Clearing The Congressional Field... In California

America needs REAL Dems to push us forward, not more corrupt New Dems

One of the ways the Democratic establishment-- usually led by the DCCC-- advantages its corrupt conservative candidates is by clearing the field. A week or so ago we looked at how one of the big players in this game-- the execrable corporate whore Steny Hoyer-- is trying to do it for Jason Crow in Colorado. It's interesting that this year, when you look at the list of garbage candidates the DCCC is pushing-- mostly New Dems and Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, there's no one from California. Why's that? The DCCC lists 10 districts in California on their 2018 target list. I'm guessing that the reason the DCCC isn't playing dirty in California, the way they are in every other part of the country, is because the Democrats in Congress elected Ted Lieu DCCC regional vice-chair for the West Coast and he believes the DCCC should be neutral in primaries. So the DCCC seems to be pretty neutral in this state, something the party establishment doesn't seem that happy about.

The corruptionists, led by vicious anti-Bernie Sanders fanatic Zoe Lofgren in the House and by local machine bosses and paid political hitmen from the New Dem campaigns, are trying to undo Lieu's policy of primary neutrality with their clearing the field stratagems. I'll come back to this in a second but allow me a brief tangent first. The world of political operatives is hardly a church choir but it is generally recognized in that sleazy industry that the bottom of the barrel is a firm called BergmannZwerdling Direct. They're as low as it gets, a veritable poison factory, working hand-in-glove with the very worst of the DCCC staffers, Kyle Layman, an overt woman-hater who the DCCC has working in California and doing an especially terrible job. In past elections Bergmann and Zwerdling were the slime bags responsible for most of the lies circulating online about Alan Grayson on behalf of their fake-Democrat New Dem client Patrick Murphy. That's what they specialize in-- scraping the bottom of the toilet for Republicans pretending to be Democrats. This cycle their clients include 6 of the worst Democraticish candidates in California: "ex"-Republican lottery winner Gil Cisneros (CA-39); New Dem and former Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer aide Dave Min; Josh Harder, the anti-progressive careerist, fucking up the race against Jeff Denham in CA-10; Brian Caforio, Zoe Lofgren's candidate to stop progressive Katie Hill from being able to beat Steve Knight; self-entitled Hans 'it's all about me, me, me' Keirstead in CA-48; and, the funniest of all, the Qualcomm heiress and Clinton volunteer who parachuted into CA-49 from Brooklyn expecting to be crowned princess/congresswoman, Sarah Jacobs.

So while Lofgren, the Bernie-hater, is demanding the DCCC clear the field (of progressives), Achim Bergmann has his detestable whispering campaigns zipping around the Democratic caucus in DC and Sacramento as the California Democratic Party prepares for pre-convention endorsement meetings. In Orange County's CA-45, for example, they are desperate to knock out Katie Porter, the progressive candidate endorsed by Elizabeth Warren, in favor of Schumer's pointless corporate shill, New Dem Dave Min. Why desperate? New polling from Global Strategy Group shows that Min isn't exactly resonating with likely primary voters. From the Global Strategy Group memo: "Katie Porter’s profile and message not only make her the best-positioned Democrat to emerge from the CA-45 jungle primary, but also the one most likely to defeat Mimi Walters in the general election. In a largely unknown field of Democratic challengers, Porter starts out ahead of the other Democrats. More important, the poll reveals Porter’s profile to be especially resonant in this competitive Clinton-won district, driving her to a large advantage over the other Democrats in a simulated race and demonstrating her ability to not only consolidate Democratic support but appeal to NPP voters and moderate Republicans as well." Their findings are NOT what BergmannZwerdling and the New Dems want to see:

Meanwhile, Achim Bergmann is just making up ridiculous crap to persuade California Democratic Party pre-convention delegates that only conservatives like Min can win against Walters, the old truism that conservative Democrats have used since Rahm Emanuel popularized it in 2006 and has led the Democrats into near political oblivion. There's one thing you can be sure of-- if a candidate is a client of BergmannZwerdling the chances that they represent Democratic values and principles is almost nonexistent. On the other hand, there are no New Dems, no Blue Dogs, no clients of BergmannZwerdling on the list of California progressive candidates you'll find by clicking on the ActBlue congressional candidates thermometer on the right. And if you want to keep more careerist creeps from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party from sneaking into Congress, please consider supporting any of the candidates you find on that list. Take a look.

