Will The Real Matt Gaetz Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up

Which Republican said this last week in a debate about prohibiting Trump to invade Iran without prior approval from Congress? "If my war-hungry colleagues, some of whom have already suggested we invade Venezuela and North Korea and probably a few other countries before lunchtime tomorrow; if they’re so certain of their case against Iran, let them bring their authorization to use military force against Iran to this very floor. Let them make the case to Congress and the American people."

Justin Amash would be a good guess, but he had already quit to GOP and was already an independent. Amash voted for the amendment, as did 27 Republicans and the amendment carried, 251 to 170. (7 Trump-Democrats--Henry Cuellar, Josh Gottheimer, Stephen Lynch, Stephanie Murphy, Tom O'Halleran, Kathleen Rice and Jefferson Van Drew-- crossed the aisle in the other direction and voted to make sure Trump could start bombing whenever he wanted to. These 7 Democrats should be kicked out of the party and defeated at the ballot box, although it's worth noting that Cheri Bustos and Nancy Pelosi are working furiously to undercut the 3 women who are primarying Cuellar, Lynch and O'Halleran.)

The Republican co-sponsor of the amendment-- and the one chastising "my war-hungry colleagues"-- was none other than Matt Gaetz, the Florida Panhandle congressman who Mother Jones referred to as Trump's favorite congressman and his most sycophantic fanboy yesterday. And I admit it, we've called him worse. The Mother Jones piece wasn't about Gaetz infuriating Trump; it was about how similar their paths to government were. Stephanie Mencimer reported that Trump has lavished praise on Gaetz:

• "President Trump says Rep. Gaetz is 'handsome, going places... fantastic' in Fort Meyers, Florida rally."
• "President Trump holds rally in Pensacola, FL with Matt Gaetz."
• President Trump calls Rep. Gaetz 'an absolute warrior' in live Fox News interview."
• "President Trump endorses Gaetz in the Republican primary, calling him 'one of the finest and most talented people in Congress'."

Trump isn't very popular in south Florida, but up in the Panhandle... he's huge. In 2016 he won Gaetz's district 67.5% to 28.2%, Trump's best performance anywhere in Florida. Last year Gaetz was reelected with virtually the same margin-- 216,189 (67.1%) to 106,199 (32.9%) for Democrat Jennifer Zimmerman.

Mencimer wrote that the 37 year old Gaetz "has earned a reputation for becoming one of the party’s highest-profile members by cheerleading for the president and emulating his public bullying and trolling. Gaetz seems to spend more time on Fox News than in congressional committee rooms, and when he does legislate, it’s sometimes for show. After Trump mocked the House Intelligence Committee chair, one of his chief antagonists, as “little pencil-­neck Adam Schiff,” Gaetz went on Tucker Carlson’s show to announce a resolution to boot the California Democrat off the committee. Gaetz called it the Preventing Extreme Negli­gence with Classified Information Licenses Act, or PENCIL Act."

"Matt Gaetz is living proof that Veep was less parody and more prophecy," says Steve Schmidt, a veteran Republican political strategist and Trump critic. "To some degree, he's a character in the grandest reality show of all. He exists at the hinge of reality and alternative reality."

Gaetz is often described as Trump's protégé, someone who’s become a Fox News staple not just by sucking up to the president but by trying to out-Trump Trump with insults hurled at Democrats and anyone else with the temerity to challenge the president. But Gaetz hasn't simply been copying the president; he was cultivating a Trumplike persona long before anyone considered the possibility of a President Trump. And the two men share more than just a love of playground taunts. Gaetz's political ascent was also fueled by a rich father who paved his way, and a series uf unorthodox financial maneuvers.

The meanest member of Congress hails from a town called Niceville, a sleepy enclave of about 15,000 nestled on Choctawhatchee Bay, just off the Gulf of Mexico. When Gaetz was growing up, it was 90 percent white, solidly middle class and best known for hosting the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival-- in honor of the plentiful local fish, not the hairdo. The Gaetzes owned a second home in the nearby town of Seaside, where The Truman Show was filmed. Gaetz, who devoted his career to getting on television, spent much of his childhood in a house made famous by a character trying to get off TV.

The Gaetzes were conservative and religious, as was the surrounding community. (Two abortion doctors were murdered in the area during Gaetz's childhood.) Matt's mom suffered life-threatening complications while pregnant with his younger sister but opted not to have an abortion and was partially paralyzed as a result. Matt Gaetz has said her decision influenced his anti-abortion positions.

But if anyone is responsible for Gaetz's rise to political fame, it's his dad, whose deep pockets and even deeper connections in Florida politics are one reason Matt is known in his district as Baby Gaetz. "Matt would be an assistant manager at Walmart if it weren't for his father," says Steven Specht, a Democrat who ran against Gaetz for Congress in 2016.

Mencimer explained how he is a 3rd generation politician and how he honed his trolling skills early to help his father's career. His father was apparently popular and served briefly as state Senate president. Although Gaetz campaigned as an anti-healthcare fanatic, it was his father's hospice company (infamous for defrauding Medicare)-- and it's sale for $400 million-- that paid the bills.

Matt graduated from William and Mary Law School in 2007 and embarked on a small-town law career and in a race to collect drunk driving citations, during which time he earned a reputation as an entitled ne'er-do-well. Republicans are attracted to that kind of entitlement and when state House Speaker Ray Sansom was forced out of office for corruption, Matt was elected to his seat. All his dad's political cronies and donors contributed to Matt's campaign and he raised $480,000, five times more than any of his rivals. Although he only made $29,000 in 2010 as a lawyer, he managed to self-fund $100,000 in last minute (2 weeks) campaign expenses, more than any of his rivals spent in total.

He was an aggressive far right extremist in the legislature-- and made a name for himself as a nasty troll, He also learned how to use the military to advance his political career without actually having to enlist.

In 2016, when Jeff Miller, the local congressman decided to retire, Gaetz, self-funding with mysterious money again, ran and won. And it didn't hurt to have a superPAC funded by his father and his father's connections, throw half a million dollars into the race. He won and he continued drooling away, nearly winding upon real trouble for threatening Michael Cohen on Twitter. As Mencimer pointed out, "virtually everything Gaetz has done in Congress has been designed for maximum publicity. The first bill he ever introduced was a one-sentence measure disbanding the Environmental Protection Agency."

I reached out to Gaetz, who has never responded to any e-mails. I asked him one question (albeit with a few parts: "Mother Jones seems to have set out to paint a very negative picture of you as a Trump lackey-- just one week after you and Ro Khanna passed an historic war powers amendment that the White House probably isn't thrilled with. It appears that you brought over two dozen Republicans along with you-- not counting Justin Amash. Mother Jones asserts that you've been an unserious troll and points to your first bill-- to abolish the EPA in one sentence-- as a way of summing you up legislatively. And yet this amendment you and Ro passed is, arguably, the most important bipartisan legislation passed this year. Was there a change in attitude on your part? What made someone sometimes called 'the most right-wing member of Congress' work on an amendment with someone who is sometimes called 'the most left-wing member of Congress?' Has the White House communicated with you about the amendment? And... no luck. He didn't respond.

