Saturday Afternoon With Little Chucky Schmucky-- Wall Street's Cat's Paw In The U.S. Senate

You can't imagine how hard Chuck Schumer pushed to win the Florida Senate nomination for not-Grayson. It helped that the hapless boob he put up has rich, ruthlessly corrupt parents willing to spend whatever, and that he had already proven himself an unquestioningly devoted Wall Street shill, voting with the GOP on the House Financial Services Committee to do whatever it took to disarm Wall Street oversight and reform. But Schumer shepherded $1,930,542 in Financial Sector cash into Murphy's coffers, more than any other House member other than Speaker Paul Ryan (even more than House Majority Leader/bribe vacuum cleaner Kevin McCarthy and even more than Financial Services Committee go-to-whores chairman Jeb Hensarling, vice chairman Patrick McHenry and 2016 stooge of the year Ed Royce. In fact, Murphy got more from the banksters than any non-incumbent from either party running for the Senate. And considerably more than endangered Wall Street allies like Ron Johnson (R-WI), John McCain (R-AZ), Richard Burr (R-NC), Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Roy Blunt (R-MO). All 5 have been setting their hair on fire in banksters' offices and begging for more money to stave off defeats in November. But for the last 12 months, Wall Street only had eyes for a hapless little worm from West Palm Beach, Patrick Murphy or-- more to the point-- Congressman Not-Grayson.

Schumer promised Obama a flood of cash for his presidential library from Wall Street and from "others" to get Obama to help defeat Grayson, probably the smartest and most committed progressive in the House of Representatives. Obama did what he was asked to do and that was the end of whatever chance Grayson had to get the nomination. He won his part of the state-- central Florida around Orlando where he is well-known-- and 5 or 6 counties in the northern part of the state where he managed to out-spend the cash-laden Murphy. But Grayson got wiped out by the $7,770,908 Murphy had spent by August 10, by $1,461,426 spent by a SuperPAC run by Schumer and Reid, $441,350 spent by Murphy's family's PAC and by immense sums of Saudi money, much of it illegally funneled into the political system through shadow donors and the kinds of donor swaps that put Ami Bera's father in prison and forced Steve Israel to announce his retirement from Congress.

Schumer was the brains behind the operation. Murphy doesn't have a brain. But now, Wall Street-- and their boy Schumer-- don't care all that much who wins in Florida. Oh, of course, Schumer would like to see an easy-to-control puppet in a blue tee-shirt in there, but it doesn't matter to him which candidates in blue tee-shirts win in November-- as long as there are 4 of them. Schumer sees Murphy as-- at best-- a long shot against Rubio and the DSCC has backed away from supporting their candidate. It doesn't matter to Wall Street because Rubio is at least as much of an unquestioning robot for them as Murphy is. For them Florida, post-Grayson, is a win-win. Grayson would have been another Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders-- on steroids. Murphy and Rubio... order-takers. In fact, of any Senate incumbent running for reelection this cycle, Wall Street has been most generous to Rubio, primarily because of all the money they spent on his aborted presidential race-- $6,607,150. But since ending his presidential race, so just for his Senate campaign, Wall Street has given Rubio $1,941,011, almost the exact same amount they gave Murphy.

The banksters are more interested in keeping their own Pennsylvania and Ohio pets, Pat Toomey ($2,777,384) and Rob Portman ($2,601,630), in their seats, than caring which Florida puppet-- now that threat of Grayson is out of the way-- wins. The Schumer-Wall Street connection has been a major theme at DWT for several years. We never get tired of reminding everyone that Schumer has taken more-- far more-- in Wall Street bribes than anyone who hasn't run for the presidency... and more than many who have. As of the last FEC reporting deadline Schumer had been lavished with $25,985,466 from the Finance Sector, more than the two next highest non-presidential candidates combined, Republicans Mitch McConnell ($11,810,276) and John Boehner ($12,218,198)!

Last week, Michael Sainato, jumped in on this as well. Reporting for the New York Observer, he went where no Beltway publications have ever or would ever dare-- right to the heart of Schumer's blatant corruption of our government. Sainato points to how Schumer has consolidated power for himself inside the Democratic Party with Wall Street's money, spreading it around and directing it, the way he did for Murphy this year in the primary. "In order to secure this lofty position [Democratic Leader]," Sainato wrote, "Schumer is busy spreading the wealth from years of dubious campaign contributions as a means to buy support from fellow Democrats who have the means to grant Schumer the power he desires. Politico reported on September 20 that Schumer has transferred $6.2 million from his campaign cash on hand to various Democrats in order to assist their upcoming election bids."

Given Schumer’s record advocating for Wall Street and tax breaks for the top one percent, working and middle class Americans should be alarmed. Further, the country should be wary of how much further into oligarchy Schumer’s leadership-- coupled with Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the White House-- will take the Democratic Party.

In July 2015, Schumer teamed up with Sen. Rob Portman to propose giving multinational corporations a massive hand-out in tax breaks. The current standard corporate tax rate is 35 percent, which multinational corporations have avoided paying by claiming profits are earned in overseas tax havens. Schumer and Portman advocate imposing a tax earned outside of the country at a much lower rate-- at least lower than President Obama’s proposed 14 percent.

“The obvious consequence if the Schumer-Portman scheme becomes law is that businesses based solely within the U.S. would be at a permanent disadvantage,” wrote Jon Schwarz for the Intercept. “Multinationals could earn profits in the U.S., get their armies of lawyers and accountants to make these profits appear to have been ‘earned’ in the Cayman Islands, and get taxed at the overseas profit rate. Meanwhile, purely domestic companies would either have to pay the higher domestic rate, or turn into multinationals themselves.” Essentially, Schumer wants to grant multinational corporations a permanent tax holiday.

Schumer’s modus operandi in the Senate has been to favor Wall Street over his constituents. In the wake of the 2008 economic recession, Schumer attended fundraisers with finance executives, pushing against efforts to regulate the industry. This included helping kill a progressive bill, with some bipartisan support, to break up big banks.

Wall Street rewarded Schumer, with 15 percent of their Senate donations in 2009 going directly to him-- nearly twice as much as any other senator received. Under Schumer’s leadership of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, donations from Wall Street to Democrats increased by 50 percent as he led his party’s efforts to deregulate the financial industry. While progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were building a coalition to rein in Wall Street over the past decade, Schumer served as one of its biggest congressional allies.

“Wall Street welcomes expected Chuck Schumer promotion,” read a CNN headline from 2015 immediately following Reid’s announced retirement.

The Republicans, happy to cooperate, aren't running anyone against Schumer. The GOP candidate, Wendy Long, a silly Trump supporter, ran in 2012 against dull centrist Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand who beat her the largest margin for any statewide candidate in New York history, 4,822,330 votes (72.22%) to 1,758,702 votes (26.34%). She spent raised $784,778 to Gillibrand's $15,735,457. No Republican challenged her for the nomination this cycle. So far she's raised $160,195 and as of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline she had $53,525 cash on hand compared to Schumer's $27,517,363, the most, thanks to Wall Street, of any member of Congress (even though he has no contest at all).

Help good Democrats, who aren't part of Schumer's garbage heap world, make their care to the public this year:

Will Schumer Keep The Democrats From Winning Back The Senate?

There are some really excellent Democrats running for the Senate this cycle-- and some real dreck. Schumer has always had a nose for the dreck-- especially when their opponents are progressive. Schumer's biggest fear isn't about Republicans winning-- it's always about independent-minded Democrats winning and spoiling his nice little racket inside the Democratic caucus. This year his top priorities are stopping progressives like Andrew Romanoff (D-CO), Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D-NM), Erica Smith (D-NC), Teresa Tomlinson (D-GA) and Gloria Tinubu (D-SC), while pushing more conservative candidates who know how to take orders for political bosses like... Chuck Schumer.

