This Senate Race Was Supposed To Be A "Sure Thing" But If Hickenlooper Wins The Primary It Won't Be

On Friday, Elizabeth Warren released a list of congressional candidates she had just endorsed. The list included progressive champions like Jamaal Bowman (NY), Mike Siegel (TX), Charles Booker (KY) and Julie Oliver (TX). I'm sure all of them are overjoyed at her backing-- even if it's a little late in the game for Bowman and Booker, whose primaries are tomorrow. But whatever goodwill and cred with the progressive netroots, the endorsements generated for Warren, it was squandered when she stepped all over herself by adding grotesque corporate whore John Hickenlooper to the list.

Widely hated by liberals and reformers for his virulent anti-progressive mania-- both as a dismally failed presidential candidate and in his current Schumeristic senatorial campaign-- Hick, AKA, Frackenlooper, has virtually nothing in common with any of Warren's other endorsed candidates and not much in common with Warren herself. I noticed that the #1 Warren-backing outside group in the country, the PCCC, quickly sent out an e-mail to their list emphasizing that they not only back Romanoff but that in their opinion Hickenlooper is "one of the worst corporate Dems" and reminded their supporters that he is "the guy who ran for president and consistently attacked Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders from the right. This is one of the most winnable Senate seats in the nation, and there's no excuse to elect a right-wing Democrat. Andrew Romanoff's running on Medicare For All and a Green New Deal. John Hickenlooper opposes those, supports police policies that encourage violence while proclaiming 'every life matters,' and is now embroiled in an ethics/corruption scandal that could hurt our chances of winning this easy-to-win race in November." BOOM!

In a spat with Warren on the debate stage, he hissed that maybe Medicare for All could be achieved in 15 years. They'll be dead in 15 years and the way to achieve Medicare for All sooner is by defeating candidates like Cory Gardner and John Hickenlooper and electing candidates like Andrew Romanoff. It isn't that complicated. Hickenlooper has finally stopped calling progressives "Stalinists," probably because he's running against a progressive who happens to be named Romanoff.

Yesterday, Politico's James Arkin pointed out that "Hickenlooper has stumbled in the closing weeks of Colorado’s Senate primary, creating openings for his opponent and Republicans that have unsettled a critical race for Democrats in their bid to recapture the Senate. Democrats acknowledge Hickenlooper has made serious mistakes on what was supposed to be a glide path to the Democratic nomination. After being cited for contempt this month for initially failing to appear before Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission, Hickenlooper was fined $2,750 for two violations dating back to his second term as governor. He’s also apologized for comments about race, including responding to a question about the Black Lives Matter protests in a recent forum by saying the phrase means 'every life matters,' echoing a common refrain among conservatives."

Republicans are all over Hickenlooper's stumbles, pummeling him as they anticipate gleefully that he will be the easy target for Gardner in November and now, the primary has tightened considerably with all the momentum shifting towards Romanoff.

Not really that "mysterious"-- Schumer's paw prints are all over it

A sewer money SuperPAC, led by Schumer and the DSCC, Let's Turn Colorado Blue, dropped several million dollars into a jihadist-like smear campaign against Romanoff. After defying a subpoena and dodging nearly two dozen debates, Frackenlooper is now hiding behind Schumer's sewer-money attacks, claiming, deceitfully, he doesn't know who's paying for ads.

Arken explained how "Romanoff appeals to primary voters eager for his message of more radical change, including the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. He argues a middle of the road approach doesn’t meet the moment and has said Hickenlooper’s ethics issue is a problem. 'If you break the law, defy a subpoena and get held in contempt, you jeopardize our chances to hold the seat,' Romanoff said in a interview."

Schumer is trying to replace a conservative Republican Senate with a conservative Democratic Senate. With the exception of Steve Bullock in Montana, Schumer's candidates all suck shit. Democratic primary voters are largely unaware that they're voting for a pack of Kyrsten Sinemas. (Sinema was handpicked by Schumer in 2018 and has been the most consistently anti progressive Democrat in the Senate ever since, the closest thing to a Trump-enabler among congressional Democrats.) It still isn't too late to turn the tide, by supporting Andrew Romanoff, which you can do by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer above and contributing what you can.

Two Weeks From Tomorrow-- Oregon Voters Have A Chance To Send Kurt Schrader Off To Join Lipinski In The Blue Dog Kennel

There aren't any Democrats in the House more ideologically antithetical to the legitimate aspirations of working class Americans than Oregon Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. And 2 weeks from tomorrow the all mail-in primary threatening to replace him with a champion of those same working and middle class Oregonians ends. After that, we'll either be celebrating Mark Gamba's victory in a blue district the way we were celebrating Marie Newman's a few weeks ago, or we'll be kicking ourselves for not having done more.

Last week's Northwest Labor Press endorsed candidates in the Oregon races unions felt we're most important. In several there were split endorsements-- as in Eugene, where the endorsement was split between incumbent Peter DeFazio and progressive challenger Doyle Canning and in Portland where the labor vote is split between incumbent Earl Blumenauer and progressive challenger Albert Lee. But in OR-05 there was no such split. In the Salem, Clackamas, coastal district all the union support-- from AFM, AFT, IBT, ILWU, SEIU, WFP-- and the endorsement all went to one candidate-- and it wasn't the reactionary Republican-lite incumbent.

Mark Gamba, the mayor of Milwaukie, is challenging five-term incumbent Kurt Schrader, who has one of the worst labor records of any Democrat in the House. Not only has Schrader voted for every NAFTA-style trade treaty, but he voted to restrict unionization on Indian reservations, sponsored a bill to stop slowdowns by longshore workers, and has engaged in public carping against the national AFL-CIO. This February he was one of only seven Democrats to vote against a bill to make it easier to unionize and eliminate anti-union “right to work” laws. Half a dozen national unions have given a total of about $20,000 to Schrader in the last two years, but no local union appears to back him, and his campaign declined to list any union endorsers or provide a list of union endorsers to the Labor Press. With a $3 million campaign war chest full of contributions from business groups, Schrader may not feel he needs labor support. Meanwhile, Gamba is a well-liked mayor who helped build affordable housing and pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage for city employees. He’s a big advocate of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.

