are waiting for help from the Trump Regime. It's not coming. We mentioned the other day that Ryan's tax scam bill cuts out earthquake repairs deductions for Californians. Hurricane deductions-- primarily in red and purple states-- was left intact... but the White House doesn't want to come up with the money Texas needs to get the Houston and Gulf Coast fully back on its feet.

Dayna explained that "The goal of Trump and his fellow swamp dwellers is to eventually cut off as much government funding as possible. The less money the government needs to operate, the better off the wealthy and corporations are in this country. That means less help during and after disasters, the eventual elimination of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, and the elimination of programs that help kids, the elderly, education healthcare, job training and more." Ironically, there are some very conservative Texas Republicans who are seeing it a lot like Dayna is. There's nothing to the right of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. On Friday he called Trump's $44 billion request to Congress for disaster relief for the effects of Harvey, Irma and Maria "completely inadequate... and does not live up to what the president wants to achieve. The president has told me privately what he’s said publicly, and that is he wants to be the builder president. The president has said that he wants this to be the best recovery from a disaster ever."

The White House told him to pay for his own disaster relief. Damage in Texas alone is estimated to exceed $180 billion. Huckabee's contemptible daughter: "We feel strongly that they should step up and play a role and work with the federal government in this process. We did a thorough assessment and that was completed and this was the number that we put forward to Congress today."

Trump doesn't want to spent more than $100 billion in federal funds. Nita Lowey (D-NY) is the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee. She's siding with Abbott. "This request does not come close to what local officials say is needed." And it isn't just Lowey. Texas Senator John Cornyn, the #2 Republican in the Senate, is fuming. He told Texans this week that "It’s really time for the federal government to live up to its responsibilities" and he's making common cause with Puerto Rico as well. "We are asking to be treated fairly. And we intend to fight for that."

There is no doubt the people of Texas and the entire Gulf Coast, + Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, need this money to rebuild their lives and our state's infrastructure, but it strikes me as a tad "interesting", that when it was Superstorm Sandy and the East Coast, some of the Texas GOP officials didn't seem to think that the money was really needed for them. Now that it is us, of course the Government should give us everything we need. There's an old saying, "You never need government until you NEED government," and I think these officials are getting a whiff of that. With President Obama, he was right there, ready to give aid, Gov. Christie even praised him for the work he did. It was Congress dragging their heals on Sandy. With these storms, we have a totally incompetent President who has no clue as to what is needed or why, so why should anyone be surprised that the offer is far lower than it will take to restore all? What was done quickly and well was done mostly because of the prep that President Obama had built into the emergency responses, and Trump hadn't had time to screw up yet.

This President is focused on tax cuts that will give his family a big "win" in the tax department. Time and again, he's showed his almost complete lack of compassion for others, so no one should be surprised at this. Angry, yes! But surprised, no. Also, a memo for Texas legislators and governor-- "you reap what you sow."

Earlier today, we met progressive Democratic congressional candidate Kathi Thomas. She suggested that "Perhaps in times of great need like this, we should forego tax cuts for the wealthiest and use some of that money to pay to get those areas sacked by this storm back to operation sooner rather than later. Might we have a time of shared sacrifice? Those on the coast have been forced to 'sacrifice' their homes and belongings, and some of their lives, too. Might we show compassion and work together to make our country stronger, instead of giving so much to the richest of the rich?"

Hector Morales, running for the open blue seat in the Houston-Pasadena (TX-29) area agrees with Kathi's perspective. "This," he told us, "is just another example of systemic failure by our government to put the well being of our citizens at the center of policy. Political agendas and special interests hinder the ability of ordinary people to get the help they need and is just yet another reason why we must elect people to government who have the people at heart and not corporate greed."

Tom Wakely is Abbott's opponent for the governor's mansion in Austin this cycle. He's not putting all the blame on Trump though. He told us that "The irony of Abbott's claim of inadequate funding for Hurricane disaster relief is that he is sitting on $10.3 billion dollars in state funds that he could use to help his fellow Texans. Texas has the nation’s largest economic stabilization fund (ESF), commonly called a 'rainy day fund.' I guess the question is, how much more does it have to rain before we tap these readily available state funds. Right now there is a high school in southeast Texas, in Beaumont, that was completely destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. Central High School, which was over 100 years old, is located in an historically black neighborhood. They have been begging Abbott for funds to rebuild. Michael Cooper, who is running for Lt. Governor, told me, 'that kids are displaced and separated from their community and are now attending classes at two separate schools. Even if Abbott decided to allocated funds to rebuild this 39 acre campus, it would take 3-5 years. A lifetime for a 13 or 14 year old. But given that Abbott could care less about the Black and Brown students who attend Central High, we all know those funds will never come.' An additionally irony is that since 2009, the state of Texas has sued the federal government at least 48 times, the same federal government that Abbott is now asking help from."