This doesn't look like a field that will be easily cleared by a corrupt old DC politician and a couple of sleazy campaign operatives

Jerry Nadler Will Chair The House Judiciary Committee, For The Trump Impeachment Hearings

On Wednesday morning the House Democratic caucus voted to replace John Conyers as Ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee with Jerry Nadler (D-NY). The secret ballot was 118 votes for Nadler and 72 for Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). Nadler won not because of any of the usual Democratic Party identity politics bullshit but because he's the best qualified member of the Judiciary Committee and the most capable member to lead an impeachment investigation into Trump which is likely to begin early in 2019.

As soon as Conyers was forced into retirement, Zoe Lofgren swooped in to claim the ranking member position. The problem for most members is that Lofgren is corrupt and interested in leading the Judiciary Committee because her major Silicon Valley campaign donors don't want to see any anti-trust activities that could impede their drives towards monopolistic dominance. She plays ball with them and it would have been catastrophic to make her chair of the committee. Lofgren is right under Nadler in seniority. The best members of the committee, with very little seniority, are Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal and Jamie Raskin. I'm sure the 3 of them will feature prominently in the impeachment hearings.

On Wednesday there was a demonstration of why Lofgren was so totally unfit for the job. Two reform-minded members of Judiciary-- Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and David Cicilline (D-RI)-- introduced, along with Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) crucial anti-trust legislation, the 21st Century Competition Commission Act (H.R. 4686), which would fund the creation of a new body charged with investigating the impact of corporate mergers and increasing market concentration. The representatives’ bill would model the new commission on the Temporary National Economic Committee that existed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. The bill went right to the House Judiciary Committee where Lofgren could have easily put it on an endless backburner where she chair.

Ellison, the lead sponsor: "Monopolistic corporations have grown so big and powerful that they have hijacked our democratic process and our daily lives, leading us to a new Gilded Age. This sweeping bill aims to analyze all the ways monopolization has made our economy worse for working families, and help our government use existing antitrust laws to fix it." Jayapal agreed wholeheartedly: "Robust anti-trust laws help protect everyday people and ensure that hardworking Americans have good wages, and that businesses are incentivized to improve consumer services and provide competitive prices. I’m proud to cosponsor the 21st Century Competition Commission Act. If Republicans are serious about protecting Main Street, not Wall Street, they will join us in passing this bill to simply assess the scope of America's market concentration problem."

This is something likely to be voted on in 2019, certainly not before and will have to be signed into law after Trump has been consigned to the garbage pile of history. Although I did hear back from a very enthusiastic congressional candidate from Iowa, Austin Frerick, who told me that "My very first act of Congress will be to co-sponsor this legislation."

Trumpanzee And His GOP Enablers Would Rather Deport Latinos Than Get Serious About MS-13

Nancy Ohanian looks at Trumpanzee

Eliminating MS-13 and other violent criminal gangs should be a priority for law enforcement that all Americans should support. But that isn't what Barbara Comstock's Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act (H.R. 3697) is actually about. Her bill passed last week 233-175. Only one Republican, libertarian Justin Amash (MI), voted against it. 11 fake-Democrats took the bait and crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans. Now Ryan is running around claiming the bill passed with "bipartisan support."

The 11 Democrats who voted for it are the worst of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, primarily Blue Dogs and New Dems who consistently support the Republican Party policy agenda. Only one-- Ruben Kihuen-- hasn't earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch (and he has a "C"). These are the Democrats who gave Ryan and McCarthy the right to call the bill "bipartisan."

