Can The DCCC Screw Up CO-06 Again? They're Trying As Hard As They Can

CO-06 forms a large "U" around the southern, eastern and northern suburbs of Denver. Serial DCCC incompetence has kept it in a weird status as a blue district with a Republican congressman. Obama won the district against McCain 54-45% and against Romney 52-47%. Last year, Hillary won the district 50.2% to 41.3%. Meanwhile the DCCC has managed to screw up every congressional race since Coffman was first elected in 2008. Last year, while Hillary racked up her big win over Trump there, Republican incumbent Mike Coffman won with as big a margin against the DCCC canddiate-- 191,626 (50.9%) to 160,372 (42.6%). The only Democrat who ever came close to beating Coffman was the one the DCCC didn't recruit and didn't especially like, progressive Joe Miklosi who held Coffman to a 47.8% to 45.8% win (2012).

Blue America has been looking at the race so far and we've identified two excellent candidates-- Gabriel McArthur and Levi Tillemann. They're both the kinds of values-oriented progressives that would be good fits for this very diverse part of Colorado. But, needless to say, the DCCC has very different ideas. They recruited some slimy guy from outside the district, Jason Crow, the precise kind of candidate whose only chance of getting elected would be to be swept up in a massive anti-Trump tsunami. Crow is an embodiment of everything wrong with the DC version of today's Democratic Party.

As you know, we're not big fans of Blue Dogs around here. But you know what we hate even more? Scam artists. There’s a special place in hell for people who enable rich guys that victimize society’s most vulnerable. Unfortunately, some of these wolves in sheep's clothing are among Democrats. To continue the zoological metaphor, they are even lionized. These are the scumbags that give Democrats a bad name with working-class Americans and who have ruined the party's brand. Let me introduce you to top DCCC recruit Jason Crow.

Crow is one of the worst examples we’ve seen so far this year, the quintessential DCCC recruit. The DCCC want to present their puppet candidate as a veteran and a family guy. He has no issues page on his website, of course-- just a lot of identity politics bullshit and platitudes galore. Crow's a lawyer in Denver who spent his career rigging the system against the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the forgotten. The DCCC will never let on that they are completely aware that he profited by making sure that there’s one type of "justice" for rich, white, well-connected men, and no justice at all for those they harm.

For years, Crow’s marketing bio described him as an expert in everything from protecting abusive private medical groups and con men guilty of wire fraud to making sure bankers guilty of securities fraud and insider trading and business owners who bribed foreign governments got off the hook.

Then he decided to run for Congress.

Suddenly, with a little of that DCCC magic that has caused the Democratic Party to lose dozens and dozens of seats over the past decade-- including CO-06-- the guy is Captain America (and also Mother Teresa).

There are people out there who will argue that 'lawyers-gonna-lawyer' and will rightly point out that everyone is entitled to a legal defense. But let’s be clear: there are thousands of lawyers in this country doing good things for people in need. Jason Crow IS NOT ONE OF THEM. He wasn't some public defender providing people their 'right to a legal defense' or a guy standing up for those caught up in a rough system. Jason Crow got rich by siding with the big guys and against the little guys. Again and again and again, systematically and with a sense of purpose. The DCCC looks at that and sees only the capacity for self-funding and low ethics-- their top two requirements for recruitment.

Let’s stop apologizing for these bastards, OK? White collar defense lawyers choose their clients. The clients these lawyers-to-the-rich choose reflect the values they hold.

It’s kind of like Mitt Romney’s "vulture capitalism." Romney was (technically) fulfilling his fiduciary duty when he gutted good American businesses and destroyed thousands of jobs in the process. After all, he was "adding shareholder value." Same could be said of the CEO of Exxon-Mobile when he lies about climate change (one could argue). The 'lawyers gunna lawyer' defense is what lawyers tell you so they can feed at the trough of corruption while protecting the already rich from Justice. And then ask for your vote.

What’s left of the (carefully hidden) public record of Jason Crow’s clients is a laundry list of the worst our country has offer in white collar criminals: from frackers destroying the environment to executives stealing from their employees' pension funds. But rather than going into all of them, I want to look at the human costs of having lawyers like Jason Crow in power by talking about just one of his clients: Predatory Payday lender Western Sky Financial (WSF).

WSF was the notorious predatory lender that set up storefronts on tribal lands in order to target the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. The loans they provided were illegal under federal and many state laws, but they exploited Tribal Nations’ soverignty in order to abuse the poor. Many of their loans had interest rates over 300% and fees of as much as 50% of the loan value. For example, a $5,000 loan was supposed to be paid off in 84 monthly payments of $486.58.

That's $40,872.

On a $5,000 loan.

It’s disgusting.

As Virginia legal expert Rich Kelsey described it: "it was just another form of abuse piled upon what we have done to Native Americans . . . you’re talking about sophisticated fraudsters using a new version of fraud preying upon the poorest of the poor . . . it is beyond the pale."

But Jason Crow saw an opportunity to feed at the trough of corruption, and he went whole hog. This is a guy who couldn't care less about what happens to the Cheyenne River Sioux mother whose car breaks down and she needs some cash to fix it so that she can get to her two jobs and keep a roof over her kids’ head. He probably never even thought of her.

If Jason Crow could line his pockets by making sure that mom got screwed, he was happy to oblige.

Despite the cases brought by Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the attorneys general of several states, Jason Crow made sure that nobody affiliated with Western Sky ever spent a day in prison and limited the penalties to a little over half a million dollars in a key case he defended. He also made sure that CashCall, WSF’s parent company, was able to continue most of Western Sky’s abusive practices under other names. Isn't one Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Congress more than enough? Do we need a male version of her too?

Given where we know he stands on this issue, does anybody really expect Jason Crow to strengthen consumer protections or the CFPB if Colorado Democrats give him the nomination and he gets sent to Washington? Not a chance in hell! Democrats shouldn't be nominating a champion of con men and payday lenders, an advocate for environmental destruction, a trusted advisor to millionaires and billionaires, and a key strategist in the war against America’s poor and vulnerable. Wrong for the brand; wrong for America, wrong for CO-06.

Everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. But lawyers like Jason Crow have been instrumental creating a legal system where the rich and powerful are free to exploit the poor and marginalized for pleasure and profit. It's disgusting and shouldn't be rewarded by a bunch of out-of-touch politicians at the DCCC.

