Will The Elderly Stick Us With Trump Or Biden And Then All Die Off In The Pandemic Before The Consequences Are Felt?

James Carville is a vile, mouldering 75 year old man, who long ago lost any relevance he ever had-- other than on Comcast TV. Last night, as Biden was racking up his wins he cackled, "Let’s shut this puppy down, and let’s move on and worry about November. This thing is decided. There’s no reason to keep it going, not even a day longer." The elderly-- who were responsible for Trump's tenure in the White House (and thereby the inadequate response to COVID-19 and many of their own, perhaps untimely, deaths)-- are about to saddle the Democratic Party with another anti-inspirational, insiders-only, vision-free nominee.

Tuesday in Michigan, Bernie's appeal was to the people who will be left after the coronavirus pandemic burns out. He won:

• 83% of 18-24 vote
• 81% of 25-29 vote
• 62% of 30-39 vote
• 51% of 40-49 vote.

Most of the walking dead, like Carville, voted for Biden. The walking dead won. And I guess we don't get a re-vote in a few months, when they're dead. Which reminds me of two things (aside from the fact that I'm 72 years old):

• Most of those expressing great fear of coronavirus to pollsters, said they voted for Biden, the anti-Medicare-for-All Democrat
• Why didn't MSNBC fire Carville at the same time they fired Chris Matthews, their best decision of 2020?

John Harris' Mini-Tuesday wrap-up for Politico-- Biden and Trump: Don’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday-- captured the state of the country's politics: "2020 promises to offer two old men but no new ideas."

16 and 17 year olds aren't allowed to vote. Presumably thiner minds aren't matter enough. Why are people over 85 voting, even if their minds are... over-mature. Maybe there should be some kind of testing... like when old people renew drivers' licenses? "At a transformative moment in history-- when the onrush of changes in climate, technology, demography, and global balance-of-power are creating a new generation of urgent policy challenges in the United States and around the world-- the 2020 race now promises to be effectively devoid of new ideas," wrote Harris. "Instead, this promises to be a race above all about character and personal qualities. It will be waged by old men-- age 73 for the incumbent, age 77 for the presumptive challenger-- whose essential worldviews were formed decades ago and whose essential instincts and preoccupations are backward-looking."

Both candidates are noticeably-- and increasingly-- senile, which seems to be repulsing people under 50 and looking attractively self-affirming to people over 70.

The main idea of Biden’s campaign is, in the phrase that had its origins in a malapropism by Warren G. Harding, a return to normalcy. He has the usual roster of standard Democratic policy positions but they are not animated by an arresting new vision, like Barack Obama’s “hope and change” message of 2008. Instead, Biden’s promise is mostly about the restoration of civility and precedent.

The main idea of Trump’s campaign is by all evidence the continuation of non-normalcy. Disruption was his promise in 2016, and what he has delivered for three years. Increasingly, though, that disruption is less about specific policy goals-- never mind larger ideas—than it is about Trump’s own cult of personality, with its titanic gyrations of whimsy and grievance.

Here’s one to be answered by Trump supporters: If he wins a second term, his most important policy goal will be: What?

Here’s one to be answered by any voter. The State of the Union address, when presidents seeking re-election historically lay out a second-term agenda, was just last month. Yes, you probably remember a carnival-like atmosphere, during which Rush Limbaugh was bestowed the Medal of Freedom and Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of the speech. Do you remember Trump’s main new policy initiative or any big promises he intends to make the basis of his re-election?

As a political culture, we are now so immersed in the nonstop news cycle with its premium on insult, indignation, and living in the moment that we scarcely notice when an election that is momentous by any measure winds up with a choice like this one. 2020 will have one candidate who is all about Trump, another who is all about being the opposite of Trump, but no candidate who has defined himself by a new set of arguments about the future, or a new set of remedies about the problems likely to shadow the country or the world in the years ahead.

Bill Clinton, whose 1990s-era policies are largely out of fashion and whose personal lapses are now judged censoriously by Democrats who were once more forgiving, perhaps still might get some credit for knowing something about presidential politics. One of his signature maxims is, Every election is about the future.



Hmm….It would be interesting to get Clinton’s unfiltered analysis of this one. His theme was the Fleetwood Mac song, “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow).” Biden and Trump, by contrast, sometimes seem to be urging, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday.”

Biden began his campaign with what turned out to be a blunder, referring to the Senate that he served in after winning shortly before his 30th birthday in 1972, when he said he managed to work productively even with that era’s segregationists whose views he found repugnant. Though he has dropped fond references to Dixiecrats, he still cites his own history crafting deals in the Senate, and, on a more personal note, his own perseverance through tragedy after the 1972 deaths of his first wife and daughter and the 2015 death of his son, Beau Biden.

Trump, likewise, filters contemporary issues through a personal prism that is decades old. His warnings about the rise of China flow rhetorically directly from his 1980s warnings about what was then seen as the implacable rise of Japan. His descriptions of negotiations with leaders in Congress to other heads of state often use language that sound like the advice he gave in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” published when he was 42. One of his major first-term policy victories was fulfilling a pledge to replace Clinton’s NAFTA trade deal, passed more than a quarter-century ago.

Even as the world changes dramatically, by all evidence what Democratic voters seem to want this year-- no less than Republican Trump diehards-- is a contest over character and personal traits.

In other words... which candidate lies more? Which candidate has a more repulsive and corrupt family? Which candidate is more incapacitated mentally? Which, in the end, is the lesser of two evils? This is the perfect battleground for someone like Trump-- and will be absolutely catastrophic for a traditional old hawkish pol like Status Quo Joe Biden, who has one chance of getting into the White House: Trump making himself-- if he hasn't already-- too beyond the pale even for the morons who vote in American elections.





Neil Young is also old (74 years old)-- but a brand new voters, so he sounded 18 yesterday when he endorsed Bernie:

I support Bernie because I listen to what he says. Every point he makes is what I believe in. Every one.

In 2016, If Bernie had run instead of Hillary Clinton, I think we would not have the incompetent mess we have now.

Does America have the Democrat party insiders, the DNC to blame for our incompetent mess?

Did the DNC pull every political string to stop Bernie and get Hillary in 2016?

Did that work?

Now, are they trying to stop Bernie Sanders again?

Is Joe the new Hillary?

Is that what you really want?

I think the DNC is more interested in themselves and the power of their party than anything else.