The Willametter Weekly is now a more establishment-oriented publication and no one expects them to be politically cutting edge any longer. Oregonians expect them to back incumbents-- and, in every case that's exactly what they did this cycle. Although... in reading the Schrader endorsement, one had to wonder what message the editors were actually sending voters.

The flinty former veterinarian did draw a Democratic primary opponent to his left this time: two-term Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba, 61, who has moved aggressively to get his city to adopt ambitious climate goals and a generous minimum wage. Schrader, a budget expert in his earlier career as a state legislator representing Canby, hasn't welcomed Gamba's input, accusing his opponent of trying to foist "elitist" metro-area policies on a working-class congressional district that extends from Portland's western suburbs to the central coast. That's funny, given that Schrader is a pharmaceutical industry heir and Gamba is a freelance photographer whose mayoral pay is $3,600 a year.

We like seeing Schrader annoyed-- it seems to wake him up a bit. As a member of the centrist Blue Dog Democrats and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, he's taken public positions that reflect the balanced nature of his district but can also feel like fence-sitting. (GovTrack, which crunches numbers on members of Congress, ranked Schrader the fifth-most conservative of the 200 Democrats who served in the 2018 session). Schrader publicly opposed the reelection of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as House speaker when Democrats reclaimed the majority. And he was slow to call for President Trump's impeachment-- in fact, he was the last Democratic member of Oregon's congressional delegation to support it.

But the most important of the endorserments came from the Portland Mercury, which made a powerful and compelling case for Mark Gamba, reminding its readers that "Rep. Kurt Schrader has a curious distinction: He’s largely recognized as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Whether he’s voting on environmental policies, easing regulations for corporations, or opposing a federal minimum wage raise, Schrader is at best a reliably moderate member of Congress, and at worst a Republican disguised as a Democrat."

Schrader represents a very purple district that includes much of the Oregon Coast as well as Clackamas County, so some might argue he’s the best fit for the seat. But for Clackamas County voters who don’t feel Schrader is representing their values, we suggest instead voting for Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba in the primary. Gamba hopes to make universal healthcare and a Green New Deal his top priorities if elected, and has a track record of progressive accomplishments in Milwaukie.

And even if he doesn’t win, a strong primary showing for Gamba might send Schrader a message about what Democrats in his district value. If you want to shake up the status quo, vote for Gamba.

Even if you can't vote in the Oregon primary, please consider contributing to Gamba's campaign by clicking on the Blue America Primary A Blue Dog thermometer above. This is one of the best chances left in the 2020 cycle to replace a very bad Democrat with a very good Democrat. Gamba entitled the first guest post he wrote for DWT-- last July-- What We Need Are A Lot More People Like AOC In Congress. At the time, he wrote that "As a country, we have some very serious things to accomplish, some of them have a very short clock. We have 11 years, as of now, to radically shift the way our country does a whole lot of things like how we make energy, grow food, manage forests, build buildings and transport people and goods. It’s going to take a Congress with a can-do attitude and the guts to stand up to corporations, to tackle these issues."

But it was an e-mail he send to his supporters last January that made me redouble my efforts of his behalf:

What can we do to address the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class and poor are  struggling to keep up with the costs of living?

Many children in today’s America will be poorer than their parents.

We need to identify the systems allowing this to happen. Then we need to dismantle them.

There is absolutely no reason why income equality should be on the rise when we can see the catastrophic effects of it in recent history.

...I will work to pass legislation that takes on the business behemoths and stops them in their tracks. Together with other representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, I will hold corporate demagogues’ feet to the fire and demand accountability where inequity has previously reigned.

Income inequality is a systemic failing, not a personal one. To tackle it requires courage, persistence, and a national community standing shoulder to shoulder. I am proud to stand on the front lines with you and for you as we turn the tables and create economic freedom for ALL.

People My Age Should Be Celebrating Their Better Selves By Embracing Bernie And Rejecting Trump And The Democrats' B-Team-- Biden, Buttigieg And Bloomberg

On Christmas Eve, the Washington Post published a report by Sarah Pullian Bailey about the civil war inside American evangelism sparked by the now widely-know Christianity Today editorial on the Trump’s immorality and unfitness to serve in office (including an unambiguous call to the Senate to remove him from office). It was read by millions of Christians and was debated on radio and TV talk shows. Trump called the magazine, “left-wing” but the cancellation of subscriptions by his Jesus-denying followers was overwhelmed by new subscriptions, presumably by Christians who agree with their premise.

Journalist Napp Nazworth, who has worked for the Christian Post website since 2011, said he quit his job Monday because the website was planning to publish a pro-Trump editorial that would slam Christianity Today. Nazworth, who sits on the editorial board as politics editor, said the website has sought to represent both sides and published both pro- and anti-Trump stories.

“I never got the gist they were gung-ho Trumpian types,” Nazworth said. “Everything has escalated with the Christianity Today editorial.”

Nazworth, who has been critical of Trump and suggested leaders who supported him have “traded their moral authority,” said he doesn’t know what he will do next.

“I said, if you post this, you’re saying, you’re now on team Trump,” he said. He said he was told that’s what the news outlet wanted to do.

“I’m just shocked that they would go this path,” he said, adding that even though he felt “forced” to make the decision to quit, the parting was a mutual agreement between him and the outlet.

…Since the editorial, many Trump supporters have decried Christianity Today as irrelevant and even “elite.” On Sunday, 200 evangelical leaders and other Trump supporters issued a letter slamming the publication. It was signed by many on the president’s evangelical advisory committee, pastors of Pentecostal and Southern Baptist churches, and Christian musicians such as Brian and Jenn Johnson and Michael Tait. Other evangelical leaders published a letter in support of the magazine on Tuesday.

Dalrymple said Monday that the magazine has lost 2,000 subscriptions but gained 5,000, with the latter coming from a younger, more diverse and more global audience.

“We don’t like to lose anyone,” he said. “We need to stay in conversation with one another even when we disagree.”

Dalrymple, who wrote a piece Sunday about the editorial, said editors have received an “enormous outpouring of notes and messages speaking in deeply emotional terms about their gratitude.”