Is Matt Gaetz Presidential Timber? Not As Much As The Starbucks Guy

BetOnline.ag was established in 2004 and is now one of the largest online sportsbooks in the world. Sports is there thing but they take bets on politics as well and report what people are actually betting on candidates at what the odds are in presidential races. As this point in the cycle their numbers jump around from day to day. The implied probability, according to bets, of each candidate becoming president after the 2020 election, last week, were, on the Republican side, 40% for Trump, 5.88% for Pence, 2.44% for Paul Ryan and 0.99% for Ivanka. (Orrin Hatch, who is too old and senile to continue on as a senator and is retiring has a 1.96% probability, slightly higher than John Kasich's 1.49%.) Completely silly (beside Ivanka):

• Rand Paul- 0.99%
• Marco Rubio- 0.79%
• Ted Cruz- 0.79%
• Kanye West- 0.66%
• Steve Bannon- 0.66%

Among Democrats, the numbers were basically... absurd. These are the top dozen in order of implied probability:

• Kamala Harris- 9.09%
• Bernie- 6.67%
• Joe Biden- 5.88%
• Elizabeth Warren- 4.76%
• Cory Booker- 3.85%
• Kirsten Gillibrand- 3.85%
• Bob Iger- 2.94%
• Howard Schultz- 2.94%
• Oprah Winfrey- 2.94%
• Tom Steyer- 2.94%
• Andrew Cuomo- 2.44%
• Michelle Obama- 2.44%

And even sillier: Hillary Clinton at 1.49, Leonardo DiCaprio  at 0.99%, Terry McAuliffe  at 0.99% and Bill Gates and Stephen Colbert, each at 0.66%. No Michael Avenatti on the list? Odd.

One guy not on anyone's list of likely presidents is one of Congress' very few millennials, Matt Gaetz II, a far right Trumpist from Florida's panhandle. Matt's a notorious and hypocritical closet case with a rich daddy who has underwritten his political career. Our friends at the Official Moon Base Party reminded us that the over-fed Mr. Gaetz introduced legislation to abolish the EPA. These Moon Base folks are so cynical: "After college, Gaetz went to work at as an attorney for Keefe, Anchors, and Gordon.  He spent most of this time driving badly. At the age of 32, Matt had 16 traffic tickets, including driving 60 mph in a 35 mph zone on Christmas Day.  In 2008, Gaetz was arrested for driving his dad’s BMW while intoxicated and refusing a breathalyzer test. He was arrested, his licensed was revoked, and he served a three month jail sentence. Just kidding! His arresting officer was forced to resign, video tape of his arrest and detainment were destroyed, and the case was dropped."

Although Gaetz has two Republican opponents in the primary Tuesday, he's expected to win handily. As of August 8th's FEC reporting deadline he had spent $526,456 on the race while both Republicans had spent $160,925 combined (most of it self-funded). His likely Democratic opponent, Phil Ehr, a Republican-lite retired U.S. Navy officer, has raised $159,204 to Gaetz's $890,248.

When Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom was forced to resign from the state legislature on eye-popping corruption charges, Gaetz ran for his seat in the grotesquely Republican district, won and "immediately set to work fighting for the little guy. In 2010, he started a long battle to remove ethanol mandates on gasoline. He did not cite gasoline costs; he just seemed to think the regulation was unnecessary. In 2013, he sponsored a bill to speed up executions of inmates on death row. When faced with opposition from Democrats, Gaetz fired back saying, 'Only God can judge-- but we can sure set up the meeting.' Stone cold! He would later co-sponsor classic Republican-themed legislation like restricting abortion access, outlawing abortion unless continuing the pregnancy would kill the mother, and allowing guns on college campuses. In 2014, he cited his previous DUI arrest for supporting a bill that would prohibit mugshots from being published online. In 2016, he sponsored a tax provision which conveniently helped a super PAC donor (donation: $25,000) with a multi-million dollar housing project. He pushed for less regulations on online fantasy sports-related gambling in Florida that had nothing to do with $10,000 in donations from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association... Former NRA president and current NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer called Gaetz 'one of the most pro-gun members to have ever served in the Florida Legislature.' Gaetz believes the right to openly carry a gun is 'granted not by government but by God.'"

In 2016, when US Representative Jeff Miller decided not to run for reelection, Gaetz decided it was time to play in the big leagues. He stepped down from running two political action committees (PACs), and three days later he announced he would run for Miller’s seat.  Three months later, those two PACs gave all of their funds to a super PAC supporting Gaetz’s election bid. It was as hard-fought primary against an assortment of Republican candidates including the one who bullied another candidate over voicemail, the one who lied about his place of residence, and that one who raffled off an AR-15 for Facebook likes. Gaetz won the primarily and then easily won the general election in the largely Republican district.

Now Gaetz is in the national spotlight. The freshman legislator immediately set to work crafting his legislative magnum opus. He worked tirelessly for days to craft a bill that reads “The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018.” That is all of it. That is the full bill. Citing statistics from conservative think-tanks, Gaetz charges that the EPA is too burdensome for small business and must be completely eliminated. Instead, Gaetz argues that each state should handle its own environmental regulations. This move is actually better in the long run and has absolutely nothing to do with campaign contributions from “family friends” Harness Oil & Ga, Inc ($100,000), Smith Energy ($10,800), Gulf Power ($3,000), NextEra Energy ($6,000), Southern Company ($8,750), or Koch Industries ($5,000). This move by Gaetz has angered many of his very own constituents given that they 1) live in Florida where people put a high value on local beaches and coastal waters, 2) personally saw the damage from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and 3) already have the lowest quality drinking water in the United States (this ranking is contested by the local water utility despite recent setbacks).

But Gaetz is just getting warmed up! He has co-sponsored bills to abolish the Department of Education, pull America out of the United Nations, repeal the death tax (which effects about 0.2% of the richest Americans), terminate the current tax code and replace it with a Fair Tax system, punish any country that does not take back immigrants deported from our country, and a bunch of other amazing ideas. He has voted for bills that remove regulations on teacher certification programs, coal mining operations near streams and groundwater, energy companies disclosing payments to foreign governments, and even more amazing ideas. Somewhat ironically, Gaetz also co-sponsored a bill to amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to penalize any foreign offshore oil refineries for spills or other damages. Go get’em Gaetz!

...The future looks bright for this freshman legislator. He markets himself as the most conservative candidate around, and in his largely Republican district, he is likely to keep his spot for a long time. Locals seem to love the guy and are willing to bring guns to rallies to defend him from protestors.

As you probably guessed, Gaetz is a big fanboy of Donald Trump.  Despite statements that he does “not agree with President Trump on every issue,” he so far has a 100% alignment with Donald Trump’s policies and is projected to not diverge. Gaetz is paranoid of illegal immigrants and Muslim terrorists. He has opposed Obama’s sanctions on Russia, wants to end probes into the Trump administration’s connections with Russia, and is a big supporter of Jeff Sessions. When Trump had a campaign rally in Melbourne, FL, Gaetz was there to gleefully introduce him. Matt Gaetz aspires to be the Robin to Donald Trump’s Batman.