• Salud Carbajal (CA)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Ruben Kihuen (New Dem-NV)
• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Jacky Rosen (NV)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Kirsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)

The bill is not a crime-fighting bill or even an anti-gang bill. It's just a bill meant to label immigrants the GOP doesn't like as criminals. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said the bill could be easily used to target groups of people who aren't gangs-- religious organistions particularly. "This may seem reasonable until you look at the offenses listed," she said. "These offenses could sweep in many people that no reasonable person would think of as a gang member. That means that under this bill, a religious organization that aids undocumented immigrants could be a criminal gang." It was no surprise that Chicago patriot Luis Gutiérrez would be one of the leaders among Democrats in exposing the legislation for what it really is-- and isn't:

While the President is playing deal or no deal with the lives of DREAMers, Speaker Ryan is allowing House Republicans to vote on a bill that labels as many immigrant youth as possible as gang members and makes it easier to deport them. He could be moving the bipartisan DREAM Act forward, but instead, he wants to make it very clear that Republicans see Latinos and immigrants as a threat to the U.S., not an asset. Hundreds of thousands of doctors, teachers, nurses and soldiers are going to be yanked from the American economy if Speaker Ryan does not allow the DREAM Act to go forward in the next few weeks, but his priority is feeding red meat to the anti-immigration wing of his party and satisfying them with a big helping of ‘let’s label Latino youth as machete-wielding menaces.’” This is not a bill to curtail violence or make the country safer, it is a political bill to allow Republicans in the House to make speeches about urging Americans to fear young immigrants.

It is clear that Democrats and Republicans would prefer to be talking about the DREAM Act and showing the country that we can act in a bipartisan manner to resolve the status of DACA recipients and other immigrants who were raised in the U.S. I am committed to not exchanging the safety of DREAMers for more deportations or further restricting legal immigration so that there are no available legal avenues for immigrants who help feed us, build our communities and serve our country. But the priorities of House Republicans seem inconsistent with what the American people, the majority of House Members and their own voters want them to do.

Juan Vargas, a California New Dem, tried talking his New Dem colleagues out of voting for the bill-- and mostly succeeded. His point was that the "bill would result in the targeting of persons of faith, religious leaders, and faith-based organizations, who are compelled by their beliefs to open their doors to vulnerable migrants seeking safety and respite. For many in the faith community, this action is deeply rooted in religious expression and goes directly to the core of our American values as protected by First Amendment expression. The broad provisions of this bill, which purportedly targets gang members, would lead to attempts to criminalize religious groups across the country as gang members simply because they answered the call of their faith. As people of faith, we are called to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger. This bill would functionally criminalize individuals who aid undocumented immigrants as gang members under an expanded harboring statute.  The Catholic community has raised alarms over this statute in the past and is concerned that this bill could result in groups of nuns being classified as 'gangs.' There is no humanitarian exception provided in the bill and the federal government has a record of penalizing individuals who provide humanitarian relief to migrants."

He continued in a very personal way: "As a person of faith, my Catholic upbringing and time in the Jesuit order has impressed upon me the duty to speak for those less fortunate among us…for the oppressed, for the poor and for the voiceless. As leaders of this great nation, we must act in a way that reflects the best of our national values and that reflects the best of who we are as Americans. We should not contribute to a climate of fear by criminalizing humanitarian aid to undocumented immigrants. Matthew 25 gibes me, and others that believe as I do, clear direction on how we are to treat the least among us."

Trump, of course, loves the bill and it is going to the Senate now. Stephen Lendman of Global Research labeled it "a police state measure" which define "a criminal gang as a "group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of 1 or more of the following criminal offenses and the members of which engage, or have engaged within the past 5 years, in a continuing series of such offenses, or that has been designated as a criminal gang by the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, as meeting these criteria. The offenses described, whether in violation of Federal or State law or foreign law and regardless of whether the offenses occurred before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, are the following:”

▪ felony drug offenses;
▪ aiding unwanted immigrants;
violent offenses;
▪ obstructing justice;
▪ and other alleged violations of US laws, shifting responsibility to prove innocence on targeted individuals, not authorities as mandated under international and constitutional law.

And the bill is even worse than it appears at first glance.

Any immigrant suspected or alleged to be a gang member can be deported. US prisons are filled with wrongfully convicted men, women, youths, and children, mostly people of color.

HR 3697 is a vehicle for the manufacture of human and civil rights abuses, disgraceful legislation, its provisions no just society would tolerate.

It creates a sweeping new definition of “gang member,” giving authorities broad latitude to target social and political groups, clubs, even churches or other religious organizations.