In 2010 Schumer broke more ground on manipulating Senate primaries, when he wasted more than a million dollars in party money against Admiral Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate Primary. Rep. Sestak (D-PA) was the highest ranking military officer ever to serve in Congress; Schumer couldn’t care less.  Schumer interfered in the Democratic Senate Primary to try to keep his corrupt promise to clear the Democratic Primary for “Magic Bullet” Sen. Arlen Specter (who had concocted a fantasy theory about the bullet that killed JFK in order to end an investigation into the assassination). This was after Specter demonstrated his fealty to Schumer and Reid by switching parties, thereby earning the enmity of every voter in the state.

Schumer spent party money against Sestak again in 2016, and also against Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), a three-term progressive champion who had passed more laws in 2012-2016 than any other Member of Congress, despite GOP control of the House.  (Grayson also pioneered “People Power” fundraising; he was the only Member of the House to raise most of his campaign funds from small donors.) Schumer anointed hapless Rep. Patrick Murphy instead, whose only claim to fame was that he had lied about providing post-hurricane relief in the Gulf of Mexico by taking a picture of himself dressed as a sailor, standing on a boat docked in Connecticut. Murphy spent all his time in Congress vacuuming up corrupt Wall Street money, just like Schumer. (In fact, Murphy outraised the GOP Chair of the House Finance Committee.) According to Murphy’s Super PAC chief, Murphy’s rich father promised Schumer and Reid $10 million ($5 million from him, and $5 million from his rich friends) if they delivered the nomination to Murphy, and actually placed a $10 million September/October/November TV buy to make that credible.

Reid attacked Grayson personally and demanded that he drop out of the race, while Reid and Schumer planted "hit pieces" in national media against Grayson. Schumer personally called both Grayson and Sestak donors, demanding that they pull the plug on their support. And the DSCC employed the now-familiar ploy of trying to get vendors and consultants to boycott the campaigns. For instance, Grayson’s direct-mail fundraising company not only refused to work on the Senate campaign, but wouldn’t even provide Grayson with a list of previous Grayson contributors, specifically citing pressure from the DSCC. Grayson’s media consultant was offered a $1 million buy for another campaign-- if he stopped working with Grayson. The Senate Democratic Super PAC laundered money from Murphy’s father to run ads for Murphy in the primary, touting the party’s endorsement.

In both Pennsylvania and Florida-- not to mention the Ohio catastrophe-- Schumer’s hand-picked candidates failed miserably. The candidate whom Schumer anointed in Pennsylvania had come in fourth (in single-digits) in the primary for Governor just two years earlier. Pennsylvania voters sniffed her out as a Schumer puppet, and defeated her. In Florida, Murphy had to spend $7 million just to win the primary.  In the general election, the promised money from his father never showed up, and week after week, as the payment deadline on the TV buy approached, Daddy Buy was canceled. CBS Miami tagged Murphy as a habitual liar, and he ran seven points behind Clinton in Florida. (An interesting subplot arose after Murphy had leaked secret audio from a Clinton fundraiser in Florida to make it look like Clinton favored him in the primary. Clinton got over any ill-feelings from the leak when Murphy made a $1 million contribution to Clinton’s Super PAC-- which Murphy paid for by selling his stock in his father’s company.)

Both Pennsylvania and Florida in 2016 demonstrated that Schumer had the power to foist turds on Democratic primary voters-- and then see them stink up the joint in the general election, with Republicans winning both seats. But... anything is better in Schumer's mind than an independent-minded Democrat like Grayson or Sestak.

North Carolina state Senator Erica Smith is the progressive-- not the Schumer-- candidate running for the Democratic nomination to oppose Trump enabler Thom Tillis next year. She has a great reputation from her service in the legislature and polling shows her beating Tillis by 7 points. So what's Schumer's problem? I asked Erica.

"I liken Schumer’s reported interference into primary elections across the nation to the college admissions scandal," she told me. "If the less progressive, less qualified, less competent candidates that he appears to favor were electable on merit-- he would not need to prop them up with exorbitant sums of money from his personal campaign list of wealthy Wall Street donors. A three-judge Superior Court panel just ruled in a case of paramount importance to the voters of North Carolina with national implications for partisan gerrymandering. On page 320 of the Common Cause vs. Lewis decision, the opinion states 'There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in the election of our political leaders'-- including of course, the right to 'vote.' McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185, 191, 134 S. Ct. 1434, 1440 (2014).  The voters of North Carolina have fought for uninhibited voting rights for the last eight years in this case, and after this historic victory will not willingly abdicate this right. The voters of North Carolina and every other state should be the only people deciding the elections in Primaries and otherwise. The will of the people to support progressive candidates should never be commandeered by incumbent leaders, or Party and Caucus officials and their predilection for 'Republican-like moderates.' This is completely antithetical to who we are as a big tent, party of inclusion. We recognize that Party infrastructure is necessary for our collective success. However, we are hopeful that these resources are fairly allocated based on voters’ decisions and not coerced ones based on forced acceptance of big money backed establishment choices. There are many party insiders who feel the DSCC's backing of Cal Cunningham in the 2010 US Senate race over the more experienced, progressive, woman candidate Elaine Marshall resulted in a fracture in the Party leading to a general election defeat to Richard Burr, who has served in the US Senate ever since. Secretary Marshall defeated the DSCC backed candidate twice, by almost 10% points in the primary and by double that percentage in a subsequent run off. To say that there remain a fair amount of festering unhealed wounds nine years later is modest. With the state of politics in our state and nation as a whole today, a repeat of 2010 will have more than destructive aftershocks that will be felt across the country, it may very well be the death knell to Democracy once and for all." 

ARE CHUCK SCHUMER AND JOE LIEBERMAN LEAVING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? GOOD RIDDANCE!

So many music business big shots came from Brooklyn. I never could figure that out. And from my neighborhood too! We had a lot of politicians from my neighborhood. Would you believe it if I told you that the once-Jewish-now-more-consciously-upwardly-mobile Norman Coleman (R-MN) went to my elementary school? We were co-secretaries of our class. Far less of a stretch is New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer. We both went to James Madison High School; Ken (KenInNY) too. Ken still lives in NY and has told me Schumer has been a good senator. Ken is really smart and if he says so, I'll suspend disbelief. But one thing Schumer has not been is a good head of the DSCC.

Oh yes, he knows how to raise money. That's what he's always been best at. It just sticks to his palms. If you wind up at a party with him, empty your pockets before you leave your home and leave your credit card there too. But a good DSCC head? He has saddled us with an anti-choice social conservative who gratuitously endorsed Sam Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court to run as "our" candidate in Pennsylvania against Santorum. He manipulated the Ohio primary in so disgraceful and underhanded a way as to drive out one of the two excellent candidates, Paul Hackett, and demoralize thousands of Ohio Democrats who would gladly have supported either victor in the primary but will now sit the race out, possibly throwing it to the corrupt Republican scumbag Mike DeWine. He attempted to do the same thing in the Tester-Morrison primary, had his ass handed to him by independent-minded Montana Democrats, and now tries to tale credit for Tester's overwhelming victory over the DLC/Shumer hack! But, my friends, there's worse yet to come... much worse.

A couple of hours ago the National Hotline reported that Chuckie announced that "the DSCC 'fully supports' Sen. Joe Lieberman in his primary bid, and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent. [So now people being asked to contribute to the DSCC-- something I urge you never, never, never to do-- know that their donations might not go to support a legitimately chosen Democrat but could easily go to a corrupt crony of a gaggle of corrupt senators who don't give a rat's ass about the actual Democratic Party, just about their own miserable, needy, undeserved careers.] There were degrees of independence, Schumer said. 'You can run as an independent, you can run as an independent Democrat who pledges to vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader.'"