And you know what-- this is just what we found on Google. If Crow has scrubbed his bio and done his best to hide his professional history from the public but a couple hours in google turned up that he is essentially Mitt Romney’s cold-hearted stepbrother with a client list that makes it look like he has a special grudge against the poor, the elderly, and communities of color... what else is he hiding? And what will Coffman find to use against him if he clinches the nomination? How many more shoes are going to drop? The Koch Brothers and the GOP spent over ten million dollars on CD-06 in 2016 to keep Coffman in office. If the DCCC manages to get Jason Crow the nomination, they'll be doing their job for them this cycle.

As progressives look to 2018 and how we can take America forward, the first critical step is making sure that the Democratic party is not represented by hucksters like Jason Crow. These corporatist tools of the already comfortable and the monied elite have spent their lives championing values that are not just contrary, but diametrically opposed to the cause of justice and progress. Time to tell the DCCC they work for us, not the other way round.

We need leaders with deeply held principles, new ideas, and a commitment help fix a rigged and broken system. In Colorado’s 6th District, either Levi Tillemann or Gabriel McArthur seem to fit that bill. Help them out. But Jason Crow is a non-starter. In the story of Robbin Hood, Jason Crow is the Sheriff of Nottingham. Or maybe even worse-- his scumbag lawyer. Jason Crow's career has been a disgrace and he hasn't earned the nomination, just the support of the like-minded crooks at the DCCC. Speaking of which... the DCCC found the perfect campaign manager for Crow, the same one they found for Josh Gottheimer, an especially contemptible Blue Dog from New Jersey who was elected last year and has voted for Paul Ryan's agenda more than all but 3 congressional Democrats.

Who Wants To Bet On A Colorado Race? I Would Especially Challenge Stenchy Hoyer And Ben Ray Luján

I don't know how this is going to turn out Tuesday-- but I feel strongly enough that Stenchy and Ben Ray are compulsive liars that I'm willing to risk a grand on it. Here's how this all started-- an e-mail from Levi Tillemann, the progressive candidate running in the suburban Denver district (CO-06) currently held by conservative Republican Mike Coffman. Hopefully you'll remember a few weeks ago when the tape came out of Stenchy trying to bum rush Levi out of the race. I've known Stenchy for over a decade and that kind of crap never ends when it comes to him. He's as sleazy and corrupt as any Republican.

What Levi explained in his e-mail was that Stenchy and his henchman, DCCC chair Ben Ray Luján, haven't ceased their slimy tactics when trying to force their crooked candidate, Jason Crow, into the general election against Coffman, by forcing Levi to quit. In fact the title of the e-mail was Dropping out?

On Sunday, May 6, DCCC Chair Ben Ray Lujan told National Public Radio that “polling shows very clearly that the only candidate in this race that has a chance to defeat Mr. Coffman is Jason Crow.”

Last night on an appearance on The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, Levi made a bold pledge: If Ben Ray Lujan’s claim proves true, for the good of the nation and party, Levi will withdraw from the primary in order to increase the chance that Democrats take back the House.

But unfortunately, both Jason Crow and the DCCC have a long history of working together to deceive the voters of Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. Lujan has not complied with four separate public requests to release his polling data. We suspected they might be at it again, so Levi took matters into his own hands.

On May 9, Levi for Colorado commissioned a poll on the race through Public Policy Polling (PPP). PPP predicted they would have results by Monday, May 13. Of note, PPP is the same polling agency Mr. Crow used for his much touted head-to-head poll against Coffman.

If this new poll shows (as Mr. Crow and his allies claim) that Levi is at a dramatic deficit relative to Mr. Crow in a head-to-head matchup against Mike Coffman, Levi will withdraw from the primary on Tuesday.

If, on the other hand, this is another example of Mr. Crow and the DCCC lying to voters and inventing "alternative facts," then we say enough is enough. Jason Crow should withdraw from the race and the discredited DCCC should immediately suspend all efforts to interfere in Democratic primaries nationally.

Integrity used to be considered an asset in pursuit of public office, and getting caught in a bald-faced lie was often enough to end a career. Donald Trump has removed all shame from GOP politicians. Mr. Crow and the DCCC seem to have contracted that same virus. They seem to believe lying is OK so long as they can get away with it. We as Democrats, must reject this race to the bottom.

Integrity matters to Levi Tillemann. The question is: Does integrity matter to Jason Crow?

Help us fight for truth and democracy.

So here's my bet: I'll match anyone who wants to say Stenchy and Ben Ray have it right and that only the crooked Crow, who has spent his professional career helping pay-day lenders cheat working families, can beat Coffman. I think PPP will deliver the results Tuesday. If you want to bet, just e-mail me at downwithtyranny@gmail.com/ Anything I win goes right into Levi Tillemann's campaign war-chest. Or, if you want to forego the bet and just contribute to Tillemann directly, here's the Blue America 2018 congressional ActBlue thermometer on the right. Levi is running a grassroots campaign and Crow is getting lots of help from the crooks at the DCCC, which has already put him on their shameful Red-to-Blue page, and from the New Dems, which only endorses candidates who have to pull their heads out of Wall Street's ass to answer a question.

Hoyer Admits Trying To Rig A Colorado Congressional Race For The Corrupt Conservative Candidate

DCCC incompetence has kept CO-06 in Republican hands for years after the district turned blue. And it's almost as though Steny Hoyer and Ben Ray Lujan are working to keep up their unlikely record of failure. Obama won the district-- the suburbs south and east of Denver (including Aurora, Littleton and Centennial-- in 2008 with 54% and in 2012 with 52%. In 2016 Hillary beat Trump 50.2% to 41.3%. and the PVI went from D+1 in 2015 to D+2 now. In 2016 Bernie won the district and beat Hillary in all 3 counties (Arapahoe, Douglas and Adams). Even though Democratic voters in the district expressed that they were not interested in another status quo establishment candidate, last week, the DCCC interfered in the district primary by endorsing a more-of-the-same corrupt conservative New Dem, Jason Crow (who isn't from the district), over the grassroots progressive in the race, Levi Tillemann, and then going a step further by meeting with Levi and trying to bully him into dropping out.

