Trump Deserves A Far Worse Fate Than He Is Likely To Get

 

Biden's First Order of Business by Nancy Ohanian

Trump doesn't exactly mix with the masses; no one would be able to get their hands on him, no matter how many COVID-deaths he has caused. Right now the U.S. is reporting over 100,000 new cases a day. On Monday it was 127,231 new cases. On Tuesday it was 142,212 new cases and so far today-- with hours of reporting to go-- it is 67,893 new cases, bringing the U.S. total to more than 10,600,000 (over 32,000 cases per million residents). Worse yet, hospitalizations are surging and in some Trumpist bastions, particularly the Dakotas and Nebraska, hospital capacity is non-existent, exactly what public health officials warned would happen if people didn't take the pandemic seriously and take serious precautions, the opposite of what has happened in Trumpistan counties-- which are all less educated, less healthy and less productive than the rest of America (the Moocher counties).

But Trump will never be held accountable for his criminal response to the pandemic and will never be charged for negligent homicide. In fact, the worst hit counties and states are all counties and states that gave Trump some of his biggest margins. Every single county in North Dakota is now a COVID-county and North Dakota, per capita, has more cases than any other place on earth (73,934 cases per million residents) and gave Trump a resounding 65.1% vote of confidence. Trump has nothing to fear in the Dakotas. But other than perhaps NYC or Chicago, he could probably walk down any street in America without be killed or assaulted, especially with his Secret Service protection-for-life. So Timothy O'Brien tried explaining this morning why Trump fears leaving the White House. Short version: "Losing the presidency leaves him vulnerable to financial and legal danger," after being "protected from the consequences of his own mistakes his entire life."

Born into a wealthy family, he was insulated from lukewarm academic prospects and serial business crack-ups by his father’s money. (“I often say that I’m a member of the lucky sperm club,” is how he put it in one of his books.) Emerging as a reality-TV star in the early 2000s, Trump discovered that fame allowed him to be as predatory as he pleased without repercussions. (“When you’re a star, they let you do it.”) And his 2016 ascent to the White House opened his eyes to the presidency’s legal armor-- which he interpreted broadly and often inaccurately. (“I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”)

Although Trump has over the years juggled, among other difficulties, ho-hum grades, the threat of personal bankruptcy, sexual assault accusations, an intensive federal investigation and an impeachment, he has plowed ahead relatively unwounded and unencumbered by regret. Wealth, celebrity and the presidency have kept him buoyant. All that insulation has also meant that he hasn’t learned from his mistakes. Every personal and public reckoning has been postponed or shunted aside.

Now, however, Trump is staring at two threats that loom after he leaves the White House in January. One is financial, the other legal. Neither is entirely under his control. And both may help explain, along with his perennial inability to accept losing, why Trump won’t acknowledge that President-elect Joe Biden is going to succeed him and why he has enlisted the Republican Party to help him gaslight Americans about the outcome of the presidential election.

Trump and the patchwork of businesses he houses inside the Trump Organization are saddled with more than $1 billion in debt, which Dan Alexander of Forbes has helpfully tallied. A portion of that total has been divulged over the past few years in the president’s personal financial disclosures, on file with the Office of Government Ethics. The New York Times recently revealed that Trump has personally guaranteed at least $421 million of the debt, with more than $300 million coming due within four years.

In other words, Trump is on the hook for a lot of money that he may have to scramble to repay in a Covid-19-battered economy in which his industries-- hotels, leisure, urban real estate-- have been particularly pummeled. Forbes estimates his assets are worth $3.7 billion; Bloomberg News pegs them at about $3.2 billion. He’s not going broke. But if the economy continues to struggle in coming months, those valuations will be tested. And much of what Trump holds isn’t liquid, meaning he may be hard-pressed to sell assets quickly if he needs to raise funds. Among Trump’s most valuable holdings, for example, are minority stakes in two properties controlled by Vornado Realty Trust. Rumors of fire sales might further depress the value of his portfolio.

Another thing that would weaken Trump’s ability to negotiate sweetheart financial deals or forgiveness: leaving the presidency.

On the legal side of the ledger, Trump, his children and their company face aggressive investigations into their finances, accounting practices and tax payments.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is investigating Trump for possible tax fraud and falsification of business records, according to appellate court filings. In this probe, which is also examining the president’s payment of hush money to two women who allegedly had sexual encounters with him, the DA’s office is seeking eight years of Trump’s tax returns. It is also taking a look at whether Trump inflated the value of his properties and other assets in order to secure funds from lenders and investors.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has launched another investigation, also focused on whether the Trump Organization and the Trump family manipulated valuations to secure funding or engineer tax benefits. James’s probe is a civil case, which could bring hefty financial penalties against Trump but no prison time (unless she finds reasons to recast it as criminal case). Vance’s investigation is a criminal matter, however, and if the Trump crew is found guilty of felonies, prison time is on the table.

Trump’s team has fought back hard against the Vance investigation, including arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that a sitting president is immune from state criminal prosecutions. While the court rejected that notion in a landmark ruling over the summer, it would become a moot argument in any venue once Trump is no longer president.

A Trump pushed outside the legal moat that surrounds the White House becomes, for the most part, a Trump who can be sued and penalized just as any other American can. That could also give fresh traction to the sexual assault cases against him.

It’s unclear how aggressive law enforcement officials in the Biden administration will be toward Trump. They could resurrect some of the obstruction charges that have gone fallow since former Special Counsel Robert Mueller ended his probe. On the other hand, the political firestorm that could ignite might persuade Biden to hold back.

What’s clear is that Trump’s money and freedom are in play. As he comes to grips with losing the 2020 election, he will continue responding ferociously and unpredictably, like a man who for 74 years has been accustomed to getting away with almost anything.

When Trump is found guilty in Manhattan he waits for his appeal in jail (Rikers Isalnd), not in one of his mansions. Will Congress rescind his Secret Service protection-- they should-- or will the agents have to have an adjoining, unlocked, cell?

How Badly Will Their Votes Against Impeaching Trump Cost Swing District Republicans?

Fore! by Nancy Ohanian

Michael Scherer, writing for the Washington Post Wednesday, reported that "When the dust clears, the result is most likely to look more like a draw than a victory, say political strategists from both sides." He quoted Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: "I am confident that not a single Democrat anywhere in the country next year will lose their seat because they voted for impeachment." And he quoted Republican pollster Glen Bolger: "I am not convinced that anybody is in significant danger but the small number that represent the other team’s area, and there are a lot fewer than there used to be." I disagree-- with both of them.