Like Lieberwhore's word is worth anything at all??? (Well, maybe there's honor among thieves, which explains why Schumer has come to the hated Bush-supporting Lieberman's defense.) Now today the sleazy walking turd from Brooklyn said claimed he had neither sought nor received assurances from Lieberman that an independent bid would not ensue if Ned Lamont tightened the
noose." But when my bud Pach interviewed Schumer for firedoglake this is the question he (presciently) posed to the lowlife NY Senator:

"I hate to harp on this, but this is something that is big in the blogosphere. If the race does tighten, and Ned Lamont does make it a race, how committed is the DSCC to committing resources to Senator Lieberman since Senator Lieberman hasn't committed to running as a Democrat?"

And what did slimy Schumer say to Pach? "I think Senator Lieberman has committed to running as a
Democrat to us. That's me, and he has to Senator Reid." Schumer's a liar. No one should ever believe a word that comes out of his mouth.

During the run-up to the Connecticut state convention, delegates received mailings from Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton-- and Obama gave a laudatory speech for Lieberman a couple weeks earlier. At that time, Lieberman promised them that he wouldn't jump ship in exchange for these (fairly worthless in a Crashing The Gate world) endorsements.


UPDATE: JIM DEAN, A CT RESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF DFA SENDS AN OPEN LETTER TO SCHUMER, LIEBERMAN AND OTHER RENEGADE BELTWAY DEMOCRATS

An Open Letter to Beltway Democrats
 
I am disappointed that Senator Lieberman has refused to rule out leaving the Democratic Party to run for re-election as an Independent. I plan to support the winner of the Democratic primary for Senate in August because I believe that Democrats need to stand together in November. All Democrats, both inside and outside the Beltway, must do the same. We can't afford to divide ourselves-- too much is at stake.
 
I hope you will join DFA, Ned Lamont, and thousands of other grassroots Democrats by pledging to fully support the winner of the Democratic primary on August 8th.
 
Respectfully,
Jim Dean
Chair, Democracy for America

Schumer needs to be replaced as head of the DSCC as soon as possible. We need a loyal Democrat in that position. His attitude is outrageous and beyond the pale. As my friend Matt pointed out in an e-mail this morning, people in New York don't know what a bad guy he really is. People think he's a true blue progressive; he isn't. He serves on the board of advisors for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, along with Lieberman-- as well as other neo-Con freaks like Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Zell Miller, Steve Forbes, etc. Thank God Eliot Spitzer is rising in the NY politics as Schumer goes into morbid decline!

Would The Senate Democrats Be Better Off With Schumer Or With A Steaming Pile Of Pig Poop As A Leader?

I don’t remember Jason Zengerle having been at James Madison High School in Brooklyn. In fact, even if he did go to school there, it would have been many years not just after Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bernie Sanders, but many years after I went was there at the same time as Norm Coleman and Chuck Schumer. And in his new feature for New York I don’t think he meant too write a story about what an inadequate pile of crap Schumer is for the job of Democratic Senate Leader. I suspect it was meant to be a paean to the retiring Harry Reid— trying to prepare his Democratic colleagues to battle Trump without him— another slimy character, like Schumer, but one with , unlike Schumer, some saving (political) graces. “Shell-shocked Democats,” he wrote, “wouldn’t have Harry Reid around anymore to help them deal with this new nightmare” of Trump, McConnell and Ryan running there entire show. “To Democrats, Reid was indispensable — not only the man who helped them win back control of the Senate in 2006 but also the party insider who encouraged Barack Obama to run for president and, later, the parliamentary wizard who helped pass Obama’s legislative agenda.”

Compounding the loss of Reid is the sack of garbage he’s leaving behind: Schumer, a ruthless and corrupt congressman who became the single most corrupted Wall Street stooge in history. He’s taken more in legalistic bribes from the banksters than any non-presidential candidate ever. These are the current totals (since 1990) of Finance Sector “contributions” to their half dozen biggest puppets in Congress:

• Chuck Schumer- $26,213,631
• Mitch McConnell- $11,890,851
• Paul Ryan- $9,261,692
• Rob Portman- $9,013,382
• Richard Shelby- $8,446,508
• John Cornyn- $8,303,966

I’m sure you noticed that the sleazy Schumer has taken more in schmears from the banksters than Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Ryan combined— $26,213,631 to their $21,152,543. Wall Street is careful with their investments; they know which crooked politicians they’re buying and where they’ll get value. Reid didn’t take nearly as much Wall Street bribery— “just” $6,263,688 (almost $20 million less than Schumer). “In many ways,” continued Zengerle, “Schumer was the perfect complement to Reid. ‘Senator Reid never cared about messaging and he sure as hell didn’t care about polls,’ says Jim Manley, Reid’s former communications director, ‘but Schumer certainly thrives on that stuff.’ Unlike Reid, Schumer also had good working relationships with many of his Republican colleagues. More than anything, though, Reid — who grew up in abject poverty and moonlighted as a Capitol police officer to put himself through George Washington law school — admired Schumer’s hustle.” And then came the “but.”

But the job that Reid had in mind for Schumer when he anointed him as his successor isn’t the one Schumer will actually be doing. “Schumer would be a very good majority leader under President Hillary Clinton, and that’s what he thought he was signing up for,” says one prominent Democratic strategist, noting how aggressively Schumer waded into several Democratic Senate primaries in 2016. “He made the calculation that he wanted to win the Senate with people who were easily tamable and then he could be a majority leader like LBJ, just ramming things through.” As a minority leader with a Republican in the White House, however, Schumer will have a very different task — and there’s concern among some Democrats that he might not be cut out for it. “Chuck will go to the ramparts on an issue when it’s polling at 60 percent, but as soon as it gets hairy, he’s gone,” says one senior Democratic Senate aide. “Chuck wants issues to have no negatives, but it’s the Trump era. He’s looking at polls ­showing 60 percent for the Carrier deal” — in which Trump persuaded the company to keep a furnace plant in the U.S. in exchange for $7 million in tax breaks — “and thinking to himself, Maybe we should support that.”

Indeed, in the days immediately after Trump’s victory, Schumer sought common ground with the president-elect. Other Senate Democrats soon followed suit. Even Elizabeth Warren, who had spent the presidential campaign taunting Trump, pledged to work with him on increasing economic security for the middle class. Much of this was, presumably, typical morning-after posturing, but Reid was nonetheless alarmed. Three days after the election, he released a statement branding Trump “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.”

“What I was trying to say,” Reid told me, “is, ‘Be careful, because this is not all fun and games. The stuff he has said has been hateful and disruptive and crude and not helpful to anybody, and so be careful what you agree with him about.’ ” Adam Jentleson, a top Reid adviser, puts it more bluntly: “He was standing athwart the normalization of Trump, yelling ‘Stop!’ He wanted to show Democrats that this is how you should be approaching things.”

The message was delivered, but even though Senate Democrats, including Schumer, have since struck a more defiant tone toward Trump and the GOP, they haven’t been as defiant as Reid might have hoped. Schumer, in particular, has continued to signal a willingness to work with Trump. “We’re not going to say no to something just because Trump’s name is on it,” says Matt House, a Schumer aide. “If people are concerned we’re going to work with Trump, they’re concerned we’re going to work with Trump on things Democrats have been fighting for for a long time. People need to pay attention to the nuances.” But the question remains whether those nuances will be lost on some of Schumer’s Democratic colleagues.

Nearly two months after the election, Senate Democrats are by all accounts unprepared and without a coherent strategy when it comes to opposing Trump’s agenda. Should they obstruct at all costs, even if it grinds government to a halt, and risk criticism that they’re just as partisan and ruthless as Republicans were under Obama? Should they partner with Trump in areas where he disagrees with GOP orthodoxy and hope that voters reward them as the party out of power? Should they prioritize delegitimizing Trump and winning 2020 — or defending vulnerable Senate seats in 2018? It is in the Senate where, theoretically, Democrats have the best shot at countering almost total Republican dominance of Washington. But to be effective they will need to be ­tactical and tough, and it’s likely they will be missing Harry Reid a lot.

