The Nature Of Conservatism-- Profiting From Societal Adversity

McConnell is a master of one thing and one thing only-- obstruction

I'm not going to argue about conservative, greed-obsessed businessmen rushing headlong into markets to profit from societal disruption. It's not illegal and anyone who ever thought a conservative had an predisposition towards ethical or Christian fundamental values was just kidding themselves anyway. My beef, though, is with conservative greed-obsessed elected officials. What I expect from private citizens of a conservative bent is not what I expect from conservative public officials. Nor should you. In two separate polls, a majority of North Carolina voters say Senator Richard Burr, who said in 2016 that he wouldn't run again, should resign for selling $1.6 million in hotel and other stocks based on inside information he obtained as chair of the Senate Intel Committee. He was only one of nearly a dozen conservatives in Congress who were doing the same thing-- selling stocks before the deluge-- although one, right-wing congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA) ran out as soon as he had some inside info and bought thousands of dollars of stock in AbbVie, Inc, which makes antiviral drugs. (His greed and lack of ethics, though, did him no good; he lost money too.) Robert Reich yesterday: Senators Loeffler and Burr-- and any other senator if found to have benefited from insider information about the pandemic, including Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)-- must resign immediately."

Last night the Washington Post reported that "Trump’s private business has shut down six of its top seven revenue-producing clubs and hotels because of restrictions meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, potentially depriving Trump’s company of millions of dollars in revenue. Those closures come as Trump is considering easing restrictions on movement sooner than federal public health experts recommend, in the name of reducing the virus’s economic damage." Trump had two reactions. First was to tell Mnuchin that a bailout for [his] hotels and golf courses had to be included in any stimulus package and second was that he's opening the economy again, no matter what it does to the efforts to flatten the curve and save lives.

And now Mitch McConnell is leading Senate Republicans to pass a stimulus package that serves their own partisan interests and the desires of the donor class while screwing over working families, the same way they did in 2008. Georgia Senate candidate TeresaTomlinson saw it the same way I did. Yesterday she sent her supporters a note that included this: "Now, amidst a global pandemic, Republican senators are committing insider trading while they try to score a $500 billion slush fund for a corporate bailout that would help their donors. The world’s challenges are too important to continue with failed Republican leadership. We have to defeat the Republicans this November to fix the Affordable Care Act, guarantee universal healthcare, and protect people-- not corporations-- from the coronavirus pandemic."

But wait! Won't Trump fix everything now that we're going from "It's a hoax" to resurrection Sunday in April?

Also Yesterday, Tom Neuburger pointed out the crossroads the country has come to: a collision between two competing imperatives-- "does the nation serve the pathological wants of the few who control it or the immediate and existential needs of the many who live in it?"

The few-- the bankers and profiteers; investors and CEOs of all kinds and stripes; their well-paid enablers in the media and professional classes-- think the coronavirus emergency will pass and "business" (our modern, rapacious way of doing it) will eventually return to normal.

Thus for them, the current crisis represents once-in-a-generation opportunity for theft on the grandest of scales, the plundering of public goods and control in the time of greatest emergency. They think this theft, like the many similar others that went before it, will occur with no consequence for them and only long-term consequences for others-- thefts like the 2000 election, which cost them nothing while adding to their power and credibility, but left a great many others broken or dead; or the theft of family fortunes and futures during the 2008 global meltdown, losses that even today only they have recovered from.

...[T]he massive loss of wealth by the working class after 2008-- wealth they have still not regained-- happened slowly, and in a nation filled with "back to normal" TV propaganda (you don't see the struggling depicted on spry network dramas and comedies) their constant pain has by now been normalized and accepted as just the way things are "for some people." (Those "some people," it must be noted, put Donald Trump in the White House.)

...On whose side will government throw its weight? On the side of the pathological few or the side of the suffering many?

The answer to that question will determine the future of the nation. Will we more resemble the country of FDR and his widely loved government for the people, or that of Louis XVI and his overthrown government of the people. A crossroads indeed. Will the national needs of the many be honored and met? Or will the pathological few light a flame that burns us all?

Now listen carefully to Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), a progressive, not a conservative. Ignore the imbecile talking head asking him questions, but listen to what he is prioritizing.





Crackpot Republicans in Ohio and Texas are breaking the law by using the pandemic as cover to prohibit all abortions. That's what conservatives have always done and will always do-- look for ways to push their toxic, anti-family agenda whenever they can take advantage of an opportunity, no matter how dire.

Today, Bernie, reacting to the decision by the Trump Regime's FDA to grant Gilead Sciences a seven-year monopoly for antiviral medication remdesivir for potential treatment of the coronavirus, said "It is truly outrageous that after taxpayers put tens of millions of dollars into developing remdesivir, Trump’s FDA is exploiting a law reserved for rare diseases to privatize a drug to treat a pandemic virus. The Trump Administration must rescind this corporate giveaway to Gilead and make any treatment and vaccine free for everybody. Now is not the time for profiteering in the pharmaceutical industry. Now is the time to bring our scientists together to develop and produce the best treatment for the coronavirus as quickly as possible. When Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine 65 years ago, he understood the tremendous value it would have for all of humanity, and he refused to patent it. Right now, we must put human life above corporate profit. We cannot give pharmaceutical corporations a monopoly on treatments that could save millions of people during this crisis."

Foolishly, McConnell Ramps Up The Republican Party's War On Women Again

Why would McConnell get the GOP war against women rolling again, juts as the election season is moving into high gear? Who gained and who lost yesterday when he forced the Senate into a no-win situation with two abortion votes. McConnell's no fool and he knew there was no possibility the already-rejected bills would pass. So why move away from his strategy of no votes on policy, just on Trumpist confirmations of judges and other characters sent over by the Regime?

Do the culture war bills to sharply restrict access to late-term abortions and threaten doctors who perform them with criminal penalties signal a decision by the GOP to make Freedom of Choice a campaign issue this year? Apparently so. They'll certainly energize the anti-Choice warriors in the Republican coalition.