As a new citizen, I was excited to register to vote. Outside the courthouse after I was naturalized, (funny word for it) there was a Democrat Party Registration booth. I registered. My first error as a U.S. citizen will be corrected now.

I am registering Independent. The wheels are in motion. I don’t trust the DNC because I think the DNC is pushing their own agenda over the good of our country.

The thing about Bernie for me is he is consistent. He wants our children to have the best chance at a great education.

The DNC will spread their talking point that ‘Bernie is Divisive.’ They will tell MSNBC and CNN to spread that opinion. They will spread it.

That’s because Bernie is not with the DNC.

Bernie is with you.

Are Bernie’s Policies Radical?

Fight CLIMATE CHANGE like it is real.
Eliminate STUDENT DEBT
Make COLLEGE TUITION Free.
Pay for it all with TAXES ON THE SUPER RICH
$15.00 MINIMUM WAGE
HEALTH CARE AS A HUMAN RIGHT!
The GREEN NEW DEAL for millions of new jobs with a future.

These are Bernie’s ambitious goals on your behalf.
I don’t think these are radical goals. Do you?
These goals are opposed by the DNC. Ask yourself WHY?

Listen to what Bernie says- not what the DNC is selling you from Social Media.

I don’t believe Facebook. It’s corrupt and admits that it is.

Facebook is full of bots and trolls. It’s not AMERICA. Forget social media. Ignore it, and replace it with TRUTH. I don’t believe the Facebook social media cesspool of lies, disinformation from other countries and mis-leading comments.

I believe Bernie Sanders.

I think Bernie is the Real Deal.

I think Democracy is in deep trouble. The solution is big CHANGE. Are you scared of Change?
I believe that in these times Democratic Socialism is good for American workers and students. It’s certainly not Communism. It’s the future for the working class.

The USA is broken, as is our sacred Democracy temporarily broken.
Search for Truth.
We already have socialism in the USA bailing out Wall Street and the super rich. How about the working class and the students who want a real future without debt?
What about them?

Ever wonder why the DNC is against Bernie?
Is Bernie against all the corporations funding the DNC candidate’s political campaigns?
Will Bernie hit their corrupt campaign pocket books?
Will he try to clean the system up?
Is that radical or divisive to America?

Bernie scares the hell out of the DNC. That’s why they’re acting this way right now. They are scared because their own power is challenged. If Bernie wins, they might lose it.
Is it time to get the money out of politics and put the truth back in?
Does this require Strength and Truth?

Bold changes. Bernie Sanders.

Do you think Democracy as we knew it is dying today?
That’s what I think.

If you are a loyal Trump supporter, please write NYA and tell your story. We will print that. We want to know about the positive side of supporting Trump.
We want to know your opinion. What is the positive side?

Was Donald Trump elected because of the negative effect on America of the DNC and the DNC policies of its Democratic candidates?
Did Trump supporters want change?
Do Bernie supporters want change?

It is-- was Time to change America. That’s what Trump supporters thought. That’s what I think.

Until then--
Stand with Bernie,
Stand for the workers,
Stand for the teachers,
Stand for the students.
Stand up for Climate Justice.
STAND for higher taxes on the super-rich to pay for all of the above!
Stand for The American Future.

Stand with Bernie Sanders.

Hey... while we're at it

Behind The Scenes And In Plain View: Mental Case, Criminal, Both?

Reporting for Vanity Fair this week, Emily Jane Fox, wrote that "Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was the mastermind event producer behind Trump’s inaugural celebration, which has since come under S.D.N.Y. investigation. Now, taped conversations reveal Wolkoff’s concerns with how money was being spent, the general chaos of the process, the involvement of the Trump family, and the people in charge, namely Rick Gates and Tom Barrack." If you haven't been watching Maddow with any kind of regularity over the past couple of years, you may be unaware that Trump's inaugural committee was a piggy bank for bribes from criminals-- both domestic and foreign-- to Trump and his contemptible spawn.

Last February, the New York Times published an article centered on WIS, headlined “Trump’s Inaugural Committee Paid $26 million to Firm of First Lady’s Adviser.” The inaugural committee had raised a stunning $107 million-- about twice what Barack Obama had hauled in 2009-- from donors such as Sheldon Adelson and corporations like AT&T. But as the Times reported, the tax form revealed profligate spending-- nearly $10 million on travel; $4.6 million on salaries and benefits; and $100,000 to Rick Gates, the former campaign aide and deputy chairman of the inauguration who, about a week later, became one of Robert Mueller’s first major cooperating witnesses. Some $40 million was publicly unaccounted for. Wolkoff, as the event planner in charge, became the face of the disarray. The Times story quoted an official from a government watchdog group accusing her of “fiscal mismanagement at its worst.” ... Sarah Huckabee Sanders would later say, “The president was focused on the transition during that time, and not on any of the planning for the inauguration.”

...Wolkoff had made a career in the events business, but she knew from the outset the inauguration would be a unique, and uniquely Trumpian, experience. First, she was a political novice who knew little about what an inauguration entailed. Then, there was Trump’s controversial reputation. Upon accepting the post on the Friday after his election, Wolkoff quickly reached out to her network of vendors. Most of them, according to people familiar with these conversations, resisted the opportunity to work with Trump. Even Burnett, who Trump enlisted to conjure up reality-show-like gimmicks (such as flying a gaggle of drones over the crowd), wanted to keep his involvement private.

Moreover, and perhaps not surprisingly, Trump’s family wanted to be involved in certain aspects of the coordination... [Wolkoff made] regular presentations to Trump, Melania, and the Trump family about various decisions, so that they could weigh in. (White House spokespeople have previously denied that the Trumps were involved in any planning, and said they knew little about the events.)

Trump was focused on the big-picture theatrics. He wanted to arrive on the Mall in a military plane with a military escort, much as he had arrived for tapings of The Apprentice on Trump Organization helicopters. He also wanted to have a full military parade, as well as tanks and helicopters on the ground...

In large part, Wolkoff worried about potential ethical issues surrounding the First Family-elect and their businesses. After all, Gates had been staying in a suite at the Trump Hotel for most of the inaugural planning. More than a dozen inaugural staffers had also been staying there. The Times reported last month that WIS alone had charged $31,000 for hotel rooms in the span of less than two months, including almost $18,000 at the Trump International Hotel. That did not include what was charged for room service, meals, and travel. In all, the Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million in inaugural funds, according to the Times. (Wolkoff’s contract states that the inaugural committee would reimburse WIS for travel, long-distance phone calls, mail-delivery services, and expenses connected to the performance of its work. WIS stands for “Who Is She,” Wolkoff’s play on her own anonymity.)