As for Trump's $100 billion disaster relief ceiling... Puerto Rico has asked for $94 billion, Florida for $27 billion and Texas countered the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $5 billion allocation with a request for 10 times that-- and that's just for housing, not for infrastructure and, for example, for the projects meant to combat future floods.

Texas Is More Like The Rest Of America Than You Might Imagine

Over the last few decades, once populist Texas has turned into a very red state. But not hopelessly red. Last year , without even trying, Hillary made unexpected inroads in districts that were gerrymandered to prevent unexpected inroads. Trump won the state-- 4,685,047 (52.23%) to 3,877,868 (43.24%). Those 3.87 million Texans who voted for Hillary were more than her margin of victory in the national popular vote. Without all those Texans, Trump might have won. Hillary won every major city in the state. She took Harris County (Houston) with 53.95%, Dallas County with 60.75%, Travis County (Austin) with 65.77%, El Paso County with 69.08%, Bexar County (San Antonio) with 54.19%, Hidalgo County (McAllen) with 68.50%.

Those numbers help explain the context of a poll released this week by the Texas Tribune showing that Texans aren't buying into the Hate Talk Radio version of American politics. DACA, for example, is quote popular and will play a role in the Senate race pitting Beto O'Rourke against Ted Cruz.

Nearly 60 percent of Texans want to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects from deportation some 124,000 Texans who arrived as children and remained in the country illegally, according to results of the University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released Monday.

Answering a separate question, slightly more than half oppose the immediate deportation of unauthorized immigrants living in Texas, according to the internet survey of 1,200 registered voters conducted Oct. 6-15. It has an overall margin of error of 2.83 percentage points.

...As the fate of DACA unfolds, it is expected to be a defining issue in the 2018 U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his likely Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso.

Cruz is a fierce critic of DACA, who had pledged as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 to rescind on his first day in office what he considered an unconstitutional action by the president. He is fond of saying his immigration policy can be articulated in four words: “Legal, good. Illegal, bad.”

O’Rourke is a staunch supporter of extending DACA to protect people who, he said, know no other home but the United States and are, in his view, as American as his own three children.

While 86 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans in the Texas poll want to continue DACA, opposition among Republicans is driven by those who identify with the tea party. Sixty-nine percent of tea party Republicans oppose DACA, compared with 41 percent of other Republicans.

...The survey also noted that “some Texas leaders prioritized restricting access to public restrooms for transgender people in the recently concluded legislative session” and asked, “How important do you think it is that the Texas Legislature address this issue?”

Twenty-four percent said it was very important, 19 percent said somewhat important, 15 percent said not very important, 36 percent said not at all important, and 6 percent didn’t know.

That legislative effort, championed especially by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and backed by Gov. Greg Abbott, was stopped cold in both the regular and special legislative sessions by House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, and his lieutenants.

Lillian Salerno is easily the best of the many Democrats running for the north Dallas-Metro congressional seat held by crooked Republican power-player Pete Sessions. Today she noted that changes are hitting the GOP in Texas faster than they can handle them. "Speaker Straus announced today that he will not run for re-election next year and more and more Republicans are running from a Texas GOP obsessed with bathrooms and walls. Maybe the Pete Sessions GOP should go into interior decorating and leave governing to Texas Democrats."