First a little about Crow, from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who was recruited by the DCCC. As I've explained before, Steny Hoyer and Ben Ray Luján have taken great pains to present their puppet candidate as a veteran and a family guy. He has no real issues page on his website, of course-- just a lot of identity politics bullshit and superficial platitudes galore. Crow's a lawyer in Denver who spent his career rigging the system against the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the forgotten. The DCCC will never let on that they are completely aware that he profited by making sure that there’s one type of "justice" for rich, white, well-connected men, and no justice at all for those they harm. For years, Crow’s marketing bio described him as an expert in everything from protecting abusive private medical groups and con men guilty of wire fraud to making sure bankers guilty of securities fraud and insider trading and business owners who bribed foreign governments got off the hook. He got rich by siding with the big guys and against the little guys and by defending payday lenders from justice-- again and again and again, systematically and with a sense of purpose. The DCCC looks at that and sees only the capacity for self-funding and low ethics-- their top two requirements for recruitment. Suddenly, with a little of that DCCC magic that has caused the Democratic Party to lose dozens and dozens of seats over the past decade-- including CO-06-- the guy is Captain America (and also Mother Teresa).

On the DCCC's Red-to-Blue endorsement page-- all shit right-of-center candidates-- they describe Crow as having "a stellar record of service. The son of small business owners [a laugh since his father had a private wealth management firm], Jason worked minimum-wage jobs during high school, enlisted in the National Guard, and worked construction to help pay his way through college. After the horrific 9/11 attacks, he served as a paratrooper in the invasion of Iraq where he earned a Bronze Star. Jason then served two combat tours in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger. Now he’s an attorney and veterans advocate." He's one of their very worst this cycle. Hoyer and Luján are helping him raise money and telling institutional donors and bu Democratic contributors to not give any money to Tillemann, the typical DCCC trick which then allows them to claim the candidates they don't back aren't "serious contenders."

I've been fighting with Hoyer about this for over a decade and I found this post I did from November 2006 after he asked me to interview him. It's a hoot. After the DCCC backed Crow last November, Tillemann slammed them for getting involved with one Democratic candidate while giving a cold shoulder to the others.

Levi Tillemann, a clean energy expert and former Obama administration official, said the results of last week’s election-- including sweeping wins by Democrats in swing states and in longstanding Republican-held districts across the country-- make it clear that voters in Colorado’s 6th District are ready to elect a Democrat, something they’ve never done.

“You saw a slate of progressive school board members and a number of strong, progressive city council members elected,” Tillemann told Colorado Politics, referring to election results in Aurora and Douglas County-- both parts of the 6th District. “This is a red-to-blue district, it’s been a red-to-blue district. The question is how we can actually flip the 6th in 2018.

“Let’s be honest. The DNC has put its finger on the scale before voters even have had a chance to meet the candidates. We’ve seen what happened when the DNC gets involved in primaries, and it’s not pretty. I’d suggest they let the Democrats vote rather than seeking to inflict their will on the voters of Colorado.”

While the DCCC insists it maintains strict neutrality in races with contested primaries-- “provid[ing] support to all Democratic House candidates willing to have open lines of communication and work collaboratively with the Committee,” a spokesperson said in a statement-- skeptics made hay when it turned out that leadership PACs run by Luján and Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democrats’ No. 2 leader, both donated to Crow’s campaign earlier this year but not to his primary opponents.

Yesterday ColoradoPolitics updated a post from last week about Hoyer's attempt to bully Tillemann out of the race, something I've seen him do dozens of times all over the country, always to help corrupt conservative candidates against progressives. He's real piece of shit. It's because of scumbags like Hoyer that the Democrats will never be anything more than the lesser of two evils in a corrupt political system. The sooner he's gone from Congress the better. He's 78; keep your fingers crossed.

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in House leadership, encouraged Democrat Levi Tillemann to end his primary campaign in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District during a December meeting at a Denver hotel, saying that state and national congressional and party leaders had decided “very early on” to consolidate their resources behind another Democrat, Jason Crow, to run against Republican incumbent Mike Coffman, according to detailed notes Tillemann wrote immediately after the meeting.

Hoyer told Tillemann that party leaders who had been through a few go-arounds in the district-- one of the top-targeted and most expensive congressional races in the country the past two cycles-- would be “negligent” if they didn’t get involved, adding, “If we just lay back as leaders that have some experience, as leaders that have gone thorough that district four or five times and lost, that’s not a rational thing to do,” according to the notes and a conversation Tillemann had with his campaign manager, Juan Rodriguez, minutes after the meeting ended.

“If you stay in the race-- and, frankly I would hope you would not-- but if you stay in the race, it is not useful to the objective to tear down Crow,” Hoyer told Tillemann, according to the notes.

Hoyer doesn’t comment on private meetings, a spokeswoman told Colorado Politics, but the veteran lawmaker said in a statement he was proud to support Crow.

...Hoyer’s support for Crow, one of four Democrats running in a primary in the district, has been public since his leadership PAC made campaign contributions to Crow last year. But his explanation that party bosses consider Tillemann a spoiler and are leaning on him to stand down, in part because the party’s state delegation recruited Crow-- and recommended that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee support him-- directly contradicts the DCCC’s repeated insistence it’s staying neutral in the battleground race.

U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter, Colorado’s Democratic House members, disputed the account through spokespersons. While Perlmutter acknowledged he supports Crow-- he’s known Crow and worked with him for a decade on veterans’ issues-- all three lawmakers denied they had a hand in recruiting Crow and maintained there had been no decision by the delegation to marshal resources in support of his campaign.

A spokeswoman for the DCCC declined to comment for this story.

The DCCC, the campaign arm of the House Democrats, in mid-November listed Crow among 11 congressional candidates named to its Red to Blue program to provide fundraising and organizational support. The announcement drew protests on social media from Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll, Coffman’s 2016 challenger and a DCCC Red to Blue candidate in that year’s election, who said the move amounted to an endorsement. It was, she said, contrary to both what DCCC officials had told her to expect and the organization’s stated policy of neutrality.

“The DCCC verbally said they would be neutral and in practice just endorsed one of the candidates in CD6,” Carroll wrote in a Nov. 16 Facebook comment reacting to news Crow had receivd the DCCC’s designation. “The neutrality policy is ours at the Colorado Democratic Party but it SHOULD be their policy too at the national level. My 2 cents.”