During the course of planning, Wolkoff had corresponded with Ivanka about the cost of using the Trump Hotel for events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony. On December 10, 2016, a Trump Organization employee sent an estimate for a ballroom rental and food and beverage minimum to use the Trump Hotel space for eight days. The price she quoted was $3.6 million, according to an e-mail. A week later, Gates e-mailed Ivanka about the cost. In this exchange, first published this past December by ProPublica and WNYC, Wolkoff flagged her concern. “These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote. (Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Ivanka’s counsel Abbe Lowell, said in a statement: “When contacted by someone working on the inauguration, Ms. Trump passed the inquiry on to a hotel official and said only that any resulting discussions should be at a ‘fair market rate.’ Ms. Trump was not involved in any additional discussions.”)

For an event producer used to detailed lists and punctilious itemization, Wolkoff was often caught off guard by the ad-hoc nature of the committee. According to the two people familiar with the matter, Gates approached a couple individuals working on the inauguration and asked if they would be willing to be paid directly for their work by a donor, rather than by the inaugural committee. They had received more donations than they’d initially anticipated, Gates told these people. Skirting the usual payment route could allow the inaugural committee to avoid reporting the full amount raised from donors.

Wolkoff frequently told Melania about her concerns regarding Gates, these people said. She relayed her concern about the high access level of his security pass within Trump Tower and his closeness with the Trump family. In her view, these people said, he exacerbated a situation already fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Members of the inaugural committee talked about how he frequently worked out of Donald Trump Jr.’s office. He was in constant communication with the adult children in order to keep them in the loop about decisions surrounding the inauguration.

Wolkoff also questioned Gates and Barrack about pricing and budgets across the board, according to the people familiar with the conversations. She started to grow concerned about being left out of meetings, particularly as she raised more red flags. Because part of her responsibilities included reviewing all budgets from her vendors and presenting them to other members of the inaugural committee, she studied the line items in order to be able to explain them. At points, she could not justify the numbers coming in. After circulation of a quote from one of their largest event-production vendors, Hargrove LLC, Wolkoff was shocked that no one in the organization appeared willing to question the figures. She suggested that the quote seemed far beyond what the Obama inaugural committee would have been charged in 2009. She sent an e-mail to her team and Barrack on December 31, 2016. “I am DISGUSTED by [Hargrove’s] lack of transparency and entitlement to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s] funding,” she wrote. “I can not approve any budget line items because I do not have a clue what these numbers represent!!”

One of the most concerning aspects to Wolkoff’s team, according to the people familiar with the situation, was the amount of money and attention being spent on Barrack’s chairman dinner, which he hosted on an evening before the swearing-in. A draft guest list for the event from days before the dinner included the likes of retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, G.O.P. fund-raiser Elliott Broidy, Michael Cohen, and key officials in the incoming administration. Among the list marked as confirmed were seven people described as “foreign ministers” for Saudi Arabia, one foreign minister from Qatar, and one from the United Arab Emirates. They were the only people on the list who were unnamed. (On Tuesday, ProPublica published a memo that showed Barrack’s investment firm planned to profit from its connections to the Trump administration. A spokesperson called it “an outline of a proposed potential business plan which was never acted upon or implemented.”)

...Much has been made of the various problems with the inauguration, from the lackluster crowd size to the president’s own “American carnage” speech, which struck a tone so dark that George W. Bush was reportedly heard calling it “some weird shit.” But Wolkoff’s part, the event itself, went off without a hitch, and the family was pleased. The day after the swearing-in ceremony was Wolkoff’s birthday. The Trumps sent flowers to the Trump Hotel room where she had been staying. She flew back to New York on a military plane with Melania, her stylist, hairdresser, makeup artist, and the rest of the Trump family, apart from the president, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner, who remained in Washington.

Much is still unknown about how inaugural funds were managed, or if the unaccounted for $40-odd million will ever be publicly explained. It’s unclear whether there was foreign influence, or illicit attempts to profit off of proceedings. What Gates has offered investigators—about anything, really, but about the inauguration, in particular—is also unclear. How deep the Southern District’s investigation into all of this is yet unknown. But much like some of Cohen’s other taped conversations, the discussions with Wolkoff about the inauguration may have turned out to be consequential. On the witness stand during Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia last summer, prosecutors asked Gates if he charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he responded.

As investigators continue to pursue the matter, they may find themselves in a familiar situation: seeking out former Trump allies-turned-adversaries who saw it all go down firsthand. One of the most inexplicable plot points in the whirling Trump drama has been the president’s public treatment of his former lawyer. Trump was aware that Cohen possessed all manner of damaging information about him, and yet he wasted few opportunities to disparage him publicly. Ultimately, Cohen implicated Trump in federal campaign-finance violations as he pleaded guilty. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with federal investigators, opening his book to tell them what he knew about the president, his business, and the campaign. While Wolkoff’s treatment has been gentler, she’s been similarly isolated and publicly disparaged. And now, what she knows could be of interest to investigators, too.

Yesterday, ProPublica updated their reporting with an article by Justin Elliott about how the Trump family was able to enrich themselves illegally, over-charging massively for the use of Trump International Hotel and pocketing the extra cash without reporting it or paying taxes on it. A truly corrupt scumbag and his well-trained family were taking over the executive branch of government and turning it into a criminal enterprise-- an organized crime family... right from Day One. Trump's life long penchant for felony coexists with increasing mental illness, something that is almost always left out of news reporting, as author and journalist Amanda Ripley reported this week, asserting, correctly, that Trump Is a Mental Health Story.

I tried an experiment the other day. To make sense of Trump’s behavior, I did not call foreign policy experts or pundits. That would be like calling an astrologer to explain a flu pandemic. Instead, I called Wendy Behary, who wrote the book Disarming the Narcissist and has treated hundreds of narcissistic clients, including surgeons, Wall Street executives, and other powerful people, in her private practice in New Jersey. It was one of the most useful conversations I’ve had about Trump in months.

Unlike the Washington Post or the New York Times, Behary has never once been surprised by Trump’s behavior. “His behavior is not remarkable. It’s predictable. It’s exactly what we’d expect,” she says. “He just continues to be a consistent version of who he appears to be.”