One of Reid’s greatest skills as his party’s leader in the Senate was keeping his caucus unified. That’s a task that will be especially crucial under Trump: With ten Democratic senators from states Trump won up for reelection in 2018, the temptation for some of them to peel off and vote with Republicans — to demonstrate they can be reasonable — will be strong.

…Had Reid decided not to retire, it’s quite possible the upcoming term would have been the most significant of his career. Trump’s claim of a mandate notwithstanding, significant parts of the GOP agenda remain unpopular, from privatizing Medicare to deregulating Wall Street. Reid would have led the fight against the president. “It would have been two guys who don’t really care about, to borrow the phrase, ‘traditional norms’ and customs going at it,” Jim Manley muses. “It really would have been something to see.”

Instead, we are about to witness the most significant term of Schumer’s career. He has already earned the allegiance of Democratic senators by naming a number of them to newly created leadership posts. (“It’s like Oprah,” jokes one Senate aide. “You get a new leadership post! And you get a new leadership post!”) And it’s likely that Schumer will hold the caucus together during the confirmation process for Trump’s nominees. Senate Democrats appear to be unanimous in their opposition to Tom Price, Trump’s choice for Health and Human Services secretary, and they hope to raise such a ruckus about Medicare during Price’s hearings that at least three Republicans decide to vote against Price, too, thus handing Democrats their first scalp of the Trump era.

According to various Senate aides, Schumer doesn’t believe his party has a chance of torpedoing any other Trump nominees, but he hopes to make their confirmations as bruising — and, with smart floor management, as prolonged — as possible. (Schumer himself declined to comment.) “The goal will be to show the public how controversial these nominations are,” explains a Senate Democratic aide. Similarly, Schumer can expect to have the unanimous support of his caucus in pushing for a select committee to investigate Russian hacking of the election, and thanks to his bringing several Republicans onboard for that effort, he’s made it more ­difficult (or at least more uncomfortable) for Mitch McConnell to stop them.

But those are the easy parts. The battlefield becomes more perilous for Schumer as Trump and his party move on to other parts of their agenda. Again and again, the New York senator will be faced with the question of where and how often to use intransigence as a strategy. That his primary congressional adversary will be McConnell raises the stakes further, as the Kentucky senator has proved to be an even more ruthless majority leader than Reid was before him. It was McConnell’s singular insight that, even if Republicans were responsible for the lack of bipartisanship and the resulting gridlock, it would be the party that controls the White House that takes the blame for it. This nuclear strategy won back all parts of government from a president and party that was historically popular at the time McConnell cooked up his plan. But will Democrats have the stomach to stymie Trump in the same way McConnell and his fellow Republicans blocked Obama?

Schumer has signaled that he’s open to backing Trump’s infrastructure package — in part on the merits (this country could use some infrastructure spending) and in part because it might turn off enough Republicans that Schumer will have some leverage over a president eager to get points on the board. “Infrastructure will really test how much Democrats are willing to hold out for a good deal versus any deal,” says one Senate Democratic aide. Obamacare will be another tricky fight. Schumer and the Democrats will obviously oppose any effort to repeal the health-care law, but the crucial battle won’t occur until Republicans try to replace it. Some Democrats are already dismayed that Schumer hasn’t done a better job of firming up commitments from Senate Democrats that under no conditions will they vote for an Obamacare replacement. “You’ve got to establish your leverage early and make it clear to Republicans that it’s a ‘You break it, you bought it’ situation,” explains the same aide. “If you don’t lock down Democrats on that position early, before the repeal bill passes, you leave yourself vulnerable to things developing in such a way that makes it harder for Democrats to maintain their opposition.”

And then there’s the budget. Trump has promised to increase defense spending; it’s likely he won’t propose a similar increase in domestic spending, and it’s possible he’ll actually seek cuts. Schumer will face an agonizing choice in how he tries to get Democrats to respond: Go to the mat in opposing such a budget and threaten to shut down the government — knowing full well that by doing so, Democrats will run the risk of losing seats in 2018 in the states Trump won? Or acquiesce?

“You can get talked out of each individual fight, and you can make the case that in every one of these instances, Democrats should cave under pressure and go along,” says the aide. “But if we do, we’ll have allowed Trump to have a functional first year that completely devastated Democratic priorities in the process.”

“The problem with Democrats is that we believe in legislating,” laments Jim Manley. It’s a sanctimonious thing to say. But would Democrats really vote against an Obamacare replacement — as bad as it might be — to spite Trump if by doing so they’d throw the American health-care system into crisis? Would they vote against a budget bill that slashes domestic spending if it meant shutting down the government?

Sometimes. And sometimes they won’t. The question confronting Democrats is whether Schumer will demonstrate instincts as canny as Reid’s. And when a fight is engaged, who will emerge as a leader who can see it through? “There’s no natural person,” concedes a senior Democratic staffer in the Senate. “It’s not Chuck’s nature. Both Bernie [Sanders] and Warren are more interested in shaping the party and the fights that we choose” — which means they’ll often be battling with Democrats as much as Republicans—“and Durbin has an instinct, but we’ll see how much he’s able to rally other people.” Reid, who’s reluctant to offer much advice to his fellow Democrats (at least publicly), nonetheless recognizes the urgency of the issue. “Senator Schumer — or somebody — will have to be willing on a consistent basis to say no,” Reid told me. “You know, stand up there and say, ‘I object.’ ”

How Odious A Character Is Chuck Schumer? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Like me, Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders are both graduates of PS-197 and James Madison High School in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. There isn't much else, though, that Schumer and Bernie have in common. Bernie is a life-long progressive and reformer. Schumer has never had a reformist moment in his miserable political life. Bernie went from serving as mayor of Burlington to being Vermont's independent House member in 1990. He had to fight both corrupt conservative Republicans and corrupt conservative Democrats to win and keep his House seat. He started the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 1991. Their times in the House overlapped but, of course, Schumer never joined the CPC. Progressivism is as foreign to Schumer as communism... or Mormonism. In 2006 Bernie was elected to the U.S. Senate with 65% of the vote. He was reelected in 2012 with 71%. Schumer was already there.

Schumer got out of law school in 1974 and immediately ran for state Assembly. He held the district until progressive icon Elizabeth Holtzman vacated her congressional seat to run for Senate in 1980. Schumer grabbed it and immediately asked for a place on what is now the House Financial Services Committee, the fount of the most blatant corruption in government. He quickly allied with the Wall Street banksters and they helped him beat Brooklyn reformers, totally and explicitly selling them whatever he has that passes for a soul in 1982 in a tough incumbent vs incumbent battle with progressive Steve Solarz. Then, in 1998 Schumer beat Geraldine Ferraro and Mark Green to get the Senate nomination for a Senate seat and he went on to beat the notoriously mobbed-up GOP crook Alfonse D'Amato with 54%. A publicity-hound and dogged careerist, Schumer is widely considered a modern-day version of Boss Tweed, especially in the Senate, where he routinely tells candidates that it's his way or the highway.

Recently he had a run-in of this nature with Admiral Joe Sestak who he tried playing the my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours game with. Basically, he told Sestak that when he (Schumer) says "jump," the only acceptable response is "how high, sir?" That's an odd thing for some draft dodging chicken hawk to say to the highest ranking military officer ever elected to Congress. It didn't end well and Schumer went out and helped recruit an unbelievably incompetent candidate for the primary, Katie McGinty, who has no chance of ever becoming a senator but will sop up Sestak's cash so he can't compete with Toomey. That's how Schumer plays the game. Toomey, of course, is over the moon.