...Tillemann and Rodriguez told Colorado Politics that Hoyer’s exhortation, and the extraordinarily candid explanation that accompanied it, suggest Democratic party leaders haven’t learned from the scandals that rocked the party during and after the 2016 presidential contest, when accusations emerged that the party tilted the nomination toward Hillary Clinton and away from Bernie Sanders.

“It’s about the DCCC not trusting the judgment of their own people, not trusting the efforts of local party officials who have worked assiduously to make sure it’s a fair fight,” Tillemann said in an interview.

“It’s about a systemic effort to disenfranchise Democratic voters. The DCCC is acting like these contests are fair fights, and they’re not. It’s happening all across the country, and it’s at odds with our fundamental values of fairness and democracy. It’s a form of voter suppression, and it’s something we would condemn in the strongest terms if we saw the Republicans doing anything analogous.”

Rodriguez, who worked on the Sanders campaign in Nevada and Colorado, said he was appalled but not surprised.

“The DCCC is deciding months before the primary who’s going to be the nominee, who they’re going to back and who they’re going to try to force out. It comes down to who has the willingness to do what they tell them to do,” he said.

...Rodriguez said his description of Tillemann’s meeting with Hoyer was based on a discussion with Tillemann that took place almost as soon as the meeting had concluded, along with his review of notes the candidate took right after it had occurred, which was also Rodriguez’ first day on the job. He said Tillemann, author of the book The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future and a journalist with credits in the New Yorker, among other publications, wrote an extensive and detailed narration of the meeting, including numerous direct quotes.

Hoyer had proposed that the two sit down late on the afternoon of Dec. 15 at the downtown Denver hotel where Hoyer would be attending a Crow fundraiser later that evening.

They met for more than an hour in a roped-off section of the lobby of the Hilton Denver Downtown, a regular site of Democratic events and fundraisers-- the 2017 state reorganization meeting and annual fundraising dinner were held there, as will be next month’s Obama Dinner. First they engaged in what Tillemann characterized as a pleasant talk, for a time discussing their shared acquaintance with Tillemann’s grandfather, the late U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a Bay Area Democrat who entered Congress in 1981, the same year Hoyer was first elected.

Soon, however, the conversation took a turn.

Hoyer told Tillemann he hadn’t known he was planning on getting in the race and added that it wasn’t personal, but maintained that “very early on” a decision had been made by congressional leaders in Colorado and people in Washington, D.C., that Crow was the candidate they were going to run against Coffman, and they had decided to consolidate their money, resources and political capital around Crow.

He repeated the assertion several times that the decision to back Crow had been made “very early on” and said that party elders would be “negligent” if they didn’t get involved in the race.

An incredulous Tillemann asked if that meant Democratic leaders had made their decision before voters would have a say and if that meant they’d decided the DCCC knows best.

“That’s certainly the consequence of our decision,” Hoyer replied, adding, “A judgment was made very early on by the Colorado delegation, and that decision redounds to your detriment.”

Pressing, Tillemann asked whether Democrats shouldn’t have a say in the caucus and assembly process, to which Hoyer said, “They’ll make a choice of one candidate over the other in the primary, but the choice they will make that will make a consequence to the Congress of the United States is in the general (election).”

At another point, Hoyer agreed with Levi’s characterization of Hoyer’s position to mean voters should just line up behind the party’s candidate.

“That’s certainly the consequence of our decision,” Hoyer said, admonishing Tillemann for putting “it in the most negative of terms.” He suggested Tillemann was “reject[ing] out of hand” the responsibility of “the party and the DCCC and the leadership of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives” to do their best to win the seat, which could help hand the gavel to Democrats after the 2018 election.

Then Hoyer stated in no uncertain terms: “I’m for Crow. Because a judgement was made very early on. I don’t know Crow. I didn’t participate in the decision. But a decision was made very early on by the Colorado delegation.”

Soon after, a Hoyer staffer interrupted to say the congressman had to wrap things up.

Tillemann said he appreciated Hoyer’s time and respected his service to the country but disagreed with the approach Hoyer had articulated and would be in touch. Hoyer closed the meeting by asking Tillemann to call his office to discuss Tillemann’s allegation that his campaign was facing attacks from Democrats like Hoyer had said could damage the party’s prospects in the fall election.

Tillemann told Colorado Politics the exchange with Hoyer confirmed his worst qualms about the Democratic Party.

“Our system is committed to the idea that primaries are an important step within the process during which party voters have a say as to which candidate represents their values, their community and their vision for the future,” he said. “What we see not only in the 6th Congressional District but across the country is a proactive and systematic effort by backroom politicians to circumvent the democratic process. That is not democracy, that is paternalism. That is what turns people off from the entire political process.”

Tillemann added that Hoyer’s message, while unexpectedly explicit, wasn’t a surprise.

“We had the sense the DCCC was trying to rig the primary,” he said. After meeting with DCCC officials early last year, Tillemann said he felt frustrated, so his campaign reached out to other Democrats in Washington but ran into cold shoulders there too.

“We don’t want favoritism; all we want is a fair fight,” he said. “We couldn’t get past a receptionist. What we requested was that the DCCC stop jumping on the scales and that they give all candidates within that primary process a fair shot.”

Through a spokeswoman, DCCC officials confirmed they met with Tillemann multiple times.

It isn’t just an insiders’ game, he continued, but an attempt to “drag us toward the center” when the Democratic establishment supports more conservative candidates regardless of the district-- even when the chances of electing Democrats appears higher this year than in memory, as evidenced by results late last year in Virginia, Alabama and across Colorado in local elections.

“What we see is a systemic set of forces that is driving the Democratic Party toward a conservative bias, candidates who are cookie-cutter and uninspiring chosen by party apparatchiks,” Tilleman said.

“This is what I call trickle down democracy. They’re doing the exact same thing we criticize Republicans for in the economic sphere. They are drowning out the voices of voters with money and backroom deal-making. It doesn’t work when you give all the resources to someone at the top in an economy, and it doesn’t produce the best results for your constituents when you give all the resources to a favored candidate in an election in Democratic primaries.”

Hoyer is a slimy character, even by DC standards, 100% owned by the K Street lobbyists. I remember when he used this bullying tactic to win right-wing Republican sex maniac Tim Mahoney a Florida congressional seat. Mahoney was a wretched Blue Dog pretending to be a Democrat and served one term after Hoyer got him the seat and was then driven from office for a series of sex escapades. Hoyer tried the same tactic to drive now-Congressman Matt Cartwright out of his first race against corrupt Hoyer crony Tim Holden. Despite Hoyer's efforts, Pennsylvania Democrats helped Cartwright bury Holden-- along with his disgraceful political career. As long as creatures like Hoyer are crawling around Washington, our country's politics will be something decent people will be hard-pressed to stomach.