I suppose that an argument can be made that John Katko (R-NY), Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) were already among the walking dead. But the argument is, at best, a stretch if not spurious. All three swing district Republicans are putting up an intense fight to hold onto their seats, and despite voting against impeachment, each is raising huge war chests. Katko has already raised this $1,182,000 cycle. Davis has raised $1,504,629. And Upton, who is independently wealthy, has raised $962,016 and is spending as though his political life depends on it-- which it does.

Tuesday we looked at polling from their districts showing that most voters are less likely to vote from them specifically because of their impeachment votes. Change Research, which did the polling, asserted in their analysis that "if these Republicans are hoping to take on enough of Trump’s water today to make it through their GOP primary, and rely on their approval ratings on the economy to survive another general election, they should take a look at their dismal approval ratings on voters’ top priority, health care costs. Just 37% approve of Rodney Davis’ handling on health care costs, just 32% approve of John Katko’s handing, and a dismal 26% approve of Fred Upton’s handling of health care costs... It is clear that voters, even in these more conservative-leaning districts, believe that the President’s conduct is wildly inappropriate and worthy of the investigation underway. Regardless of their feelings about impeachment, majorities in these districts believe that Trump has engaged in conduct that will ultimately provide the basis for impeachment articles-- including abusing the power of his office (52%, 47% strongly), withholding military funds to pressure another country to investigate a political rival (52%), putting his personal political interests before the good of the country (51%, 47% strongly), and engaging in corruption (51%). Majorities also believe he has intimidated a witness (53%), undermined the rule of law (51%), and even committed crimes (51%). About half of voters in these GOP-held districts already support impeachment without reservation, while just three-in-ten voters oppose impeachment and think Trump did nothing wrong. This leaves over one-in-five who are still impressionable on the impeachment question. These impeachment persuadables include:

• he 14% who currently oppose impeachment because they “haven’t seen enough evidence to know if his conduct was wrong,”

•  the 6% who believe “his conduct was wrong, but it is not impeachable,”

• the 1% who think “his conduct was impeachable, but impeachment will divide the country 
and the public should vote to remove him in the next election,” and

• the 2% who are undecided on impeachment. 


Change Research emphasized that Katko, Upton and Davis "have few convincing arguments in their arsenal. The argument that 'Donald Trump’s actions are very troubling, but with an election coming next year, Congress should not overturn 63 million votes by impeaching the President now' was not convincing at all to a stunning 55% majority of voters, including 36% of Republicans. A similar argument that says 'Donald Trump may have engaged in wrongdoing, but it is not worthy of impeachment, which will divide our country and stop progress on critical issues like health care and trade deals' was not convincing at all to 52% of voters, including 30% of Republicans. Also unconvincing is an argument that 'President Trump was right to ask his lawyer to investigate corruption in Ukraine. Ukraine has had it out for Trump since the 2016 election,' which was not convincing at all to nearly half of voters. This conspiracy theory seems to have some traction, however, with the Republican base. While 83% of Democrats and 46% of independents give this a 0 on a 1-10 scale (where 0 means it is not convincing at all and 10 means it is very convincing), 47% of Republicans say it is a very convincing argument against impeachment."

Unfortunately for Katko, Upton and Davis, NY-24, MI-06 and IL-13 don't have enough Republican voters to win an election without substantial support from independents, who overwhelmingly reject their arguments for not voting to impeach. Change Research concluded that "A majority of voters in these key districts think what Trump did was wrong and, once they hear the facts, are less likely to support Members of Congress who are opposed to the impeachment inquiry. The message is clear: these representatives should put politics aside during impeachment and do their job."

So will it cost them? Yes, with one caveat. Their Democratic opponents have to make the case against them next summer and fall leading up to the election. Jon Hoadley (MI-06) and Dana Balter (NY-24) are talented political leaders. I have less faith in the DCCC's establishment hack running in IL-13.

It was no surprise that Donald J. Bacon voted against impeaching Donald J. Trump. They're couldn't be more similar and each supports the other. Omaha progressive congressional candidate Kara Eastman noted that "Majorities of people nationally and in NE-02 recognize that Trump did something very wrong and abused his power. While White House propaganda and media bothsides-ism has somewhat tempered the number of people willing to commit to impeach-and-remove, the fact is that Republicans like Don Bacon will seal their political fates with their vote against impeachment across the nation. It's about checks and balances pure and simple."

Liam O'Mara's opponent in Riverside County, Ken Calvert, is a lockstep Trump puppet and no one there, let alone in DC, was shocked when he voted against impeachment. Liam, a history professor, pointed out that "Calvert tried, on the eve of an impeachment vote, to complain that polling did not show voters in favour of impeachment-- saying the Dems had 'failed to make their case.' Not only is this false, it is irrelevant, as any popular action can, in fact, still be found illegal. I can think of quite a few. Impeachment is not a popularity contest. It is part of our system of balanced co-equal branches, meant to ensure lawless officials do not go checked. It involves weighing evidence and deciding a question of legal and constitutional principle. And if Calvert is so unfit to lead on matters of law, and must instead follow the opinion polls, he has no business being in public office."


Now... voting for impeachment may hurt a few useless, worthless Blue Dogs in the reddest of districts, Democrats who tend to vote with the GOP on just about everything. I'd guess Kendra Horn in Oklahoma City and maybe Joe Cunningham in Charlestown, South Carolina and Collin Peterson in western Minnesota. Or maybe the independents in the districts will admire them for taking a tough vote and stickling with their convictions. I suspect it will work with Cunningham and Peterson. 

But the most endangered Democrat is Maine's incredible disappointment, Jared Golden, who campaigned as a progressive and then voted as an arch-conservative all cycle. He was so pathetic on the impeachment vote-- voting for one article and opposing another-- that I think plenty of his 2018 supporters will abandon him next year. "'Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous,' Margaret Thatcher once explained, because you can get hit by cars going both directions. That’s what Golden is experiencing today. Liberals are angry. 'If my congressman, Jared Golden, votes for only one article of impeachment, I will work with all my might to see him defeated next year,' tweeted Stephen King, the best-selling mystery novelist. And Republicans... certainly aren’t placated. 'Golden’s vote to impeach President Trump proves he’d rather stand with the socialist Democrats than Maine voters,' said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Michael McAdams. Golden’s vote will not impact the outcome... But the fact that Golden stands alone says a great deal about not just impeachment but the political era we find ourselves in. Intensifying polarization and tribalism are forcing members to pick a side-- and fully own their decision one way or another-- in ways that used to be much easier to avoid."