Once Politico or the Washington Post runs with the story I'm about to relate, it will probably be a big deal, but right now, no one knows about it who isn't a DWT reader. If Bernie doesn't win the presidency, he's up for chair of the Senate Budget Committee, something Schumer's Wall Street allies aren't thrilled about to begin with. Early into the campaign, Schumer told him-- in no uncertain terms-- that if he interfered in the Senate races in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida, he could kiss that chairmanship bye-bye. Think about that, while you read this post by Michelle Goldberg at Slate yesterday about how much John Fetterman would like some help from Bernie's revolution. (Blue America has Fetterman on our Bernie Congress page and last I checked a couple hundred Bernie supporters had contributed to Fetterman's Senate run.) Goldberg makes the point that Fetterman "is, like Sanders, a political outsider with a populist and progressive platform that overlaps Bernie's and is anathema to establishment politicians like Schumer and his Schumercrat McGinty. And like Bernie, his money comes in small increments from online donors.

Fetterman’s criticism of McGinty echoes Sanders’ case against Hillary Clinton. “When she ran less than two years ago, she was for $9 an hour instead of $15,” he says, referring to the minimum wage. “She brought fracking to Pennsylvania, and she also supported NAFTA.” She has a massive financial advantage in what is currently the most expensive Senate race in the country, with more than $17 million already spent.

Given the money and political power stacked against him, Fetterman says he needs Sanders’ help to have any chance next Tuesday, the same day as the Pennsylvania presidential primary. So far, however, it has not been forthcoming. There’s been no endorsement, no fundraising support, no joint appearances. Fetterman’s campaign finds this confounding. On the ground, he says, there’s enormous overlap between his supporters and the Sanders grassroots. (“The crowd at the Fishtown brewpub is young, liberal, urban. They rave about Sanders-- and Fetterman,” says a recent Philadelphia Inquirer story.) In a three-way race, he believes, Sanders’ backing could be decisive; Fetterman estimates that he’ll win if he gets 60 or 70 percent of Sanders’ voters.

Right now, that seems unlikely; a poll from early April had him at 9 percent of the vote, with 66 percent saying they haven’t recently seen, read, or heard anything about him, and 63 percent saying they didn’t know what his ideology was. The only ray of hope: When people had heard about him, what they heard made them like him more. Lacking the resources to get on the airwaves, he’s doing as much retail campaigning as he can, including going to Sanders rallies to talk to voters one on one. (The Sanders campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

“To me, Pennsylvania represents the perfectly framed battle within the party war of 2016,” Fetterman tells me. “Untold millions in outside money and establishment endorsements versus the will of Sanders’ grassroots supporters who could, quite literally, pick the next nominee in this state. That nominee, badly outspent, represents a decimated steel town on society’s economic fringe.”

Sanders often says that his audacious agenda depends on a political revolution, one that would sweep progressives into office behind him. So far, however, he’s done notably little to make that happen. It’s not just his failure to support Fetterman; he hasn’t gotten involved in any Senate races. He made his first congressional endorsements just last week, sending out fundraising emails for three female House candidates: Zephyr Teachout of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Lucy Flores of Nevada. In Wisconsin, a conservative Supreme Court candidate triumphed in part because 11.5 percent of Sanders voters didn’t vote in the judicial election, compared with 4 percent of Clinton voters.

“The president can do very little by him or herself,” says Fetterman. “You need Congress, too, and we could be somebody in the race that supports a lot of the Sanders agenda.” He’s still holding out hope that Sanders comes through: “I’m sitting here with my corsage, waiting.”

There are dozens of candidates running on a Bernie platform who have endorsed Bernie--candidates for the Senate, the House and even in state legislative battles. Some, like Fetterman, are the real deal. Others-- like Shawn O'Connor in New Hampshire, for example-- are frauds just trying to glom onto Bernie's success for themselves. Bernie can't get involved in vetting every one of them and he's smart to leave it to his political revolution to sort it all out. It took some guts to endorse Lucy Flores in a Nevada House race for two reasons. One of her opponents, state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, is at least as progressive as Flores, is far more effective and with a record of accomplishment that drives hers, BUT, has endorsed Hillary and-- and here's where it gets hairy-- is very much the Harry Reid candidate. Reid is pushing Kihuen and I'm sure he would have rather not seen Bernie elevating Lucy's campaign and helping her raise a reputed $300,000 last week, a figure I haven't been able to verify. But Reid is retiring and won't have any say over who does or doesn't become chair of the Senate Budget Committee-- and Schumer doesn't care who wins an obscure North Las Vegas House seat.

Think about the Pennsylvania Senate race and in a little bit I'll tell you what's happened in the Ohio and Florida races where the odious Schumer was so gung-ho that Bernie not get involved in. Meanwhile...

Why Isn't Corruption Illegal In American Politics? And Why Did Big Companies Spend $5.8 Billion To Influence Government?

Everyone in Washington knows that Chuck Schumer is one of the shadiest and most corrupt Members of the Senate, right up there with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Whip and member of both the Budget and Finance Committees John Cornyn. Cornyn is best known as a whore for Big Oil, which has given him $2,876,106 for services rendered since being elected to Congress. The financial sector (Wall Street) has given Cornyn far more-- $7,940,416 since he was first elected in 2002. They've been even more generous-- or strategic-- with McConnell, who's been buttered up with $11,444,704. McConnell took the biggest legalistic bribes from Wall Street of anyone Congress other than presidential candidates... and Chuck Schumer.

Since Schumer was elected to the House in 1980 and then to the Senate in 1998, Wall Street has bought hm off with the sweet sum of $21,052,681, the most to any Member of Congress other than presidential candidates. In return, he takes care of their interests-- big-time. When the crooked banksters started whining recently that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were making them look bad, they went to Schumer, who promised to balance Warren and Sanders with Wall Street-friendly Democratic Senate candidates like Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL) and Ted Strickland (OH) and to block progressive candidates like Alan Grayson (FL), P.G. Sittenfeld (OH) and Joe Sestak (PA). Schumer belongs in prison, not Congress. Schumer may be the worst, but he's hardly the only corrupt senator and far from an outlier.

If you didn't watch the video above from Represent.Us, now's the time to take a look. At the base of corruption is an ugly senatorial fact: the number of American voters for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that Congress will make it law. The Princeton University study they drew from says flatly, "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." In other words, corrupt powermongers like Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell don't care what you think, what you say or what you want. They work for Wall Street. Obviously.

Not just Wall Street, of course. Economic elites, business interests, people who can afford to hire lobbyists... crooks like Schumer and McConnell pay close attention to this demographic. "When they want something, the government is much more likely to do it... They get what they want and guess who winds up paying for it!" It gets worse: "Right now it's perfectly legal to buy political influence in America." The video explains how it's done-- and why good-for-nothing careerists like Schumer and McConnell rise to the top of the Beltway heap.

As for the second question in the title, about why the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. gave $5.8 billion dollars to grubby politicians and lobbyists in the last 5 years, well... good return on investment. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support!

Yesterday Alan Grayson sent out a note to his supporters explaining how the Big Money interests and their lobbyists are working their magic in terms of Fast Track Authority and the TPP.

A week ago last Tuesday, the Senate voted against taking up the "Fast Track" trade giveaway bill. Hooray! Every Republican expressed support, but every Democrat except Sen. Carper (D-DE) voted against it.

But just two days later, 13 Democrats switched sides. They were against it, before they were for it.

What happened during those forty-eight hours? Well, an awful lot of corporate lobbyists billed an awful lot of hours. But the official explanation was that Mitch McConnell had agreed to a separate vote on a currency manipulation bill. Which may never pass the Senate. And may never come to a vote in the House. And may never pass the House. And may never be signed by the President. And if all those things somehow do come to pass, it can join the utterly ineffective existing laws against currency manipulation.