Like Trump, Gaetz spends a lot of time on social media. He regularly posts retorts against his attackers on Twitter. Gaetz has used the platform to trash talk other state representatives after they tried to get him and fellow Republicans back to work when they unconstitutionally adjourned early. Gaetz has also attacked people who refuse to stand for the national anthem by asserting that not standing is an insult to deceased baseball pitcher Jose Fernadez. And if the online, trash-talking gets too rough, his sassy sister can step in.  As of this writing, he has not updated his LinkedIn profile, but then again, who are we to judge...

Is He Gay?

We end with perhaps the most important question of all: is the district’s most eligible bachelor actually gay? There are some accusations that he leads a “reputed alternate gay life style,” but there is no actual evidence of this... Matt is 34, he is a wealthy attorney, he has never been married, and he has no kids.

...Gaetz belongs to a family of politicians, has a suspicious DUI arrest, opposes most government regulations, gets an ego-boost from attacking political opponents and dissenting constituents on Twitter, and takes money from wealthy donors and special interest groups in exchange for political favors. He is one embezzlement scandal short of a Florida politics grand slam, and folks, he is just getting started.  Expect to see a lot more Gaetz action in the coming years.

Can Trump Fan Boy Matt Gaetz Be Beaten?

The Florida Panhandle has a lot more in common with Alabama than it does with the rest of Florida. In fact, if the state could somehow talk Alabama into annexing the Panhandle, Florida would be a dependably blue state. FL-01 and FL-02 are the congressional districts that take up most of the Panhandle, the first sporting a PVI of R+22 and the second, almost as hideous at R+18. They're the two reddest districts in the state. FL-01 gave Trump 67.5% of the vote, his biggest win in the state.

In 2018, in the midst of the Blue Wave, the district reelected its extreme right incumbent, Matt Gaetz, 216,189 (67.1%) to 106,199 (32.9%) for Democrat Jennifer Zimmerman. Most people would look at a district like that and see it as hopeless. The 5 counties-- Escambia, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton and Holmes-- are all Republican bastions. The Democrats don't even have a foothold anywhere in the district. But then you don't know Commander Phil Ehr, a retired naval flight officer (and chess master).

So Gaetz is a walking freak show-- a daddy's boy, drunkard, Trump butt kisser and maybe even a murderer. So he shouldn't be allowed to run without opposition. And Ehr is giving him some real opposition. Yesterday Gaetz was on The View just before Roger Stone was sentenced. He said he thinks Trump should pardon Stone. CNN:

Despite View co-host Meghan McCain's objection that Stone was "the swampiest swamp creature," Gaetz said, "Trump has pardoned 26 people. (Former President Barack) Obama pardoned over 1,700. (Former President) Bill Clinton pardoned 459."

When asked whether pardon power should be reviewed and curbed, Gaetz argued that "if you look at the original intent of pardon power, it cannot be limited."

"I would agree that Roger Stone should be pardoned if for no other reason than that there has been a double standard in this country," he added, before listing several former Justice Department and intelligence community officials whom Trump and his supporters have accused of political bias and not having faced consequences.

Ehr, a former mainstream pre-Trump Republican, doesn't see it the same way.

"Make no mistake," he told me yesterday, "undermining justice for personal or political gain, is a threat to the very foundations of our democracy. Gaetz uses recklessness, deceit, and dishonorable conduct to hide what's really going on. Every day we remain silent our democracy weakens and those who manipulate the system for their own gain move closer to becoming permanent power brokers. We need honesty in government. Matt Gaetz does not represent the great people of Northwest Florida, and I'm prepared to lead."

I hope he's right. He released the really excellent video, Cut the Noise, [up top] yesterday. Newsweek reviewed it yesterday and noted that "Ehr contrasts his long career in the military with the career of Gaetz... who uses 'information warfare' for political advantage. 'I've spent my whole life training for moments like this,' Ehr says in the ad. 'If you spend a lifetime learning how to see through the fog of war, there's one thing you learn: one of the main tools of the enemy, it's noise. Chaos meant to hide what's actually going on.' The bulk of Ehr's Naval career was spent as a pilot, flying reconnaissance missions during several conflicts during the cold war. The video likens the behavior of Gaetz to tactics that were used by the government of the Soviet Union. 'In the cold war, we watched Russia use those tactics every day,' says Ehr. 'But I never thought I'd see the day when American leaders would use information warfare against their own people.'" If you'd like to contribute to Ehr's campaign, you can do it here. It's worth it if, for nothing else, just to drive Gaetz crazy.

AOC Should Probably Take Out A Restraining Order To Keep Republican Males From Coming Too Close

Alexandria and Goliath by Nancy Ohanian

The far right is absolutely obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. This week the neo-fascist Mercer family-- billionaire Trumpists-- has financed a billboard in Times Square smearing her in another GOP attempt to tarnish her reputation. The Washington Examiner, Hot Air, RedState, The Blaze, Instapundit and half a dozen other top extremist websites ran a confused, cockamamie story about AOC's boyfriend on Wednesday. A Washington Post story on which Democratic presidential candidates get the most coverage on Fox reported that "One of the networks’ favorite subjects is not a candidate at all but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is often identified by her initials, AOC. She’s received a greater density of mentions on Fox News than any likely/possible 2020 candidate besides Warren. Her popularity on Fox is in part, like Sanders, a function of the politics she espouses. She’s the face of a brand of politics with which many on Fox News disagree strongly-- and she’s a politician who pushes back forcefully against her critics on social media."

But the Miami New Times reported something far more disgusting. Many people outside of Florida had never heard of neo-fascist congressman Matt Gaetz until this week when the NY Times exposed him as one of the right-wing congressional Trumpists working to game the system to cover up Trump's criminality and treason. Wednesday, the New Times looked into a much sicker obsession of Gaetz's. Gaetz, a puffy doughboy who is nasty and bigoted, seems to be pining away for someone way out of his league: AOC. "Given the life experience and political beliefs of the Democratic U.S. representative from New York, she likely finds her Florida Republican colleague cretinous. She's a former bartender who skyrocketed to fame by making a moral and pragmatic case for democratic socialism. He is an alt-right hero who constantly says racist stuff and was only elected because his dad, Don Gaetz, was also a state lawmaker."

I do not want to know what pathetic Florida Republican Matt Gaetz is dreaming about

But these differences have not stopped Gaetz from making a stream of exceedingly weird and gross comments about "AOC" over the last few months. Said quotes include repeated statements that he finds her "attractive."  He's called her "adorable." And in a reference to the dating app Tinder, he even creepily told TMZ this month that he'd "swipe right" on the idea of working across the aisle with her.