It expands the use of mandatory, no-bond arbitrary detentions, a flagrant violation of international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits arbitrarily detaining anyone.

Refugees and asylum seekers will be deterred from seeking refuge in America.

It’ll subject law-abiding immigrants to flagrant abuses of power, including Fifth Amendment equal protection rights.

It’ll permit sweeping roundups of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers of color, mainly Latinos. Living in the wrong neighborhood would risk deportation.

So could wearing the wrong colored clothing or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) roundups are notoriously indiscriminate, many individuals guilty of nothing abusively detained under deplorable conditions and deported.

HR 3697 authorizes deportations if there’s “reason to believe” so-called gang affiliation or association, no credible proof required.

Expansive language permits sweeping up law-abiding people indiscriminately, children as vulnerable as adults.

DHS can target anyone based on secret evidence, classified evidence, no evidence or any pretext cited-- without due process, constitutional protections denied.

Humanitarian relief can be denied individuals fleeing persecution from designated countries.

No one was surprised when a Gutiérrez neighbor, Chicago's far right Blue Dog Dan Lipinski, stuck with Ryan and Trump and voted against the Democratic position-- and against the interests of his own IL-03 constituents. His progressive primary opponent, Marie Newman, told us that once again Lipinski showed "that he's perfectly aligned with President Trump and the Republicans on the issue of immigration. By voting for H.R. 3697, Lipinski voted to increase racial profiling and the arrest of people of color on the mere suspicion that they're involved in criminal activity. Democrats in Congress ought to be focused on protecting Dreamers and keeping families together, not satiating President Trump's absurd views on Latinos." If you agree with Marie on this, please help her repeal and replace Dan Lipinski here. Hers is one of the few races in the country where a credible progressive is challenging a fake Democrat in a race that's going to go down to the wire.

There are only two Republican-held Senate seats that Schumer's DSCC thinks it can probably win in 2018: Flake's seat in Arizona and Heller's seat in Nevada. Both of his very conservative, hand-picked recruits, Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Jacky Rosen (NV) were among the 11 rogue Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who supported this dreadful and deceptive legislation. Neither of these exceptionally bad candidates has any chance of winning without heavy Latino turnout. Neither is Latino in increasingly Latino-dominated states and in states where Latinos are becoming very cognizant of who their community's friends really are when push comes to shove. But these are the kinds of establishment GOP-lite candidates Schumer has always gravitated to for his entire career. Not just Arizona and Nevada, but all of America will suffer because of his inability to learn from his mistakes.

Is There Anything Trump Won't Lie About? Trump Winery Is Not The Biggest Winery And He Doesn't Own It Anyway

The Bird is a restaurant in Northwest DC, in the Shaw neighborhood a nd, according to the Washingtonian's Jessica Sidman, they were so excited a couple weeks ago when Señor Trumpanzee fired The Mooch that the began a new policy: offering discounted drinks whenever Trumpanzee offs one of his co-conspirators-- happy hour cocktails, beers, and wines for $4. Same deal yesterday when Trumpanzee kicked out notorious meth manufacturer and neo-Nazi Steve Bannon. What about the Trump Winery in Charlottesville? Wondering if they offer discounted wine when the owner offs a Nazi? They don't-- and Trump was lying about the winery anyway. Here's a disclaimer they added a year or so ago at the bottom of their official website:

In case you don't know what I'm talking about here, remember back to the fateful press conference when the Baboon-in-Chief gratuitously ended a press conference by claiming that he owns Charlottesville's Trump Winery, claiming it one of the largest wineries, not just in Virginia but anywhere in the country? Our poor delusional fake president! PolitiFact smelled a rat when he first started making the claim at election rallies and over a year ago rated Trump's claims another lie.

"It’s the largest winery on the East Coast," Trump said.

The Republican frontrunner added that he owns the winery "100 percent." Trump did purchase the 1,300-acre vineyard in 2011 where the winery is based and turned over the management to his son, Eric.

A legal disclaimer on the winery website says the GOP presidential candidate doesn’t own the winery. The venture is a limited liability corporation, and its owners are not a matter of public record.