Most polling shows just over a third of voters think abortions should be illegal-- in a recent ABC-Washington Post poll 22% said illegal in most cases and 14% said illegal in all cases. As always, a majority of Americans agree that abortions should be legal on all or most cases and that the decision should be up to the pregnant woman.

A few years ago, Pew took a look at how opinions on abortions differed by state. The backward, reactionary states that always vote Republican and where people lose their teeth early in life because they don't understand dental care, are totally anti-choice of course. These are the states where the fewest people back a woman's right to choice:

• West Virginia- 35%
• Kentucky- 36%
• Mississippi- 36%
• Alabama- 37%
• Arkansas- 38%
• Louisiana- 39%
• Tennessee- 40%
• South Carolina- 42%

And these are the states-- almost all blue-- they overwhelmingly favor leave the decision up to the woman and those she chooses to consult:

• Massachusetts- 74%
• Vermont- 70%
• Connecticut- 67%
• Hawaii- 66%
• New Hampshire- 66%
• New York- 64%
• Maine- 64%
• Maryland- 64%
• Oregon- 63%
• Rhode Island- 63%
• Alaska- 63%
• Nevada- 62%
• New Jersey- 61%
• Washington- 60%
• Colorado- 59%
• California- 57%
• Illinois- 56%
• Florida- 56%
• Montana- 56%
• Delaware- 55%

Neither bill got through the Democratic technical filibuster. The first got 53 votes out of the 60 needed, with Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Bob Casey (D-PA) voting with all the Republicans except Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). The second vote got 56 votes, coming closer to being able to shut downtime filibuster. Collins and Murkowski both voted with the Republicans on that one, as did Alabama Democrat Doug Jones.

Will their votes against Choice today hurt Susan Collins (with hardcore Republicans in Maine), Dan Sullivan (AK), Cory Gardner (CO), Steve Daines (MT)? And what about in states with Senate races that are more closely divided? North Carolina, for example has 49% favoring Choice and 45% opposed. How is that going to impact Thom Tillis in November? Did Joni Ernst make a mistake today by voting against Choice? Iowa has a 52% pro-Choice majority and just 46% against it. Arizona senator Martha McSally voted for the restrictions but a plurality of her constituents-- 49-46%-- favor choice... and that plurality has been growing since the poll was taken half a dozen years ago.

People think of Alaska as a red state. Obama lost both times he ran and Trump beat Hillary 52.8% tp 37.6%. But look at those numbers on Choice. Alaskans are strongly on the pro-Choice side. Yesterday, savvy Republican Lisa Murkowski voted against the Republican position on the first bill, while Dan Sullivan, a bit of a bunk-head  and who's up for reelection, voted against Choice. His opponent, a political independent and a medical doctor, pounced. Al Gross told me that "Dan is nothing but a zealot for the far right wing's harmful partisan agenda, and this vote epitomizes that. For all his talk about small government, he and his DC pals believe it's the government's job to interfere with a woman's right to choose. Well I believe differently. As a Doctor, an Alaskan, and a father, I call this behavior out. Dan Sullivan-- maybe you haven't learned yet, but this is not representative of Alaskan values. Study quick, November is right around the corner and we're going to beat you."

As for the presidential campaign, this is an issue Republicans also lose on in key swing states in the Midwest (besides Florida and New Hampshire):

• Wisconsin- 53-45%
• Pennsylvania- 51-44%
• Ohio- 48-47%
• Michigan- 54-42%

The votes today may have been helpful to McConnell himself, but it looks like most vulnerable Republican senators will be hurt by it. Cory Gardner, another example, has always been an anti-Choice fanatic-- something he proved again yesterday. I asked his progressive opponent, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff how that vote will play in Gardner's struggling reelection campaign. "For Mitch McConnell, Cory Gardner, and their right-wing allies," said Romanoff, "criminalizing abortion is more important than feeding the 11 million children who will go hungry tonight in the richest nation on earth. Shameful."

Protecting Women's Choice From The Trumpists

Trump doesn't give a whit about women's Choice one way or the other and the only thought he ever put into it before being persuaded it can be used as a potent political weapon against his enemies, was when he was relieved legal abortion could be used to get rid of fetuses in women he had knocked up. But as a political weapon... now you're talking his language! Yesterday NPR reported his regime was defeated in court over the "Conscience Rule," another bogus attempt by the far right to infringe on Choice.

In a blow to the Trump administration, a federal court in Manhattan has knocked down a rule that would make it easier for doctors and other health care workers to refuse care for religious reasons.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled Wednesday that the Department of Health and Human Services, which issued the regulation earlier this year, exceeded its authority and "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in promoting it.

The department's violations of federal law, according to the judge's opinion, were "numerous, fundamental, and far-reaching"-- and he vacated the rule entirely, just over two weeks before it was set to take effect Nov. 22.

...The rule's critics... saw it as a means of allowing health care workers to circumvent rules against discrimination. And they quickly took the Trump administration to court-- with more than two dozen states, cities and organizations such as Planned Parenthood filing lawsuits against Severino and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Those suits were later consolidated into one case, which Engelmayer oversaw.

There's also another lawsuit against this rule, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs in that consolidated case include the state of California, Santa Clara County, and organizations such as Lambda Legal. It wasn't immediately clear what Wednesday's ruling means for the case in California.

As NPR has reported, this rule was part of a big push from the Office for Civil Rights to bolster "religious freedom" in health care. Severino, who is Catholic and formerly of the conservative Heritage Foundation, has argued that previous administrations did not fully enforce existing law that protected what supporters call health care workers' "conscience rights."

To remedy that, Severino created a Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom in January 2018, and in May of this year, his office issued this rule.

The rule was designed to bolster the rights of providers to opt-out of care, even without prior notice of their objections to their employer. It also expanded the type of workers who are able to file complaints about rights violations to include billing staff and receptionists and anyone else who in any way "assist[s] in the performance" of a procedure.

Complaints of such violations are relatively rare-- for a decade, the office would receive an average of one complaint like this each year. Severino frequently pointed to a jump in those complaints to 343 last year as proving the need for this rule. He attributed that increase to a strong message from his office that they were "open for business" when it came to issues of religious freedom.