Gaetz appears to be on some sort of weird, sustained, and sexist media campaign to capitalize on Ocasio-Cortez's skyrocketing popularity. In a Daily Caller interview last Thursday in which he alternated between insulting her intelligence and complimenting her, Gaetz once again felt the need to comment on Ocasio-Cortez's looks. He referred to her as an "attractive lady from Queens."

His unsolicited thirst is extremely weird. In his repeated interviews about AOC, he condescendingly calls her ideas dumb and "dangerous for the country." He also says she is good-looking and begs her to work with him. And he's made similar statements in various media outlets despite the fact she has not publicly replied to any of his advances.

...Ocasio-Cortez has broken Republican brains since winning election last year. Most right-leaning pundits simply cannot stop posting about her-- and then denying they cannot stop posting about her. (See: Shapiro, Benjamin.) She refuses to back down or concede anything to right-wing trolls-- this seems to drive her opponents insane since they're used to browbeating milquetoast liberals afraid to have convictions about anything.

Republican pundits sure feel entitled to demand things from the congresswoman. They keep insisting that Ocasio-Cortez "debate them"-- which she astutely likens to a political form of catcalling to which she has no obligation to respond.

Laura Bassett, a HuffPost reporter, outlined last month what some have called "AOC Derangement Syndrome." It's an affliction that mostly impacts Republican males who can't handle the feelings of confusion, fear, attraction, and anger they feel when they see a smart, capable, young woman who doesn't exist to please them.

"Conservative men are confused at being drawn to this bright rising star in the Democratic Party while loathing everything she stands for," Bassett wrote. She continued:

That’s why conservatives want and need to undercut her influence. And the most time-tested way to undermine a woman’s power is to sexualize her, to make her an object instead of an agent. A 2013 study by the Women’s Media Center found that merely discussing a female candidate’s appearance has a negative effect on her support from voters.

“The moment at which you turn someone into a sex object, you put yourself in a position of authority over them, which is why sexual harassment is classified as being a form of gender discrimination in the workplace,” [gender and politics professor Caroline] Heldman said. “They are the object who exists for you, and you are validating their worth.”

Or, as former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer Jess McIntosh put it: “Defining a woman’s value by whether or not men want to have sex with her is the oldest trick in the patriarchy. Either way, she’s diminished.” 

Also, it's genuinely weird to see Gaetz be so friendly to someone whose opinions are so diametrically opposed to his own. There is seemingly no Democrat Gaetz is unwilling to smear. He spends most of his days cynically defending whatever inane half-thought trickles out of Trump's rapidly melting brain-- he recently tried to tell parents of Parkland shooting victims that Trump's border wall will do more to prevent gun violence than gun-safety laws. He also has quite a history of saying racist stuff. He has stated Haiti is a country full of "sheet metal and garbage," has repeatedly made racist jokes about Elizabeth Warren, and has spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. Elsewhere, he's appeared on InfoWars with Alex Jones and has repeatedly hung out with Holocaust denier and likely white supremacist Chuck Johnson.

Gaetz also had a hand in ginning up fake claims that Democrats were trying to  "steal" election victories from Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis-- claims that were utterly fabricated and eroded Americans' trust in democracy. (During those protests, Gaetz posted a photo with a Proud Boy wearing a shirt emblazoned with "Pepe the Frog," the racist hate meme.) In the words of Orlando Weekly, Gaetz is "a terrible person."

But as soon as Ocasio-Cortez burst onto the scene, things changed. Last year, after she won a second New York City primary that she did not even enter, Gaetz chimed in to call her accidental win "downright impressive."

Things got, ahem, weirder from there. Gaetz reportedly introduced himself to her at her inauguration.

And, at roughly the same time, a stream of articles magically materialized in multiple D.C. media outlets in which Gaetz cynically tried to co-opt her rise. He's repeatedly referred to himself as the "conservative AOC," despite sharing neither her beliefs nor her qualities. The nickname has not stuck — his ideas are generally unpopular with anyone not over age 50 — but that has not stopped Gaetz from basically begging AOC to work with him in multiple articles. He says they agree on a single issue, marijuana legalization, and wants to work with her to reform America's pot laws. He has said as much to Politico, the Daily Caller, and perhaps most bizarrely, TMZ.

“I aspire to be the conservative AOC,” Gaetz told Politico last month before adding that he "can’t dance for shit.” Conservatives attempted to troll her by posting a video of her dancing with friends while in college-- Twitter pretty much uniformly agreed that the video instead just made her seem cool and relatable.

In fact, Gaetz even referred to the video as "adorable.

When right-wing trolls began outright sexually harassing the congresswoman by sharing a fake "nude" photo and claiming it was her (it was not), Gaetz said he was upset no one bothered to sexually harass him, too:

But the most bizarre appearance came when Gaetz got "caught" by a TMZ cameraperson in D.C. The interview comes off as surreal and likely staged. Someone behind a camera asks Gaetz if he's the "conservative AOC."

"That is totally unfair," he said. "AOC is way more interesting, and attractive, and capable than I am. I am just probably a lot more conservative. I would aspire to have her game, but I don't think I have it in terms of engagement with the electorate."

The cameraman then asks if he'd like to make a "power couple" on Capitol Hill with her for marijuana reform. "That might be a little presumptuous of me, but I would certainly 'swipe right' on the opportunity to write a cannabis bill with her," he said with a smirk.

The piece even made it onto TMZ’s TV show with founder Harvey Levin-- during the segment, a TMZ host remarked that Gaetz had “slipped in” a comment about Ocasio-Cortez’s looks.

Gaetz pulled similar moves again just last week. In a three-minute interview with the hard-right Daily Caller, the Republican vacillated between condescendingly calling Ocasio-Cortez a danger to America who doesn't understand economics and, simultaneously, a brilliant politician with whom he'd like to work.

"To me, socialism doesn't look like an attractive lady from Queens who's a freshman congresswoman; it looks more like not getting toilet paper in Venezuela because there is no free-market system to acquire goods," Gaetz said. The Daily Caller did not mention that AOC's policy proposals are actually pretty different from those in place in Venezuela-- instead, the video included a shot of Ocasio-Cortez putting on mascara and riding the subway.

We Need To Get Some Millennials Into Congress-- But Good Ones

Last year, just after the general election, writing for Bloomberg, Dave Merrill and Yvette Romero explained how millennials haven't been able to crack Congress. "In 2016, millennials surpassed baby boomers as the nation's largest living generation," they wrote. "Yet for all that voting power, millennials are still woefully under-represented in Washington. Donald Trump just replaced Ronald Reagan as the oldest elected president in history, and in the new Congress, baby boomers will outnumber millennials 50 to one. About a third of millennials (age 19-35 years) aren't old enough to run for the House, since you need to be at least 25 years old to hold office. But if the 435 members of the House were apportioned to match the generational divide of everyone who meets the age requirement, millennials would hold 97 seats, about a quarter of the chamber."