In the Iowa U.S. Senate race, I think Admiral (Ret) Michael Franken has what it takes to make the case in regard to Joni Ernst's refusal to seriously consider impeaching Trump. "Republican senators," he told me on Wednesday, "face a Sophie’s Choice: An acquittal will only embolden Trump and cause the GOP even more trouble with suburban, female and independent voters. But if Republicans remove Trump from office, he will just run again in 2020 and take down every GOP incumbent along the way. Republican Senators have to decide whether they want their political destruction coming from outside or inside their ranks. Neither will be pretty."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

This is what we get when war criminals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney aren't held accountable and thrown in the brig. Once they were allowed to walk free without so much as a trial, it was inevitable that a future president would come along and feel he or she had permission to push the envelope further. If draft-dodger Cadet Bone Spurs is now allowed to get away with pardoning three war criminals, at the behest of his advisers at FOX "News" no less, we can easily imagine what some future president will try. Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine, right now, who might be on Trump's "People To Pardon" list. Since the current administration views it as OK to have our men in uniform assassinate Muslims in foreign lands outside of the rules of engagement and without due process, how long before he pardons cops who murder here, or "very fine people" who deliberately run over protesters with their cars, or white supremacists who shoot black parishioners worshipping in their church? We already know that he's so inclined. Now that Trump has done what he did, there's no telling what he might authorize, tacitly or otherwise.

To bad we can't court-martial a president. After all, a president is the Commander-in-Chief. So, in a logical military justice system, Trump would be tried, found guilty and busted down to military latrine cleaner for the rest of his days. Here's your toothbrush Donnie. Get to it!

Rahm Emanuel Proving A Crook Knows How Best To Nail A Crook? Inadvertently Makes The Case For Impeachment And For A Bernie Presidency

Rahm knows from first hand experience how Democratic Party leaders have driven it to hell in a hand basket

I think we can all agree that the source of The Atlantic piece, It’s Time to Hold American Elites Accountable for Their Abuses, is suspect, to say the least, but when Rahm Emanuel wrote that "if Democrats want to address simmering middle-class anger, they need to deliver justice," he struck a nerve. The scandal didn't begin with Felicity Huffman-- nor even with Donald Trump and his crooked family in the mid-1960s-- but Emanuel, a political fixer turned crooked congressman and ineffective Chicago mayor, made a good point when he wrote that "normally, a scandal centered on how rich parents used bribes to win their children’s admittance into elite colleges wouldn’t play so heavily in the national news. No one much cared when Donald Trump promised large donations as his children enrolled at Penn. But the outrage over the Varsity Blues investigation perfectly illustrates what may be the most important, least understood, and underappreciated political dynamic of our era: a full-on middle-class revolt against the elites and the privileges they hoard. For all the focus on inequality and social justice, this middle-class revolt is the most important barrier standing between Democrats and the White House. They can’t afford to ignore it."

Emanuel was also a cheerleader for the Iraq war and a crooked bankster but asks he asked, however incongruously, his readers to "think of what’s happened over the past decade and a half. America endured a war sold on false premises, a bailout of bankers issuing entirely toxic debt, and a massive public effort to prop up auto executives who were building cars that weren’t selling. Is it any wonder so many middle-class taxpayers resent the elites? They’ve been forced to bail them out from their own mistakes time and time again-- and yet the beneficiaries of that goodwill haven’t apologized, let alone taken responsibility. America’s middle class is Cinderella, and the nation’s elites are her evil stepsisters-- only now it’s the stepsisters who get to marry the prince. It’s infuriating."

Ever since the disaster of the 2016 election, Democrats have engaged in (an often pointless) debate about whether President Trump’s supporters were drawn to him on account of economic or cultural grievances. Yes, Hillary Clinton drew more votes, but she was 1,000 times as qualified, and 10,000 times as personally appealing. She should have demolished him-- but something drew many voters to Trump instead.

I’m not denying that racism (against President Barack Obama) and sexism (against Secretary Clinton) played their roles. Nostalgia surely played another. But beneath all of that was the American middle class’s belief that the Lori Loughlins and Felicity Huffmans of the world, let alone the Don Rumsfelds and Dick Fulds, aren’t asked to play by the same set of rules. The elite get all the breaks and are shown all the shortcuts. In the meantime, ordinary people are forced to pay full freight. And that’s the point. No matter how noxious he was personally-- and despite the irony that he was a perfect example of elite privilege-- Trump embodied the country’s desire to hit back. Justice was a long time coming.

Maybe the clearest early manifestation was the Iraq War. After 9/11, the Washington elite claimed that the country needed to neutralize Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Congress and the media largely went along for the ride. But $1 trillion and 5,000 lives and 16 years later, the public had been told that those WMDs had not existed after all. Yet as clear as that became, no one ever took it on the chin. No one from the Bush administration ever took responsibility. Middle-class families paid in both blood and treasure, but the people who had made the worst foreign-policy decision in U.S. history never owned their failure.

The same thing happened during the Great Recession. The nation’s banking elite had lent billions to home buyers without any realistic hope of making good on their debts. Their irresponsible lending not only precipitated a global financial meltdown, but also necessitated a bailout from the nation’s financially stressed middle-class taxpayers. Yet even after being bailed out, the nation’s banking executives never faced any real consequences. No one went to jail. They never had to repay the personal fortunes they’d made by passing out those bad loans. Once again, the middle class was called to bail out the elites who were responsible for the mess while the elites got off scot-free.

And it was the same story arc with the auto bailout. For decades, executives in Detroit had made indefensible decisions. They’d been selling less reliable cars. They’d never found a way to compete effectively with their foreign competition. They’d continually lost market share. But when the bottom fell out and they were forced to ask middle-class taxpayers for a bailout, they never took responsibility. Most of the top brass kept their jobs. And once they’d recovered, they returned to business as usual. The middle class was once again expected to foot the bailout while the execs kept on like it had never happened.

Washington wasn’t wrong to prevent a global financial meltdown. Obama was certainly right to save the domestic auto industry. But those decisions came at a real cost. After the Recovery Act had passed and the auto bailout was rolling, we had a fierce debate inside the White House about how to sequence our pushes for health care, climate change, and financial reform. As the White House chief of staff, I argued, unsuccessfully, that the American people needed the catharsis of seeing that the bankers who had gotten the country into this mess were being forced to take responsibility-- that faith in government would plummet if we failed to deliver some “Old Testament justice.” Others feared that attacking Wall Street would undermine the recovery, and they won the day. Perhaps they were right on the economics. But the political implications were significant, and we’re still living with them today. The middle class believes even now that elites have license to make irresponsible decisions without paying a price.

Consider the issues the Trump White House has chosen to highlight at a moment when many of the nation’s schools are in dire need of resources and health-care costs are on the rise. Trump is focused on tariffs because there’s a widespread belief that existing trade agreements have been crafted to benefit the rich. The White House picks fights on immigration because the issue paints Democrats as champions of constituencies that aren’t following the rules. And both issues add fuel to a middle-class revolt that’s been simmering, largely unnoticed, for the better part of a decade.