However, that increase in the number of complaints is "demonstrably false," according to Englemayer's ruling. Nearly 80% of all the complaints given to the court were about vaccinations-- unrelated to health care workers and their religious beliefs in providing care.

The judge writes that only 21-- or 6%-- of the complaints the government provided the court are even potentially related to providers' moral or religious objections. During oral arguments, the government's attorney conceded that the real number of complaints were "in that ballpark."

"This conceded fact is fatal to HHS's stated justification for the Rule," Englemayer writes. "Even assuming that all 20 or 21 complaints implicated the Conscience Provisions, those 20 or 21 are a far cry from the 343 that the Rule declared represented a 'significant increase' in complaints."

In a statement to NPR, the government said, "HHS, together with DOJ, is reviewing the court's opinion and so will not comment on the pending litigation at this time."

Eva Putzova is running for Congress in an Arizona congressional district occupied by a conservative Blue Dog and former Republican legislator, Tom O'Halleran. He's as anti-Choice fanatic, just like his GOP colleagues. "I believe," Eva told us this morning, "in the absolute right to a safe, legal abortion. I support the court's ruling against the DHS rule allowing providers to violate reproductive rights under the guise of so-called "religious freedom." There is no "religious freedom" to deny constitutional rights to individuals or protected groups such as those seeking abortions. Too often, Democrats allow reactionary anti-choice groups to set the terms of debate when it comes to women and others seeking to control their own bodies. Each year, the Congress votes to pass the Hyde amendment which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion and way too many Democrats roll over with barely a peep of public opposition. This is personal for me. My own grandmother died from a botched abortion in 1946 leaving my 2-year old mother to grow up without her mother. When I am in Congress I will fight for full reproductive freedom and I will not stay quiet until we achieve it."

Jon Hoadley, the progressive Michigan state Rep. running for the southwestern Michigan House seat held by anti-Choice Trump enablers Fred Upton told me yesterday that "Today's court ruling is a step in the right direction to protect a woman’s right to choose. Women should be able to make their own decisions about their bodies and their family planning-- without interference from their bosses or the government."

Kathy Ellis' opponent, Jason Smith, is an anti-Choice fanatic and in their rural southeast Missouri district women's Choice is constantly under threat. "Everyone-- regardless of zip code, age, sex, or income-- should have access to basic healthcare, including abortion access." Using 'religious liberty' as an excuse for denying folks' access to healthcare is wrong and quite honestly, shameful."

Jason Butler is a progressive Wade County, North Carolina pastor vying for a House seat with anti-Choice extremist and Trump enabler George Holding. In an informal discussion, he told me that "one thing that evangelicals have been arguing for years is that they should not have to serve the public if that service violates their faith convictions. On its own, this sounds ok-- but the problem becomes that different people believe vastly different things about other people. While a baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple is one thing (which no one should do-- but honestly, they probably have the right to do)-- this can reach into life-threatening situations. Should an EMS deny life-saving CPR to a transgender woman if they disagree with their 'sexuality'? Should a doctor refuse to care for an undocumented minor because their faith teaches them to 'obey the law'… this is the danger of 'religious freedom.' It knows no end. We have a variety of faiths, and some pretty crazy belief systems within faiths-- anyone can get away with whatever they want to do and just call it their 'religious right.' While the constitution guarantees that we may practice our religion without persecution or interference from the state-- those protections should not be extended to the responsibilities of one's professional duties within my public job. If a part of one's job violates the principles of their faith, then they have every right to resign and find another job-- but not to refuse the service that is central to that job."

Lauren Ashcraft is a progressive congressional candidate for a New York City district occupied by garden variety Democrat and Wall Street ally Carolyn Maloney. This morning, Lauren told us that "It’s difficult to follow the logic in using 'religious liberty' to force your personal religious beliefs (or the positions you are being lobbied to have) on an entire country. I say this as a proud member of a Christian congregation in my district. I look forward to the very real possibility that the ERA will soon be ratified and everyone will be equal according to federal law, regardless of gender. I support the right to bodily autonomy and hope to get past when reproductive rights are always on the chopping block as political sport."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

It ain't gonna happen but maybe, in a far better world, Trump and Bolton would send some troops to Alabama to protect the rights of women from the state's official rape and incest cult and support group which masquerades as its legislature.

After all, both JFK and LBJ sent troops to Alabama to protect the rights of African-Americans from racists back in the 1960s, and, back in 1957, Eisenhower sent the Army's 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas for the same reason. Those were topsy-turvy times. Alabama Governor George Wallace was a Democrat (more precisely, a Dixiecrat) and Eisenhower, a Republican when sane Republicans could still be found, worked with Democratic Governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus to ensure justice. Imagine that-- bipartisanship in human decency!

The dynamic duo of Trump and Bolton could even send a naval carrier task force to the Gulf Of Mexico just like they've sent one to the waters off the coast of Iran. Nah. As I said, it ain't gonna happen, and if it did, we'd see massive uprisings of Confederate flag-waving knuckle-draggers all over the south (and other republican strongholds) drunkenly screaming about the affront to their "heritage" and "a woman's place." A few anti-choice Democrats might even join them.

A Determined Minority Wants To Ban Women's Choice. Needed: A Determined Majority

Severe lack of diversity in the Alabama state Senate. Notice who voted to end women's Choice?

Blue America doesn't endorse candidates because of their racial, gender, religious identities-- or any other identities. We pick them because we think they will be excellent members of Congress. That said, so far this cycle, 4 out of the 7 House candidates we have endorsed are women. Only one is a straight white male (and he's great too).

That said, there are too few women in Congress. More diversity in decision-making has been proven to lead to better outcomes. In the Alabama state Senate last week, two dozen white men decided that women in their state shouldn't be able to have abortions any longer. All of the candidates Blue America has endorsed strongly disagree with that decision. Several of them-- including the two women below have sent me letters about it.

Eva Putzova was a Flagstaff city councilmember and is now running for Congress in Arizona's vast first district. The incumbent, Tom O'Halleran, was a Republican state legislator who flipped to independent and then, when he saw an opportunity to get into Congress, flipped to Blue Dog, still as conservative as he was when he was a Republican.