Tom Wakely, the progressive running a grassroots effort at capturing the governor's mansion told us that he and Straus had gone to the same high school in San Antonio. "He’s a few years younger than I am but was in the same grades as one of my sisters. I know him and he represents what I would described as the pro-let’s-make-a-buck side of the Republican party. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything that doesn’t make him, his family, friends or colleagues money. Thus, Joe’s opposition to the bathroom bill and his support of DACA. He saw the bathroom bill cutting into profits and DACA helping the corporate bottom line. But what I find telling in this ideological battle taking place within the Texas Republican party and which I believe the Texas Tribune poll shows, is that a growing number of Republicans are willing to jump ship. I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken to and who claim to be Democrats who are pushing for Straus to switch party and run for Governor as a Democrat. Now as far-fetched as that may seem it isn’t out of the realm of possibility and would actually fall right in line with the Texas Democratic party’s strategy of recruiting ex-Republicans. So far within the last year alone we’ve seen 2 Republican state judges leave their party and announce plans to run as Democrats. We’ve also got a Democratic state representative here in Bexar County where I live who by all accounts is a Republican. She hates unions, is pro-life and thinks charter schools are just great. Then of course, you have NRA-loving Congressman Henry Cuellar who votes more often with Republicans than with Democrats. The Texas Democratic party says they want a big tent, everyone is welcome. Well, as far as I am concerned bringing an elephant into your tent ain’t the way to go."

Derrick Crowe's 2018 opponent is an outspoke bigot who has loudly opposed DACA, Lamar Smith. Derrick has a very different approach on this, as on about everything other than apple pie. He told us that "Smith called the DREAM Act 'an American nightmare.' Clearly, he never met any of the American children protected by DACA. Those of us who actually spend our time in this district know our neighbors well enough to know that DACA recipients represent some of the best and the brightest of our people. DACA should continue, and we should pass the DREAM Act immediately."

Dayna Steele is the progressive running in TX-36-- East Texas from Houston suburbs like Deer Park, La Porte, Baytown, Sheldon and Channelview north and east to the Louisiana border through Lumberton to Jasper and the Sam Rayburn Reservoir, which the district shares with Louie Gohmert's insane asylum of a district. This morning she told us that "What's important to note is that Texas is NOT a red state-- in a recent poll, more than 70 percent of Texans identified as Democrat or Independent. So, what this means is Texas is a do not get out and vote state. Partially because we just got complacent and figured everything was okay and because the Republicans took over the narrative and convinced everyone we were a red state. We are not."

Will 2018 Be The Year Democrats Break The GOP Strangle-Hold On Texas?

Over the years, Democrats let Texas slip away. When Democrats were firmly committed to representing the legitimate aspirations and interests of working families, Texas was part of their coalition. There are Texans today-- like gubernatorial candidate Tom Wakely, Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke and half a dozen outspoken progressives running for Congress who you could call modern day "New Deal Democrats" and aren't having any of the DC Dem bullshit.

Yesterday, Mark Jones, a political science fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, and Joseph Jamail, chair in Latin American Studies at Rice University, penned an OpEd for The Hill, Texas Democrats smell blood in the water for 2018. Like every Texas Democratic candidate I've ever talked to, they bring up that Texas is less a red state than a "no vote state." They wrote that "in non-presidential years, the Texas Democratic Primary tends to be a low-key affair, with statewide turnout involving only around 3 percent of the voting age population. Contested Democratic congressional primaries tend to be scarcer than grass around a trough, with a plethora of safe Democratic incumbents and a paucity of seats in play." But they sense that that's not going to be the case next year. They're especially high on the prospect of Democrats taking back Houston's TX-07, North Dallas' TX-32 and TX-23 in South Texas.

In 2018 that is changing, as a talented group of high-quality Democratic candidates are coming out of the woodwork to run for Congress across the Lone Star State. And, if Democrats are to have any hope of taking back control of the U.S. House next year, they will have to flip at least a couple of Texas seats presently held by Republicans.

Tom Wakely told us that his campaign for governor will focus on 4 main issues. "1- Income inequality. I will fight for a raise in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour along with repealing Texas’s right-to-work laws. I also want to scrap the Texas business franchise tax system in favor of a Business Income Tax. It’s way past time for Texas’ largest corporations like IBM, Wal-Mart, ATT, Toyota, Dell Computer and Exxon, to start paying their fair share of taxes. 2- Healthcare. Texans need access to healthcare not access to health insurance. I will fight for the establishment of a statewide network of health clinics and hospitals similar in nature to the VA healthcare system that I am a part of. If you have health insurance through your employer and our happy with it-- keep it. If you have health insurance through the ACA and our happy with it-- keep it. For everyone else, the statewide network of health clinics and hospitals that I propose will be there for you. 3- Gun Violence Prevention programs. I will fight to ban the sale and possession of military-style weapons like the AK-47 and AR-15 in Texas. I will fight to repeal our state’s open-carry laws. I also support limiting the number of handguns and long guns that a person can lawfully own. In addition, we should require background checks at gun shows.  4- Global Warming. Through policies and practices like instituting a carbon fee on the burning of carbon-based fuels (coal, oil, gas), the carbon fee is at the core of my policy to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of fossil fuels whose combustion is destabilizing and destroying our climate. I will fight to ban fracking and flaring in Texas. I will work to see that scrubbers are installed on all cement factory smokehouses. These are all meaningful steps to mitigating the harmful effects of global warming."