So far, most of the mainstream stories about Trump’s narcissism have been about whether mental health professionals should diagnose him from afar. That’s a worthy debate. But journalists are not psychiatrists. We are not bound by the rules of the American Psychiatric Association. We are bound by a duty to inform the public, without fear, drawing upon any source that may prove useful.

At this point, it’s not biased to acknowledge that Trump behaves in ways that most mental health professionals recognize as symptomatic of a larger problem. It’s not unreasonable to ask them to help explain and even predict his behavior. In fact, it may be more biased not to do so.

What if we got new sources to help us through this “remarkable” time? This doesn’t mean bashing Trump. To the contrary. In order to treat her narcissistic clients, Behary has learned to empathize with them. This isn’t easy to do, she admits, but it is essential--  so that she doesn’t mistake them for being strategic or simply evil. “Narcissists don’t set out to harm people,” she says. “They will harm you--  but it’s to protect themselves. It’s not personal.” Taking narcissists personally is a very common waste of time and energy.

Narcissists, for example, need admiration the way addicts need substances. They believe they are truly special and yet not appreciated for their gifts, which can lead them to act entitled, as if the rules do not apply to them. In their quest for recognition, they sometimes exploit others, contradict what they’ve said, and break their promises --  all the while arguing (and often truly believing) in their new, alternative facts. Once we know this, Trump’s tendency to revise history becomes unsurprising and explicable.

It’s a painful way to live, because no amount of adoration will ever be enough. After every victory, feelings of envy, anger, and frustration squirm back to the surface. Now, Behary says, Trump is “unraveling.” This, too, is predictable, which is why we need to talk about it, out in the open. As the bad news stacks up for Trump, including Republican losses in the midterms, a divided Congress, and continuing legal investigations, he is likely experiencing profound mental agony.

In this agitated state, narcissists are notoriously bad at negotiating, as it turns out. (They are good at bullying, which is not the same thing.) Catherine Conner, a family law attorney and mediator in Northern California, understands this better than political scientists, because she has helped hundreds of people craft child custody agreements and divorce settlements. A crisis, such as a divorce, may intensify narcissistic tendencies and make negotiation impossible, she says.

“The only way to create an agreement is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and come up with a package that might appeal to both of you,” Conner says. “If they are incapable of seeing the world through anyone else’s eyes, they won’t be able to do this. They will just remain stuck on their vision of what should be, convinced that everyone will see it their way.”



This would explain why Trump was reportedly shocked that the Democrats did not agree to his border-wall terms. He was unable to see the situation from their point of view. When this kind of intransigence takes hold in Conner’s cases, the parties are sometimes forced to rely on judges to make the decision.

In Trump’s case, if he is unable to compromise before the government shuts down again in two weeks, the courts might have to get involved. Or Trump might just turn the government back on in order to be the hero. “Narcissists are so good at showing up as Messiahs,” Behary says. If he’s at risk of losing the support of his fan base, which he needs in order to stop the pain, he will swoop in to save the day. Because that’s what narcissists do.

Typically, when all else fails and narcissists are unable to get the attention and affirmation they need, they play the victim. If the investigations continue to intensify, and if Trump begins to lose the affection of his base, Fox News pundits, and Republican leaders, he may resign, Behary predicts, based on all the narcissists she has treated for decades. “He’ll point the finger and say, ‘I was making America great again, and the Democrats stopped me.’”

Trump may not behave this way. Human behavior is complicated. But isn’t it useful to know how other people like him tend to behave, generally speaking? So let’s stop living in the past, under the old rules of journalism and politics. Let’s start talking about mental health with the directness and care that our readers deserve. If journalists want to help the public understand the world in which we live, it is time to find new pundits--  the kind who have seen this all before, who can empathize with the president and his opponents, and who do not benefit from perpetuating the chaos.

And by the way, real presidents have real inaugurations with real entertainment and no one from the family or entourage pockets millions of dollars:

Do Republicans Not Know Trump Is A Congenital Liar? Or Do They Just Not Care? Or Even Approve?

If you input "Big Lie" into Google, the first thing that pops up is Post Malone's song.

Say you flexin' that's a big lie, when I pull up give that bitch my line
And you know that I'ma get mine, yeah yeah
Say you flexin' that's a big lie, when I pull up give that bitch my line
And you know that I'ma get mine, yeah yeah
Say you flexin' that's a big lie, say you got the shit you don't got
Heard you say that shit a hundred times, yeah yeah
Say you flexin' that's a big lie, say you flexin' that's a big lie
Say you flexin' that's a big lie, say you flexin' that's a big lie

Right after that you get the wikipedia definition-- including the original German große Lüge-- explaining that the Big Lie is a propaganda technique that was coined by Hitler in 1925 for his book, Mein Kampf, the only book that Trump is known to have read and which is first wife says he keeps on his night stand. Hitlerexplained that the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." Sound familiar?

Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, a forerunner of Huckabee's daughter, "put forth a slightly different theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the expression 'big lie'. Goebbels wrote the following paragraph in an article dated 12 January 1941, 16 years after Hitler's first use of the phrase. The article, titled Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik (English: "From Churchill's Lie Factory") was published in Die Zeit ohne Beispiel.

The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

During World War II the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the OSS, a precursor to the CIA) prepared a report on Hitler's psychological profile, that included this-- "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; take advantage of every opportunity to raise a political whirlwind; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it." Who does that sound like?

Last year, Emily Dreyfuss, writing for Wired, explained how the Big Lie technique is used by people like Trump: repetition.

You only use 10 percent of your brain. Eating carrots improves your eyesight. Vitamin C cures the common cold. Crime in the United States is at an all-time high.

None of those things are true.

But the facts don't actually matter: People repeat them so often that you believe them. Welcome to the “illusory truth effect,” a glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth. Marketers and politicians are masters of manipulating this particular cognitive bias-- which perhaps you have become more familiar with lately.

President Trump is a "great businessman," he says over and over again. Some evidence suggests that might not be true. Or look at just this week, when the president signed three executive orders designed to stop what he describes-- over and over again-- as high levels of violence against law enforcement in America. Sounds important, right? But such crimes are at their lowest rates in decades, as are most violent crimes in the US. Not exactly, as the president would have it, "American carnage."