But there aren't 97 millennials in the House. Today there are 5, only one of whom is a Democrat:

• Elise Stefanik (R-NY)- 33 years old
• Mike Gallagher (R-WI)- 33 years old
• Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN)- 34 years old
• Matt Gaetz (R-FL)- 35 years old
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)- 36 years old

As Merrill and Romero mentioned, Congress has an abysmal approval rating-- worse now than when they were writing last year. The most current poll I saw, from YouGov for the Economist released on Halloween, shows congressional approval among registered voters at 9% and disapproval at 60%. PPP had similar numbers last month-- 9% approval and 68% disapproval. And yet... "Congress remains a mostly static body that re-elects incumbents 95 percent of the time. This is one reason why House members are disproportionately older-- the median age is 58 years-- than the voters they represent."

That can change more rapidly in a wave year-- and there are plenty of millennials running for Congress in the current cycle. Maybe there are some young imbeciles-- like Gaetz and Hollingsworth-- running, but the ones I've been talking with are incredibly intelligent. I just realized that I keep referring to them as out-of-the-box thinkers. But they are actually in a different box than the one I'm in. I was just on the phone with 28 year old Austin Frerick of Iowa-- a really smart "big picture" guy. He seems so smart that I just really want to see him in Congress. His mind seems to work differently... and then I realized it's because he's a millennial and grew up in a much more tech-savvy environment than I ever did. When we were talking today he noted that "The perfect DCCC candidate is a good telemarketer with a bunch of rich friends. Because of that, a lot of voices aren't being heard or represented in Congress. I'm running to be one of those missing voices."

Cautionary note: Millennial as an identity group won't work, of course. One of the very worst ass-wipes in Congress is young Matt Gaetz from Florida. Today, by way of example of his worstness, he was busying himself by working to protect Trump from Putin-Gate, demanding Robert Mueller recuse himself from the investigation based on the far right uranium trope popular on Hate Talk Radio and Fox. We need more millennials in Congress but not moron-millennials like Matt Gaetz.

Last night I had dinner with another millennial candidate, Orange County's Michael Kotick, who's taking on Putin-friendly senior citizen Dana Rohrabacher. Kotick and I ate at Michael Voltaggio's new restaurant, ink.well, a very food-forward restaurant where there is literally not one dish on the menu that you would ever find on another menu. Every single thing Voltaggio serves is unique and his own invention-- and incredible. And I know that many older people find that challenging and even uncomfortable. Kotick e-mailed me this morning and the first thing he mentioned was to thank me for turning him on to, in his words, "a great new restaurant choice!" Open minds are good. And then on to business:

"I grew up," he told me, "in a new millennial generation that reinvented almost every industry over the last decade. Whether it was businesses, apps or other breakthrough innovations, new ideas and a new way of doing things were created with a core set of principles-- collaboration, inclusion, and mutual respect. The last frontier that remains relatively untouched by this generation is government."

Last month, Kotick penned an OpEd for Bold, Millennials Will Save Our Country-- If They Opt Into Government. Quoting Ron Fournier's 2013 piece for The Atlantic he noted that "this generation 'believe[s] traditional politics and government (especially Washington) are the worst avenues to great things… They have no patience for inefficiency, stodgy institutions or the status quo.' It is for this reason that millennials have been opting out of government. We have felt effective solutions can only be made outside elected office-- in the private or nonprofit sectors where there is an open, entrepreneurial spirit. I get that. I have seen real change achieved that way. Now, at this moment, we need to bring that great promise back to government."

We are a generation raised in uncertain times. Through the 9/11 terror attacks (and the 16 years of war that have come after), we tumbled through the volatile economy of the Great Recession, searched for dwindling jobs and were burdened by staggering student loan debt. We saw our country polarized and gridlocked. All the while, our distrust in elected officials increased.

During this time, something else also was happening-- something no one mentions. Something that shows that we just have been waiting for the right time to bring our collaborative, inclusive and community-first spirit to the last frontier relatively untouched by my generation-- politics and government.

No other generation since World War II has volunteered as much as ours. According to the National Council on Citizenship, we “lead the way in volunteering” and are remarkably eager-- fiercely even-- to serve our community. We also are the most wired and connected generation ever, with such a sense of inclusion that we often view our neighbor’s problems and the globe’s challenges as our own. And, we did all of this while reinventing almost every major industry whether through new start-ups, apps or break-through innovations.

After four decades of government dominated by Baby Boomers, I believe it has never been more critical to finally bring our generational spirit of connectedness forward-- not defined by a particular political ideology, but by a collective commitment to progress. Our time is now-- 2018 will be the first election that we will be the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote.

Here is my challenge: Let us serve the greater community in a new way.

The technology that has empowered us as individuals and fueled our generation also empowers us as a group-- to band together for a greater good. Respectful collaboration, not insults and yelling. A world with tolerance-- less ideological and more welcoming for all of us to shape our future.

Connecting through pragmatic solutions and mutual respect rather than party divisions are key to facing our future in a new way. It is time for a connected age of government.

California has some mighty fine millennial candidates running for Congress this cycle-- sharp, idealistic, service-oriented... Another one is Katie Hill, the progressive Democrat in the Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Antelope Valley district still held by reactionary Republican Steve Knight. "Our representatives in Washington," Katie told us, "have failed to address the biggest problems facing our country for far too long, and it's our generation that is going to have to deal with the consequences of their inaction. We can't afford to wait any longer to address issues like ever-increasing income inequality, climate change, the rising cost of a college education, a permanent state of war in the middle east, and the staggering amount of money in politics. Our generation understands this, and we need to step up to the plate, to provide the new leadership, new ideas, and real solutions it will take for us to move forward as a country. It is clearer now than it has ever been that we need political change on a systemic level-- and the best way to do that is through a changing of the guard. It's time, and we're ready."

Another great young California candidate this cycle is Sam Jammal, running for the Orange County seat occupied by Ed Royce (unless Royce retires like so many Republicans in Congress are doing). "So much of the American Dream is at risk and has been for some time. We have a millennial generation with unprecedented student debt, the lowest home ownership rates since World War II and economy that still isn't creating middle class jobs. You can look no further on the need for millennials in office than the complete silence over the expiration of the Perkins Loan Program on September 30th or the continuing silence over the student debt crisis by both parties. This silence is largely the product of a lack of voices in Congress connected to the struggles of students and younger workers."

Also running in Orange County, in a district further south and against Mimi Walter, Kia Hamadanchy has put some thought into the role of millennials in government. "I’m not surprised that so many great millennial candidates are running for Congress," he told me yesterday. "Like many in my generation I had some of my first formative experiences in politics in 2007 and 2008 when Barack Obama was first running for President and that more than anything is what inspired me to go into public service. It also reinforced the idea that anything really is possible in our politics if we are willing to stand up and fight for it. Top to bottom the Democratic Party is in the worst shape its been since right before the Great Depression. For a long time we've been devoid of new ideas and 2017 is a great opportunity to elect young, fresh faces to Congress who who will not be afraid to push for bold policy ideas like single payer. Who better to work on issues like student debt and climate change?  More than anyone else we are the ones most impacted and we are the ones most willing to think outside the box to try and push the envelope to actually get something. I've been in the Senate and can tell you first-hand its time for a younger generation of leadership to step up to the plate. That's a big reason as to why I'm running for Congress."