A few days ago Eva explained to us that she "first came to the U.S. in 1998 to spend one year immersing myself in the culture and language. I couldn’t afford to study in the U.S., so I signed up for a year-long au-pair program. It was after the third year of my 5-year master’s program at the University of Economics (Slovakia) when I took a year off and at age of 21, boarded my very first trans-Atlantic flight."

I spent a year in Asheville, North Carolina, taking care of two little boys. And I fell in love. But my stay was soon over and I had to go back to Slovakia to finish school. My partner with whom I fell in love at the time had college loans to repay and couldn’t just move wherever to be with me. It was me, a girl from a former Eastern Bloc country, who was free-- not financially independent but without any college debt-- to go where my heart was pulling me.

My love for one person then grew into love of people and land that became my forever home-- here in Flagstaff, Arizona. For me, there’s no more stunning landscape than that of the American Southwest-- with a big blue sky, canyons, desert, and an endless ponderosa pine forest. And the people I’ve met along the way are kind, generous, thoughtful, and full of life.

Every immigration story is different and it’s this diversity that the Trump’s administration wants to take away that makes this country so very special.

My immigration experience also made me think a lot about the concept of freedom-- an idea that for a 21-year old myself was synonymous with the United States of America. When you are in your early twenties, you want to live for new adventures and to explore the world and your own potential. And I realized-- maybe not right away, but over time-- that I was truly free because I didn’t have the burden of paying back the cost of my college education. I also started to understand how that is not the case for most people going to college here today.

It's one reason why I’m running for Congress-- to give young people back the freedom they deserve. After all, their grandparents used to enjoy an affordable college experience. There’s no reason why we can’t make college debt a thing of past.

I'm sure you have heard about the abortion law in Alabama by now. It outlaws all abortions, even from rape and incest. The only exceptions are in cases where the mother’s life is at risk or the baby has a "lethal anomaly". If a provider carries out an abortion, they can be given up to a 99 year jail sentence.

I know what the outcomes of a law like this can be.

My grandmother died of a botched abortion. She was only 20 years old.

This isn't just a women's issue. It's a social, racial, and economic issue.

This law punishes low-income people and people of color. It is about power, control, and oppression.

At the same time Eva was writing that, Audrey Denney, running in the first district of California-- also huge, mostly rural and small town district like Eva's-- wrote about the abortion bill in Alabama. "This, she wrote, "is a terrifying moment in U.S. history, when 46 years of precedent for recognizing women’s right to privacy and sovereignty over their own bodies is being systematically dismantled. The policymakers who have put forward these archaic bans on safe and legal abortion claim to be doing so because they value human life."

I deeply respect the sanctity of life. I believe that life is created by God, and I believe that every woman has the right to choose whether or not she will participate in bringing life into being. No one has the right to tell her that she must. Making the decision to end a pregnancy is a difficult and tragic one-- but having the right to make that decision is foundational to protecting women’s health, privacy, and well-being.

If the people who wrote these laws truly cared for the sanctity of life, they would be working tirelessly to reduce our country’s maternal mortality rate (currently the worst among industrialized nations), but instead they are limiting or eliminating care, and more mothers are dying during childbirth. They would be investing in initiatives to improve infant and child health and access to early education and child care. They would be fighting for paid family leave, so that parents have adequate time to regain their own health and support their new child. They would be losing sleep over the 12 million children in this country who will go to bed hungry because their parents are trapped in poverty, unable to earn a living wage.

I imagine a world where fewer women face the difficult decisions surrounding ending a pregnancy. Statistics have proven since Roe v. Wade, the path to that kind of world is not through restrictive legislation around abortion. That path is achieved through policies that support women and families, and make it easier for families to thrive in our country.

The legislators who support abortion bans have failed us. They have failed their constituents. They have failed our nation. Their time is up.

See what I mean about the value of a diverse group of people making decisions. Maybe it would have been a very different decision the other day in the Alabama state Senate if women like Eva and Audrey were members. And, I'm sorry to say, that all 6 Republicans that Alabama has sent to Congress are virulently anti-Choice, even though only 31% of Alabama voters agree with the approach that passed the legislature and was signed by the governor. If you'd like to help Eva and Audrey replace two very conservative men in Congress-- one Blue Dog and one Trump-enabling Republican-- please click on the Blue America congressional thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to their campaigns. As Eric Levitz noted last week in New York Magazine, The GOP’s assault on abortion rights is tyranny of the minority. "The government of Alabama just decided that providing an abortion to a 12-year-old girl who was raped by her father is a more serious crime than raping a 12-year-old girl... Although some putatively 'moderate' Republicans like Marco Rubio believe that the state should coerce victims of rape and incest into incubating their abusers’ fetuses, the vast majority of Americans do not. A 2018 Gallup poll found that 77 percent of voters felt abortion should be legal in such circumstances during the first trimester of pregnancy (while 52 percent said it should remains so in the last three months of a pregnancy)... But the notion that a fetus with a heartbeat is a person-- and that the state should therefore treat aborting a pregnancy after six weeks as an act of murder-- is an utterly fringe notion in American life. And this is true not merely at the federal level but also in every U.S. state... [T]here is not a single state in the union where a majority of voters support making abortion illegal in all circumstances... The Alabama GOP isn’t out of step with its own voters merely on the question of fetal personhood. This past July, an NBC News–Wall Street Journal survey asked respondents, 'The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?' Fifty-two percent of Republican voters chose 'not.'"

Progressives cannot beat back the GOP’s assault on reproductive rights merely by “winning the argument” over abortion; in many respects, that argument is already won. America does not lack a pro-choice consensus; the pro-choice majority lacks the power to hold Republican lawmakers accountable to that consensus. Thus the fight for reproductive rights in the United States is inextricable from the struggle against the tyrannical rule of our nation’s far-right minority.

That is exactly what electing candidates like Eva Putzova and Audrey Denney is all about. Again, please consider helping them replace the two conservative men who represent their districts in Congress.