Did You Know That In The U.S. There Is No Party That Favors Peace

War-mongers Jason Crow (D-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee-- an aggressively devoted tool of the Military Industrial Complex regardless of which party controls Congress-- voted on an amendment by Jason Crow (New Dem-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) to prevent Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. As expected, it passed, 45-11. Think about that: a committee controlled by Democrats voted to prevent Trump from getting U.S. troops-- who, remember, are being assassinated by criminal elements to earn Russian bounties-- out of the 100% pointless and unwinable war in Afghanistan. How the hell did that happen? Maybe you think the Democratic Party is something different than is? Possible? Our troops have been fighting and dying there for 2 decades and we've wasted over a trillion dollars--much, if not most, of it finding its way into the hands of corrupt Americans and corrupt Afs-- and 2,300 American lives and God knows how many Afghan lives.

Do you recall how last cycle one of the DCCC gimmicks was to run military vets and call them heroes? A lot of them got elected and, guess what-- they all suck-- every single one of them; no exceptions. SUCK! Of the candidates who ran by flaunting their credentials as military heroes, each of them has earned a ProgressivePunch "F" score, even the one who pretended to run as a progressive, Maine reactionary Jared Golden (who Blue America was tricked into endorsing and supporting and even persuading Nancy Ohanian into doing a piece of art for!).

BIG Mistake!

There are 31 Democrats and 26 Republicans on the overstuffed committee, where it is extraordinarily easy to earn bribes from the Military Industrial Complex. Here's how the Democrats voted:

• Adam Smith, chairman (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• James Langevin (RI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- stay in Afghanistan
• Joe Courtney (CT)- stay in Afghanistan
• John Garamendi (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jackie Speier (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Tulsi Gabbard (HI)- withdraw troops
• Donald Norcross (New Dem-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Ruben Gallego (AZ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD)- withdraw troops
• Ro Khanna (CA)- withdraw troops
• William Keating (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Andy Kim (NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- didn't vote
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- didn't vote
• Crissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)- didn't vote
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- stay in Afghanistan
• Xochitl Torres Small (BlueDog-NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Veronica Escobar (New Dem-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Deb Haaland (NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jared Golden (ME)- stay in Afghanistan
• Lori Trahan (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- stay in Afghanistan

I spoke with Ro Khanna after the vote and he told me that "It is appalling that the time Congress would choose to wake up from its slumber on matters of war and peace is to mandate perpetual war and restrict bringing our troops home. Let's be very clear what just happened. The Cheney Crow Amendment is to the right of Trump’s foreign policy and it’s scary how many people voted for it."

Republicans who voted against the bill: Mo Brooks (AL), Bradley Byrne (AL), Scott DesJarlais (TN), Jim Banks (IN) and Austin Scott (GA), although I think one or two others who missed the vote added their names in opposition to the Crow/Cheney amendment.

It confuses some progressives when Trump actually wants to do the right thing-- even if it isn't for "pure" reasons. But in this case, Democrats on the committee should have voted against Crow (one of those DCCC military heroes who was elected in 2018 and has done nothing but suck shit since) and Cheney. I mean anyone can get their head around the idea than a Cheney can bewares then even Trump, right? Anyway, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz set out to help Democrats bridge the gap between righteous Trump hatred and getting out of the fuckingwar already: Please Don’t Prolong a Pointless War Just to Show Russia Who’s Boss. He reminded his readers that "Throughout America’s longest war, top Pentagon and civilian officials deliberately misled the public about the endeavor’s likelihood of success in a bid to insulate their adventure from the threat of democratic rebuke. As the Washington Post reported last fall, summarizing the upshot of various confidential government documents it had obtained, 'it was common at military headquarters in Kabul-- and at the White House-- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.' John Sopko, the head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, put the point more plainly: 'The American people have constantly been lied to.' Amid the lies, war crimes, tens of thousands of civilian deaths, egregious corruption, and revival of the Afghan opium trade, some positive developments have accompanied the U.S. invasion. Afghan women have made some real gains in their personal liberty, however limited and fragile. But the U.S. has neither the will nor the capacity to deny the Taliban a role in governing the country. The peace deal that the Trump administration struck with that group in February was an acknowledgment of the inevitable; as such, it was a productive step forward. Under the agreement’s terms, the U.S. will fully withdraw its troops in 14 months, so long as the Taliban upholds its commitments to, among other things, bar Al Qaeda from operating in areas under its control, and participate in 'Intra-Afghan talks' with the government in Kabul, opposition politicians, and various representatives of civil society about the future governance of the country."

To uphold its end of the bargain, the Trump administration plans to reduce America’s troop presence from its current level of 8,600 to 4,500 by this autumn.

But this week, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers erected new barriers to that withdrawal... [T]he House’s conditions are senselessly prohibitive. It’s difficult to see how one could ever withdraw military forces tasked with preventing the formation of terrorist safe havens without increasing the risk of “the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens.” But that is not a rational basis for prolonging a 19-year war. The U.S. cannot maintain military occupations in every country where Islamist militants could conceivably gather and plot violence. Nor should it. As COVID-19 and climate change are making clear (or should be), terrorism is a relatively trivial threat, one that has diverted precious resources from pandemic prevention, green-energy transition, and other efforts necessary for mitigating the genuinely catastrophic challenges to Americans’ safety and security.

Congress’s (uncharacteristic) decision to interfere with the executive branch’s conduct in a foreign war was not explicitly tied to recent revelations concerning Russia’s apparent efforts to place bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But given the prominence of that story, it seems reasonable to worry that the issue influenced the House’s action. Especially since one of the amendment’s sponsors suggested that the U.S. must respond to Russia’s treachery by dispelling any question of America’s “will” to defend its interests.

Congress is right to investigate allegations of Russian targeting of U.S. troops and the Trump administration’s handling of relevant intelligence. But Russia’s actions have no bearing on the wisdom of prolonging an unwinnable war. If anything, the vulnerability of U.S. troops to such attacks constitutes an argument for quicker withdrawal. Extending military quagmires to demonstrate our resolve to Moscow was crazy when it was still the world’s second greatest power; doing so now that Russia is a declining petrostate with modest regional influence would be utter madness.