Lillian Salerno, formerly Obama's deputy undersecretary of rural development for the Department of Agriculture, is running for a north Dallas Metro seat occupied by Trump rubber stamp Pete Sessions. She told us that since Trump’s election "much has been made of his rural, heartland voters, and how politicians can better serve them, with most discussion centering on international trade and globalization. But there is another political and economic disaster crushing the heartland-- one politicians could solve now, if they chose to. For decades, rural America has been punished by bad policy that places too much power in the hands of distant financiers and middlemen through the formation of monopolies, which undermines small, local businesses and drains communities of resources... Corporate concentration has hit farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers especially hard. Many markets are entirely monopolized by a single company that dictates the terms of business to suppliers... It is a myth that the economic challenges that rural and small-town America face are caused by forces largely outside our control, like globalization or improvements in technology. We have the ability to help restore competition and economic vibrancy in rural America and beyond. The government has the authority to ensure markets are once again open and competitive so that communities have a chance to shape their own economic destinies."

Derrick Crowe is the progressive candidate running for Congress in the very gerrymandered Austin-San Antonio corridor district occupied by crackpot Science denier Lamar Smith. "At my core," he told us. "I’m an organizer and an activist for nonviolent social change. I believe that we’re in a revolutionary time in the U.S., and that playing it safe could mean losing our democracy. We’re running a different type of campaign here in Texas 21, one that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with working people who are literally fighting for their lives under Trump and the GOP Congress."

The kind of economic populism Tom, Derrick and Lillian are campaigning about is a clear path to victory and for enhancing a blue wave in Texas. It would be nice if the DCCC and the Texas Democratic Party would catch on... but that's not likely. This cycle-- thanks to Republican overreach and Trump's abnormality-- we can do it without them if we have to. The Act Blue thermometer on the right is brand new. Today is its first appearance. Please click on it and help us inaugurate it. Turning Texas blue is going to take more than one electoral cycle; let's get started.

The La Quinta Tour-- A Guest Post By Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Wakely

-by Tom Wakely

On July 22nd I announced I was planning on running as an Economic Populist for Governor of Texas. On August 4th I set out on a 60 day tour of my state not only to introduce myself but to gain a better understanding of why people are not voting. You see, Texas is neither a red state nor a blue state; it is a no-vote state. When over 60% of registered voters aren’t voting, there has to be a reason and I wanted to find what that reason was. So to find exactly why people in my state aren’t voting and what would motivate them to get out an vote, I decided that the best place to start was to visit them where they work and play.

My first step was to map out a travel schedule and since I planned to drive the state I selected La Quinta Inn and Suites, a chain of low-cost limited service hotels, as the place where I would hang my hat each night. My travels would take me from south Texas to north Texas. From central Texas to east Texas and all points in between. I calculated I would put little over 3,500 miles on my vehicle in August, staying on the road for 20 nights. I estimated the travel costs at $1,500. I called a friend up in Austin and he funded my first month on the road.

Over that first month on the road, I talked to dozens of Texans each morning in the La Quinta hotel’s dining room where a free breakfast was served. I didn’t tell anyone I was running for Governor because I wanted to find out what they thought about politics in general and Texas politics specifically. I also wanted to find out if they voted or not. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of folks I spoke to were registered voters but didn’t vote. When I asked them why they didn’t vote, the response was basically the same in town after town "why should I vote; my life wasn’t going to change." I also took the time that first month on the road to talk to the staff at each of the hotels I stayed at. No one I spoke to earned over $10 an hour and without exception, not a one of them told me they voted. When I asked them why, they told me basically the same thing the hotel guests told me, "why should I vote; my life wasn’t going to change." By the end of my first month on the road I estimate I talked to around 600 people; about 100 hotel employees and 500 guests.