Ricardo Franco is the progressive candidate running for the Central Valley seat that Devin Nunes holds. He told us that "Though Trump and I both went to Wharton, one of the biggest differences in our education is this: I and fellow millennials after me were REQUIRED to take ETHICS at Wharton. Though Trump's unethical practices are hardly new, today's GOP Tax Plan hits a new low: cutting the heart and life out of the millennial generation and middle-class to pour more money into the pockets of the ultra-rich and large corporations."

Twenty years of conservative trickle-down economic policy has left us with stock markets at all-time highs and interest rates at all-time lows. This means corporations are already flush with capital. Loopholes allow them to pay an effective tax rate of 18.5% Economic figures will suggest that the economy is doing well and growing with strong GDP figures and low unemployment.

However, those numbers don't show you the real struggle millennials are facing: underemployment. Millennials have been thrust into a working world, drowning in student debt, not being able to save enough money to buy a house, struggling to find affordable healthcare, and not being able to save for retirement. Now, the GOP has the audacity to eliminate state and local tax deductions from their federal filings with their new tax plan. The plan's reduction on the mortgage interest deduction will put more people out-of-reach in being able to buy a home. This will depreciate home prices, raise rents and possibly make refinancing more costly for those with equity to pay for their children's college in the future or use for retirement.

Did I mention the deduction on student loan interest is also removed?

This plan is nothing but a handout to the super-rich while straddling us millennials with $1.5 trillion in debt in 10 years. The GOP will position this as an investment in economic growth. That's a lie. Investment implies they're taking a risk. They aren't. Instead, this is daylight robbery.

We MUST increase our representation in government if we want our voices to be heard.  Private sector companies and non-profits can only do so much for the common good.  Government is where the rules are decided, and we must take action if we are to have an equal voice in our own future. We cannot wait to climb the ladder of local party politics. It must happen, and it must happen NOW-- because our economy and future depend on it.

See that thermometer above? You can contribute to any of our California congressional candidates, including millennials like Michael Kotick, Sam Jammal, Katie Hill, Ricardo Franco and Kia Hamadanchy.

Trump's Congressional Warriors-- Untouchable?

Trump has the worst and most incompetent cabinet of any American president. And the most corrupt. By far. The fish rots from the head, right? And his supporters in Congress! What a bunch! We've talked a lot about Devin Nunes here... but there are others just as bad. Kyle Cheney did a little round up for Politico readers Monday. Short version: Matt Gaetz (FL), Ron DeSantis (FL), Jim Jordan (OH) and Mark Meadows (NC). DeSantis is running for governor of Florida in November-- more on that below-- and the 3 others don't have serious challenges for re-election. Here's are 4 with the PVIs of their districts and the percentage of votes Hillary got in each:

• Gaetz (FL-01) R+22 (28.2%)
• DeSantis (FL-06) R+7 (39.9%)
• Jordan (OH-04) R+14 (30.7%)
• Meadows (NC-11) R+14 (34.0%)

Trump calls them his "warriors": a band of four House Republicans defending Trump with a relentless counterattack against the Justice Department’s Russia investigation that thrills the president even as it unsettles some House GOP colleagues who think they’re going too far.

This crew of hard-charging conservatives, whom Trump singled out by name in late April, have emerged as some of Washington’s most prominent Republicans, enjoying direct lines to the Trump White House and flights on Air Force One.

"Look, we have some absolute warriors," Trump told Fox News on April 26 when asked about his relationship with Congress, name-checking "Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows and Matt Gaetz and [Ron] DeSantis.”

Their emergence underscores a reality of the Trump era: power and prominence on Capitol Hill these days often flow not to the most senior lawmakers but to Republicans who display allegiance to a president who prizes loyalty. None of the four holds a powerful committee chairmanship, but they have something just as important: regular airtime on Fox News. And their pressure campaign against the Justice Department and FBI has put Mueller’s boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on the defensive.

The scorched-earth approach by the relatively junior members-- only Jordan has served more than three terms-- is in some ways reminiscent of the way a young GOP congressman named Newt Gingrich, joined by a group of back bench House colleagues, shocked Washington in the mid-1980s with their theatrical attacks on Democratic leaders.

It has similarly enraged liberals today, who say that Trump’s “warriors” care only about protecting the president-- and may even be conspiring with him to create a pretext for firing Rosenstein.

On Thursday, the left-leaning public watchdog group Democracy21 accused Meadows and Jordan of “colluding to obstruct and potentially give Trump control over” Mueller’s probe. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says they are “trying to sabotage” Mueller, and “want to force a confrontation with the Deputy Attorney General.”

It all helps explain why Gaetz, a 35-year-old freshman from Florida, routinely gets calls from the president, including critiques of his Fox News appearances, and has flown at least twice on Air Force One. In a November House floor speech, Gaetz called on Mueller to resign, warning of the “risk of a coup d'état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected president of the United States.”

The 39-year-old DeSantis, who last week called for criminal investigations of former FBI director James Comey and his former deputy Andrew McCabe, won Trump’s early endorsement in Florida’s contested GOP primary for governor. He has also proposed cutting off funding for Mueller’s investigation.

Meadows, 58, a North Carolinian who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, speaks with Trump on a regular basis and has been floated as a potential successor for the beleaguered White House chief of staff, John Kelly.

He and Jordan, who is vice chairman of the Freedom Caucus, have led the charge against Rod Rosenstein, against whom they have drafted articles of impeachment in response to what they call Rosenstein’s unacceptable delays in turning over documents related both to Mueller’s investigation-- as well as the 2016 FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, which they suspect should have resulted in criminal action against Clinton. The two men even visited the Justice Department last month for a tense face-to-face meeting in which they demanded a faster response to their document requests.

...Jordan, a 54-year-old fifth-term congressman from Ohio who has been particularly loyal to Trump-- he drew national attention last month for telling CNN he has never heard the president lie-- said he believes the Justice Department is biased against the president and has lost sight of the principle of “equal treatment under the law."... The four House Republicans have taken the lead on Russia in the weeks since the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by the Trump-friendly Rep. Devin Nunes, wrapped up its probe into Russian election interference, which featured aggressive GOP questioning of the Justice Department.

Jordan, Gaetz and DeSantis sit on the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Justice Department. Meadows, Jordan and DeSantis are also on the House Oversight Committee, which has broad authority to question the executive branch and has probed the FBI's handling of the 2016 Clinton investigation and other decision-making by the bureau as the Trump-Russia probe was launched.

...Gaetz and his allies said they are stepping up the pressure now, for fear that Justice Department officials like Rosenstein are playing a long game, hoping that-- with midterm elections coming and Republicans lagging in the polls-- time is on their side.

"I worry that there may be some people at the Department of Justice and the FBI who think they can wait us out, who think that Democrats will retake the majority and that oversight will fizzle to a burnt ember," he said. "We’ve got to keep the fire going now.”