“Clearly, there was a profound yearning for some evangelical institution or leader to stand up and say these things,” Dalrymple said. “One of the most consistent phrases was ‘stay strong.’ People had rallied to the flag, and they were afraid we would abandon them, afraid we’d buckle under the pressure and bend the knee, and then their disillusionment would be even worse than before.”

...Even the children and grandchildren of the late evangelist Billy Graham, who founded Christianity Today, appear divided over the editorial on social media.

Exit polls from the 2016 election showed that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. An NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll from this month found that 75 percent of white evangelicals approved of Trump, compared with 42 percent of Americans overall.

Among the small number of prominent evangelical leaders who have openly opposed Trump, many, like Galli, are retired or planning to retire soon. The group includes Minnesota pastor John Piper, who has called the president “unqualified,” and Texas pastor Max Lucado, who said in 2016 that Trump didn’t pass a “decency test.” Spokespeople for Piper and Lucado said they were not available Monday.

Doug Birdsall, an evangelical leader who gathered a group of influential institutional leaders at Wheaton College last year to discuss the Trump era’s impact on the evangelical movement, said his decision to hold the event has affected him personally. Birdsall, who is honorary chair of Lausanne, an international movement of evangelicals that was started by Billy Graham, raised $21 million for a gathering of evangelicals in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2010 for “a congress on reconciliation.” Now, he said, many of those donors are alienated from him. He said he has had to self-fund some ministry work he’s doing using $400,000 in savings and home equity.

“I think people have been waiting for someone of [Christianity Today’s] stature to say something,” Birdsall said. “I think Mark’s piece inspires others to be courageous.”

Obviously, evangelical Christians aren’t the only Americans facing internal dissension over Trump. Alex Henderson, writing for Alternet, also on Christmas Eve, noted that “The conservative movement in the United States used to pride itself on having intellectuals like George Will and the late National Review founder William F. Buckley, who spoke with a posh Mid-Atlantic accent that sounded quasi-British. But these days, many right-wing politicians and media figures champion a certain anti-intellectualism-- and journalist Christian Schneider, in an article for the conservative website The Bulwark, notes that some Republicans go out of their way to butcher the English language even if they have Ivy League educations. ‘Saying Democrat instead of Democratic has become a shibboleth-- a verbal handshake to signal that you’re on Team Red Hat,’ Schneider explains. ‘It’s about as annoying as people rolling their r’s when ordering a burrito to prove they once vacationed in Cozumel. But whatever. Triggering Democrats has become so important to Republicans that they’re willing to assault the English language if the people who like good grammar are the bad guys.’ Schneider observes that saying Democrat Party instead of Democratic Party ‘doesn’t make sense on any linguistic level’ because ‘Democrat’ is a noun and ‘Democratic’ is an adjective-- and ‘one should not use one in place of the other,’ he writes.”

“Low-key shittiness is now a rite of passage for calling yourself a Republican,” Schneider writes. “And with a tidal wave of nonsense coming from the right on a daily basis, it’s impossible to correct the micro-idiocies. And so, here we are.”

Bernie grew up in my neighborhood and comes from a family very much like mine. Although he’s got a few years on me, we went to the same elementary school and the same high school. That background makes me feel like I know him-- much more than the couple of times I’ve actually spoken with him. His adherence to democratic socialism is the same ideology I learned from my grandfather. Journalist Dave Lindorff is around our age as well, and he wrote this week about how frustrated and disappointed he is that people in our age group are shying away from Bernie’s idealism and gravitating to the calculated conservatism of career-long corporate whore, Status Quo Joe Biden. Or worse-- “Mike Bloomberg or some other ossified mainstream Democratic pol. Speaking as a 70-year-old Baby Boomer myself, and increasingly an admirer of Sanders, I gotta ask: OK Boomers, what's happened to you?”





He asks his readers to “Think back: What were you doing back in the late 1960s when you were in your teens or early 20s as the Civil Rights Movement was finally winning the right to vote for Black people, when the Vietnam War was raging and classmates of yours were coming home in body bags? Where were you when President Nixon in 1970 urged Ohio Republican Governor James Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard onto the Kent State Campus to put down a student protest against his illegal invasion of Cambodia, expanding an ugly war to yet another country, and the ‘heroic’ guardsmen shot and killed four unarmed students? Where were you when we were all shattering the walls of prudery, experimenting with sex, the mind-freeing wonders of marijuana and yes, even LSD? Where were you as women and their male supporters suddenly stood tall and said that just having the vote wasn't enough; they demanded equality with men on the job, in the home, in politics and in their relationships? … [W]e were,” he added, “for the most part I would argue, happier and freer than we are today.”

Somehow, in the intervening years since the victory of the Vietnamese over the country's US invaders, the impeachment hearings and resignation of Nixon, the end of the draft, passage of the Voting Rights Act and creation of Medicare and Medicaid, and the at least partial liberation of women, we've lost our way. We got married, raised families, fretted over the size of the IRA and 401(k) plans we and our weakened trade unions if we still had them, were forced to rely on instead of the real pensions workers in an age of stronger unions used to have. And even worse, we became consumers instead of people, morphing into better-off versions of our own parents. Some of us even became Republicans or Neo-liberal Democrats, worried more about our own gain than about those who were being left behind or crushed by what we used to call the "System," and ignoring what our nation was and still is doing to the world.

During all these intervening years, as we've lost our way, Bernie Sanders has stayed the course. Four years too old to be officially a Baby Boomer, Sanders, born in 1941, hails from that demographic cohort that, during the Nixon years, to its undying disgrace, came to be known, and even to self-identify, as the Silent Generation consisting of those born between the wars or during WWII. Sanders, though, has never been silent. He protested and faced arrest as a student defending the rights of American blacks and opposed both US apartheid and the Vietnam War. He then entered politics as a socialist, winning election as mayor of Burlington, VT (which under his leadership become known jokingly as "the People's Republic of Burlington" " and admiringly as one of the best US cities to live in). Later he moved on to Congress, first as a representative and then as the state's junior senator-- a position he still holds.