I'm not so sure about this report by Saagar Enjeti, but it's not out-of-hand dismissible and it's definitely worth carefully considering. Listen with an open mind:

DCCC Caught Lying In Colorado Again. What Is Wrong With These People?

Ben Ray and Levi

Do you recall that a few days ago I offered to bet that Stenchy Hoyer and Ben Ray Luján were lying when they went on TV and made up some cock'n'bull story that the only way the Democrats could beat Mike Coffman in his suburban Denver district was by nominating a corrupt, right-wing Democrat Stenchy and Ben Ray were supporting, Jason Snow. No one took me up on my bet. But I would have won. In fact the exact opposite was true-- that only Levi Tillemann was the sure winner. After Stenchys and Ben Ray's lie, Tillemann's campaign contacted the same polling firm they used, PPP, and asked them to do the poll over, this time so it could be used publicly. Hoyer and Luján claimed the poll showed "very clearly" that Tillemann could not beat Coffman.

“His claims didn’t resonate with what we were seeing in the district. It felt like a convenient, but dishonest, excuse for their ongoing interference in our primary” said Tillemann. Of note, PPP is the same polling agency used by Tillemann’s opponent for his much touted head-to-head poll against Coffman. Tillemann went a step further, promising that if the poll showed he did not have a credible path to defeating Coffman in the general election, for the good of the country and the Democratic Party, Tillemann would immediately withdraw from the race.

Tillemann will not be withdrawing.

The poll surveyed 606 likely voters on two rounds of questions about head-to-head matchups between both Democratic challengers and Mike Coffman. First the poll questioned respondents offering no information apart from party affiliation and the candidates’ names. In that round, both Tillemann and his opponent are statistically tied with Coffman; this is attributable to low name recognition and biographical knowledge regarding the Democratic contenders. The poll then offered positive biographical details about both Levi Tillemann (Obama appointee, clean-energy entrepreneur, and language fluency) and his opponent (Army veteran, father, and attorney). With biographical information on both Tillemann and his Democratic opponent, Tillemann opened up a significant lead (43%/38%) against Coffman. This result represents the only head-to-head matchup with Coffman outside the poll’s ±4% statistical margin of error.

“These are great results and I’m not surprised” said Tillemann. “As we’ve knocked on thousands of doors across the district, it’s become clear that most voters are still learning about me and my primary opponent. What they do know is that they’re ready for a change. Moreover, when people hear about my background they see a candidate who has invested in our diverse communities and future, and is profoundly different from Mike Coffman. That contrast is much less clear for my primary opponent.”

While the poll answered important questions regarding general election viability for both Democratic candidates, it also raised questions regarding the integrity of Jason Crow and his patrons in Washington, DC. “The Crow team either polled on Levi and discovered that he posed a credible threat to Coffman in the general election, then chose to lie about it. Or they didn’t poll on him, pretended they had, and chose to lie about it. This is part of a disturbing pattern of deception. Crow claims he’s not accepting corporate PAC money (he does, funneled through special interest PACs); he claimed he wasn’t being helped by the DCCC (he was); and he claimed he came from a family of bricklayers (his father owns a wealth managerment firm). Here, once again, Mr. Crow and his party bosses are lying to the voters of the 6th Congressional District” said Joe Erlich, a senior staffer at Levi for Colorado. “It’s deeply troubling.”

Tillemann added, “integrity used to be considered an asset in pursuit of public office, and getting caught in a bald-faced lie was often enough to end a career. Donald Trump has removed all shame from GOP politicians. We worry Mr. Crow and the DCCC may have contracted that same virus. They seem to believe lying is OK so long as they can get away with it. As Democrats, we must reject this race to the bottom.”

Jason Crow and his allies in the DCCC have, once again, been caught red handed. They are lying to the voters of Colorado and undermining progressive candidates and ideals across the country. It’s divisive and will hurt our chances against Coffman in November. It goes against everything we as Democrats need to be fighting for right now. Because of this, Crow is damaged goods. He should withdraw from the race and the DCCC should stop their meddling in the Democratic Primaries nationally.

The DCCC has justified their interference arguing that it will bring Democrats a payday in November. This poll makes it clear Democrats don’t need to compromise their values for that payday. “We want something more,” said Tillemann. “We want a payday for truth, a payday for justice and a payday for democracy.”

What Happened Last Night? Alexandria's Earthquake-- And The DCCC Stinks Up The Room Again

NY-14 voters knew exactly what they were voting for

On Wednesday mornings after elections, I like giving a recap of the important things that happened, at least important to progressives. I was all set to start with the way Jason Crow and he's sleazeball allies-- we're looking at you, Steny-- stole the CO-06 election from Levi Tillemann. We'll get to that soon. First we should just say a few words about the biggest political upset since Señor Trumpanzee was declared the winner of the 2016 election. Or, in congressional terms, since Eric Cantor went down to some crackpot teabagger. 28 year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did exactly what she told me she would do several months ago... she defeated the #4 member of the House Democratic leadership, and most corrupt Democrat in Congress, Joe Crowley. She did it by working and working and working and working smart and working hard. Crowley, who's taken more bribes from Wall Street than any other House Democrat-- $7,148,700-- spent-- as of June 6th-- $3,354,370 to her $300,709. And outside independent spending... minimal. as you can see below, the Sierra Club spending $10 on Crowley and Blue America spending $11,000 on Alexandria. (Thanks all the small donors who chipped in here.)

Anyway, Alexandria beat him 15,897 (57.5%) to 11,761 (42.5%)-- a big win, especially considering EMILY's List absolutely refused to endorse her. Everyone is Congress who got involved, including big women's champion Kirsten Gillibrand, endorsed him and only Ro Khanna backed her (although it was a dual endorsement). No one from the establishment took her seriously. Now they have to learn how to pronounce her name. Randy Bryce was delighted and speaking for fellow grassroots progressives said, "Tonight was yet another example of the Beltway getting it wrong-- regular, working people are on a mission. We’re on a mission to stand for our values and win the monumental battles at hand. Alexandria proved people wrong and I’m excited to serve with her and unite in defying the odds." This is a great day for for NY-14, a great day for progressives, a great day for Alexandria's team (including the Justice Democrats), a great day for the Democratic Party, a great day for America, a miserable day for Mark Pocan.