My second month on the road took me back to the Texas/Mexico border towns I had already visited but also to many places I hadn’t been to since I was a child, cities like Amarillo, Lubbock and Abilene in the Texas panhandle. I also visited places I had never been to-- tiny communities like Goliad (pop. 1,900) and Garfield (1,700). Once again, I stayed in La Quinta hotels in or near the town I was planning to visit. I also added another venue to my tour-- Washaterias (for you Yankees, a laundromat). This time around, I told everyone I met that I was running for Governor on a platform of addressing income inequality in Texas. I told the folks at the hotel breakfast, the housekeeping staff, and the dozens of women I met in the washaterias that I was advocating for a $15 minimum wage and without exception, everyone I spoke to said "YES!" The only thing the women in the washaterias added to the conversation was "healthcare."

Now, like I said before, Texas is neither a red state nor a blue state; it is a no-vote state. The last time a Democrat was elected Governor of Texas was in 1991 when Ann Richards was elected. She served until she was beaten in the 1994 November general election by George Bush. That year a little over 50% of registered voters voted. Bush took a little over 53% of those voting and Richards took about 45%. But as a percentage of total registered voters in Texas, Bush took about 25% and Richards about 20%. It’s been downhill ever since for the Texas Democrat Party.

In 1998, Bush beat Gary Mauro to win a 2nd term as Governor. That year only 32% of registered voters voted. As a percentage of total registered voters, Bush took about 22% and Mauro received less than 10%. In 2002, Republican Rick Perry beat millionaire Democrat Tony Sanchez. That year, about 36% of registered voters voted. As a percentage of total registered voters, Perry took about 24% and Sanchez received about 12% of the vote. In 2006, Perry won a second term, beating Congressman Chris Bell. That year, about 33% of registered voters voted. As a percentage of total registered voters, Perry took about 13% and Bell received about 10% of the vote. The remaining votes were split between two Independent candidates, Carole Keeton Strayhorn and singer/songwriter Kinky Friedman. In 2010, Rick Perry won a third term, beating former Houston mayor, Bill White. That year, about 38% of registered voters voted. As a percentage of total registered voters, Perry took roughly 20% and White received about 16% of the vote. In 2014, Greg Abbott was elected Governor of Texas beating State Senator Wendy Davis. That year, about 33% of registered voters voted. As a percentage of total registered voters, Abbott took roughly 19% and Davis received about 13% of the vote.

Since 1998, on average, only about a 1/3 of registered voters in Texas are voting. Republicans have been winning with a little under 20% of registered voters voting for the party. Democrats have been losing with a little over 13% registered voters voting for them. Another way to put it, on average 80% of the state’s registered voters are either voting against the Republican candidate or not supporting the candidate but the Republicans are still winning; why? Because 87% of the state’s registered voters are either voting against the Democratic candidate for Governor or not supporting the candidate by not voting-- 87%-- that is amazing. It should also be noted that all of the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor since 1998 have been wealthy lawyers with ties to the oil and gas industry, some with very deep ties. So, it seems that Republicans don’t mind voting for wealthy lawyers with ties to the fossil fuel industry while Democratic voters in Texas don’t like wealthy lawyers with ties to the oil and gas industry and don’t vote for them.

Does anyone see a pattern to the above?

So, this is where we are today. A cabal of three ultra-conservative white men came to power in 2014, in a political coup orchestrated by the Koch brothers among others. Texas has turned from a business conservative red state to a far-right inferno that makes Dante’s nine circles of Hell look like a walk through the park. Gregg Abbott, a neo-fascist is Governor. He has built what is effectively a police state in Texas. Dan Patrick, a conservative radio talk show host is Lt. Governor. A white supremacist, Patrick is the leader of the movement that effectively made being brown a crime in Texas. And finally, there’s Ken Paxton, our Attorney General. A champion of the Tea Party movement, Paxton is currently under indictment on felony charges for securities fraud.

I think it’s fair to say that since taking office Gov. Abbott, who has amassed a re-election war chest of over $41 million, has demonized pretty much everyone in Texas except for his base: white, conservative, evangelical Christians. He has painted a bull’s-eye on the backs of labor, women, refugees and immigrants, Hispanics and other minorities, the LBGTQ community, the poor in my state. His fervent support of Senate Bill 4 also known as the "show me your papers law" and which went into effect on Sept. 1st, effectively bans local law enforcement agencies from adopting patterns or practices that limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sheriffs, police chiefs, and jail administrators face Class A misdemeanor charges and fines up to $25,500 if they violate the law by instructing officers not to inquire about a person’s immigration status or fail to comply with so-called detainer requests to transfer jailed immigrants to ICE custody. Just before voting on SB4, hard-line conservatives’ in the Texas legislature, led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, amended its "show me your papers" provision to let police inquire not just about the immigration status of anyone they arrest but also to ask anyone who is being questioned if they are a U.S. citizen. What SB4 effectively does, like I said, is make being brown a crime in Texas. Add to all of this is Abbott’s love of guns. Under his leadership it is now legal in my state to open-carry every conceivable type of weapon from a sword to an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Just recently a small heavily armed group of white men dressed in green battle fatigues surrounded the San Antonio city hall to protest the council’s decision to remove a confederate statue from a downtown park. The police could do nothing; the protesters were lawfully carrying.