...Repetition is what makes fake news work, too, as researchers at Central Washington University pointed out in a study way back in 2012 before the term was everywhere. It's also a staple of political propaganda. It's why flacks feed politicians and CEOs sound bites that they can say over and over again. Not to go all Godwin's Law on you, but even Adolf Hitler knew about the technique. "Slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea," he wrote in Mein Kampf.

The effect works because when people attempt to assess truth they rely on two things: whether the information jibes with their understanding, and whether it feels familiar. The first condition is logical: People compare new information with what they already know to be true and consider the credibility of both sources. But researchers have found that familiarity can trump rationality-- so much so that hearing over and over again that a certain fact is wrong can have a paradoxical effect. It's so familiar that it starts to feel right.

I'm going to guess this works even more effectively as you descend the intelligence curve and get to the average Trump voter.

This week presidential historian Jon Meacham castigated Trump for calling the media an "enemy of the people," pointing out that the phrase itself and that the whole reason authoritarians use it is part of a "totalitarian" strategy. "It’s an elective kind of base management. It’s pernicious, it’s dangerous... It’s simply a Stalinist phrase, for God’s sake. It comes out of totalitarian regimes to declare that a free press is the enemy of the people."

Early yesterday morning The Atlantic published an essay by Olivia Pascall, Trump's Tweets and the Creation of 'Illusory Truth', asserting that Trump's repetition of words like "witch hunt" could have a psychological effect on Americans-- say it enough, and people might start to believe it... Trump’s consistent tweeting-- and the constant media coverage of those tweets-- makes his favorite phrases familiar to the American public. And that familiarity could be key to making his claims seem plausible, even believable."

Every time a Trump tweet calling the investigation a “witch hunt” flashes up on people’s Twitter feeds or television screens-- regardless of the context-- it’s becoming more and more familiar to them. They’re becoming increasingly fluent in the language of Trump’s claimed innocence. Even if they don’t think Mueller’s investigation is a rigged witch hunt, they are becoming more and more familiar with the idea that it could be.

... [T]he way to combat this effect would be for people to stop responding directly to the president’s charges. “It’s actually very ineffective to say, ‘Oh, this isn’t a witch hunt,’ because what you’re doing is reinforcing the ‘witch hunt’ frame,” he says. “You can’t just get people to stop believing something by contradicting it.” [A more effective response is] creating a positive, alternative story, such as “Mueller’s investigation is aimed at safeguarding America’s elections.” But that’s not always a natural position for the president’s opponents, or the media, to take. What effect all of this repeated language could have on public opinion of the investigation itself is unclear. It probably won’t turn public opinion in the president’s favor anytime soon, but it might mean that people take the Russia investigation less seriously-- the most recent Suffolk poll is already indicating that it’s a relatively unimportant issue for voters in the midterms. It’s almost certainly succeeding in framing the debate around whether it’s a witch hunt. And maybe, for the president’s purposes, that’s enough.

Yesterday everyone was talking about Susan Glasser's New Yorker piece about Trump lying more... and purposefully. "In his first year as President," she wrote, "Trump made 2,140 false claims, according to The Post. In just the last six months, he has nearly doubled that total to 4,229. In June and July, he averaged sixteen false claims a day. On July 5th, The Post found what appears to be Trump’s most untruthful day yet: seventy-six per cent of the ninety-eight factual assertions he made in a campaign-style rally in Great Falls, Montana, were 'false, misleading or unsupported by evidence.'" The Post fact-checkers never refer to his lies as "lies," although their chief, Glenn Kessler pointed out that Señor T "has a habit of repeating the same falsehoods over and over again, especially as they concern his core political causes, such as trade or immigration or getting European allies to contribute more to NATO."

History books will likely declare the last few months a turning point in the Trump Presidency, and Kessler’s laborious work gives us metrics that confirm what is becoming more and more apparent: the recent wave of misstatements is both a reflection of Trump’s increasingly unbound Presidency and a signal attribute of it. The upsurge provides empirical evidence that Trump, in recent months, has felt more confident running his White House as he pleases, keeping his own counsel, and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. The fact that Trump, while historically unpopular with the American public as a whole, has retained the loyalty of more than eighty per cent of Republicans-- the group at which his lies seem to be aimed-- means we are in for much more, as a midterm election approaches that may determine whether Trump is impeached by a newly Democratic Congress. At this point, the falsehoods are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the “Make America Great Again” slogan. The untruths, Kessler told me, are Trump’s political “secret sauce.”

...Other metrics make clear the significant changes in Trump’s approach to the Presidency in recent months, as he has become more confident, less willing to tolerate advisers who challenge him, and increasingly obsessed with the threats to his Presidency posed by the ongoing special-counsel investigation. One is the epic turnover rate of Trump’s White House staff, which as of June already stood at the unprecedented level of sixty-one per cent among the President’s top advisers.

...The previous gold standard in Presidential lying was, of course, Richard Nixon. Barry Goldwater, the Republican Presidential nominee four years before Nixon won the White House in 1968, famously called Nixon “the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life.” Writing in his memoirs, Goldwater observed that Nixon “lied to his wife, his family, his friends, longtime colleagues in the U.S. Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people, and the world.”

There have been comparisons between Nixon and Trump since Trump first entered office, but these, too, have escalated in recent months as the President has been shadowed by the threat of the ongoing special-counsel investigation into the electronic break-in of the Democratic National Committee (another eerie Watergate echo) and whether Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. Trump’s obsession with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, also comes with metrics: he has called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt” on Twitter more than twenty-one times a month on average this spring and summer, compared with an average of just three times a month in the previous nine months.

A little entertainment?

The Big Marco Rubio Tax Policy Lie That's Leading To The End Of Reince Priebus' RNC Chairmanship

We started the day off with a discussion of the latest criminal billionaire, Paul Singer, to join Team Marco in the rush to capture the White House. Since then I've had a slew of e-mails complaining that there was no explanation of the Rubio lies about his economic agenda. I can't believe I have to delve into the Rubio cesspool again so soon but... here goes. In fact, let's start with one of the few right-wing writers worth reading, Byron York at the WashingtonExaminer.com website. York's been around right-wing circles long enough to know when a low-life like Rubio is lying his ass off to protect himself. He took a closer look at John Harwood's much maligned question to Rubio on Rubio's tax plan, the question that started all the fuss about the moderators. Remember, Breitbart was just one of a multitude of right-wing propaganda sites that insisted that "Harwood was caught outright lying in a loaded question to Sen. Marco Rubio." But that isn't remotely true. Harwood was being absolutely above board and it was, of course, Rubio who was twisting the truth into an unrecognizable form, as he often does. York:

The critics contend Harwood lied when he said to Rubio that the Tax Foundation "scored your tax plan and concluded that you give nearly twice as much of a gain in after-tax income to the top 1 percent as to people in the middle of the income scale."