Democrats have become increasingly cognizant of the anger, but too often they’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. The answer certainly isn’t socialism. Middle-class voters currently presume that elites already control the government-- so why would they want to give the bureaucracy any more power? Rather, Democrats need to become the party of justice. They need to demand accountability from bad actors-- and point out where Republicans would give them a pass. They don’t need to castigate entire industries, as some might recommend. But when people make decisions that affect innocent bystanders-- beating the drums for an ill-conceived war, making complicated financial instruments-- they should be the party standing up for middle-class interests and values.

Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program. And while those programs often point the way forward, they need to focus their energy on convincing the middle class that they share their values more than just their economic interests. There is more to voters than their wallets. To do that, Democrats need to prove to them that they know the difference between right and wrong, and that begins with owning the terms accountability and responsibility. No matter how privileged, Democrats need to be the ones demanding that those who fall short be made to answer for their own decisions. Every one of us should have to live by the same moral and ethical codes. The nation’s elite shouldn’t have any special license to take the easy way out.

Criminal Accountability For Corporate Wrong-Doing? Elizabeth Warren Says It's About Time

It sickens me to see politicians get off with slaps on the wrist when they are caught in criminal activities-- even child rape. Same goes for banksters, corporate executives and the super-wealthy. These people should be punished more harshly, not less harshly because of their place in the social strata. Tuesday Elizabeth Warren laid out a plan, in an OpEd for the Washington Post that would bring more justice to the criminal justice system. Yesterday, she introduced legislation-- the Corporate Executive Accountability Act-- to make it easier to jail corporate executives at companies convicted of serious wrongdoing. 

Opening unauthorized bank accounts. Cheating customers on mortgages and car loans. Mistreating service members. If you can dream up a financial scam, there’s a good chance that Wells Fargo ran it on its customers in recent years. Last week, after years of pressure, the company finally parted ways with its second chief executive in three years. But that’s not nearly enough accountability. It’s time to reform our laws to make sure that corporate executives face jail time for overseeing massive scams.

In 2016, after the Wells Fargo fake-accounts scam came to light, I called out then-chief executive John Stumpf for gutlessly throwing workers at the bank under the bus-- and told him he should resign. Weeks later, he did. When Wells Fargo elevated longtime senior executive Tim Sloan to replace Stumpf, I told Sloan he should be fired for his role in enabling and covering up the fake-accounts scam. For years, I pressured federal regulators, urging Sloan’s dismissal, and last week Sloan “retired.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Sloan and Stumpf aren’t in charge anymore. But this isn’t real accountability. When a criminal on the street steals money from your wallet, they go to jail. When small-business owners cheat their customers, they go to jail. But when corporate executives at big companies oversee huge frauds that hurt tens of thousands of people, they often get to walk away with multimillion-dollar payouts.

Too often, prosecutors don’t even try to hold top executives criminally accountable. They claim it’s too hard to prove that the people at the top knew about the corporate misconduct. This culture of complicity warps the incentives for corporate leaders. The message to executives? So long as you bury your head in the sand, you can keep collecting fat bonuses without risk of facing criminal liability.

Even when in-house lawyers flag conduct that skirts the law, there’s little reason for executives to listen. The executives know that, at worst, the company will get hit with a fine-- and the money will come out of their shareholders’ pockets, not their own.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With sustained resources and a commitment to enforcing the law, we can bring more cases under existing rules. Beyond that, we should enact the Ending Too Big To Jail Act, which I introduced last year. That bill would make it easier to hold executives at big banks accountable for scams by requiring them to certify that they conducted a “due diligence” inquiry and found that no illegal conduct was occurring on their watch. This would force executives to look for wrongdoing or face prosecution for filing false certifications with the government. The proposal would also create a permanent and well-funded unit dedicated to investigating financial crimes.

But we can go further still. Wednesday, I’m proposing a law that expands criminal liability to any corporate executive who negligently oversees a giant company causing severe harm to U.S. families. We all agree that any executive who intentionally breaks criminal laws and leaves a trail of smoking guns should face jail time. But right now, they can escape the threat of prosecution so long as no one can prove exactly what they knew, even if they were willfully negligent.

If top executives knew they would be hauled out in handcuffs for failing to reasonably oversee the companies they run, they would have a real incentive to better monitor their operations and snuff out any wrongdoing before it got out of hand.

My proposal builds on existing laws that impose criminal liability on negligent executives in certain areas. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Clean Air Act hold top corporate executives criminally accountable if, as a result of their negligence, companies distribute misbranded drugs or pollute the air. My proposal would impose similar criminal liability for negligent executives of any company with more than $1 billion in annual revenue in a variety of circumstances, including if that company is found guilty of a crime or is found liable for a civil violation affecting the health, safety, finances or personal data of 1 percent of the U.S. population or 1 percent of the population of any state.

It has been about 10 years since the financial crisis cost millions of people their homes, their jobs and their savings, and not one big-bank CEO has gone to prison-- or even been prosecuted. Tens of thousands of Americans have died after overdosing on commonly prescribed opioids, but not a single major pharmaceutical executive has gone to prison for their role in this tragedy. Corporate America needs a wake-up call.

Four words are engraved over the front door of the Supreme Court: “equal justice under law.” It’s the fundamental principle that’s supposed to drive our legal system. But it’s not equal justice when a kid with an ounce of pot can get thrown in jail while a wealthy executive can walk away with a bonus after his company cheats millions of people. Personal accountability is the only way to ensure that executives at corporations will think twice before ignoring the law. It’s time to stop making excuses and start making real change.

Yesterday, her office explained that "executives at large corporations often escape prosecution because it is hard to demonstrate that they are personally aware of all their company's actions-- and establishing knowledge is a critical element of proving most crimes. However, some federal laws, including the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Clean Air Act, already impose criminal liability on corporate leaders when a company's negligence causes massive harm-- regardless of whether leaders personally approved actions that broke the law." Her Corporate Executive Accountability Act builds on these existing federal statues and makes it easier to send executives to jail for serious crimes by expanding criminal liability to negligent executives of corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue that:

• Are found guilty, plead guilty, or enter into a deferred or non-prosecution agreement for any crime.
• Are found liable or enter a settlement with any state or Federal regulator for the violation of any civil law if that violation affects the health, safety, finances, or personal data of 1% of the American population or 1% of the population of any state.
• Are found liable or guilty of a second civil or criminal violation for a different activity while operating under a civil or criminal judgment of any court, a deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreement, or settlement with any state or Federal agency.