That point aside, let’s move to the focus of this Truth-O-Meter: Is the winery really the largest on the East Coast, as Trump claimed? We emailed his campaign three times seeking backup for the statement but didn’t hear back. So we began our own investigation.

First, we contacted the Virginia Wine Board, a panel created by the Virginia General Assembly to promote state wineries and vineyards. Annette Boyd, the board’s director, said Trump Winery has planted 200 acres of vines. By that measure, called "acres under vine," Boyd said Trump Winery has the largest vineyard in Virginia.

The Trump Winery website, citing the same 200-acre figure, also says it’s the largest vineyard in the state. It additionally claims that it’s the largest "vinifera vineyard" on the East Coast, referring to a species of grape.

But the website never goes as far as Donald Trump did in making an unconditional claim that the winery is the largest on the East Coast. He’s made that statement a number of times.

Several wine industry analysts told us that when calculating a winery’s size, the best measure is not the acreage of vines that have been planted-- it’s the volume of wine produced. By that standard, wine experts told us there’s no way Trump Winery is the biggest on the East Coast.

"That’s not correct," Michael Kaiser, spokesman for the National Association of American Wineries, told us about Trump’s claim.

In fact, by that measure Trump Winery is not even the largest in Virginia. The Trump Winery produces about 36,000 cases of wine each year, according to Boyd. The top producers in the state are the Williamsburg Winery and Chateau Morrisette in Floyd County-- each making about 60,000 cases a year, Boyd said. Barboursville Winery in Orange County, meanwhile, makes about 37,000 cases a year, Boyd said.

It’s not hard to find wineries along the East Coast that make even more. Duplin Winery in Rose Hill, N.C., produces about 390,000 cases of sweet wine a year, Dave Fussell Jr., Duplin’s president, told us in an email.

Duplin, on its website, claims to be the "largest winery in the South." Its grapes come from more than 1,000 acres, the vast majority from farmers who grow them off-site.

The Biltmore Winery in Asheville, N.C., says on its website that it produces about 150,000 cases of wine a year.

Lastly, we wondered whether there are wineries on the East Coast that have more grapes than Trump Winery’s 200 acres of vines. The answer is yes.

The Wagner Vineyards Estate Winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York says it cultivates 250 acres of grapes (and makes 50,000 cases of wine a year). The vineyard manager at Pindar Vineyards on New York’s Long Island said in a November 2015 interview that its vineyard has more than 300 acres of grapes. Pindar says it makes 70,000 cases of wine a year.

Our ruling

Trump said that Trump Winery is the "largest winery on the East Coast." It’s not, regardless of whether you measure it by acreage of vines or the production of wine.

We rate Trump’s statement False.

Eater.com offered a Fake wine news alert this week. "The winery that bears Donald Trump’s name," they reported, "which is located in Charlottesville, Virginia, has long denied having anything to do with the current president of the United States... Fake winery news aside, Trump has an unethical habit of mixing his personal business with policy matters. Whether entertaining heads of state at the restaurants inside his D.C. hotel, hosting foreign dignitaries at his properties, or plugging his businesses during official statements Trump has more conflicts of interest than hairs on his head."

Yesterday, Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced a resolution in the House that Paul Ryan is likely to bury and prevent from ever coming to a vote. The resolution calls for Señor Trumpanzee President Donald Trump to get a psychiatric examination to determine if he should be removed from office. The resolution reads, in part, "President Donald J. Trump has exhibited an alarming pattern of behavior and speech causing concern that a mental disorder may have rendered him unfit and unable to fulfill his Constitutional duties" [and urges Pence and the Trumpanzee Cabinet to] "quickly secure the services of medical and psychiatric professionals to examine the President… to determine whether the President suffers from mental disorder or other injury that impairs his abilities and prevents him from discharging his constitutional duties."

She speculated that either Trump "has early stage dementia" or that "the stress of office aggravated a mental illness crippling impulse control."