Also in New York, the DCCC lost another one. Up in the Syracuse area (NY-24), all the local Democrats were firmly behind Dana Balter when suddenly, the DCCC-- ignoring the local Democratic Party, as they always do-- parachuted their own candidate into the race, Juanita Perez Williams. The locals were furious. The final score:

The DCCC should fight Republicans-- and first learn how to-- and stop fighting their own party's grassroots and progressives. Syracuse voters slapped them hard across the snout, just the way voters in Omaha, Nebraska and Lexington, Kentucky did recently.

Yesterday's big DCCC win was NRA ally and right-wing Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi in NY-22 (Utica, Rome, Oneida, Cortland, Binghamton), who ran unopposed and will now face Claudia Tenney in the DCCC's favorite kind of race-- forcing voters to pick between the lesser of two evils.



As long as we're on bad news, let's move on to Colorado, where one of the DCCC's worst candidates of the cycle, payday lender attorney Jason Crow, or one of his allies, sent out the robocall above. Sounds like Bernie, right? It isn't. Our Revolution endorsed Levi Tillemann, against the reactionary corporate shill Crow and Bernie didn't get involved. But every Democrat in the suburban Denver district got that illegal call yesterday. Notice there is no "paid for by" at the end of the ad. This is sickening and exactly what you can expect from Crow if he beats Mike Coffman, a moderate Republican incumbent who might be the lesser evil of these two. I know I'd never vote for Crow. He beat Tillemann 49,101 (66.1%) to 25,237 (33.9%) in a district that Bernie won in 2016.

Socially progressive Jared Polis, a Boulder-based congressman, had a big win in a 4-person race for governor. Will he be the first openly LGBT man ever elected to a governorship?

• Jared Polis- 264,464 (44.7%)
• Cary Kennedy- 145,908 (24.7%)
• Mike Johnston- 137,617 (23.3%)
• Donna Lynne- 43,010 (7.3%)

He'll face conservative Trumpist Walker Stapleton in November. The other gubernatorial race we were watching was in Maryland, where Berniecrat Ben Jealous came out on top in an 9-person Democratic race.

The only other race we were watching was the Oklahoma City congressional contest which goes to an August 28 primary runoff between garden variety Democrat Kendra Horn and progressive Tom Guild.

And there was one Republican race we were paying attention to-- NY-11 (Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn). Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm lost his come-back attempt to mainstream Republican incumbent Dan Donovan 12,774 (63.9%) to 7,219 (36.1%). We'll probably never hear from Grimm again, unless he's arrested for... judging by his past, it could be anything. Donovan will face wretched Blue Dog Max Rose in November, another lesser of two evils contest.

The GOP 2018 Congressional Campaign: The Stench Of Desperation

When politicians don't have anything to say about issues that will appeal to voters they go negative in the hope that they will disgust voters enough to discourage election day participation. That's what the GOP is doing now. They read the same polls the rest of us do and they know the only way to win is to keep Democrats and independents away from the voting booth next month. Even Politico noted that the ads they're running are ugly distortions of reality. They're not meant to change any minds... just to create confusion, apprehension and disgust so that people don't want to vote. Paul Ryan's SuperPAC alone has poured an unbelievable $3 million into a smear campaign against Randy Bryce in Wisconsin hoping to persuade workers and women not to vote.

Earlier this morning Randy Bryce reminded us that Bernie and his policy agenda are extremely popular in his corner of Wisconsin. "He won 71 out of 72 precincts in the 2016 primary election. Both events he did with me packed the venues to capacity on opposite sides of the district. Having been endorsed early by Senator Sanders has been a huge help. Republicans think that the progressive ideals both of us fight to advance are 'radical.' If making sure people can see a doctor is radical or, if promising not to make cuts to Social Security is 'far left' I’ll take that title. It just shows how out of touch these extremist Republicans really are." And that's a good description of how the Republicans are trying to turn the world topsy-turvy. Paul Ryan disparages Medicare-For-All supporters as off the rails, counting on voters not remembering that he has-- for a decade-- tried to dissolve Medicaid and Medicare and whittle away at Social Security. Ryan, using the talking points all Republican have been using, blasted Democrats this week: "Democrats propose to abolish our health-care system as we know it. And it is the best representation of how far today’s Democratic Party has gone off the rails... Everyone-- no matter how much you like your plan-- would have their plan taken away. The only way to control costs would be to ration care, and restrict access to doctors and treatments. All of these decisions would be made in Washington."

None of that is true, but it doesn't stop GOP robots-- from Bruce Poliquin in Maine to Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington state-- from parroting the same frightening-sounding bullshit in their ads. Here's how Poliquin's progressive Democratic challenger, Jared Golden, threw Poliquin's lies right back in his face. And, by the way, the healthcare lie is far from the only way the Republicans are bullshitting the voters. 

Democratic House candidate Jason Crow received a Bronze Star for heroism in Iraq and a “lawyer of the year” award for his veterans advocacy. But according to his GOP adversaries, he has “neglected” Colorado veterans.

Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger spent nearly a decade fighting terrorists as an undercover CIA officer. But to hear Republicans tell it, she harbors terrorist sympathies.

Attacks ads have always been a staple of campaign season. But Republicans have twisted facts in some ads to an extraordinary degree as they fight to save their House majority, weaving narratives about Democratic candidates that are misleading at best-- or blatantly false at worst.

In several ads, military vets-- who count as some of Democrats' best recruits to defeat sitting Republicans this year-- have had their patriotism called into question. One spot insinuates that Spanberger, who is challenging Rep. Dave Brat’s (R-VA), has ties to extremists because she taught at a Saudi Arabian-funded Muslim school where two infamous terrorists once attended. The CIA not only knew about the job, but later hired Spanberger and employed her for eight years.

Democrats say the spots, aired mostly by the outside GOP super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee, smack of desperation. In some cases, local Republicans, religious leaders and newspaper editorial boards have have denounced the attacks.

The aggressive tactics highlight a party grappling to save its majority. Many of the Democrats who've come under attack have short or nonexistent records in political office, leaving Republicans to pick over their personal lives for any scraps to use against them.