Meanwhile the Ending Too Big to Jail Act, which she reintroduced yesterday, makes it easier to hold financial executives accountable by:

• Creating a permanent investigative unit for financial crimes within the Treasury Department by giving the Special Inspector General for the bailout a new mission-- prosecuting financial crimes.
• Requiring executives at big banks larger than $10 billion to certify that there is no criminal conduct or civil fraud within the institution, making it easier to prove wrongdoing if it is later discovered.
• Putting deferred prosecution agreements under the jurisdiction of judges so that they can ensure that the agreements are in the public interest and can supervise their implementation.

If We're LUCKY, Trump's Economy Will End In Recession, Not Something Worse

Former California Congressman David Dreier (R) could've been a contender. Except for the homophobia. Closet case Denny Hastert, then GOP speaker, named him Majority Leader for half an hour, but when the House Republican leaders started melting down over the "gay thing," Hastert relented and gave it to a perpetually tanned alcoholic instead. Poor Dreier; he worked so hard before bumping into a glass ceiling he never imagined would end his career. He retired soon after and moved to a couple of fancy digs in Malibu and Beverly Hills, a million light years away from his old district. I think he's like a lobbyist for China or Chinese interests or something like that. He was on the local NBC-TV affiliate here in L.A. hawking his new documentary about China when he happened to mention that his former colleagues in the House were punished by voters for enabling Trump. "Oversight, which is a Constitutionally directed responsibility, is so critically important," he said, "and my Republican colleagues did not, I believe, do an adequate enough job... When President Bush was president and I was chairing the Rules Committee, we insisted on oversight among our committee chairmen and we did a lot of it. Ours is a nation of institutions. We need to remember that, and Congress needs to exercise that [oversight] authority."

I'm sure you've noticed that it's always the retired of retiring Republicans who want to hold Trump accountable, right? Yesterday, in her first public appearance since losing to Blue Dog Ben McAdams, Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) struck back at Trump, who mocked her after the election blaming her defeat on her decision to keep him at arm’s length in the election. Notably, she didn't speak up while the counting was still going on and while it looked like she could win. "This gave me a clear vision of [Trump's] world as it is. No real relationships, just convenient transactions. It is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy."

She vowed to continue to deliver such biting attacks now that her defeat means she is “unleashed, untethered and I am unshackled and I can say exactly what is on my mind.”

Love, the first and only black Republican woman elected to the House, took bipartisan shots on Monday-- saying Democratic policies hurt blacks, that Republicans fail to embrace minorities-- as shown by some actions by Trump.

She said she was surprised that while votes were still being counted, Trump took his jab at her.

“The president’s behavior toward me made me wonder: what did he have to gain by saying such a thing about a fellow Republican?” she said. “It was not really about asking him to do more was it? Or was it something else?”

Just when Love was speaking Monday morning in Salt Lake City, New York Magazine was publishing a column by Jonathan Chait, The Deficit Grew Because Trump’s a Republican, Not Because He’s an Idiot". Absolutely! And that's why Trump voters in the Midwest are seeing their jobs disappear. He's just hot air, transactional to his core and never held accountable for any of his bad behavior. Chait explained to his readers that the increasingly out-of-control low IQ ape in the Oval Office "has been demanding that his aides draft a plan to reduce the swelling budget deficit while simultaneously ruling out virtually all categories of possible deficit reduction and demanding new deficit-increasing measures of his own. The Washington Post has plenty of hilarious details from the administration’s internal fiscal deliberations, such as they are. Trump comes across as possessing every bit as much fiscal acumen as you would expect from a man who managed to bankrupt a casino, required hundreds of millions of dollars in secret cash infusions from his father to stay afloat, and can barely absorb written material of even the shortest length."

The Post's account draws heavily from the perspective of Trump’s current and former advisers, who treat his buffoonery as the central cause of the administration’s fiscal straits. But the reality is that Trump is simply expressing a more ignorant version of standard-issue Republican budgeting.

The deficit is the gap between revenue and outlays, and Trump opposes any increase in revenue under any circumstances whatsoever. The story notes that Trump “has said no changes can be made to Medicare and Social Security,” and has boasted about his increase in spending on defense. Those categories, plus interest on the debt, account for 80 percent of federal spending, and the remaining 20 percent has been targeted by desperate budget-cutters for the better part of three decades. When you refuse to increase the revenue side of the equation (and, indeed, make it worse through tax-cutting), and rule out four-fifths of the spending side of the equation, you’ve ruled out any reduction to the deficit.

Trump’s advisers frame this as a story about Trump’s ignorance thwarting their efforts to impose sane and good Republican budget policy. Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn is portrayed as telling his staff not to bother briefing Trump about the deficit because he doesn’t care. Current chief of staff John Kelly quizzes Trump about the salary of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the president guesses $5 million. (Actual answer: under $200,000.)

It is fair to say that no other Republican president would be quite this ignorant. But in other ways, Trump is indistinguishable from the policies any Republican advocates.

Trump’s refusal to consider higher taxes is a point of uniform party dogma. In 2012, when the Republican presidential candidates were asked if they might support a budget deal with ten dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of higher taxes, every single one said no. If Trump came out for a tax increase he might literally be impeached and removed from office.

The story notes that Trump “has said no changes can be made to Medicare and Social Security.” But every Republican likewise supports maintaining retirement benefits for workers at or near retirement (meaning age 55 or above). By definition this would rule out even the first penny of budget savings within ten years. And only a handful of Republicans support any cuts to the defense budget.

Trump learned most of what he knows about politics by binge-watching Fox News, which has in some ways given him a keener sense of the desires of the party rank and file. Take this anecdote about Trump’s hesitation to frontally attack Medicare for All during the campaign:

When staffers sought to include an attack on Democrats’ Medicare-for-all proposals in Trump’s campaign speeches this fall, he initially blanched, two administration aides said. Medicare is popular, he said, and voters want it. Eventually, he agreed to the attack if he could say Democrats were going to take the entitlement away.

Snickering administration advisers probably see this episode as evidence of either Trump’s buffoonery or his harboring of secret big-government instincts. In reality, Republicans understand full well that Medicare and Social Security command deep support even among their own voters. Trump’s conclusion that the only safe ground to attack an expansion of the safety net is from the left, as a defense of existing benefits, is the exact same strategy Republicans used against Obamacare. The signature national ad that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ran in 2012 stated:

“You paid in to Medicare for years. Every paycheck. Now when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare. Why? To pay for Obamacare. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed healthcare is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”

Trump’s inherent Trumpiness is not the reason the deficit has increased. The iconic Republican Ronald Reagan cut taxes, jacked up defense spending, and massively increased the deficit, and his presidency is worshipped as a model all subsequent Republicans must follow. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, did break from his party in order to reduce the deficit, and conservatives loathed him for it and use his apostasy as a cautionary tale to this day. The next Republican president, George W. Bush, promised to follow Reagan’s example rather than his father’s, and he delivered, jacking up defense spending and cutting taxes and causing the deficit to spike.