Gaetz has raised $597,891 and his Democratic opponent, Phil Ehr has raised $127,253. Jordan has raised $327,443 and his Democratic opponent, Janet Garrett has raised $57,510. And Meadows has raised $519,911 and his likeliest Democratic opponent, Scott Donaldson, has raised $47,853.

The most likely of the quarter to suffer at the hands of voters for his extremism is DeSantis, the far right candidate for Florida governor. It's an open seat and DeSantis has to first face a crowded primary including establishment Republican Adam Putnam. Most polls show Putnam beating DeSantis, even though Trump has endorsed DeSantis, as have Sheldon Adelson the Mercers and neo-fascists Sean Hannity, David Bossie, Foster Friess and Mark Levin. Every poll shows evert Democrat beating DeSantis. Blue America has endorsed Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, easily the best of the Democratic field, and you can contribute to his very grassroots campaign at the ActBlue gubernatorial thermometer on the right.

Matt Gaetz Is From Florida-- Where Else Could He Be From?

Pudgy little frat boy neo-Nazi, Matthew Louis Gaetz II, was lucky. Matthew Louis Gaetz I represented a chunk of the backward Florida Panhandle in the state Senate starting in 2006, eventually rising to Senate president. In 2010, when Florida House Speaker, Ray Sansom (R), another corrupt career politico like Gaetz I, was kicked out of the legislature for taking massive bribes in return for directing millions of dollars in taxpayer money to the briber, his Okaloosa House seat opened up. Gaetz II managed to slither into the seat with 43% of the vote in the GOP primary (tantamount to election in a district where Democrats don't even try). Gaetz was primarily known for being a drunk (and a drunk driver with dozens of driving tickets but no loss of his license), being an advocate of death sentences being carried out quickly and being for unrestrictive gun laws.

More recently, after Gaetz publicly tried to intimidate and threaten Michael Cohen for testifying against Trump-- i.e., witness-tampering, which is illegal, even in Florida-- the Florida Bar opened an investigation to determine if they should revoke Gaetz's license to practice law in the state. Wednesday, Tampa Bay Times reporter Steve Contorno, wrote that so far, the process is going badly for Gaetz.

Yesterday I had three separate off-the-record conversations with three of Gaetz's Judiciary Committee colleagues. None of them said this but this is an amalgam of what the three of them told me:

Gaetz is a classic low-achiever, punching above his weight and looking for a way-- any way-- to be relevant and to seem important. He tries modeling himself on Trump, but doesn't quite have what it takes. Even people in his own caucus say he's a joke behind his back. He sits on his cell surreptitiously rubbing his crotch while looking at online photos of AOC.

And one of them said these words exactly: "Poor Matt; he's the Paris Hilton of the U.S. House of Representatives... Everyone is waiting for Rick Scott to get drunk and kick his ass. He really hates the guy... Republican politics in Florida isn't so much a swamp as a cesspool."

Also yesterday-- Kara Gross, a Senior Policy Counsel for the Florida ACLU, penned an essay about just what a cesspool the Republican-controlled state legislature is. It's that spawned Gaetz and it's probably worse than you'd expect anyway. "The just completed 2019 session of the Florida Legislature constitutes the most serious attack on civil liberties and the public interest in a decade," is how she started. It just gets gloomier and gloomier as you read more and more about the garbage politics of the Sunshine State! "Racial justice, voting rights, immigrant rights, due process, public education, school safety, citizens initiatives, freedom of speech, and access to basic health care were all diminished by the Republican majority in the legislature. Combine that with a failure to adopt sensible, decarceration proposals that would have reduced the populations of our overcrowded prisons, and you have a session in which legislators managed to do damage to countless Floridians of all ages that will be felt for generations. Here is an issue-by-issue report:

The Undermining of Amendment 4 and Voting Rights

After 64.55 percent of Floridians supported the Voting Restoration Amendment-- which would have returned to as many as 1.4 million individuals with felony convictions their ability to vote-- legislators dedicated themselves denying voting rights to thousands. By making voting rights contingent not just on completion of sentence including probation and parole-- as the amendment stated-- but on payment of all fines and inflated court costs, those legislators embraced the state’s Jim Crow past and conditioned individual’s eligibility vote on their ability to pay.  This legislation will likely deny many hundreds of thousands of Floridians the right to participate in elections solely because they don’t have enough money. Legislators undermined Amendment 4 even though 5.2 million Floridians approved the constitutional amendment in the November election.

An Attack on Florida's Immigrant Communities

Despite the fact that Florida has no sanctuary cities, legislators felt the need to outlaw them anyway. In the spirit of our immigrant-bashing president, and spurred on by newly-elected Gov. Ron DeSantis, legislators have now forced all Florida cities and counties to comply with all “detainer” arrest requests issued by federal immigration authorities against Florida residents. This despite the fact that a recent ACLU report documented how in Miami-Dade County alone Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), over the past two years, has erroneously issued 420 detainer orders against individuals listed as U.S. citizens, who are not subject to immigration detention.

Legislators have chosen to undermine the right to due process and equal treatment for Floridians by passing the anti-immigrant SB 168, which will create a statewide environment of fear and encourage racial profiling of immigrants and people of color, as well as separate immigrant families.

On Monday, ICE announced a new program to expand local law enforcement participation in its deportation agenda. With this program, ICE is asking local law enforcement to risk violating the Fourth Amendment and so far, at least one Florida jurisdiction has agreed to participate.

Arming Teachers and Zero-Tolerance Policies in Schools

Legislators voted to allow classroom teachers and other staff members to carry weapons in schools, despite opposition from the Florida Education Association, which represents 140,000 teachers and support staff. Also, in a recent poll by Quinnipiac University, 57 percent of Floridians opposed the idea, which many believe will only make schools more dangerous. The measure was supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Research shows that more guns on school campuses do not prevent violence. More guns on school campuses result in more violence, and such policies have a disparate impact on students of color, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth and children with disabilities. These policies will send more youth spiraling into the school-to-prison pipeline, which only ruins lives. Despite falling juvenile crime rates nationwide, arrests in schools have increased due to such zero tolerance policies.

Unconstititonal Public Financing of Religious Schools

Despite a 2006 Florida Supreme Court ruling that held a similar effort unconstitutional, legislators passed an expansion of the school voucher program that will allow Florida taxpayer dollars to flow to private schools, including those run by religious organizations. Passage of the bill means less money for already underfunded public schools.

While school voucher programs are often designed to expand the educational options available to many low-income families, they have also raised serious civil liberties and civil rights concerns. In addition to doing little to improve student performance and being vastly unpopular among voters, the measure erodes the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state and will almost certainly be challenged again in the courts.

The Undermining of Citizens' Initiatives

Several extremely popular citizen movements in recent years that resulted in amendments to the Florida Constitution-- including the Amendment 4 Voting Restoration Amendment in 2018-- provoked Republican legislators to limit citizen initiatives in the state.