But that was the cover story for those 13 switched votes.

And yesterday, on another Senate vote, 13 Democrats wandered off the reservation. As a public service, I am providing their phone numbers, e-mail addresses and office addresses below.

Q. If we don't stick together, then how can we possibly win?

A. We can't.

There's one last Senate vote today. Tell them "NO" on Fast Track! Call or e-mail - right now. Below is a list of every Senate Democrat who voted to let Fast Track steamroll over us. Pick one, pick them all, and MAKE THEM LISTEN.

Michael Bennet (D-CO)
(202) 224-5852
Contact: www.bennet.senate.gov/contact/

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
(202) 224-3441
Contact: www.cantwell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-maria

Tom Carper (D-DE)
(202) 224-2441
Contact: www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-senator-carper

Chris Coons (D-DE)
(202) 224-5042
Contact: www.coons.senate.gov/contact/

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
(202) 224-3841
Contact: www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
(202) 224-2043
Contact: www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact

Tim Kaine (D-VA)
(202) 224-4024
Contact: www.kaine.senate.gov/contact

Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
(202) 224-6154
Contact: www.mccaskill.senate.gov/contact

Patty Murray (D-WA)
(202) 224-2621
Contact: www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme

Bill Nelson (D-FL)
(202) 224-5274
Contact: www.billnelson.senate.gov/contact-bill

Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
(202) 224-2841
Contact: www.shaheen.senate.gov/contact/

Mark Warner (D-VA)
(202) 224-2023
Contact: www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Contact

Ron Wyden (D-OR)
(202) 224-5244
Contact: www.wyden.senate.gov/contact/

Like to see Grayson in the Senate, working with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown keeping these guys honest? This is Blue America's Draft Alan Grayson page. There is no such thing as a contribution that's too small.

Demographic Change... And A New Word: Schumercrat

Schumer + schumercrat Patrick Murphy

The Establishment Democrats-- primarily DC insiders-- either can't or won't do anything to save the party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The positions of power within the establishment are almost entirely captive of a self-serving clique of utterly corrupt, right-of-center political hacks with either no vision or a vision hostile to the values and principles the Democratic grassroots have fought for. As the Republican Party has moved further and further to the right, the establishment Democrats have followed them and now basically occupy the ground much of the GOP held in past decades. Establishment politicians are either not terribly interested in ideology or are interested in it inasmuch as it lures voters to support their own ambition, careerism and personal empire-building.

When Wall Street banksters-- fresh from their latest outrages against the country-- scream to Chuck Schumer-- to whom they have given $23,538,638 to date (more than to any other politician who hasn't run for president), he promises to take over the Senate Democrats (and there has not even been one voice against that-- and to "balance" the voices annoying the banksters (Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown) with more malleable and Wall Street-friendly recruits like Patrick Murphy (FL), Ted Strickland (OH), Tammy Duckworth (IL) and Chris Van Hollen (MD). So far this year, the Finance Sector is on track to continue financing Schumer's shameful career. Their half dozen biggest Senate bets so far this cycle:

• Chuck Schumer (D-NY)- $2,519,661
• Ted Cruz (R-TX)- $1,795,845
• Marco Rubio (R-FL)- $1,778,997
• Rob Portman (R-OH)- $1,347,067
• Pat Toomey (R-PA)- $1,296,416
• Michael Bennet (D-CO)- $1,081,225

And in terms of non-senators running for the Senate, no surprise who the banksters are lavishing their cash on:

• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)- $787,750
• Kamala Harris (D-CA)- $432,817
• Todd Young (R-IN)- $344,015
• Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)- $323,857
• Ted Strickland (D-OH)- $249,515
• Tammy Duckworth (Rahm Dem-IL)- $248,801

Funny that the banksters, who have given $54,521,519 to congressional Republicans this cycle and "just" $32,684,671 to congressional Democrats, are super-serving the campaigns of corrupt conservative Democrats like Murphy, Duckworth, Strickland and Van Hollen (all in primaries against more progressive candidates Schumer is working actively to sabotage), while giving less money to Republican Senate candidates like Ron DeSantis ($247,102), David Jolly ($243,900), Marlin Stutzman ($239,400), Joe Heck ($239,133) and, metaphorically speaking, buckets of warm spit to the progressive pro-consumer Democratic candidates Schumer works daily to vilify and cut off from funding:

• PG Sittenfeld (D-OH)- $107,050
• Donna Edwards (D-MD)- $55,420
• Alan Grayson (D-FL)- $14,975

So... back to the original premise about how the establishment will do nothing but further hollow out and rot the Democratic Party brand. It's no coincidence that corrupt politicians like Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer, Steve Israel, Steny Hoyer, Chris Van Hollen and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have exponentially increased their power as the Democrats lost nearly 70 House seats, control of the U.S. Senate and now run a pitiful 11 state legislatures to the GOP's 31. The GOP also holds 31 governorships to the Democrats' 19. So is it hopeless for the Democrats? No, the party has one thing working in its favor: demographics. A must read for anyone interested in this kind thing: Ruy Teixeira's spectacular look at the demographic shifts as we head into the 2016 elections. First the good news (if you're a Democratic Party... something-or-other): even a totally flawed, incredibly disliked and untrusted establishment candidate like Hillary Clinton can probably beat any Republican. The report is over 60 pages but I'm going to share a couple of random thoughts from it. One that struck me right off the bat helps explain why Hillary is exactly the wrong nominee for the Democrats this cycle:

Americans voters are angry, distrustful of establishment politics, and open to seemingly out-of-the-mainstream candidates and movements that channel these concerns and anxieties. Despite improvements in the overall economy over the past seven years, many Americans remain economically stressed and have a rising sense that the government is run for the benefit of a few wealthy and well-connected interests rather than the middle class.

...In the United States, left-wing populism is driving Democrats to offer more far- reaching solutions to problems such as inequality and structural racism, while right-wing populism is driving Republicans to more forcefully confront immigration and government spending across the board. Populist forces in both parties are increasingly hostile to global trade, militarism, money in politics, and political compromise with opponents. It remains to be seen whether these populist forces will determine the nominations of either party, but it is clear that the animating issues and the candidates representing these movements will have an effect on the eventual platforms and messages of the two general election campaigns.

OK, you can contribute to Bernie's campaign here and to the non-Schumercrat Senate candidates here. And now we'll proceed to the points Teixeira actually wanted to make himself much of it based on the fact that the share of the vote among non-college whites (who overwhelmingly tilt Republican) is projected to drop by 2.3 percentage points while the share of minority voters is projected to rise by at least 2%.

As America has changed demographically, the Democratic Party has increasingly changed with it, enabling the party to grow markedly at the national level in terms of both vote share and partisan identification. In five of the last six presidential elections, the Democrats have won the popular vote and regularly lead the GOP by around 8 points in terms of party identification.

...If Democrats are to retain the presidency in 2016, they will need to successfully transfer the enthusiasm and support of the Obama coalition to a new candidate and overcome the wider belief that the party had its shot for eight years and that it is now time for a change. Finding a candidate and agenda that can successfully motivate core progressive voters-- while simultaneously convincing a wider cross-section of less ideological voters that they have new ideas to address lingering economic and social problems-- will be paramount. The party must also take seriously the need to knit together its more diverse coalition with a larger share of working class whites if it wants to be competitive in congressional and state-level elections.

...the percentage of white voters in the actual electorate dropped 15 percentage points, from 89 percent in 1976 to 74 percent in 2012. The percentage of white working-class voters dropped even more, decreasing by 26 points over the same period.