Rubio denied it. "You're wrong," he told Harwood. "In fact, the largest after-tax gain is for the people at the lower end of the tax spectrum under my plan. And there's a bunch of things my tax plan does to help them."

You can see the full exchange below, but that is the crux of the issue. "Harwood accused Rubio of offering a tax plan that was heavily tilted towards the rich," the Federalist's Sean Davis wrote. "When Rubio corrected him and said that no, lower-income taxpayers receive a higher percentage of the plan's benefits than rich taxpayers, Harwood repeatedly argued with him…Guess what? Harwood got his facts wrong. Very wrong. Embarrassingly wrong."

Actually, Harwood's assertion-- that the Tax Foundation estimates that Rubio's tax plan would "give nearly twice as much of a gain in after-tax income to the top 1 percent as to the people in the middle of the income scale"-- was correct. The data on which both question and answer were based, is this, from the Tax Foundation:

It appears both Harwood and Rubio were using figures from the dynamic side of the table. Under those estimates, Americans in the top 1 percent would see a 27.9 percent increase in their after-tax income. The middle income brackets would see much less: a 17.2 percent increase for the 30%-40% decile of income, a 15.7 percent increase for the 40%-50% decile, a 15.3 percent increase for the 50%-60% decile, a 15.0 percent increase for the 60%-70% decile. Combine those groups into a broad middle, and the average increase is 15.8 percent. Just include the groups smack in the middle, and the average is a bit lower.

So: an average increase of 15.8 percent for the middle versus an increase of 27.9 percent for the top. The only thing to quibble with is Harwood's assertion that 27.9 percent is "nearly twice" 15.8 percent. The critics don't accept that characterization, but it seems likely that for many people, it's close enough. Harwood could have avoided the problem by saying "much larger" instead of "nearly twice," but the question as he posed it was hardly a lie.

By the way, if one looks at the Tax Foundation's static estimates, Harwood's question is not only accurate but understated. For example, the after-tax income gain of the top 1 percent is more than six times that of the 50%-60% decile.

Part of the controversy might owe to the way Rubio quite skillfully changed the premise of the question. Harwood asked about the contrast between the highest income group and middle income groups. Rubio answered by comparing gains in the highest income group with the lowest income groups. And indeed, the Tax Foundation estimates that the very lowest decile would see a 55.9 percent increase in after-tax income, compared to the 27.9 percent for the top 1 percent. So Rubio was right when he said that "the largest after-tax gain is for the people at the lower end of the tax spectrum under my plan."

But of course, that is not what Harwood asked. It would have been interesting to see Rubio address his decision to structure the plan in a way that would benefit top and bottom most, while awarding relatively lower benefits to the middle. But that's not what happened.

Below is the entire exchange between Harwood and Rubio.

HARWOOD: Senator Rubio, 30 seconds to you. The Tax Foundation, which was alluded to earlier, scored your tax plan and concluded that you give nearly twice as much of a gain in after-tax income to the top 1 percent as to people in the middle of the income scale. Since you're the champion of Americans living paycheck-to- paycheck, don't you have that backward?

RUBIO: No, that's-- you're wrong. In fact, the largest after-tax gains is for the people at the lower end of the tax spectrum under my plan. And there's a bunch of things my tax plan does to help them. Number one, you have people in this country that...

HARWOOD: The Tax Foundation-- just to be clear, they said the...

RUBIO: ...you wrote a story on it, and you had to go back and correct it.

HARWOOD: No, I did not.

RUBIO: You did. No, you did.

HARWOOD: Senator, the Tax Foundation said after-tax income for the top 1 percent under your plan would go up 27.9 percent.

RUBIO: Well, you're talking about-- yeah.

HARWOOD: And people in the middle of the income spectrum, about 15 percent.

RUBIO: Yeah, but that-- because the math is, if you-- 5 percent of a million is a lot more than 5 percent of a thousand. So yeah, someone who makes more money-- numerically, it's gonna be higher. But the greatest gains, percentage-wise, for people, are gonna be at the lower end of our plan, and here's why: because in addition to a general personal exemption, we are increasing the per-child tax credit for working families.

We are lowering taxes on small business. You know, a lot of business activity in America is conducted like the guy that does my dry cleaning. He's an S corporation. He pays on his personal rate, and he is paying higher than the big dry-cleaning chain down the street, because he's paying at his personal rate.

Under my plan, no business, big or small, will pay more than 25 percent flat rate on their business income. That is a dramatic tax decrease for hard-working people who run their own businesses.

The other thing I'd like to make about our plan, one more point, it is the most pro growth tax plan that I can imagine because it doesn't tax investments at all. You know why? Because the more you tax something, the less of it you get. I want to be in-- I want America to be the best in the world for people.

HARWOOD: Senator, thank you.

For which Harwood was crucified by the right-wing media trying desperately to make sure Rubio is the GOP nominee-- and that the sense of right-wing victimization always reigns supreme:



Friday, Jonathan Chait asked simply, what should we believe: Marco Rubio or math in his "eerie reprise of George W. Bush’s 2000 strategy, which uses a combination of personal authenticity, small-bore policy concessions, and rhetorical misdirection to portray his conventionally Republican, supply-side policy agenda as a refreshingly moderate departure from party orthodoxy," although (and of course) "the brunt of Rubio’s fiscal pressure would come to bear on the minority of the federal budget that goes directly to the poor."

This is how Republican budget logic works in general. When you add up fanatical opposition to higher revenue, a political need to protect current retirees and a commitment to higher defense spending, you wind up either blowing up the budget deficit or inflicting massive harm on the poor. There are different ways to handle that problem. One of them is the Paul Ryan–circa-2011 plan of just proposing enormous cuts in anti-poverty programs. Another is the Paul Ryan–circa-2014-to-the-present plan of keeping those cuts in the budget but insisting they’re not your actual ideas.