Trump has signed onto legislation designed by Republicans in Congress that increased defense spending and cut taxes. The deficit has risen as a result. That’s what Republicans do.

The other part of Republican policy is formally denouncing deficits and insisting that the deficit increases their party systematically engineers are not their fault. Trump’s comical ignorance of budget policy makes him a useful scapegoat for this purpose. But the reality is that fiscal policy is one area where the president’s complete ignorance is irrelevant to the outcome.

Yeah, ha, ha, ha. Real comical-- especially for the Trumbull County, Ohio, factory workers who flipped from blue to voting overwhelming for Trump because they loved the populist economic message he stole from Bernie but who just found out the county car factory is closing down. I wonder how many of them recall Trump's Youngstown speech last year where he boasted that the Ohio jobs are "all coming back. They’re all coming back. Don’t move, don’t sell your house. We’re going to fill up those factories or rip them down and build new ones."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Reports are that things are looking mighty bleak in Donnie's oval office these days, what with Robert Mueller's legal eagle swat team closing in. We've seen indications of what info Mueller may be gathering, but only Donnie knows everything. Only Donnie knows everything he's done.

You just got too damn big, Donnie. I think you knew a storm was coming. That's why you looked so miserable at that luncheon on inauguration day. You never really expected you could win, even with the help of your Russian mob friends. You thought you could lose and just play the martyr for the rest of your days, claiming that "Crooked Hillary" and her "Deep State" rigged the election against you. Maybe you thought there was another book to be ghostwritten, or a cash cow TV network of your own, and, of course, more hats to sell. You thought it all would make you more popular than Jesus.

Donnie, you were a big enough rat in New York City. You should have settled for that, but you bit off more than your dentures and your deteriorating psychopathic mind could chew. Sure, we knew some of your past. We'd seen enough of your antics and bigotry to know you weren't even close to being fit for the job of president; no matter how many conspiracy-mongering crazies like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Laura Ingraham, Sean, and Rudy, and the rest claimed otherwise, with their worshipful tones. So, 62 million fools wanted a Scarface of their own. Con man that you are, you played them all for suckers. The first one's free. Now, they pay, and so will we all. The happy dust you offered is just that, dust. Even your little friend can't help you, but I bet Stormy Daniels already told you that.

Holding Senators Accountable For Bad Votes-- Like Confirming Neil Gorsuch To The Supreme Court

Gorsuch throws a gang sign: "thin the herd"

What do you think-- should senators be considered responsible-- by voters-- for the actions of Supreme Court judges they vote to confirm? I've always thought so. There were 3 Democrats-- Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) who voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch and a 4th, Michael Bennet (D-CO) , who voted with the Republicans procedurally to enable the confirmation. Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin are all up for reelection next year-- and in states which Trump won by big majorities-- 56.82% to 37.91% in Indiana, 62.96% to 27.23% in North Dakota and 68.50% to 26.43% in West Virginia. The electoral calculus by each senator was that they had more to lose by voting NO than to gain by voting YES, knowing Democrats in their states would be likely to ignore the bad vote for the Gorsuch-- as well, in each case, bad vote after bad vote all year.

And no one can claim they weren't warned about how bad Gorsuch was likely to be on the Court. There wasn't a good government group in the country that wasn't sounding the alarm. Ian Millhiser, the Justice Editor for Think Progress was especially outspoken and especially dire in his predictions. Over the weekend, he wrote an I told you so piece. The carefully choreographed and intentionally deceptive hearings didn't indicate the Gorsuch would likely be the worst justice on the Court-- but you had to be deaf, dumb and blind to have missed that during the process. Today, writes Millhiser, "Gorsuch is disrespectful of precedent and eager to move the law very far, very fast. His agenda is both well-thought out and extraordinarily conservative. When the Court splits into its old factions, with Justice Clarence Thomas staking out a position that no other member of the Court will sign onto, Gorsuch embraces Thomas’ view. Gorsuch spent the last day of the Court’s just-concluded term, moreover, laying out a vision that will make culture warriors bounce with glee. His ascension to the Supreme Court was the culmination of an effort to protect religious conservatives by any means necessary. And, if Gorsuch gets his way, some very basic civil rights will bow to the Christian right."

[Robert] George is probably the nation’s leading anti-LGBTQ scholar. A former chair of the National Organization for Marriage, which tried and failed to halt the spread of marriage equality in the United States, George was cited twice in a dissenting opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, which complained that the so-called Defense of Marriage Act was struck down.

George gushed about the Gorsuch nomination in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. “Gorsuch will be a hard man to depict as a ferocious partisan or an ideological judge,” George wrote of a man who tried to hobble a law protecting disabled children before he was unanimously rebuked by his eight new colleagues.

Yet, in a straightforward admission that George knew what he stood to gain from a Gorsuch confirmation, the professor also wrote that, on “abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, campaign finance reform and religious freedom,” Gorsuch was likely to vote “pretty much the same way Scalia did.”

Indeed, if Neil Gorsuch gets his way, the hundreds of defiant conservative leaders who signed George’s Manhattan Declaration will be given broad discretion to defy the law by the Supreme Court itself.

Echoing religious conservatives who sought the right to deny birth control coverage to their employees, Gorsuch wrote as a lower court judge in the original Hobby Lobby litigation that “all of us face the problem of complicity,” and “all of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others.”

Hobby Lobby set off a doctrinal earthquake when it reached the Supreme Court, holding, for the first time, that a religious objection can be wielded to limit the rights of a third party. And now, with Gorsuch occupying a seat on the Supreme Court, the Court is preparing to hear a case that could grant the Christian right a license to engage in straight up discrimination.

Gorsuch, moreover, has already telegraphed how he will vote in this case.

Last Monday was a big day for Neil Gorsuch--  and not a hopeful day for anyone who believes that LGBTQ people are fully human and entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Gorsuch revealed himself as a hardline conservative on marriage equality and called for a broad expansion of Hobby Lobby. And he did so on the very same morning that the Court announced that it would decide whether religion is a license to discriminate.

The marriage equality case involved an Arkansas law providing that a mother’s husband will automatically be listed on a birth certificate as the child’s father, even in many cases where the husband is not the biological father, but that did not afford similar treatment to same-sex couples. Such a rule, a majority of the Supreme Court explained, violates the Court’s holding in Obergefell v. Hodges that “the Constitution entitles same-sex couples to civil marriage ‘on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.’”