Given all of the above, why in hell would I want to run for Governor? The answer is simple-- because I have to. When I was in seminary I came to know a man named Martin Niemöller. He was a Lutheran minister who became an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler. Niemöller spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps; imprisoned first in Sachsenhausen and then at Dacha. This anti-Nazi theologian summed up perfectly how I feel about Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton and their tea-party brethren who have taken over the Great State of Texas. He said, "First they went after the Communists, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Communist. Then they went after the homosexual and infirm, and I did not stand up, because I was neither. Then they went after the Jews, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Jew. Then they went after the Catholics, and I did not stand up, because I was Protestant. Finally, they went after me, and there was no one left to stand up for me."

Our campaign for Governor will focus on 4 main issues. 1- Income inequality. I will fight for a raise in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour along with repealing Texas’s right-to-work laws. I also want to scrap the Texas business franchise tax system in favor of a Business Income Tax. It’s way past time for Texas’ largest corporations like IBM, Wal-Mart, ATT, Toyota, Dell Computer and Exxon, to start paying their fair share of taxes. 2- Healthcare. Texans need access to healthcare not access to health insurance. I will fight for the establishment of a statewide network of health clinics and hospitals similar in nature to the VA healthcare system that I am a part of. If you have health insurance through your employer and our happy with it-- keep it. If you have health insurance through the ACA and our happy with it-- keep it. For everyone else, the statewide network of health clinics and hospitals that I propose will be there for you. 3- Gun Violence Prevention programs. I will fight to ban the sale and possession of military-style weapons like the AK-47 and AR-15 in Texas. I will fight to repeal our state’s open-carry laws. I also support limiting the number of handguns and long guns that a person can lawfully own. In addition, we should require background checks at gun shows.  4- Global Warming. Through policies and practices like instituting a carbon fee on the burning of carbon-based fuels (coal, oil, gas), the carbon fee is at the core of my policy to reduce and eventually eliminat the use of fossil fuels whose combustion is destabilizing and destroying our climate. I will fight to ban fracking and flaring in Texas. I will work to see that scrubbers are installed on all cement factory smokehouses. These are all meaningful steps to mitigating the harmful effects of global warming.

On October 14th, I officially launch my campaign for Governor from a ranch in Blanco County (pop. 11,000). Though I will be running as a Democrat, our campaign is rooted in the Texas People’s Party which was founded in the 1890’s. The People’s party, which evolved from the Grange, the Greenback party, and the Farmer’s Alliance, became the most successful of the third-party movements in state history. Like the economic populist of old, who recruited from small farmers, sheep ranchers, laborers, and blacks our campaign will reach out to the 62% of non-voters in my state with a very simply message. To paraphrase Senator Bernie Sanders, we live in one of the richest state’s in the nation, the Texas economy is the 12th largest in the world but that reality means little because much of that wealth is controlled by a tiny handful of Texans. To quote him, “The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time.”

Polls Show Generic Democrats Beating Generic Republicans In 2018 BUT... Will The DCCC And DSCC Recruit Candidates Foul Enough To Kill Hopes For A Blue Midterm?

Gil Cisneros, an "ex"-Republican lottery winner-- the kind of utterly worthless candidate the DCCC comes up with when left to their own devises

Tom Wakely was the progressive Democratic opponent to Lamar Smith last cycle. Next year he's a candidate for governor of Texas. This week he observed on twitter that "here in Texas Bernie style Democrats not only are not supported they are actively opposed by the party establishment." Of course, that isn't only the case in Texas. Much of the Democratic establishment, like the Republican establishment, exists, and thrives, on corruption. Any kind of profound reform-- which is, at its core, exactly what Bernie is offering-- is an existential threat.