Cheri Bustos Announces Fund-Raising Efforts For Anti-Choice Fanatic Dan Lipinski Just As The Alabama GOP Declares War On Women

Yesterday the big news was that Alabama Republicans had passed a total, punitive-- and unconstitutional-- ban on all abortions in their state. The worst DCCC chair ever, the odious Blue Dog from northwest Illinois, Cheri Bustos, thought that would be a good day to announce that she's hosting a fundraiser for Congress' most anti-Choice Democrat, fellow Blue Dog, Dan Lipinski. That's the invitation above. Please do not call Jeff Larivee at 202-821-5203.

Lipinski is utterly out of step with the values and goals of the Democratic Party. He has a long ugly record opposing equality for the LGBTQ community, opposing Choice, opposing sane, common sense gun safety laws, opposing immigrants, opposing healthcare, opposing shoring up Social Security... and supporting a right-wing agenda dictated by the corporate PACs who have underwritten his political career. But none of that is stopping Bustos, another right-of-center Blue Dog, sitting in a safely blue, gerrymandered seat that she always falsely claims that only she could have won. She also claims-- falsely-- that the reason she has been trying to stop primaries is to protect a shaky Democratic majority. The majority is far from shaky and she has never been able to explain how protecting a fake Democrat like Lipinski-- in a district with a D+6 PVI, where Obama won both times and where even Hillary was able to beat Trump 55.2% to 39.9%. Legitimate Republicans don't even bother to run in IL-03. In 2018 the Republican Party had nothing to offer by an avowed Nazi, Arthur Jones. Any Democrat could have beaten him with both hands tied behind their back and Lipinski scored a 73.8% to 26.2% win. Maybe Bustos should be using her time and resources to help defend seats where Republicans actually could win. But, no, Lipinski is exactly her kind of candidate.

There are still politically involved Democrats-- liberals even-- who have been so brainwashed by the establishment that they actually believe the DCCC is their friend or ally or something. This is the stinking heap of garbage who DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos-- rapidly making herself into the next Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- is raising campaign cash for:



Last year, Marie Newman was about to beat him when Mark Penn and his wife, Nancy Jacobson, laundered nearly a million dollars from wealthy Republicans-- like the Murdoch family-- and other conservatives to fund a last minute smear campaign against Marie so they could save Lipinski's scrawny neck. Earlier this week Sean McElwee's Data For Progress explained another way how it was Republicans who delivered Lipinski his narrow win in 2018. "There's no party registration in Illinois, meaning that primaries are open to any registered voter. This often leads to strategic voting, where Republican partisans vote in Democratic primaries and vice versa. Despite having no party registration, we can still get a good sense of whether someone is a Republican based on their primary voting history... [T]here were about 5,000 frequent Republican primary voters in the 2018 Democratic primary, about 5 percent of the electorate... [which] would entirely account for Lipinski’s narrow win margin."

The DCCC, under the leadership of Cheri Bustos, has implemented a new blunt force policy to box out primary challengers. They’ve told every vendor who wants to work with them they if they’re involved in a primary challenge, they’ll get blacklisted by the DCCC and won’t be eligible for any contracts from the DCCC. In addition to the damage this may do to any primary challengers, it’s a threat that requires the DCCC to be less effective at the job they’re supposed to be doing if they ever want to act on it. If the DCCC opts to not use a vendor they otherwise would have used, they’re either paying their new vendor more or giving the contract to one they believe to be worse.

Our analysis of FEC records shows something disturbing: it appears the blacklist is designed specifically to protect Dan Lipinski.

2020 may seem like an odd time to roll out this tactic. In 2018, only two primary challengers beat an incumbent Democrat in Congress, which is a pretty normal level. In 2016 it was 3, in 2014 it was 1, and in 2012 it was 2. The answer may lie in not in either challenger who succeeded, but one who didn’t: Marie Newman. Newman’s race was the marquee incumbent challenge in early 2018 before Lipinski’s Republican-aided win.

In 2018, there were a handful of primary candidates. We’ve searched through their financial records, and we it’s clear that if this ban had been in place in 2018, it would have affected Newman the most. Outside of IL-03, the blacklist would have affected three polls and a couple thousand in travel arrangements. Newman, however, would have seen roughly $132,000 in campaign investments become endangered. She employed 270 Strategies, a digital media shop, The Sexton Group, a consulting firm, and Normington, Petts & Associates, her pollster. All three also worked for the DCCC, who obviously stands as a larger client with more work to send their way.

Marie Newman is running against Dan Lipinski again this cycle. Cheri Bustos, who made the decision, is one of only two Democrats to donate to Lipinski in 2018 (in 2018, the DCCC chose not to endorse Lipinski and several Democrats outright endorsed against him). The other Democrat to donate to her this year, Henry Cuellar, has been a vocal supporter of the policy. In the race for DCCC chair, Lipinski very actively backed Bustos as DCCC chair.

January and February of 2019 saw the entry of multiple incumbent challengers who could reasonably be using traditional vendors: Kai Kahele in HI-02, Rishi Kumar in CA-18, Cristina Duran in CO-01, and Mohammad Dar in MA-08. Marie Newman started taking steps towards running in March. Two weeks after she did, The DCCC Blacklist was announced. Since then, it’s been a serious body blow to Newman’s campaign. She’s already had four resignations out of fear of the DCCC, and more firms simply refuse to work with her.

Newman has refused to back down in the face of the policy. She’s gone to the press about her experiences as an enemy of the DCCC, and hasn’t let up on her criticisms of Lipinski’s ongoing anti-gay politics. Progressives have rallied behind her, donating. In the four days after she talked about how the blacklist had affected her campaign, she received $45 thousand in small dollar donations. The next week, a coalition of five pro-choice progressive groups endorsed her in unison: Planned Parenthood, NARAL, PCCC, EMILY’s List, and MoveOn.

A final note: one defense of the blacklist that keeps popping up is that it encourages members to pay their DCCC dues. Lipinski publicly refuses to pay dues.

The DCCC is blacklisting progressive vendors to protect an anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-ACA man who won re-election due to Republicans.