The Hillary Surrogates Turning Increasingly Foul-- Winning Dirty Is A Bad Longterm Game Plan

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, aside from being a tool of the tech industry, is a middle-of-the-road Democrat, not a Blue Dog or a corrupt New Dem, not a progressive, just a Democrat doing a job. Her district encompasses the southern and eastern half of San Jose from Japantown and Alum Rock and runs down the 101 Freeway past Morgan Hill, almost to Gilroy. Once upon a time she was an idealist and an activist. Lofgren is the same age as Hillary, 68, not as conservative but closer to her politically than to Bernie; she's one of Hillary's main California surrogates. She's been in Congress since winning an open seat in 1994. She's had some ethics issues involving self-enrichment but she's not as bad as the typical congressional Hillary supporter. Laughably, 3 years after she was found to have stolen $348,186 from the taxpayers, Pelosi defiantly made her head of the Ethics Committee. It's how Congress works. She's a walking advertisement for congressional term limits. Most recently she recruited some random lawyer from Orange County to run against Lou Vince in CA-25, Santa Clarita, the Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley, probably guaranteeing that the Republicans will hold this blue seat again.

Last night she was in Vegas to work on a premeditated Clinton onslaught of "trusted" slime bag congressmembers meant to smear Bernie. She's well suited to the task and tore him down viciously like some kind of ravenous prehistoric bird of prey.

"I served with Bernie," she croaked. "Almost everybody who has served with Bernie is supporting Hillary," not mentioning the power dynamics that dictate how shallow establishment shills like herself would never consider doing anything other than sticking with the establishment candidate. She's taken $939,668 from the Financial Sector, so she isn't sympathetic to Bernie's goals, even if many of her constituents are. The smear went like this: "You look at someone's achievement level and there's very little to show in terms of legislative achievement. I don't want to be snarky about it but the truth hurts. Hillary has accomplished a lot, both in the Senate [false, unless sabotaging marriage equality counts] and as secretary of State." No one pressed her on what Hillary accomplished as Secretary of State, but I suspect Hillary's one major mark-- the destruction of Libya as a functioning state-- wouldn't be what she was talking about.

Part II of the smear is something the Clinton Machine has all her surrogates repeating-- Bernie wrecked the immigration reform efforts of 2007. 

Sanders has repeated on the trail that he sided with Hispanic groups who believed the guest worker program in the bill amounted to "slavery." But the Clinton campaign blasted out his official 2007 statement on that bill to reporters, which doesn't mention that argument.

Instead, Sanders's statement argued that the bill would have "driven down wages and benefits for U.S. workers by letting employers recruit lower-paid foreign guest workers." That prompted unions like the AFL-CIO to also express concerns that the bill would hurt labor.

"Bernie did not stand with us," Lofgren said, "and we have never gotten that close again."

The vile and ugly Clinton Machine "take no prisoners" strategy for de-legitimizing Bernie will alienate his progressive/millennial  base and the damage to the Democratic Party is incalculable. Here you can see the strategy in full flower, on an anti-Bernie website owned by family retainer David Brock. At best the strategy will hand the GOP the White House in November. What could be worse? How about a schism that splits the party in two-- the elderly corporatists and establishmentarians on the one side-- a corruption-fed conservative grouping that contrasts itself to the reactionary Republicans on the right and to the progressive base on the left-- and the remnants of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt party on the other side. I guess it's time. But President Herr Trumpf... oy veh! Is America strong enough to survive that?

Rep. Zoe Lofgren Has Some Questions About The Syrian Crisis

Same old same old

Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has been a loyal Democrat who has backed Pelosi and Obama in just about everything they've tried to accomplish. If I were still a dj at San Jose's KSJO, she would be my congressmember. The district has a PVI of D+19 and Obama beat Romney there last year 71-27%. She was reelected in the Santa Clara county district with a stunning 73% of the votes and she's been very active in trying to help progressive candidates in California beat reactionary Republican incumbents, something few of her colleagues are willing to do. She's been one of the most generous and helpful House Democrats to Lee Rogers in his bid to replace warmonger Buck McKeon.