Bernie Sanders, my fellow Boomers, is the person we had intended to be as we grew older and wiser: Obstinate and outspoken defenders of the downtrodden, rejectors of consumerism, and advocates of the notion that we all are better off when we demand that government help those who are the neediest, not those who are the most wealthy and powerful. Sanders may have on occasion failed to remember our Edwin Starr mantra "War: What is it good for? Absolutely Nothin!," but he seems to be coming around to that view again in this race for the presidency.

We Boomers as a group need to do the same. In fact, those of us who are not supporting Sanders in this coming election year need to do some soul searching about who we really are and what we really stand for.

Maybe my insurance plan (at a significant cost) is really great, but that is no reason for me to oppose expanded and improved Medicare for All as proposed by Sen. Sanders. Not only would Medicare for All cost me a lot less than I pay now for healthcare coverage, but with Medicare for All I would know that everyone else in this nation-- all my fellow citizens-- would have the same access to free high-quality health care as me.

Maybe if the government subsidized the installation of point-of-use electrical generating equipment (wind, geothermal or solar panels) on all US homes, I'd be paying higher taxes, but our air would be vastly cleaner, our cars would all be electric and virtually cost-free to drive, and we'd no longer have power bills from climate-change-inducing and pollution-causing power plant operator. A Green New Deal that promises to find jobs for those displaced by the urgent shutdown of greenhouse gas polluters, as advocated by Sanders, even if jarring for some, would be good for everyone.

If we ended our national imperial policy of endless wars and slashed military spending, maybe the U.S. military and the arms industry would lay off a lot of people, but Americans would be viewed a lot better by the rest of the world, and our nation would be able to spend a trillion dollars a year or more in productive rather than destructive ways-- like engaging in a crash program to save the earth from human-caused mass extinction.

When we were younger and more idealistic, we always talked about "peace, love and understanding," remember? Now we talk about Russiagate, Trump, terrorism, the next recession, how or when we're going to retire, and our next Caribbean cruise.

I'm not sure how it happened, but we as a generation have lost our way and our soul. We urgently need to "get back, get back, get back to where we once belonged."

Bernie's been there all along, and now we need to not just support but to join him. We don't want or need a corporate lacky and banker's best friend like Joe Biden who was opposing busing while Bernie was joining anti-discrimination sit-ins, and who came up with the racist and classist idea of mass incarceration that has made the US the nation with the most people in jail in the world. Nor do we want or need a guy like Michael Bloomberg who as Mayor of New York saw his wealth grow from $4.6 billion to $36.7 billion, and who, when he was in charge of that city's struggling public college system, the City University of New York, chose to donate $1.8 billion not to CUNY but to Johns Hopkins, a wealthy private university in Baltimore with a $3-billion endowment at that time! And we don't want or need a guy like Pete Buttigieg who is backed by dozens of billionaire capitalists, and who spent his formative years working for firm, McKinsey, that makes its profits by advising companies on how to ditch massive numbers of their workers, and who calls for sending the U.S. troops into Mexico!

…Now, I hear all the time when I mention Sanders to people my age-- generally liberal Democrats-- that Sanders "has no chance to win," that his socialist ideas like Medicare for All are "too far left for most voters," and that he's "a one- or at best two-issue candidate: Medicare for All and break up the banks." Meanwhile, the media are now claiming, on the basis of ignorance about the UK and of lazy thinking, that the drubbing of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party on Dec. 12 is "a warning" for Democrats not to nominate a left-wing presidential candidate. So let me address these erroneous tropes. First of all, Sanders has been a combination of viciously attacked, ignored and/or misrepresented by the corporate media, and especially the liberal media. MSNBC has actually misstated his poll standing repeatedly. The New York Times has written more about Bloomberg (polling 0-1%) and Yang (polling 5% at best) lately than about Sanders who is in the lead in California polls and in second place or even leading in nationwide in some national polls. Don't believe me? Check out Real Clear Politics, which runs poll averages instead of just single polls. Don't think the media are being unfair in their reporting on Sanders? The LA Times actually was forced a few weeks ago by massive reader protests to correct a headline that said Warren and Biden were losing ground in California, but failed to mention that it was Sanders who was taking the lead!

The truth is, Sanders is leading or gaining ground in the primaries nationally and in key states like South Carolina, California and Florida. Also true is that he is speaking not just to progressives, but to the core working class voters who abandoned the Democratic Party and voted for Trump last time. I saw this at work in 2016 driving through upstate NY in small towns where everyone is either Republican or independent but typically conservative, but where many, many people also depend upon Medicaid or lately, the ACA if they have jobs, to pay for their medical care. During the 2016 Democratic primary, the area sported lots of Sanders signs on lawns and bumpers. After Clinton won that primary, the signs and bumper stickers upstate switched to Trump or to "Lock her up!" signs. That should tell you all you need to know.

As for my leftist friends who think Sanders is too squishy and liberal, check out his enemies: Virtually the entire mass media, Mayor Bloomberg, the $56-billion Man who joined the race for president fearing that the party might, god forbid, nominate an anti-capitalist like Sanders or and anti-billionaire like Elizabeth Warren. Remember two things: A candidate can be defined best by the enemies he or she makes, and perfection in a candidate means election failure.

Sanders in 2020!

Timberrrr by Nancy Ohanian

Republicans, Blue Dogs And New Dems Don't Understand What Impeachment Is All About

Me The People by Nancy Ohanian

Most Americans seem to understand that the gravity of impeachment goes beyond mere partisan considerations. To put it simply, if Trump isn't held accountable for his criminal behavior, that lack of action will serve as a green light for future criminal behavior, not just by him but by any asshole who comes after him. The Republicans and the Republican wing of the Democratic Party do not get that, not at all. They are consumed with self-serving partisanship and can't see beyond their next primary or general election.

This week Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle, reporting for Politico, noted that the Blue Dogs and New Dems are warning the caucus to steer clear of the serious crimes brought up by the Mueller report and just stick to Ukraine. The far right of the Democratic Party-- which Politico cagily always refers to as "moderates"-- especially freshman schnooks wetting their panties over reelection, "have urged Democrats not to relitigate the issues in the Mueller report in their own investigation into the Ukraine scandal. But key Democrats, including House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, have suggested that it could be included in eventual articles of impeachment, with many in the caucus still eager to repudiate Trump for his misconduct outlined by Mueller.