Then you have the Rubio-Dubya method. The downside of this plan is that you don’t get Ryan-esque praise as a serious budget hawk who’s willing to look America square in the eyeball and tell us hard truths. But liberating yourself from any pretense to obeying the laws of arithmetic provides certain upsides that seem profitable for Rubio. You can give your party’s financial base the lucrative policy substance it craves, and craft your public message to the needs of the general election, by talking up your modest background. Bush in 2000 made a habit of taking photo opportunities with African-Americans all the time, a smart gambit that contributed to his image as a centrist. Rubio’s personal identity gives him a leg up in this regard. The only flaw in the plan is the possibility that reporters will focus on the substance of your agenda instead of the “signals” you send with your political messaging. If David Brooks is any indication, Rubio doesn’t have much to worry about.

And on that other little matter that came up during the debate, about Rubio's tendency to play fast and loose with money, Politifact looked into his well-rehearsed and self-righteous denials of financial impropriety and came to the conclusion that Rubio's full of crap:

Our ruling

Rubio said the premise of questions about his financial skills are "discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents."

He was responding to examples Quick gave when asking if he was prepared to oversee the nation’s economy as president. She listed troubles Rubio had experienced with campaign bookkeeping, foreclosure proceedings and liquidating an IRA at severe tax penalties.

All of these events happened and have been well-documented. It’s not accurate for Rubio to refer to the issues as "discredited," whether his opponents have used them to attack him or not. Quick was not making things up nor shading the facts.

We rate Rubio’s statement False.

Alan Grayson Guest Post: Conversion Therapy, Russian Style

We extended the Fleetwood Mac/Ted Lieu contest we're doing for 24 hours at the request of Alan Grayson. He has something to say about why he's backing Ted Lieu for Congress and why the two of them will be campaigning for Ted in CA-33 on September 19 and 20. So the contest is over today at 12 noon (PT). Here's where you go to be part of it. And below is the message Congressman Grayson sent out to his supporters last night. "Pray the Gay Away"? he asked. And he answered: "No."

Right-wing cranks and fools haven't come up with a "cure" yet for stupidity, greed, paranoia, bigotry, hypocrisy or even laziness. But they do think that they've come up with a "cure" for something that requires no cure: homosexuality. It's called "conversion therapy," and here's how it "works":

In one form of conversion therapy, they attach live electrodes to your genitalia, they start showing you gay porn, and then they turn on the juice.

In another form of conversion therapy, they feed you an emetic, they turn on that gay porn (is it OK to use the phrase "turn on" here?), and then they wait until the emetic takes hold, and you puke all over the floor.

Here's another method: prayer. Or as they call it, "spiritual intervention." They try to pray the gay away. The Religious Right has set up "counseling clinics" for gays, or rather against gays, that purport to "cure" homosexuality.

Who would be so stupid and cruel as to think that conversion therapy is a good idea? Or, more specifically, which spouse of which Member of Congress would be? That would be Rep. Michele Bachmann's husband Marcus. Marcus Bachmann who runs a Christian counseling clinic in Minnesota that indulges in conversion therapy.

And the U.S. of A. is not the only land in which you find such things. If you're curious, you can look up the case of Pitcherskaia v. Immigration and Naturualization Service, 118 F.3d 641 (9th Cir. 1997), and see how it's done in Mother Russia. There, gay students are beaten up-- not only by other students, but also by the school principals. Gay students are incarcerated in mental institutions, and they are "treated" with shock therapy. When released, they are required to continue such "treatment" at outpatient clinics. Other attempted "cures" include hypnosis and sedatives. All of this came to light when Ms. Pitcherskaia, a lesbian, sought political refuge in the United States. Fortunately for her, she was not required to undergo "conversion therapy" with Marcus Bachmann as a condition of entry.

The American Psychiatric Association has unequivocally condemned any psychiatric "treatment" based on the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder. The Attorney General has written that "a growing scientific consensus accepts that sexual orientation is a characteristic that is immutable." The World Health Organization has said that "sexual orientation by itself is not to be regarded as a disorder." And yet in the United States, gay teenagers have been held in isolation for months, and forced to attend this "conversion therapy."

Except in California. Thanks to Ted Lieu.

In 2012, State Senator Ted Lieu wrote a bill to prohibit conversation therapy for minors in California. That bill passed in the California Legislature, and was signed into law. Ted Lieu made California the first state to ban conversion therapy for minors, but hopefully not the last. That was a very important accomplishment.

Now Ted Lieu is running for Congress, and he needs your help. He is seeking the seat of Rep. Henry Waxman. Henry has served for 40 years in Congress, and yet he kept his seat last time with only 54% of the vote. It's a difficult district, it's a close race, and we need Ted Lieu in Congress.

And to give you an extra little nudge, Blue America PAC has extended its drawing for Ted Lieu contributors through noon tomorrow. One lucky contributor to Ted Lieu's campaign will receive the RIAA-certified Quadruple Platinum Award for Fleetwood Mac's album The Dance.

So I'm asking you to click here, and show your support for Ted Lieu. He had the guts to take on the Religious Right when it was the Religious Wrong, and he rescued countless children from the bigoted lie that their sexual identity was a "disease" that demanded a quack "cure." Ted Lieu deserves our support.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson

Fleetwood Mac is part of the rich sound of CA-33. Several of the members live there and their music is embedded into the culture and the fabric of life there. Enjoy these two live versions (below and up top) from the recording of The Dance and please consider joining Congressman Grayson, Henry Waxman and Blue America in making sure Ted Lieu is the next congressman from the district. You can see the platinum award plaque and contribute to Ted's campaign right here.

Why Is Blue America Making Such A Fuss About Ted Lieu's Race?

As you probably know by now, Blue America is giving away an opportunity to own a rare and collectible RIAA-certified Fleetwood Mac quadruple platinum award. Anyone who contributes to Ted Lieu's campaign on this page, before Wednesday at noon, will be among those who have a chance to be chosen, randomly, to get this thank you gift from Blue America. When people tell us that Ted is a shoe-in, we point out that Sheldon Adelson is making an unprecedented financial push to win this seat for one of his protégés. Last time a right-wing Republican dumped a massive amount of cash into this district, beloved, 20-term incumbent Henry Waxman, won anyway-- but with great difficultly… and only barely. Republican plutocrat Bill Bloomfield spent $7,567,080 of his own money and Waxman won 171,860 (54%) to 146,660 (46%)-- and that was with President Obama on the ticket, bringing in 210,010 votes (61%) against Romney. That's what a billionaire can do with a $7,567,080 check to himself. Adelson and his network are funneling massive funds into the Republican in CA-33 now-- and Ted, although a highly accomplished and admired state senator for most of the area, isn't nearly as well known as Waxman. The danger is clear and present and why we are asking you to help Ted-- and why Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti doing the same.