Lipinski isn't even the worst of the Blue Dogs. Henry Cuellar's primary opponent will soon announce. And Republican-turned-Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran (AZ) already has a stupendous opponent in progressive former Flagstaff City Councilwoman Eva Putzova.

Do You Like A Right-Wing, Mostly White Old Male Government Telling You What To Do-- Or Do You Prefer Choice?

On May Day we looked at how Alabama plans to reshape laws to change the way women interact with 21st century society... make it more like 18th century society or, among the hard-core, first century society. Since then, Georgia one-upped them with an even more draconian anti-choice bill, probably ruining the state's burgeoning and carefully nurtured film production business in the process.

GA-07 congressional candidate Marqus Cole was the first to alert me, writing me that "This morning, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed H.B. 481 into law-- the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country. The new law limits the window for legal abortions in Georgia to just six weeks-- before most women even know they’re pregnant... I’m sick of Republicans trying to turn back the clock on reproductive rights. As a lawyer, this is just the latest affront to the sanctity of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. Even worse, it’s part of an overarching GOP strategy to start a chain of appeals that ends with Roe v. Wade being overturned by Brett Kavanaugh and Trump’s handpicked Supreme Court.  And more importantly, it’s a direct attack on the women of my family and my community. My daughters-- and all women-- deserve agency over their own bodies. Women know better than the government what’s best for themselves and their families. It’s not complicated: All medical decisions should be between women and their doctors."

That's pretty much what all Democrats say, right? Well... it sure isn't what Congressman Dan Lipinski is saying-- you know... the guy being protected by Cheri Bustos and the DCCC. He's being primaried by a progressive Democratic woman, Marie Newman, but instead of supporting Marie-- or at least staying neutral-- the DCCC is threatening to blacklist any firms that work with Newman's campaign. I guess Pelosi and her nasty DCCC chairwoman are pro-Choice... unless it's politically inconvenient.

Three reproductive justice organizations collaborated on an effort-- Intersections of Our Lives, a national survey looking at the perspectives of women of color voters in the 2018 midterm election. I'm sure you recall that last cycle this was the voting bloc that blew the doors off Paul Ryan's and Kevin McCarthy's GOP House by turning out at historic levels. The Intersections of Our Lives polling was seeking insights on what women of color voters think and what their policy priorities are, following the midterms and going into the 2020 election cycle. These were the key finds of their research:

• Women of color were motivated to vote because they thought the stakes were too high not to. 88 percent of women of color voters said the stakes in the 2018 midterm election were too high not to vote. 75 percent expressed serious concerns about the trajectory of the country, noting they were angry, disgusted, scared, sad or nervous.
• Women of color supported Democratic candidates for federal and statewide races. Three-quarters of women of color voters supported the Democratic candidates in statewide and federal races. 74 percent of the women of color who voted for Democrats said Democratic candidates earned their vote.
• There is common ground on the policies that women of color believe are extremely important for Congress to address:

◦ Ending racial/ethnic/cultural discrimination (62 percent)
◦ Ensuring people with pre-existing conditions can still access health insurance (62 percent)
◦ Ensuring access to clean water (62 percent)
◦ Ensuring everyone has access to affordable health care (60 percent)

• Women of color will be watching their representatives in Congress more closely than previous elections (62 percent).
• Looking ahead to 2020, women of color would prefer to see more women candidates (88 percent) and candidates of color (85 percent). And 70 percent said candidates running for office fail to acknowledge the issues that matter most to them.

Yesterday, AOC communicated with her supporters about the Georgia Republican Party abotion bill. "Last year, Brian Kemp stole an election from Stacey Abrams by abusing his position as Secretary of State, spreading lies about hacks by Democrats, and brazen voter suppression with his 'exact match' rule, which prevented tens of thousands of voters from accessing their fundamental right to participate in this democracy. Now, he’s using his disgracefully acquired power to functionally ban abortion. Georgia joins Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi in passing a 'fetal heart beat' abortion ban, capping the procedure at 6 weeks. For those of us who understand women, that 6 weeks might as well be 0."

"Being pregnant for 6 weeks can look a whole lot like a 2 week late period-- something not uncommon for millions of women across the country. But Brian Kemp doesn’t care. He, and Republicans like him, just want to mask their war on women in a veneer of moral outrage about the abortion care that Roe v. Wade enshrined as a right... The insidious nature of this ban doesn’t stop there either. In 2013, North Dakota passed a nearly identical version of this fetal heartbeat ban-- which was then stuck down by a federal court, with a concurrence by the Supreme Court. Ask yourself one question: why do you think Republican governors across the country are now suddenly emboldened to brazenly violate Supreme Court rulings? What’s different between the Court in 2016, and the Court today? Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. That’s the difference. One justice sitting in a stolen seat, and another whose life of privilege masked him from ever facing a single consequence for his actions, no matter how heinous they were. Today, they serve as the vanguard of Mitch McConnell’s assault on our justice system, as well as the Republican war on women."

I hate to be a downer, but the Republican Supreme Court justices waiting to strike down Roe v Wade didn't get into this position without help from shit-eating Democrats, starting with Joe Biden, who almost single-handily got Clarence Thomas confirmed too the bench. (He's sorry now. Screw that! He's just plain sorry and should have retired 3 decades ago.)

Other than Biden, most of the Democrats who helped get Thomas onto the bench are dead or retired, except for Richard Shelby, who is still serving as the senior senator from the state of Alabama-- although he switched to join the GOP some years ago. There were 22 Democrats behind John Roberts, including 4 still serving in the Senate: Tom Carper (DE), Ron Wyden (OR), Pat Leahy (VT) and Patty Murray (WA). Carper, a Biden protege, won't give a rat's ass but imagine how embarrassed Wyden, Leahy and Murray will be if the Court overturns Choice. Should they be dragged out into the street for a tar-and-feathering? Make up your own mind if they should be held accountable-- along with Joe Manchin (WV), who helped Trump confirm Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Conservative asshats Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and Joe Donnelly (IN) also voted to confirm Gorsuch and their Democratic base responded by sitting on their hands and letting Republican voters defeat them during last year's "blue wave." That should be the fate of all traitorous Blue Dog and New Dem scum who want to compromise away our fundamental right for their careers. Don't buy into the Democratic Party establishment's "lesser-of-two-evils" strategy. Don't vote for crap candidates just because the Republican is worse.