One of the most conservative and cowardly of all the worthless Blue Dogs, Ben McAdams (D-UT): "Activities from the 2016 election, I think, should be left to voters in the 2020 election. My focus is on those things that are forward looking." Basically just as bad as McAdams, a former Republican state legislator pretending to be a Democrat now, slow-witted Blue Dog co-chair Tom O'Halleran, agrees: "I would prefer that we stick to what we have." Elissa Slotkin is an utterly worthless and spineless New Dem from Michigan who the party should be eager to lose. An especially vile creature, she votes like a Republican and sits around whining about losing her reelection bid. "I know that there's some people who are interested in kind of a kitchen sink approach-- let's throw all kinds of things in there because we can and talk about all the things we're concerned about regarding the president. We have been taking the country down this road on this very targeted issue of Ukraine and the issues around the president using his office for personal and political gain. And that's what I think we should focus on." If you survey Democratic staffers and ask them to name the 5 most brain-dead Democrats in Congress, every single list will include Slotkin. Sick of values-free cowards in Congress? That's why we've included the thermometer on the right. And this suggestion from Omaha progressive Kara Eastman on how to respond to impeachment in a purple district:

The warning from vulnerable Democrats follows Nadler’s remarks at the Judiciary panel’s first impeachment hearing Wednesday in which he made a significant connection between Trump’s obstruction of Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and his potential abuse of power in pressuring Ukraine to help his reelection campaign.

“President Trump welcomed foreign interference in the 2016 election. He demanded it for the 2020 election,” Nadler said in his opening statement. “In both cases, he got caught. And in both cases, he did everything in his power to prevent the American people from learning the truth about his conduct.”

Mueller’s 448-page report caused a fraught debate within the caucus after its release this spring over whether to punish Trump for acts he allegedly committed before he was president-- as well as instances in which the White House attempted to interfere with the investigation itself. Some Democrats also feared that Mueller’s report and the allegations within it were too dense and difficult to communicate clearly to the American public.

Mueller and his team ultimately outlined 11 examples of potential obstruction of justice by Trump, and the Democrats' attempts to deepen that probe eventually brought Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back an impeachment inquiry in court.

I grew up in Brooklyn-- same neighborhood and same elementary and high school as Bernie-- but we were always taught that California was the face of the future and where California was today, the rest of America, each region at its own pace, would be tomorrow or the day after or-- in the case of The South-- a decade later. I don't know if that is still taught in Brooklyn schools but I have noticed that the axiom still holds., although maybe or maybe not electorally. Yesterday, L.A. Times reporter Janet Hook took a look at the new election survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and let's hope the rest of the country catches up-- fast instead of sinking into the morass of personalized by Slotkin, McAdams and O'Halleran. Hook reports that Elizabeth and Status Quo Joe have been losing ground as Bernie rises on the left and Mayo Pete rises on the right.

The Iowa caucuses are in less than two months and California absentee ballots for the state’s March 3 primary will be going out around the same time. And there's more good news besides finding Bernie in the #1 slot in the state with the richest haul of delegates. "Bloomberg," she wrote, "appears ill-equipped to break into the mix. The poll, which was taken Nov. 21-27, just as Bloomberg started advertising in California and elsewhere on Nov. 25, found that he began his campaign with the most negative image of any candidate in the field. About 40% of the likely Democratic primary voters surveyed viewed him negatively, and just 15% had a positive impression."

The upshot of the poll is that the field’s most liberal candidates, Warren and Sanders, are in a statistical tie for first place. The leading candidates making a more moderate pitch, Biden and Buttigieg, are lagging and essentially tied for third place.

Sanders is in the nominal lead, as the first-choice pick of 24%; Warren is the first pick of 22%. That is a big change from September, when she led the field with 29%.

Biden is the first choice of 14%, down six points from September. Buttigieg is preferred by 12%, up six points from September.

The poll was taken before California Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the race. It asked whom her supporters would name as their second choice if she quit and found that Warren and Biden would benefit the most. If Harris voters were reallocated based on those responses, the race would tighten at the top to Sanders, 25%; Warren, 24%; Biden, 17%; Buttigieg, 13%.

California will affect the prospects of all candidates because it has the largest number of delegates at next summer’s Democratic nominating convention. It is especially important for Bloomberg, a multibillionaire and former New York City mayor. He is skipping the first nominating contests and counting on a big splash March 3 in the so-called Super Tuesday primaries in 17 states and territories, including California.

The Berkeley IGS poll, which was three-quarters complete before Bloomberg’s ads started running, found 8% were considering voting for Bloomberg.

Whether his big spending on ads can change the negative image he brings to the race will be a test of the power of money in politics, but the record on such efforts — by rich presidential candidates such as Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in 1992, and Steve Forbes, a Republican candidate in 2000-- is not promising.

California billionaire Tom Steyer also has made a heavy investment in his own 2020 presidential bid, and his campaign is still floundering: Just 1% of California voters in the Berkeley-IGS survey said Steyer was their first choice, and only 18% viewed him favorably.

Among the top-tier candidates, the opinion shifts among Californians are similar to trends found in other polls nationally and in key early-voting states. Warren is coming back down to earth after a heady run-up in polling this summer and fall; Sanders is regaining traction after an October heart attack unsettled his campaign; and Biden is facing increased competition from Buttigieg among voters who think Warren and Sanders are too far left.

Warren’s image has suffered over the last few months, during which she has struggled to answer the question of how she would overhaul the healthcare system. Her favorability rating remains high, with 67% viewing her positively, but that is down 10 points since September.

Still, the poll found that Warren had more room to increase support among California Democrats than any other candidate: 58% said they at least considered supporting her, compared with the 49% who were considering Sanders, 41% considering Buttigieg and 39% considering Biden.

The poll also provided a window into the perceived strengths of the candidates-- and why Biden has come in a weak third compared with his stronger standing in national polls.