In a conversation with the Washington Post's Greg Sargent last week, Teixeira pointed out-- as he did in the report-- that "in the last two elections, the Democrats got 81 percent of the minority vote. That can’t be assumed for 2016. So we are conservative about the minority vote, giving the Democrats in 2016 the average of their share of the minority vote in the last four elections-- 78 percent. In 2012, in our assessment, Democrats lost the white non-college vote by 22 points. We estimate the Democrats’ deficit among the white college vote was 11 points. Let’s say the Democrats do get 78 percent of the minority vote. We find that the white non-college support for the Republican could actually go up substantially-- to the 30 point margin Republicans won in 2014-- and the Democrats would still win the popular vote nationally, if they held their white college support."

All that said, the operational strategy the DCCC uses in recruitment and messaging-- Republican-lite-- will mean the party will never win back the House, even if the best case scenario-- Bernie or even Hillary vs Herr Trumpf or even Cruz-- until the DCCC is completely cleaned out and started over again, from scratch, not just with new personnel but with a new governing context that is unrelated to Blue Dogs (Steve Israel) and New Dems (Rahm Emanuel and Wasserman Schultz). Democrats have something to be extremely proud of, a stunning tradition that is 100% antithetical to everything Emanuel, Van Hollen and Israel have turned the DCCC into.

A Look At Two Contrasting Endorsements In The Florida Senate Race

Chuck Schumer's corrupt candidate for the open Florida Senate seat, Patrick Murphy-- recently voted the most ineffective Member of Congress-- and the House's most effective progressive, Alan Grayson both announced very telling endorsements yesterday. Grayson was endorsed by Jane Kleeb, the grassroots organizer who helped kill the Keystone XL Pipeline. "I worked for years to stop Keystone XL, and there's only one candidate in Florida's Senate race who can say the same thing. Only one, and that is Alan Grayson," said Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska Director. "He stood strong when other Republicans, and Democrats, buckled to corporate pressure and pushed President Obama to approve this potential environmental disaster through our Heartland’s water supplies and farms. Alan Grayson never wavered, and he never quit fighting to stop the export pipeline. No other candidate in this race will protect our environment and fight for clean energy jobs with the same guts as Alan Grayson. He stands up to corporate bullies and we stand with him."

Schumer's corrupt right-wing candidate, Murphy, who "left" the Republican Party fairly recently-- but still votes for much of their agenda-- dutifully voted in favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline every time the GOP brought it up. In fact he was one of only 19 bribe-taking conservaDems who joined the GOP in voting to remove President Obama from the Keystone Pipeline decision-making process, a mind-blowing vote for a Democrat-- even a fake Democrat like Murphy-- to take.

But all those votes for Keystone XL was the basis of his big endorsement announcement yesterday. America's most right-wing and most corrupt union-- LIUNA-- pushed very strongly for Keystone XL. It was no surprise to anyone that they embraced Murphy. LIUNA, which disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO in 2006 and, earlier, was prosecuted by the Department of Labor for racketeering, corruption and ties to organized crime, is perfectly matched with Murphy. At the height of the battle over the Keystone XL Pipeline LIUNA threatened progressives in Congress that they would help Koch-backed Republicans beat them in November. (They had already started funneling cash into primaries on behalf of right-wing Democrats like Colleen Hanabusa against progressives.) Terry O'Sullivan, the conservative union boss, decided threatening House incumbents was the best tactic for his members and he singled out several top targets-- all 100% union backers: Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Carol Shea Porter (D-NH), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Mike Honda (D-CA) and Judy Chu (D-CA). Here's part of a letter O'Sullivan sent to members in Jan Schakowsky's Illinois district, where she was facing a crackpot Republican who wanted to abolish unions altogether:

As we head into the 2014 election season, I want to bring your attention to an issue of critical importance to our Union; your member of Congress is trying to destroy job opportunities for our LIUNA brothers and sisters. Representative Jan Schakowsky recently signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline, a vital infrastructure project that would create millions of hours of work for LIUNA members, increase U.S. energy independence, and safely transport a resource that will be developed with or without the pipeline.


To all proud, strong and united LIUNA brothers and sisters, I say, enough is enough! Our members and their families are angry, disappointed and disillusioned with out-of-touch, job-killing politicians who choose to side with environmental extremists over work for our members. There so-called "friends" of ours are destroying good-paying work opportunities with family-supporting benefits, at a time when LIUNA members are trying to put food on their tables, keep roofs over their heads, and maintain middle-class lifestyles.


For every action, there is a reaction, and our reaction to this frontal assault on our way of life needs to be loud and clear. If you do not stand with us, we sure as hell will not stand with you.


…[Your] member of Congress has chosen to side with hard-core anti-Keystone organizations rather than with hard working LIUNA members and their families. Please keep that in mind when Congresswoman Schakowsky seeks your vote this fall, and be sure to let her know how angry and disappointed you are that she is trying to keep your brothers and sisters from working.


If Congresswoman Schakowsky and other politicians continue to stand in the way of jobs for Laborers, let's make sure they "feel the power" and fury of LIUNA this November.

Schakowsky was reelected with nearly 66% of the vote and LIUNA bosses proved themselves impotent as their own members helped re-elect all the Democrats on their enemies list. Grayson was another one they targeted and Kleeb, who is originally from Florida and is credited as one of the most influential opponents of the toxic pipeline, hailed Grayson for his diligent and unwavering opposition despite the threats from O'Sullivan.

In acknowledging her endorsement yesterday, Grayson said, "It was organizing heroes like Jane Kleeb who convinced President Obama that rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline would put the wellbeing of our environment ahead of oil company profits. Few people dared to stand up and point out the pipeline would not offer a long-term benefit to our economy, and was merely a gift to foreign oil companies at the expense of our environment. I’m grateful she stood up to take on that fight, and I’m honored that she’s standing with me now."

So who do you stand with on this? President Obama, Alan Grayson, progressives and Jane Kleeb or with the GOP, Patrick Murphy and a corrupt union boss who recently fumed that "President Obama today demonstrated that he cares more about kowtowing to green-collar elitists than he does about creating desperately needed, family-supporting, blue-collar jobs.  After a seven-year circus of cowardly delay, the President’s decision to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline is just one more indication of an utter disdain and disregard for salt-of-the-earth, middle-class working Americans... Barack Obama’s disdain for working people is evident. The President may be celebrated by environmental extremists, but with this act, President Obama has also solidified a legacy as a pompous, pandering job killer."

Please consider the choice that Florida voters will be making between Grayson and Murphy and keep in mind that Schumer has made sure Murphy's would be swimming in Wall Street cash. The banksters have given him $787,750 so far this cycle, more than any other non-incumbent running for the Senate from either party-- and more than they've given many Senate incumbents as well as powerful GOP allies like Speaker Paul Ryan ($589,288) and House Financial Services Committee chair Jeb Hensarling ($592,465). Grayson really needs some financial assistance from grassroots Democrats who don't want to see Schumer end his career. Please consider contributing here.

Polar opposite of what Murphy & his GOP allies say

Will Schumer's Attempt To Destroy The Primary System Protect The GOP Senate Majority?

The Jack Abramoff scandal had broken wide open and one of Abramoff's biggest lackeys was Montana Senator Conrad Burns. Democrats saw a glimmer of hope of taking back the Montana seat that Burns had won from John Melcher in 1988. In 2000 Burns was barely reelected-- 50.6% to 47.2% against Brian Schweitzer. Montana had been trending red-- in 2000 Bush won the state 58-33% and in 2004 was reelected 59-39%. But Burns was unpopular and the Abramoff revelations made him a lot less popular.