Gorsuch disagreed, pointing to the state’s arguments “that rational reasons exist for a biology based birth registration regime.” Never mind, of course, that Arkansas did not have a “biology based birth registration regime,” as it often listed non-biological parents on birth certificates so long as that parent is a man married to a woman.

The conservative jurist’s use of the word “rational” here is also highly significant, as it offers a window into how Gorsuch views discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation generally. The lowest level of scrutiny the Court applies in constitutional discrimination cases-- the level it typically applies to allegations it views as dubious-- is known as “rational basis,” and it provides that the government is free to do whatever it wants so long as it can articulate a rational reason for doing so.

So when Gorsuch defended Arkansas’s law by pointing to allegedly “rational reasons” for it to exist, he suggested that discrimination based on sexual orientation isn’t something the courts should worry themselves about.

It's another factor that needs to go into calculations for voters when they decide in 17 months whether or not to vote for Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin. In Manchin's case, there's also a primary, which, for a progressive, should be a no brainer. There's no chance the progressive Berniecrat running against him, Paula Jean Swearengin, would have ever voted to confirm Gorsuch-- or voted to have confirmed Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA, as Manchin (and Heitkamp) did.

We're stuck with Gorsuch for life-- voters can-- and should-- remove Manchin

Republican Congressmembers From Southern California Thumbed Their Noses At Their Own Constituents Yesterday

Last November there were 5 congressional districts in Southern California with Republican Representatives that went for Hillary. In each one Trump did significantly worse than Romney had. In the district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties, CA-49, represented by Darrell Issa, Romney had won the district in 2012 with 52.4%. In November Trump got 43.2%, a 9 point drop-off. And Issa had the scare of his political life. His race was the last one decided in the whole country and in the end he edged out Doug Applegate 155,888 (50.3%) to 154,267 (49.7%). Issa spent $6,275,754 on the race to Applegate's $2,041,091. Colonel Applegate plans to finish what he started in 2018 and Issa's vote for TrumpCare yesterday will probably be the final nail in Issa's political coffin. Moments after the vote yesterday, Doug told me that had he "stood on the floor of the House, my vote would have been a resounding 'hell no.' Darrell, coward that he’s always proved to be, ducked the issue, saying it was 'none of [our] business' until the very last minute. This is what we get when people fail to answer the call and put profits ahead of people."

This was Issa's bullshit deceptive statement when he was finally forced to put his cards on the table: "Today, we made good on our promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Let's stop pretending Obamacare is going to fix itself or that somehow, someday, it’s going to get better. Today's vote gives a voice to the victims of Obamacare, the millions of Americans who are paying higher premiums, receiving less coverage and for whom the status quo offered no end in sight. Obamacare is doing real harm to California's families and struggling businesses, and constituents are counting on me to deliver real relief. Obamacare was a failure from the get-go. Now is the time to make it right."

Here are the 2016 results in each GOP-held Southern California district that Trump lost:

• CA-25 (Steve Knight)- 50.3-43.6%
• CA-39 (Ed Royce)- 51.5-42.9%
• CA-45 (Mimi Walters)- 49.8-44.4%
• CA-48 (Dana Rohrabacher)- 47.9-46.2%
• CA-49 (Darrell Issa)- 50.7-43.2%

Will voters in these 5 key districts remember in 2018? There are some pretty good candidates running against them who will work hard to make sure the voters remember. Mimi Walters, for example (who doesn't even live in her own district) has several Democrats opposing her, including two outstanding progressives. Kia Hamadanchy, who until he recently decided to return home and run for Congress, was a staffer in Sherrod Brown's office. "It's incredible," he told us right after the vote, "that Mimi Walters was willing to vote in favor of a healthcare bill without having any idea how many people it covers or how much it would cost. She helped rush through a bill that is going to lead to higher costs and less healthcare coverage for the people of Orange County and she is doing so without doing any sort of due diligence about the full scope of its potential impact. What we do know however is that this legislation is a betrayal of everything that Mimi Walters and Donald Trump have promised when it comes to healthcare. They promised to protect those with preexisting conditions, to protect Medicaid, to lower deductibles and premiums, and to cover all Americans. The American Health Care Act does none of this."

Walters' other top progressive opponent is Katie Porter, a professor at UC, Irvine who has worked on consumer protection issues with Elizabeth Warren, with whom she wrote a book, The Law of Debtors And Creditors. Right after Walters cast the vote for TrumpCare, she told us that "From the very moment Trump's health care plan was unveiled, it was clear the proposal would have a devastating impact on families here in Orange County. But, time and again throughout this process, Congresswoman Walters showed she simply didn't care about how her plan would hurt her constituents. Congresswoman Walters was one of the chief proponents of Trump's plan, voting for and helping craft the bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. And she continued supporting the bill as Trump and congressional leaders bargained away pre-existing condition protections that help millions of Americans get coverage. Families in this district deserve leaders who will stand up to Trump and fight for their interests in Washington-- that's what is at stake in this campaign."

Yeah... it doesn't sound like Mimi Walters' constituents will be forgetting about yesterday's vote anytime between now and 2018. Nor will Steve Knight's constituents up in Santa Carita, the Antelope Valley and Simi Valley. Katie Hill, the grassroots progressive running against that will make sure of it: "The Republican’s Health Care replacement bill is, frankly, an insult to the American people," she told us last night. "Despite overwhelming opposition from his constituents, Steve Knight put his allegiance to Paul Ryan and Donald Trump ahead of his own friends and neighbors. Look, Obamacare isn’t perfect. I know that, and if I were in Congress, I would be fully committed to fighting until every single American has the high-quality healthcare they need, regardless of any pre-existing conditions, their employer, their socioeconomic status, their age, where they live, or anything else. No one should ever have to choose between their health and putting food on the table or a roof over their heads. The fact that this is still even a debate is absolutely absurd. If I were in Congress today, I would have listened to my constituents and voted no. I hope Steve Knight is prepared to defend his choice to the voters in 2018."

Devin Nunes has a lot more problems with CA-22 voters than just his terrible vote on healthcare yesterday and his district is central California, not southern California. But one of the Democrats running for the seat Nunes now occupies, prosecutor Andrew Janz, told Central Valley voters that the TrumpCare bill "will potentially take away health insurance coverage from millions of Americans. Republicans wrote this bill behind close doors, keeping folks in the dark, and forcing a vote before everyone even had the chance to read it, much less analyze its impact. This is the wrong approach. We must work together to ensure that, regardless of income level every American has access to high-quality, affordable healthcare, Rural communities like CA-22 will be hit especially hard by this bill, while Devin Nunes is running away from constituents and the press I'm running for Congress to represent the interests of this district."