Biden led the field when California voters were asked which candidate had the best chance of beating Trump and which was best qualified to serve as president: 29% said he was the most electable, and 28% said he was best qualified, compared with Sanders’ second-place ranking on those points, with 22% and 24%, respectively.

But Biden drops to single digits behind other candidates on other qualities: Just 6% said he was the candidate with the sharpest mental abilities, compared with the 24% who picked Warren, who leads the field on that attribute.

Sanders tops the field on three other attributes-- being the candidate who would bring the right kind of change to Washington (28%), the one who comes closest to sharing voters’ values (27%) and the candidate who best understands the problems of “people like you” (28%).

The poll found that the four septuagenarian candidates-- Sanders, 78; Biden and Bloomberg, 77; Warren, 70-- faced differing levels of concern about their age.

About one-third said they were extremely or very concerned that Biden’s and Sanders’ age would hurt their ability to serve as president. Only 7% said that about Warren; 17% said so about Bloomberg.

The poll found increasingly stiff three-way competition in California for older voters, a part of the electorate that has been especially important to Biden’s national standing. Both he and Warren lost ground among those 65 and older over the last few months, while Buttigieg gained among that group, a prized bloc because it tends to vote in large numbers.

Biden narrowly leads with 22% of the over-65 vote, down from 26% in September. Warren’s share dropped to 18%, from 32% in September. Buttigieg supporters, meanwhile, increased to 17% of those seniors, from just 7% in September.

Sanders’ campaign, by contrast, hinges on his ability to turn out younger voters who are less inclined than their elders to vote: He barely registered among older voters but was the first choice of 46% of voters ages 18 to 29. That contributes to the advantage Sanders has among Latino voters, who tend to be younger as a group than other ethnicities. In California, 32% of Latino Democrats favor Sanders, a solid 13-point margin over the next closest candidate, Biden, who has 19%.

Here's one reason Bernie is so popular among younger voters-- and why younger voters aren't taking Status Quo Joe seriously... other than as a serious threat to their futures.

AOC And Pramila Take On Mayo Pete And Status Quo Joe And Their Slick Conservative Talking Points

If the Democratic primary is about picking the slickest, smoothest liar, there's no contest. Well... Status Quo Joe is certainly the biggest liar among Democrats, but Mayo Pete is the slickest and smoothest. That's what working as a McKinsey consultant teaches you. If you can't look someone straight in the eye and persuade them that up is down, the moon is made of green cheese and 2 + 2 = 5, you don't last as long as Mayo Pete did at McKinsey.

When Mayo began his p.r.-driven campaign, he hadn't yet decided which lane to run in. Not having much of a record, and with no values or principles-- other than personal careerism-- weighing him down, he flip-flopped between running as a progressive reformer and as a conservative establishment defender. For him is was deciding on which tie to wear on any given day. In the end, the flood of cash was just too much for him to resist and he's now in it as a full-fledged advocate of the status quo establishment, every bit as much as decrepit class warriors Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg.

One of the crucial debates in the 1940's over Social Security-- rabidly opposed by conservatives on both sides of the aisle-- was over including rich people. After all, the super-wealthy didn't need Social Security payments, why include them in? It was a shrewd move by the conservatives, but progressives understood how excluding people based on any factor would guarantee that there would always be a class of people-- and the rich are a powerful class of people-- dedicated to destroying the system and repealing it. In the end, Social Security is so successful-- despite what conservatives predicted so hysterically and vehemently-- because it is universal. Mayo is using the same old divisive conservative talking points to try to undermine Medicare-for-All and undermine reinstating free state colleges. He's slick but he isn't fooling everyone. He sure isn't fooling AOC.

Thursday, Congress' most popular member let loose a twitter storm against Mayo Pete's sneaky elitism. This is it-- AOC sounding like FDR-- in narrative form:

Universal public systems are designed to benefit EVERYBODY! Everyone contributes and everyone enjoys. We don’t ban the rich from public schools, firefighters, or libraries becauce they are public goods. Universal systems that benefit everyone are stronger because everyone’s invested! When you start carving people out and adding asterisks to who can benefit from goods that should be available to all, cracks in the system develop. Many children of the elite want to go to private, Ivyesque schools anyway, which aren’t covered by tuition-free public college! Lastly, and I can’t believe we have to remind people of this, but it’s GOOD to have classrooms (from pre-k through college!) to be socioeconomically integrated. Having students from different incomes & backgrounds in the same classroom is good for society & economic mobility.

Is Mayo using GOP talking points? Well... to be fair, his talking points are more conservative, neo-liberal and corporatist than specifically Republican. Mayo is a Democrat, maybe a Democratic from the Republican wing of the party but, still, a Democrat. His kind of Democrat doesn't have to turn to the GOP for talking points when they can get them from the Blue Dogs, New Dems, Third Way, the DCCC, the DSCC, Forward Center, Problem Solvers, etc. And, remember, the 3 B's-- Biden, Bloomberg and Buttigieg-- are all packaging these same conservative talking points to undermine the progressive agenda that appeals to the working class whose interests each is essentially running against.

The Debate Inside The Democratic Party Continues, Despite An Establishment Effort To Pretend Otherwise

Bernie won the SNL debate but a few hours before the show aired, the Washington Post's Paul Kane asserted that "For almost four months, House Democrats have enjoyed something that once seemed unattainable: relative calm inside their caucus. "Democrats," he wrote, "have tamped down the internal friction that dominated the spring and summer, creating divisions along ideological and generational lines, as they instead focus on the far more consequential battle of trying to impeach President Trump. The self-proclaimed 'Squad'-- the four young, first-term liberal congresswomen who clashed earlier in the year with fellow freshmen from swing districts-- has drifted into the background with so much attention now focused on the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry."

One of the worst Democrats in Congress, reactionary Blue Dog Kurt Schrader, who tends to vote with the Republicans as frequently as he can, was celebrating. Kane quoted him: "Have you heard much from them recently? Not really." He claims that impeachment is why "the typical Democratic infighting has subsided" and why the members of the Squad aren't dominating the media. But out on the campaign hustings the differences between real Democrats and Blue Dogs/New Dems hasn't disappeared-- nor should it.