So it's not just in Texas that the Democratic establishment is screwing over progressives. It's been the policy of the DCCC at least since 2006 when Rahm Emanuel implemented procedures still in place to exclude progressives as congressional candidates. And just minutes after I saw Wakely's tweet I read an e-mail from a Democratic congressional candidate here in California. Let me see how much of this I can quote without giving away his identity.

Off the record, there seems to be a coalition of candidates in xxx for various races ...state and local... looking to break apart the DNC, DCCC machine and go more progressive. Knowing the traditional party won't support us, we're looking for ways to win with ground campaigns and getting our story out to other sympathetic parts of the country to raise money. The divide within the state party is vast and cuts right through us here in xxx.

We face heavy opposition from the right, as you can imagine, but also get abandoned by the democratic party establishment.  We're pretty much left to fend for ourselves... We know we are true underdogs, but we have little to lose and so much to gain so we are fighters!

I'm going to connect you with the campaign manager for xxx, candidate for state Senate, in another email... his campaign manager can tell you of the realities of running a Dem campaign in this area-- hate crimes, houses being burned and death threats are to be expected.

Yeah, so... it's not just in Texas that the establishment will do whatever it has to do to hold onto power. Just look at the garbage Schumer recruited to run for Senate seats in 2016 in seats that looked like good bets for Democrats. Tens of millions of dollars were spent of these sub-par candidates. This whole list has something in common-- worthless anti-progressive Schumer recruits who he shoved down Democrats' throats and who all lost:

• Ted Strickland (OH)- 37.1%
• Patty Judge (IA)- 35.7%
• Katie McGinty (PA)- 47.2%
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)- 41%
• Patrick Murphy (FL)- 44.3%
• Evan Bayh (IN)- 42.4%

As a Chuck Schumer special bonus, 5 out of these 6 horrible candidates of his underperformed Clinton in their own states and dragged down the whole Democratic ticket. And guess what Schumer is up to this year. That's right... he's been recruiting more garbage to run for the Senate. There are really only two states-- Arizona and Nevada-- where red to blue flips are reasonable to expect and Schumer has found the worst possible candidate in each, ultra-conservative monstrosities Kyrsten Sinema and Jacky Rosen, respectively in Arizona and Nevada. The GOP must thank it's lucky stars every day that Schumer calls the shots at the DSCC and Pelosi calls the shots at the DCCC.

All that said, a YouGov poll from last week seems to be predicting substantial Democratic gains in 2018, not because the Democrats are any good, but because a strong anti-Trump/anti-Ryan wave is building, a wave that may will be strong enough to sweep even worthless garbage candidates the DSCC and DCCC are busy recruiting. The poll found the largest Democratic lead all year among registered voters in generic D vs R congressional matchups-- an 8-point lead for the Democrats.

Independents, who went for Trump by 4 points last year have flipped and are now saying they will vote for Democratic candidates in 2018... by 6 points-- a hefty, albeit mindless, 10 point move in a blue direction.

There are other indications of problems for Republicans. Few people like Congress-- it has just a 10% approval rating, while the President’s approval rating in this week’s poll is 39%. Just 36% have a favorable assessment of Democrats in Congress. But even fewer rate Congressional Republicans favorably. 15% more people give Republicans in Congress an unfavorable rating than judge Congressional Democrats negatively.

Barely half of Republicans give their own party’s Congressional representatives a favorable rating, while three in four Democrats have a favorable assessment of the Democrats in Congress. Half of Republicans approve of Speaker Paul Ryan’s performance, but only a third approve of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

There are many progressives who don't trust MSNBC's establishment smearmeister Joy Reid. It's because she does things like this for corrupt establishment politicians like Schumer and Harry Reid. I can tell you one thing, when Joy Reid's face shows up on my screen, I instantly switch the channel. Any progressive candidate desperate enough to go on her show might as well just get booked onto Fox News.



OK, so in the time I've been writing this post, the congressional candidate in California-- referred to above-- offering to introduce me to the party activist willing to tell the story about Democratic establishment misdeeds, did the intro. And I spoke with the guy at great length, checked out his bona fides and he's agreed to get me a guest post over the weekend. Something to look forward to. I hope he includes the part about how a progressive's house was burned down. Oh, look... speaking of Fox News, even their viewers are starting to get a bit of a reality check on how Americans view Trumpanzee. I bet he hated seeing this up on his TV screens today!