“Republicans are having a heck of a time right now, and they’re just looking to attack anywhere they think they might be able to.... throwing whatever they have at the wall to see what sticks,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told reporters at a Bloomberg breakfast last week, calling the attacks “smears.”

Targets of the ads have called for them to be taken down, and spent time and resources trying to rebut the claims. Republicans involved in making the ads say that's exactly their intention: to keep Democrats on the defensive.

They also argue that Democrats would be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.

"The mere fact that Democrats are complaining about CLF ads speaks to the effectiveness of the ads and the degree to which it’s taken Democratic candidates in key races off their message," CLF spokeswoman Courtney Alexander said.

Democrats argue that the charges have backfired and helped Democratic candidates raise money and gain ground on their Republican rivals. Spanberger’s campaign is now in a dead heat with Brat, according to a Sept. 24 internal poll, and raised more money after the terrorist ad launched than she did in the entire first quarter of 2017. Among likely voters, she's up 5 points, her campaigns says.

But Republicans say their Terror High ad actually helped reverse Brat's fortunes: They say he now has a narrow lead after being tied with Spanberger in August, according to their polling.

realistic polling by Monmouth

Both parties, of course, always spend heavily on opposition research to sniff out their opponents’ weaknesses and flash them before voters. But it’s one thing to highlight flaws in a candidate’s record, like Republicans have done with Wisconsin Democrat Randy Bryce’s drunk driving arrest. It’s another to connect dots that aren’t there.

CLF’s recent attack on Ohio Democrat Aftab Pureval, for instance, accuses the Indian-Tibetan, first-generation American of aiding his former employer in making “millions” by “helping Libyans reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism.”

But Pureval wasn’t working for the Washington law firm that reached the restitution agreement when it was initially struck. When he did join the firm, Pureval worked on anti-trust litigation, not payments to the families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie terrorist attack.

Not mentioned in the ad was the fact that former President George W. Bush backed the settlement negotiation with Libya-- and that Rep. Steve Chabot, Pureval’s GOP opponent, did not object when it was approved in the House.

Local media called the attack "misleading." And one American family who lost their father in the Libyan attack was so outraged by the video that they reached out to donate to Pureval’s campaign.

“My response to the CLF ad involved words that are best not repeated here,” Scott Rosen wrote in a letter to Pureval’s campaign. He was 5 years old when his father, Saul Mark Rosen, was killed in the Lockerbie bombing, leaving his mom to raise two children. “The attempt to connect you to the murder of my father was utterly beyond the pale."

CLF says the ad has helped Chabot stretch his lead over Pureval, according to their internal polling.

But they haven't seen the same results in other races-- particularly in Colorado, where many Republicans believe Rep. Mike Coffman is going to lose. There, CLF portrayed Crow as a willing bystander to the massive Veterans Affairs Department backlog scandal. (The group recently pulled its ads from the district.)

Crow sat on the local department’s board from 2009 to 2014, and Republicans have highlighted his absence from more than a dozen board meetings to say he’s at fault.

“While veterans suffered from the VA scandal, Crow didn’t show up for work,” one ad said. “Jason Crow neglected Colorado veterans.”

Crow’s campaign said his wife was either on bed rest due to pregnancy complications or that they’d had a new baby at the time of the missed meetings.

Backlash was swift. Local veterans who know Crow showed up at Coffman's office to protest. Crow’s campaign highlighted the thousands of pro-bono hours he’d dedicated to helping veterans with substance abuse issues, as well as the “lawyer of the year” award he received in 2010 from the Denver Bar Association for his veterans advocacy.

In Spanberger's case, CLF ran a commercial calling attention to her onetime position as a substitute teacher at the Saudi school. Spanberger never worked with the two would-be terrorists, having left the school before it came under congressional scrutiny. She later received a top-secret clearance with the CIA.

“So dangerous, even Chuck Schumer called for the school to be shut down,” the ad nonetheless warns. “But Abigail Spanberger cashed her paychecks like nothing was wrong.”

Some Republican candidates have launched similar attacks impugning the motives or patriotism of their opponents. West Virginia Republican candidate Carol Miller ran a clip of her Democratic rival, Richard Ojeda, saying “the United States of America is not the greatest country.” One vet in the spot accuses Ojeda, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, of “stepping on the graves of every dead soldier.”

What Ojeda actually said is that U.S. isn't the greatest country because homelessness is rampant, the health care system is lacking and the opioid epidemic has been allowed to fester. Ojeda issued his own ad in response, talking about the names of fallen soldiers tattooed his back.

“My military record and my love of country has come under fire … by Carol Miller,” an angry Ojeda said in the video filmed before a veterans memorial. “How dare she! A millionaire, who has enjoyed a life of privilege under the very freedoms that I have fought for.”



In New York, Republicans have accused Democratic hopeful Antonio Delgado of “attacking our democracy” because the former rapper once sung about finding peace in the Middle East. In the years-old anti-war jam, Delgado, who went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and become a Rhodes Scholar, says “God bless America, God bless Iraq, God bless us all.”

But an NRCC ad highlights only the “God bless Iraq” line. Delgado is running against vulnerable GOP Rep. John Faso.

The party has also hit Delgado for being a “big city rapper” and not “like us,” depicting the lawyer wearing a dark hoodie and playing his old rap songs that reference sex and drugs and use of the “N” word.

Nearly 20 local clergy members denounced the attacks for their racial undertones; Delgado is African-American. A local radio station said it recently pulled an ad sponsored by CLF for their “inaccuracy.” (CLF disputes that the ad was removed, arguing that PAC officials took it down of their own accord.) Even the district’s former Republican congressman, Chris Gibson, has expressed discomfort.

“Shame on you!” the religious leaders wrote to Faso, asking him to denounce the ads, which he has not done. “This tactic should be called out for what it is, a thinly veiled, racist attack for the purpose of insinuating fear in the voters in our district.”

to count the number of exclamation points, click on the image

Above is an ugly Republican Party Facebook entry from a typical GOP official-- well, not really that typical, 'cause most of them are smart enough not to do it so publicly. This was was created by a Republican precinct committeeman, Michael Kalny from Shawnee. He was stupid enough to send it to Anne Pritchett, president of the Johnson County Democratic Women’s Club. Supporters of Kevin Yoder are weepy because the Paul Ryan just tossed the Yoder campaign overboard as a lost cause. Democrat Sharice Davids is way ahead in polling.