In fact, just a Wednesday, Auditi Guha, writing for Rewire News, noted that there are Democrats on the state level who are working with the Republicans to overturn Roe v Wade. Lesser of two evils? [Insert your favorite expletive.]

After 6 Louisiana Democrats voted with the Republicans on Monday for the extremist (insane) anti-Choice bill, most people felt that Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards would sign it.

SB 184 passed the state senate in a 31-5 vote on Monday. It prohibits abortion around the sixth week of pregnancy, before most people know they’re pregnant, making it a near total abortion ban. Similar bans, designed to challenge the legal underpinnings of Roe v. Wade now that conservatives dominate the U.S. Supreme Court, have been proposed in 14 other states. A near total abortion ban was signed into law Tuesday in Georgia.

The Louisiana bill includes exceptions when abortion is necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of the pregnant person. Apart from those exceptions, a physician who performs or induces an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected would have their medical license revoked, be fined up to $1,000, and face up to two years in prison. The ban would not apply to abortions performed when a pregnancy is diagnosed as medically futile.

Six Democrats joined Republicans on Monday to pass the bill, which will head to a committee hearing in the house, where Republicans hold an outsized advantage. Advocates told Rewire.News that they believe Edwards, who has long supported anti-choice policy, will sign the measure...

Last year Edwards signed a 15-week abortion law, and in 2016 he approved laws requiring people to wait 72 hours to get an abortion and banning abortion facilities from receiving taxpayer funds. Those laws are being challenged in court and are not in effect.

What Does Republican Rule Look Like? For Women?

Yesterday, the Alabama House went for the big enchilada-- overturning Roe v Wade. The state House has 77 Republicans and just 28 Democrats. (The state Senate has 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats.) The executive branch is also controlled by the GOP. There are no checks; there are no balances. A state in which just a third of the people voted for Clinton and in which only 41% went along with the 2018 congressional correction-- has made the big move many red states want to make. AP reported that Alabama's House "voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to outlaw almost all abortions in the state as conservatives took aim at the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide." After the Democrats walked out of the chamber, there were just 3 votes against a bill that would make it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage in a woman’s pregnancy, with no regard for rape or incest.

Anti-Choice fanatics inside and outside Alabama gladly admit the bill is intentionally designed to conflict with Roe v. Wade, hoping to spark court cases that will give a conservative Supreme Court the opportunity to relitigate and throw out Roe v Wade, the ultimate strategy of half the Republican Party. (The ultimate startegy of the other half of the Republican Party is to throw out the New Deal.)

“The heart of this bill is to confront a decision that was made by the courts in 1973 that said the baby in a womb is not a person,” said Republican Rep. Terri Collins of Decatur.

Republicans in the chamber applauded after the bill was approved after more than two hours of sometimes emotional debate. Collins acknowledged that such a ban would likely be struck down by lower courts, but she said the aim is eventually to get to the Supreme Court.

Without the numbers to stop the bill, Democrats walked off the House floor ahead of the vote, calling the proposal both extreme and fiscally irresponsible. They said the ban would cost the state money for a potentially expensive legal fight that could be spent on other needs.

Rep. Louise Alexander, a Democrat, said the choice to give birth to a child should be left up to a woman, and the decision should not be made on the floor of the Alabama Legislature.

“You don’t know why I may want to have an abortion. It may be because of my health. It may be because of many reasons. Until all of you in this room walk in a woman’s shoes, y’all don’t know,” Alexander said.

Emboldened by new conservatives on the Supreme Court, abortion opponents in several states are seeking to incite new legal fights in the hopes of challenging Roe v. Wade. The Alabama bill comes on the heels of several states considering or approving bans on abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which occurs in about the sixth week of pregnancy.

The Alabama bill attempts to go farther by banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

House Republicans voted down Democrats’ attempt to amend the bill to add an exemption for rape and incest. Representatives voted 72-26 to table the proposed amendment.

“They would not even allow an exception for rape and incest... What does that say to the women in this state,” House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels.

Collins argued that adding exemptions would weaken the intent of the bill as a vehicle to challenge Roe. She said if states regain the ability to decide abortion access, Alabama lawmakers could come back and decide what exemptions to allow.

...Rep. Rolanda Hollis, a Birmingham Democrat, read a poem that criticized Republicans’ embrace of gun rights but not abortion rights, and later referred to the state as “Ala-Backwards.”

Once the Gov. Kay Ivey signs the bill, all abortions would be classified as Class A felonies in the state. A doctor caught performing an abortion in Alabama would face up to 99 years in prison. This might be a good time to remind you which members of the Supreme Court are eager to strike down Roe v Wade-- and which Democrats made their rise to the Court possible.

• Clarence Thomas
Joe Biden, as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, rigged the hearings to guarantee Thomas would be confirmed. 11 Democrats voted to confirm: Dixon (IL), Exon (NE), Hollings (SC), Fowler (GA), Nunn (GA), Breaux (LA), Johnston (LA), Boren (OK), Shelby (AL; he's now a Republican), DeConcini (AZ), Robb (VA)

• John Roberts
22 Democrats voted to confirm him, including 4 still serving: Lincoln (AR), Pryor (AR), Salazar (CO), Dodd (CT), Lieberman (CT), Carper (DE), Nelson (FL), Landrieu (LA), Levin (MI), Baucus (MT), Nelson (NE), Bingaman (NM), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Wyden (OR), Johnson (SD), Leahy (VT), Murray (WA), Bryrd (WV), Rockefeller (WV), Feingold (WI), Kohl (WI)

• Sammy Alito
25 Democrats voted to break the filibuster, allowing Alito to be confirmed: Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bayh (IN), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantell (WA), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

• Neil Gorsuch
3 Democrats voted to break the filibuster, allowing Gorsuch to be confirmed: Manchin (WV), Heitkamp (ND), Donnelly (IN)