Rep. Lofgren congratulated President Obama on seeking congressional authorization before attacking Syria and told her constituents that his action to work with Congress "is legally and constitutionally required." But that's the beginning of the debate for her, not the end of it. Here, in part, is the statement she jointly sent out with neighboring Congresswoman Anna Eshoo to their Santa Clara County constituents. More Democrats should be doing the same thing in their districts:

We welcome the opportunity to listen to the facts of this matter in the most public forum. While a review of the evidence, both classified and unclassified, as to the use of chemical is important, we are already inclined to believe that these horrific weapons were used based on public and social media accounts. We believe that the question before the U.S. Congress is not "can the Obama Administration prove that the Syrian government used chemical weapons?" Rather, the paramount question is, if that is true, "what is the best course for the United States to take, and why?"

Here are just a few of the questions that are at the heart of what Congress must debate as we and our colleagues determine the best course for the United States to take:

• What role should the United States play in enforcing international treaties prohibiting the use of chemical weapons?

• International treaties are frequently violated by various nations. What precedent does it set if the United States acts in this case? Will the U.S. be placed in a position where we must respond whenever treaties are seriously violated? If not, why?

• Civilian massacres have occurred in other countries without U.S. military intervention and are occurring today in Egypt, for example. Would action in Syria set a precedent for action in other parts of the world? If not, why not?

• Should the U.S. take action when international bodies, including the UN and NATO, have declined to do so?

• Should the U.S. take action when the United Nations has asked that we not do so?

• Should the U.S. act when other nations decline to participate with our country in taking such action, including Great Britain? Arab nations?

• If action is taken by the United States what impact will it have on the future behavior of the Assad regime? On what basis are we concluding that Syria will change its behavior based on a U.S. attack on Syrian targets?

• If the U.S. attack is limited in scope and time, what message will that give to Syria as well as other nations such as Iran? If the action is protracted in scope and time, what are the potential costs in American lives and U.S. taxpayer dollars? For U.S. prestige in the world and in the Middle East?

• How would U.S. military action against Syria make the American people safer? The Syrian people? The people of Israel?

• If a U.S. attack assists the rebels in overthrowing the Assad regime, who takes over in Syria? If the Assad regime falls, will further civil war ensue between competing rebel factions? What role will Al Qaeda play?

• The Syrian civil war is also a proxy war for other powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and other non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. What impact would U.S. action have on these other actors?

• Will the unrest in Syria spread in the region if the U.S. acts? If the U.S. does not act?

• What impact would U.S. action have on our closest ally in the region, Israel? Would a U.S. attack on Syria lead to retaliatory attacks against Israel or others? What will the reaction of Israel be in that case? What U.S. action would then be required?

• If our country decides that some action by the U.S. is required, what should that action be? Should further diplomatic efforts, as opposed to military action, be considered? Are there feasible sanctions that could be put in place? Other actions?

• If military action is proposed, what are the targets, the scope and the cost? What is expected to be accomplished and how will that serve the interests of the United States? Syria? The Middle East? The World?

• What is our strategy for Syria (and for the Middle East generally) and how would military action support or damage that strategy?

• If the Assad regime, or even the rebels, were to engage in actions that appear to violate international treaties including the use of chemical weapons in the future what action would the U.S. take? What would be the consequences of further action or inaction in such a case in terms of spread of war, entanglement of the U.S. in the Syrian civil war, U.S. reputation around the world, and the perception of American strength and resolve by Iran and North Korea? To what extent is the U.S. "painting ourselves into a corner" by attacking Syria now? Will that force us to attack again in response to further violations? If not, why?

• What impact would U.S. military action have on relations between Russia and our country? What are the short and long term implications for Russia and the U.S., including efforts to continue the reduction of nuclear arms by our two nations?

• What are the possible adverse results of U.S. military action in Syria? What steps have been taken to address those potential adverse impacts? What is the "end game?"

We hope the Congressional debate will be carried out at the highest level, with the result that the United States acts, or does not act, after the most deliberative consideration. In that regard, we ask the President to make his case in the light of public scrutiny, not by "classified" briefings that are kept from the American people and which Members of Congress are prohibited from discussing publicly. This debate will have its needed effect only if it is fully transparent.

We pledge to our constituents and fellow Americans that we will carefully weigh the facts and options that face the United States at this juncture. We look forward to debating and hearing answers to these questions, and other relevant ones that may emerge, as we examine the facts and further hear from our constituents on this very serious issue facing our country.