Yesterday, progressive reformer Rachel Ventura was in Springfield to file her petitions in her campaign to replace establishment New Dem Bill Foster. She wrote from there that "A discussion broke out between me and the 'regular Democrat' when he started trashing Theresa Mah and progressives using Republican talking points. Apparently, what is happening on the presidential debate stage is happening at the congressional and local level as well. In Illinois’ 11th Congressional District the distance between Bill Foster and I is a large gap. When it becomes difficult to tell the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans because both parties are using the same corporate-sponsored message, the populist/progressive message becomes the key to winning. Being a voice of the people versus a voice of wealthy donors is truly what sets a progressive apart from the Democrats or the Republicans. America doesn’t need bought and paid for Republicans or Democrats. We need a government that works for everyone. Here are the differences between Bill Foster and myself."

Kane noted that the conservative Schrader "never shies from a battle with the liberal flank" and that he attributes the lack of noise from the Squad inside Capitol Hill to the freshmen learning the ropes and leaning how the game is played. Schrader: "One thing you learn serving in a legislative body, you don’t have any friends, you don’t have any enemies. You have got allies and adversaries, and they change at any given moment on any given bill."

Schrader thinks he helped teach AOC this lesson when he helped lead the opposition to a pair of amendments to bar the Defense Department from deploying troops to the southern border and to restrict funds from being spent on holding undocumented immigrants at military facilities last July. Schrader and his cronies helped kill them both. Kane wrote that "Insiders think her poor vote total can be attributed to the policy and personality clashes that came just a few weeks before. Democrats pushed a bill to ease the crisis of undocumented immigrants at the border, including mandates over the conditions and treatment of those in detention centers. Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted against the original bill, and after Pelosi relented to pressure from moderates and put the Senate bill on the floor, they led the fight against that bill. Democratic staffers spent the next weekend in a public war of words on Twitter, a clash compounded by Pelosi’s interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in which the speaker demeaned the Squad as just 'four people' with four votes. Finally, at the end of July, Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez held an hour-long meeting behind closed doors... Schrader praises Pelosi’s touch, a remarkable sentiment considering how bitter the Blue Dogs felt toward leadership during Pelosi’s first reign as speaker. That ended with many of those moderate-to-conservative Democrats wiped out in the 2010 midterm elections. Now, Schrader said, the Blue Dogs have the 'ear of leadership,' including weekly meetings with other ideological caucuses. 'It’s night-and-day difference. You can’t even compare. Oh yeah, it’s night-and-day difference. Yeah, we were dead to them 10 years ago.'"

Shaniyat Chowdhury, an all-in progressive who's taking on crooked New Dem Greg Meeks this cycle, feels it's "good and healthy to have in-party fighting. Though, I identify as a Democrat, we as a people have to weed out politicians who do not stand on the behalf of working people. It’s not a left-right issue. It’s a bottom-up issue. My campaign is more than about taking on an incumbent. It’a about dismantling a corrupt system that oppresses working people. In order to do that, we need to challenge those who enable it. I am the exact opposite of my opponent Gregory Meeks. He is a career politician who sits on the Finance committee and bailed out Wall Street after the Great Recession. To this day, he takes money from Finance and Real Estate industries. This prompts him to co-sponsor Republican legislation to deregulate big banks and pay day lenders, who impose unlimited amounts of interest rates on working families who are already in debt. That’s how they profit off of us. I am an activist, marine corps veteran, rugby player, and everyday working American. These experiences have taught me that all of destinies m no matter where we are from, are intertwined. We share the same destiny and are fighting the same system. Not only will I not accept any corporate money donation, but I will make it a mission to help overrun Citizens United. We have a housing crisis in the country. It’s a National Emergency and we can’t wait another 2-4 years for changes to happen. Everyday we are losing families out in the streets and are forgotten about. Housing is a human right and every person deserves to live in a safe and sustainable home. I support a Federal Homes Guarantee centering impacted communities from the current housing crisis. The plan is to create over 12 million permanent affordable housing outside of the capitalist market, addresses a century of systemic racism such as predatory lending and redlining and paying reparations to those impacted communities, and lastly transitioning social housing to a Green New Deal economy."

Kim Williams, the progressive running for the Central Valley seat currently held by Blue Dog Jim Costa, doesn't see it the same way Kane does. "While the impeachment process continues, many people in my district will still struggle to survive. Nothing changes for them just because the national media says things are calm in Congress. There will still be families struggling to eat when their food stamps can’t get them through the month, and hard working people will be forced from their homes because the cost of living far exceeds their income. There will be grandmothers sleeping under bridges on cold nights and homeless workers cleaning themselves up in their cars before heading to work. These are the people we connect with on the campaign trail, and these are the people who deserve a fighting chance. They also deserve representation that will build an America that doesn’t leave them behind. And if this means there’s disagreements in Congress, so be it. Progressives may not make up a majority in Congress now, but they do make up a majority in this district. The incumbent and the local media can paint another picture all they want, but voters here are desperate for a health care system that works for all and for a Green New Deal that will finally address our terrible air and water quality while bringing in better paying jobs. The incumbent has never offered this and has never even stepped foot into their neighborhoods. Conservative Democrats are offering more of the same and hoping ad buys will carry them over the finish line. The truth is, though, they’ve only secured votes in the past because voters have lacked alternatives. Voters now know that they will have the power to change their country in 2020, and they won’t be voting for the status quo."

Marie Newman is the progressive Democrat running for a Chicagoland seat occupied by arch-conservative Blue Dog Dan Lipinski-- who the status quo establishment is trying to protect.

“I guess my reaction is different than most," Marie told us. "We have always had 50 or more varying perspectives inside the Democratic Party. I think the tension we see is coming from the grassroots up-- and the grassroots are requiring their representatives must be in alignment with their districts. In my district, constituents are unwilling to continue with a congressperson who is anti-healthcare for all, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice. Further, they expect their candidates to be real Democrats with real plans around Medicare For All, Transformational Immigration, The Green New Deal and Gun Safety Reform. The fight is not being driven from inside the party-- that has always been there-- we now, have highly informed voters who are requiring Democrats to act like real Democrats and to actually work hard and fight for Medicare For All, Workers, the middle class, Immigrants  and The Green New Deal. I will."