Tonight Mayor Garcetti is hosting an event for Ted at 6:30 PM and anyone who contributes at least $250 to Ted's campaign on our Fleetwood Mac page will be on the guest list for that as well. The mayor backed him during the primary, telling voters that "Ted is not only the most qualified candidate, but the type of person we need in Washington-- intelligent, ethical and relentless as a representative for our community. He has shown tremendous leadership on important issues of our time including climate change, healthcare and protecting victims of domestic violence. I am confident that Ted Lieu is the best candidate to strengthen the middle class, create more jobs and help workers save for retirement."

And it helps that Waxman is campaigning for him. He told voters in the district that Ted Lieu is his choice to represent the district in Congress. "I endorse Ted Lieu because he will always work tirelessly to strengthen the middle class, make higher education more affordable, help workers save for retirement, and protect our privacy from intrusive NSA surveillance." Ted is very aware of the Waxman legacy and how important it is to the voters in CA-33. This morning he gave us this statement about his own feelings about Henry Waxman and what it will take to carry on that legacy.

Congressmember Henry Waxman is a remarkable American whose four decades of public service have shaped the course of our country. From pushing through the Clean Air Act Amendments-- one of the strongest environmental laws in the world-- to nutrition labeling, tobacco reform, the Ryan White CARE Act, the Affordable Care Act, and numerous other significant laws, Congressmember Waxman has improved the lives of generations of Americans. But Congressmember Waxman has acknowledged there is one issue he did not finish working on: climate change.

I believe climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Ocean levels are rising, we are experiencing more extreme weather events, and there is more risk of droughts. Left unchecked, climate change will turn from an inconvenience to a full scale disaster that affects our food and water supply. In other words, conditions that will kill people on a large scale and cause violent conflicts.

That is why I have repeatedly championed legislation to tackle climate change. Last year, as a result of a California law I authored, two rounds of funding totaling over $3 million have been awarded to cities and nonprofit organizations to address climate change. I was also a coauthor of AB 32, California’s landmark law that mandated greenhouse gas reductions by 2020.

Two years ago I authored a bill to take cap and trade funds and direct a portion to natural resources conservation. Wouldn’t it be great if we could invent a machine that sucks carbon out of the air? Well guess what, nature already has that technology: it’s called a tree. If we could simply preserve or even expand our natural resources-- including forest land-- we would help mitigate climate change.

As a Member of Congress, I would focus on climate change as one of my highest priorities. There are many difficult challenges we face in our country. But only one issue threatens the existence of our species.

One of my first acts will be to reintroduce the Waxman-Markey bill, which puts in place a nationwide cap and trade system and imposes a 20% renewable portfolio standard. To seriously address climate change, we need America to do what California has done. And then we need America to get the world to do what California has done. This is how we and our children will survive.

A Fleetwood Mac Song Helped Elect Bill Clinton President-- Can A Fleetwood Mac Platinum Award Help Elect Ted Lieu To Congress?

Friday was the last day of the 2014 session of the California legislature-- and the last day as a state legislator for Senator Ted Lieu of Los Angeles County. Lieu, the progressive Democrat running, with Henry Waxman's endorsement, for Waxman's congressional seat, passed one last piece of legislation Thursday night-- a directive he wrote to the state government of California to not cooperate with any unconstitutional attempts at domestic spying by the NSA, CIA or any other government operations legally prohibited from spying on American citizens.

What Blue America finds so great about campaigning for Ted is that you don't have to rely on telling people about campaign promises; all you have to do is tell them about what he has already accomplished. From holding shady mortgage bankers accountable to writing the first bill to outlaw so-called "gay conversion therapy," Ted has always been on the cutting edge of progressive legislation in California. And it's not just about a voting record… it's about a record of courage, persistence and leadership. When Wall Street paid off conservative corporate Democrat Gray Davis to veto Ted's bill to keep mortgage banksters from fraudulent action against California home-buyers, Ted wait until Californians recalled Davis and replaced him with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger-- who did sign Ted's bill!



This week, the San Jose Mercury News, which first broke the news of children in foster care being over-drugged, thanked Ted Lieu for "riding to the rescue." He also rode to the rescue last month when he led efforts to pass legislation to target child sex traffickers-- legislation that passed unanimously in the state Senate.

Ted should be a shoe-in for the CA-33 congressional seat. But the Republican running against him is a protégé of Las Vegas gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson and Adelson and his network are pouring unheard of sums into the district to try to slip in a conservative Republcian that doesn't share the strong progressive values of the district. You can contribute to Ted's campaign on this special page that will be open for one week. One week because it's a Ted Lieu/Fleetwood Mac page. Fleetwood Mac?

Fleetwood Mac is an iconic band that hails from Ted's district. When I was president of Reprise Records, I went to see the band record The Dance and prayed Warner Bros wouldn't see the potential and let Reprise release the album instead. Eureka-- my prayers were answered! The Dance debuted at #1 and sold over 5 million copies in the U.S. alone. It did even better overseas.

This week Blue America is going to give one lucky, randomly-selected Ted Lieu donor-- regardless of how big or small the contribution is-- a very rare and very collectible quadruple platinum award for that album, the 5th biggest-selling live album in music history. The gorgeous, RIAA-certified custom plaque was never available to a store and was given to me for my (pretty inconsequential) role in making it a success. It hung in my Reprise office until I retired and I donated it to Blue America. In many ways Fleetwood Mac's sound is an integral part of the Southern California lifestyle and perfect for Ted's district, where several of the band members live.

This is two-fer-- helping a proven progressive champion get into Congress and… getting a chance to win the Fleetwood Mac platinum award. Just contribute to Ted's campaign on this ActBlue page this week and you have as much a chance as anyone else who contributes. And, if you're a big Fleetwood Mac fan but can't make contribution, send us a postcard-- asap-- and tell us you're rooting for Ted and want the plaque. (Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.) Meanwhile… this is from the 1997 live show at the Warner Bros lot in Burbank that became The Dance. Enjoy!