Will The Republicans Who Voted For TrumpCare Before Ryan Raised The White Flag, Be Held Accountable? Not If It's Up To The DCCC

Hey, who does the candidate recruiting around here?

As everyone knows by now, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy pulled their TrumpCare proposal off the floor of the House for the second-- and final-- time yesterday. Good riddance to a bill that basically no one liked except Ryan himself and some fellow Ayn Rand devotees. This incredibly unpopular bill-- with it's mighty 17% approval rating-- and which Trump chief consiglieri Steve Bannon says was written by the insurance industry, an industry that has given Paul Ryan $2,031,705 in bribes-- will not force Republicans to go on the record voting for a bill that most voters said would incline them to oppose reelection for their congressmember if he or she supported it. Republicans are relieved-- at least most of them are. Some, like Martha McSally (R-AZ), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Kevin Calvert (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Mimi Walters (R-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Mike Coffman (R-CA), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Steve King (R-IA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), John Faso (R-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY), Jim Renacci (R-OH), Lou Barletta (R-PA), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Sean Duffy (R-WI) and David McKinley (R-WV), had already been on record as supporting the bill.

But even easier for Democrats to target are Republicans who did vote for it already. True, it didn't get voted on on the floor, but it did get voted on in the House Budget Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. These were the Republicans who voted for TrumpCare in the Budget Committee:

• Diane Black (TN)
• Todd Rotika (IN)
• Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)
• Tom Cole (OK)
• Tom McClintock (CA)
• Rob Woodall (GA)
• Steve Womack (AR)
• Glenn Grothman (WI)
• Bruce Westerman (AR)
• Jim Renacci (OH)
• Bill Johnson (OH)
• Jason Smith (MO)
• Jason Lewis (MN)
• Jack Bergman (MI)
• John Faso (NY)
• Lloyd Smucker (PA)
• Matt Gaetz (FL)
• Jodey Arrington (TX)
• Drew Ferguson (GA)

Mark Sanford (SC), Dave Brat (VA) and Gary Palmer (AL) joined every Democrat on the committee in voting no. It passed 19-17. In the Energy and Commerce Committee the whole Republican membership voted in complete lockstep in favor of TrumpCare in all it's miserable glory. I was happy to see that someone at the DCCC figured out that this is indeed a perfect way to hit the Republicans-- or at least the tiny handful who they are targeting. As you can see below, Leonard Lance (R-NJ), who represents a district Hillary won and who is considered vulnerable if a strong candidate like Ed Potosnak runs, voted for TrumpCare in committee. He later flip-flopped under intense pressure from his constituents and promised to vote no on the floor. But there was no floor vote-- just the record of Lance's vote in committee.

Potosnak, in fact, told supporters who have been urging him to run against Lance that he had watched the March 9th MSNBC interview with Chris Hayes when Lance explained his support for TrumpCare and defended the lack of committee hearings and expert testimony by stating "we had a 27-hour marathon session, and I think all of the issues were vetted." Ed's response was straight-forward: "Boy was Lance wrong when he said 'all of the issues were vetted.' If ever there was a time when hindsight was 20/20, for Lance it should be this moment. The problem is he changes his positions on issues with the shifting of the political winds, voting against the interests of New Jerseyans, and siding instead with party extremists... While many of us breathed a sigh of relief knowing our parents and grandparents weren’t going to be priced out of health insurance and lifesaving emergency room visits would remain covered for the 'foreseeable future,' I couldn't stop thinking back to what really happened down in Washington in past few weeks. Not long before Lance was against AHCA in his frequent TV appearances, his March 9th vote in favor of the AHCA aimed to throw 24 million Americans off health insurance and raise the uninsured rate in his own congressional district by 65% kicking 24,231 of his constituents off medical insurance. He commented he voted yes on the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act saying 'we have gone to the American people with Paul Ryan’s better way. And we campaigned on the fact that we were going to improve the system. And I think that’s what we`ve done.' But as pressure mounted here at home and from many groups like AARP and hospitals, he flip-flopped and set out to erase his early crucial support of AHCA vote from people’s memories." The DCCC ad, if they put some bucks behind it, will remind voters in Somerset, Union and Hunterdon counties what Leonard Lance was really doing down in DC, which wasn't always what he was saying to folks in Mount Olive, Montgomery, Hillsborough and... yes, Bedminster.

This is a good ad and the DCCC should make one like for everyone on the list. It starts running Monday and I hear there are ads like it for 13 other Republicans who voted for TRumpCare in their committees including Carlos Curbelo (FL), Ryan Costello (PA), John Faso (NY), Mimi Walters (CA), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Pete Roskam (IL), Erik Paulsen (MN), Pat Meehan (PA), Tim Walberg (MI) and Ryan Costello (PA).

• Greg Walden (OR)
• Joe Barton (TX)
• John Shimkus (IL)
• Tim Murphy (PA)
• Mike Burgess (TX)
• Marsha Blackburn (TN)
• Steve Scalise (LA)
• Robert Latta (OH)
• Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA)
• Gregg Harper (MS)
• Leonard Lance (NJ)
• Brett Guthrie (KY)
• Pete Olson (TX)
• David McKinley (WV)
• Adam Kinzinger (IL)
• Morgan Griffith (VA)
• Gus Billirakis (FL)
• Bill Johnson (OH)
• Billy Long (MO)
• Larry Bucshon (IN)
• Bill Flores (TX)
• Susan Brooks (IN)
• Markwayne Mullin (OK)
• Richard Hudson (NC)
• Chris Collins (NY)
• Kevin Cramer (ND)
• Tim Walberg (MI)
• Mimi Walters (CA)
• Ryan Costello (PA)
• Buddy Carter (GA)

How could they be so stupid? Well, that would be a logical question except for one little grouping of 4 letters: D-C-C-C. Take the Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The DCCC is thinking about targeting maybe 6 of them-- Lance, McKinley, Brooks, Walberg, Walters and Costello. The ads for 5 of them are a great step in the right direction but maybe one or two will actually get a real full scale challenge; maybe. The rest will walk free and clear regardless of having voted to kick millions of people off healthcare. Hard to believe, huh? Same in the Budget committee. Maybe 4-- maybe zero-- may get challenges from the DCCC. 4 from that committee are included in the ad campaign. The rest are home free with no worries about having enabled and supported the unpopular and destructive TrumpCare. That's the DCCC. I would strongly recommend never, under any circumstances, supporting their efforts no matter how good they make them sound. Instead, contribute directly to candidates you want to help-- like the ones at the thermometer on the right.