Yesterday, DFA amplified what Marie was saying: "At a time when Republicans are actively working against women’s rights and trying to ban abortion nationwide, it’s never been more important to elect strong leaders ready to fight for reproductive freedom. Even worse: some Democrats are part of the problem... Lipinski is barely a Democrat. He voted to defund Planned Parenthood and against the Affordable Care Act. He wouldn’t even endorse President Obama’s reelection in 2012. The problem is the DCCC's decision to blacklist Democratic primary challengers like Marie who bravely run against anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ+ candidates like Lipinski, means it’s all up to progressives like us to put her over the top... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it best when she endorsed Marie earlier this year" 'Marie Newman is a textbook example of one of the ways that we could be better as a party. The fact that a deep blue seat is advocating for many parts of the Republican agenda is extremely problematic. We're not talking about a swing state that is being forced to take tough votes.' Exactly."

Obama was at a big-bucks soiree with Silicon Valley donors on Thursday, preaching to the status quo choir that "everybody needs to chill out" about the differences among the 2020 Democratic candidates. Tickets were $10,000 to get into the event, $35,000 for a photo with Obama and up to $355,000 for a VIP reception and a premium convention package. "We are not going to win just by increasing the turnout of people who already agree with us completely on everything, which is why I’m always suspicious of purity tests during elections."

I wonder if mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg's purity tests well enough for Obama and for the people who wrote this big checks Thursday. Yesterday, Bloomberg surprised no one at all when he finally released a statement on his campaign website announcing he's running. (It had already been widely announced that he's running $31.1 million in ads this week starting today, so the announcement wasn't exactly a bolt of lightning out of the blue.) The statement starts the same way any statement from any Democrat could begin: "I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage. The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America." Want to read the rest of it?

I believe my unique set of experiences in business, government, and philanthropy will enable me to win and lead.

As a candidate, I’ll rally a broad and diverse coalition of Americans to win. And as president, I have the skills to fix what is broken in our great nation. And there is a lot broken.

• We have an economy that is tilted against most Americans.
• We have a health care system that costs too much and doesn’t cover everyone.
• We have communities ravaged by gun violence.
• We have schools that aren’t preparing our children for success in an increasingly high-tech world.
• We have an immigration system that is cruel and dysfunctional.
• We have a climate crisis that is growing worse by the day.
• We have special interests that corrupt Washington and block progress on all of these issues.

As a child and a Boy Scout, I was taught to believe in the promise and potential of America, and I have never been more worried about its future than I am today.

America is at its best when we work together to find meaningful and lasting solutions to the big challenges that we face.

We need a president who understands that truth-- and who can do it, rather than just make promises.

I offer myself as a doer and a problem solver-- not a talker. And as someone who is ready to take on the tough fights-- and win.

I took on Trump on gun violence-- and won stronger gun laws in states across the country.

I took on Trump the climate denier-- and have led an effort that has closed more than half the nation’s dirty coal plants.

Trump right now is carrying water for Big Tobacco. I’ve taken on the dangers of e-cigarettes to protect our kids.

I know what it takes to beat Trump, because I already have. And I will do it again.

I’ve never shied away from a tough fight.

Defeating Trump-- and rebuilding America-- is the most urgent and important fight of our lives. And I’m going all in.

My resolve to stand up to his bigotry and hatred and wrong-headed policies is anchored in who I am and my belief in government as a force for good.

I’ve spent my career bringing people together to tackle big problems-- and fix them. It has worked well in business-- and in running the country’s largest, most progressive city.

I know it can work in Washington, too-- and I have the leadership skills and experience to make it happen.

I’ve been very lucky in life. Growing up, my father never earned more than $6,000 in a year. But my mother and father worked very hard to help my sister and me get an education. I managed to work my way through college and get an entry-level job in New York.

And then, when I was 39, I got laid off. I didn’t know what I’d do next. But I had an idea to start a company-- so I took a chance.

Today our company employs 20,000 people and generates large profits, almost all of which go to helping people across the country and around the world. I’ve always believed in investing in our employees and treating them well. We pay employees very well and provide the best health care benefits money can buy. And if someone has a baby, they get six months of paid leave.

I’ve run my company according to my values: honesty, integrity, fairness, inclusion-- and that’s the same approach I brought to city government.

I was elected mayor of America’s most diverse city just weeks after the attacks of 9/11. It was a frightening time for our city and country. But we rebuilt the economy with new jobs and opportunity-- for people on all rungs of the economic ladder.

We gave our teachers the largest raise in America, and we improved graduation rates by 42 percent. We cut murders in half while reducing incarceration by nearly 40 percent. We cut the city’s carbon footprint by 14 percent and created new programs to combat poverty. And we expanded health care and strengthened immigrant communities.

As mayor, my priority was helping the millions of New Yorkers who needed it most.

And the issues I am most passionate about focus on righting wrongs that have fallen heaviest on the most vulnerable communities. I know government can improve people’s lives-- because when I ran New York City, that’s exactly what we did.

Since leaving City Hall, I founded the largest gun safety group in history. I created a campaign to take on the biggest polluters and climate threats. As mayor, I banned smoking in restaurants and bars and cut teen smoking by 50 percent-- and today, we continue to win battles against the tobacco industry and their sleazy attempts to hook young kids on e-cigarettes.




I know how to take on the powerful special interests that corrupt Washington. And I know how to win-- because I’ve done it, time and again. I will be the only candidate in this race who isn’t going to take a penny from anyone and will work for a dollar a year.

Over the course of this campaign, I’ll tell you what I will do as president, and how I’ll do it. I’ll outline plans for:

• Creating good-paying jobs
• Providing quality health care for every American
• Stopping gun violence
• Fighting climate change
• Fixing our broken immigration system
• Raising taxes on wealthy individuals like me
• Protecting women’s and LGBTQ rights
• Supporting our veterans
• Reestablishing America’s place in the world as a force for peace and stability

But more than plans, I offer the leadership to turn plans into reality. To roll up my sleeves, to motivate a country to unite and rebuild America-- and make it fairer and better.

And I’m ready to get working.