It was 2006 and Chuck Schumer was chair of the DSCC. He had decided the candidate to put up against Burns was a Wall Street hack, state Auditor John Morrison, a total establishment nothing. Locally and nationally, activists realized Schumer was clueless and that the way to win against Burns was to offer a populist and progressive, which is exactly what John Tester was at the time. It was the first time the blogosphere went up against Schumer and did everything he could to manipulate the race for Morrison and against Tester. Schumer successfully insisted the media report the primary as deadlocked even though Tester was way ahead and had all the momentum. In the end Schumer and his handpicked nothing candidate were smashed to smithereens and Democratic voters picked Tester 65,757 (60.77%) to 38,394 (35.48%). In November, Tester unseated Burns, beating him 199,845 (49.16%) to 196,283 (48.29%)

A few months ago I ran into Bernie and reminded him that I had also gone to James Madison High School in Brooklyn, his alma mater, albeit after he had graduated. "Oh, yes, you were there with Chuck, weren't you?" I was and Chuck was as big a know-it-all asshole then as he's been ever since. After his whooping Montana, he continued to pick corrupt conservative candidates and the Senate slipped into Republicans hands, frustrating the progressive movement that Schumer hates more than he hates the GOP.

Yesterday, Jennifer Haberkorn, writing for the L.A. Times reported that the DSCC, still 100% controlled by Schumer, is being accused of trying to hinder progressive candidates in key Senate primaries. She doesn't have the story exactly right, but she's figuring it out. Schumer is doing his best to disadvantage progressives Andrew Romanoff (CO), Maggie Toulouse Oliver (NM), Betsy Sweet (ME) and Eddie Mauro and Michael Fracken, both in Iowa, while pushing-- furiously-- for his more conservative picks, Frackenlooper, Ban Ray Lujan, Sara Gideon and Theresa Greenfield.

Progressives have been complaining that Schumer is interfering with their primaries and telling him to stay out of their states, accusing the DSCC-- technically run by a very right-of-center puppet of Schumer's Jackie Rosen-- "of actively working against them in primaries" to help corrupt conservatives who will never exercise any idependence, and-- like Rosen (a 2018 Schumer pick for Nevada)-- will do exactly what he tells them to do. "Progressive candidates in Colorado and Maine-- two of the most competitive 2020 Senate races-- say political consultants and vendors have refused to work on their campaigns after being warned that doing so would risk a future boycott by the DSCC, which endorsed other Democrats for those primaries," wrote Haberkorn.

“They want to blackball us,” said Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat who is hoping to take on GOP Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado in next year’s election. “We heard the same from enough firms. It’s not an accident.”

The DSCC threw its support behind former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a pro-fracking moderate [Haberkorn uses the charged word "moderate"-- to describe conservatives; she isn't terribly bright, reflexively buys into Beltway spin and doesn't know any better] almost immediately after he announced his bid for the Senate seat late last month.

Romanoff, who backs “Medicare for all” and aggressively combating climate change, said at least five political vendors that had expressed interest in working with him later told his campaign that officials at the DSCC, which helps recruit and finance Democratic candidates, said the vendors would get no other business from the committee if they worked for Romanoff’s campaign.

A political consultant at one of those firms confirmed the account but refused to be named for fear of retribution, saying that the firm was told by an intermediary for Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) that “under no circumstances were we to work with Andrew Romanoff.” If it did, the firm would get no more DSCC-related business, including lucrative referrals to work on other campaigns or to put together outside political advertisements...

Schumer’s office referred questions to the DSCC.

DSCC spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua [a well-known professional liar who no one takes seriously] said the committee has no policy that forbids vendors from working with Democratic candidates that it does not support.

But she added: “In our role as a campaign committee focused on winning Senate seats, we have ongoing conversations with strategists and advisors about battleground races.”

Maine Senate hopeful Betsy Sweet said she’s had similar trouble hiring finance staffers for her primary campaign. And Iowa Senate primary candidate Eddie Mauro said one vendor indicated that Washington Democrats “put pressure on them not to work with people like me” although he did not name the DSCC.

As in Colorado, the DSCC has endorsed more moderate [poor dumb Haberkorn means conservatives when she writes "moderates"] Democrats in Maine and Iowa who they hope will beat sitting Republican senators in November 2020.

Vendors initially “are saying they’re excited [to work with the campaign,] and then they say they can’t do it,” Sweet said. “If you’re part of the political industrial complex and you’re making a career out of it, whether it is implicit or explicit, you don’t want to go up against that machine.”

The DSCC has endorsed Sara Gideon to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.

The intervention does not appear to be nationwide. Senate candidates in other races around the country said in interviews that they have seen no such interference in their campaign hiring.

But Sweet likened the DSCC’s meddling in her campaign to efforts made behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee to bolster Hillary Clinton for president over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries, moves that bitterly split the party.

“We in Maine have done a lot of work to reunify [since then]. This has just made it really hard,” she said. “It adds to the cynicism of people getting involved in politics.”

The DSCC’s counterpart for the House, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, adopted a new written policy on vendors this year. The committee forbids vendors from getting DCCC business if they work on a primary challenge to a sitting Democratic House member. In that situation, the DCCC is trying to avoid Democrats trying to kick a sitting Democrat out of office.

...Many of the Democratic candidates, even those who said the DSCC is not interfering with their hiring process, said they resented the committee’s endorsement in their race instead of letting a primary play out among voters.

That anger is most acute in Colorado, where a competitive Democratic primary between a dozen candidates was well underway when Hickenlooper dropped out of the presidential primary contest and announced he would run for the Senate.

The DSCC’s quick endorsement incensed candidates who were already in the race, an anger undoubtedly fueled by Hickenlooper’s prior comments that he didn’t want the Senate seat and wouldn’t be good at the job. Several of the self-identified liberal Democrats in the race say Hickenlooper-- who opposes progressive standard-bearers such as Medicare for all and the Green New Deal-- is too centrist for Colorado. They argue that Gardner is so vulnerable that almost any Democratic candidate can beat him.

“It’s hard for me to get in their head on this because a blue rock beats Cory Gardner by 10%,” said Alice Madden, one of the Democratic hopefuls.

Madden and the five other Democratic women in the race signed a letter last week asking the DSCC to reconsider the endorsement, arguing that it implies “that we should defer to a male candidate because you seem to believe he is ‘more electable.’”

Schumer had long made no secret that he wanted Hickenlooper, who has tremendous name recognition in the state, to take on Gardner next year. Democratic strategists say polling shows that Hickenlooper’s popularity would survive intense negative messaging, making him the strongest candidate in both the primary and general election.

One top tier Senate candidate told me-- on a promise of anonymity-- that  Schumer's 'thumb-on-the-scale' tactics are going harm to Democrats' chances of winning back the Senate. "He squeezes out viable candidates, mostly by starving them of conventional sources of operating funds. The word goes out, 'Money sent to the Non-DSCC chosen candidate means money wasted.' If the process could proceed unimpeded, with market forces equaled, primary voters would be more heavily vested in a fair fight. Surely the ill feelings in the Bernie crowd kept his supporters home on election day… costing Hilary votes. People felt screwed. We have the equivalent of a circular firing squad; better hope everyone is a good shot and all bullets hit bone…which the DSCC is oh-for-three in doing, of late, in my state. The clarion call is this: 'Washington, butt out.'"

One of the top Democratic elected officials in Maine told me-- also on condition of anonymity-- that both Gideon and Sweet are "good candidates" but that Sweet is somewhat better policy-wise. "You won't heard Gideon talking about Medicare-for-All or a Green New Deal... Sweet is far bolder. Gideon’s voting record is strong but she takes a more incrementalist approach, and behind the scenes she’s willing to bargain with groups like the Chamber. I suspect her record in the Senate would track King’s." For those not watching that, Angus King has an "F" from Progressive Punch and there are only 4 Senate Dems with more conservative voting records-- Kyrsten Sinema, Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and Jacky Rosen. My source continued that "Schumer should let the primary sort itself out. A strong but not divisive primary would be better in terms of mobilizing support for the eventual nominee. He’s making it unnecessarily divisive. And he’s potentially harming our ability to defeat Collins."