• Brett Kavanaugh
The only Democrat voting with the GOP to break the filibuster that allowed Kavanaugh to be confirmed was Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

You don't see progressive Democrats on those lists of who sold us out of the years. You see crooked conservative careerists backed by the party establishment. Most of them are gone from politics today, although one is trying to reinvent himself and is attempting to slip into the Oval Office. Be careful. The right-to-choice wouldn't be in danger if Joe Biden had done his job as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Eva Putzova is a Flagstaff progressive battling a faux Democratic incumbent for Arizona's largest congressional district. He's a former Republican legislator who switched to be an independent and then, when the opportunity to slither into Congress came up, he re-registered as a Democrat. That's virtually the only Democratic thing Tom O'Halleran has ever done. He has one of the most anti-progressive voting records in Congress and has earned a solid "F" for his two terms of bad votes. This afternoon, Eva told us that her "grandmother died from a botched abortion. It was 1946 in a post-war Europe. She took my two-year old mother, her daughter, and walked 15 miles to a nearby village to get the procedure done. She never came back and my mom grew up without ever knowing her mother. Is this really what we want for American women in the 21st century? And let's be clear-- this is way more than a women's issue. This is a matter of social, economic, and racial justice. I will fight in Congress for all women-- regardless of their ability to pay or travel-- to have access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare services." Who you want to trust to fight for all women's right to choice, Eva or the "ex"-Republican backed by a craven and incredibly corrupt DCCC? Please consider helping Eva by clicking on the Blue America primary a Blue Dog thermometer on the right.

Never Forget: There Are Excellent Reasons Trump Is The Most Detested Man To Ever Occupy The White House

On Saturday night, in Green Bay, Trump was lying again about abortions. Chris Cameron, reporting for the NY Times quoted Trump's big abortion lie: "The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby." Disgusting, right? And dangerous. But this was anything but the first time he fed this line of bullshit to his hateful supporters. The video up top? That was from his hate rally in Virginia last month.

You can watch what Trump said in Green Bay here. He'll rot in hell for lies like this, although not soon enough; soon enough would mean I was speaking the the past tense.

Cameron noted correctly that this poisonous refrain "is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors 'executing babies.' During a more than hourlong speech at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., Mr. Trump admonished the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, for vetoing a Republican bill that could send doctors to prison for life if they fail to give medical care to children born alive after a failed abortion attempt. The comments are the latest in a long string of incendiary statements from the president on abortion."

He's been howling about this since January, embelishing the ugly, purposefully divisive narrative along the way-- he even used it in his State of the Union addres-- and tweeting that Democrats "don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth." His rallies are like someone screaming "fire" in a crowded theater. Television stations are doing the nation a disservice to broadcast them.

The New York Times has previously fact-checked these claims, finding that late-term abortions are rare. In Wisconsin, only 1 percent of all abortions in 2017 occurred after 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the most recent annual report from the state’s Department of Health Services. The numbers are similarly low at the national level.

Wrong to wish him rotting in hell? OK, fair enough. How about wishing he were indicted and awaiting trial instead? Yesterday, writing for the Daily Beast, Mimi Rocah and Renato Mariotti noted that if Señor Trumpanzee "were not now president he would have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction of justice." They, like many Americans, are counting on him being charged after he's finally driven from the White House. "Mueller," they wrote, "collected a stunning array of evidence that clearly shows that from 2017 until 2019, Trump engaged in a persistent pattern to try to end, or at least limit the scope of, investigations surrounding him and his [completely disgusting] family."  

With so much to consider, it’s helpful to focus on four areas in particular where there are multiple reliable witnesses whose testimony corroborates one another, where some of the acts simply can’t be disputed because they occurred in plain sight, and where the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings are clear: (1) Trump’s efforts to fire Mueller, (2) Trump’s order to falsify evidence about that effort, (3) Trump’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct, and (4) Trump’s efforts to try and prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign. While this may bear some passing similarity to mob-related and other obstruction of justice cases we worked on and saw as federal prosecutors, the conduct is more shocking and serious given that Trump is the president of the United States.

...Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed in the Mueller Report. Prosecutors would weigh a strategy of whether to charge other acts detailed in the report, like asking Comey to “let Flynn go,” or firing Comey as FBI Director. While perhaps more challenging as a legal matter with respect to issues of intent, they are chargeable and would have the benefit of ensuring that this additional conduct is admitted before a jury.

Even if not charged, there are strong arguments that prosecutors would use to have much of the evidence admitted at a trial under other rules of evidence and legal theories—for example, to prove Trump’s intent as to the charged acts and to show a pattern of conduct. And Trump’s own words, whether part of the charged conduct or not, would be admissible under the rules of evidence as admissions of a defendant, words like, “I’m fucked. This is the end of my presidency,” in response to the appointment of the special counsel.

A senior Justice Department official told the Washington Post that Barr did not believe the obstruction case “was a prosecutable offense.” We simply do not see, based on the facts described above, how this statement can be true. The Justice Department Manual’s principles of federal prosecution say that a prosecutor should charge a case “if he/she believes that the person’s conduct constitutes a federal offense, and that the admissible evidence will probably [emphasis added] be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.”

To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice defies logic and our experience. The senior official quoted by the Post refers to what they view as “complications” in such a prosecution because “the obstruction ‘relies on multiple people in a chain all doing something,’ including Lewandowski delivering the note, Sessions being persuaded by it and then Sessions moving on the special counsel.” The official called that an “attenuated chain.” But, of course, criminal schemes often involve “attenuated chains” because the primary actor wants to distance himself from the act, knowing that it’s wrong. In fact, that is often accepted by juries as circumstantial evidence of criminal intent.

To be sure, this case, like many, would not be an easy win. It has its challenges for many reasons, legal and practical. But, the criminal case against Donald Trump, private citizen, would be one that any federal prosecutor-- regardless of their politics-- should proudly pursue. As federal prosecutors, we were taught to pursue obstruction of justice cases with zeal because if obstruction goes unchecked, our whole system of justice is at risk.