The new law will require that persons paid to gather signatures to put a citizens’ initiative on a ballot register with the state and provide their personal information, including their permanent and temporary addresses. They must also sign sworn statements that they will follow state rules, and it will become illegal to pay petition gatherers based on the number of petitions they collect.

The law also now threatens ballot initiative sponsors with fines if they are late delivering petitions to elections supervisors, including a potential $1,000 fine for any petition “willfully” not submitted on time.

Florida already has one of the most difficult ballot initiative processes in the country. All those requirements and potential penalties can only make it harder to recruit petition gatherers and make it more difficult for the public to be heard.

A Missed Opportunity to Embrace Real Criminal Justice Reform and Save Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Lawmakers took baby steps in addressing a criminal justice system in Florida that is plagued by mass incarceration, racial disparities, and a school-to-prison pipeline which ruins more young lives every year-- especially the lives of children of color.

California and Texas have the two biggest congressional delegation, respectively 53 and 36. Florida and New York are tied with 27 House members each for 3rd place. California has some great great members-- Barbara Lee, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Maxine Waters... and Texas has a couple who aren't that bad. New York sends mostly pretty mediocre members to Washington-- although they also have AOC, Jerry Nadler, José Serrano. Florida, on the other hand.. nothing. Not a single member worth reelecting since Alan Grayson. The Republicans are all like Gaetz and Ted Yoho... Posey, Webster... And the Democrats? Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Al Lawson, Alcee Hastings, Charlie Crist, Darren Soto, Stephanie Murphy... It's hard to imagine Grayson ever got elected there! Maybe it's hard to imagine because he was never "tempered" and pasteurized in one of the worst and most uselessly depressing state legislatures anywhere.

Oh, Boy Another Brooks Brothers Riot!

A gang of Republican thugs that varied in number between between 6 and 20 and led by clownish Floridian Matt Gaetz, staged a noisy disruptive sit-in in the secure hearing room (SCIF-- Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), refusing to allow a scheduled deposition in the impeachment investigation-- which have been devastating for their Regime-- to continue. They breached House rules by bringing their phones into the secure area and Gaetz, who is an obese alcoholic with a long police record to start with, ordered pizzas and coke and is daring Democrats to have him arrested and carted out of the room. It was like a meeting of the Freedom Caucus featuring all the Trumpist nuts, like Mark Meadows (NC), Steve Scalise (LA), Andy Biggs (AZ), Mark Walker (NC) Louie Gohmert (TX), Steve King (IA) and Gym Jordan (OH). As Ted Lieu pointed out, "When you don't have the law or the facts you attack and disrupt the process. And you may wonder why is it happening now? Because Bill Taylor gave a devastating opening statement yesterday. They're freaked out. They're trying to stop this investigation." Jim Himes (D-CT), one of the top members of the Intelligence Committee, told me "It was kind or absurd. Especially since they disrupted the many Republicans who were in the deposition along with Republican counsel. It’s all just a ploy to avoid focus on the President’s abuses of power." Matt Cartwright (D-PA) didn't want to discuss it at all. He told me that "it's a sophomoric distraction to take attention away from the devastating Taylor testimony" and warned me that if I "write a post about it, it’s a victory for Gaetz." (Come on, that photo of Gaetz, day dreaming about AOC, up top is a victory?)

Former Democratic congressman Alan Grayson from Orlando noted that "A lot of Republicans support Donald Trump even though Trump is a putz. Gaetz supports Trump because he’s a putz. (And I leave it up to you to decide to whom “he” refers in that sentence.)" Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told me that "The Gucci rioters were just trying to distract America from Ambassador Bill Taylor’s devastating testimony yesterday. With no substantive answer to the overwhelming evidence of the Ukraine shakedown, the GOP is now left with pathetic stunts that violate the rules of the House and make a mockery of the honorable pantheon of real civil disobedience heroes. This was the only sit-in protest in American history designed to cover up presidential high crimes and misdemeanors and aid foreign despots. When I saw a bunch of GOP members chortling over pepperoni pizza about their heroic obstruction of the work of Congress, I realized Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King would be turning over in their graves. What a fraud!" The details of Bill Taylor's testimony was deadly for the Trumpists since it entirely blew apart their absurd "no quid pro quo" argument. They don't want two days in a row of that kind of talk, so they refused to allow deputy assistant secretary of defense Laura Cooper to testify.

Over half of the Republican freaks who made a big show of barging in and acting like barnyard animals are actually members of the Oversight or Foreign Affairs committees, which means if they haven't been at the depositions it's because they were busy doing something else-- like calling campaign contributors-- or too lazy. They're certainly all entitled to be at all the depositions. The hissy fit was just staged to make Trump feel like he has some support in the House.

Saleha Mohsin, Jennifer Jacobs and Josh Wingrove reported on the GOP fit for Bloomberg by pointing out that Trump had advance knowledge and supported the stunt. They wrote that "During a nearly two-hour meeting, which focused mostly on the impeachment inquiry, lawmakers shared their plans to storm into the secure room… Trump supported the action, saying he wanted the transcripts released because they will exonerate him." As you know, the transcripts are far more likely to send Trump to prison than to exonerate him.

House Republicans send out their best to protest impeachment-- Louie and Matt

I got this on background from an Intelligence Committee official:

After Tuesday’s devastating testimony by Ambassador Taylor, over two dozen House Republican Members sought to prevent another witness from cooperating by forcing their way into the Intelligence Committee spaces in violation of house deposition rules. The stunt, in service of the President’s demand that they 'fight harder' to obstruct a legitimate impeachment inquiry, has meant that the witness has had to wait for hours for them to leave. They engage in this circus-like behavior because they can’t defend the President’s egregious misconduct. The House Parliamentarian has ruled that these members are in violation of House deposition rules.

And in a major security breach, these Republican Members brought their electronics into the secure facility (SCIF). Although several members later removed their devices, after being advised by the Sergeant at Arms and security personnel that there were members still in possession of electronic devices, some Republican members refused to completely remove them.

It is worth remembering this Gowdy quote during Benghazi: "[Issa] is not a [Benghazi] committee member and non-committee members are not allowed in the room during the deposition. Those are the rules and we have to follow them, no exceptions made."

Meanwhile, the chairs of the three committees heading the Ukraine aspect of the impeachment-- Adam Schiff (Intelligence Committee), Eliot Engel (Foreign Affairs Committee) and Carolyn Maloney (acting chair of Oversight Committee) sent this letter to the Trumpist Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan.

As part of the House of Representatives’ ongoing impeachment inquiry, our Committees have now obtained detailed information identifying specific documents in the possession, custody, or control of the Department of State that are directly and highly relevant to the inquiry.

These documents include information central to the inquiry’s core area of investigation: the President’s efforts to press Ukraine to initiate investigations that would benefit his personal and political interests, and not the national interest.  These records include, but are not limited to:

• Written readouts and write-ups of meetings and conversations that document activity and conduct under investigation by the Committees;
• Email correspondence that pertains directly to matters under investigation that occurred both before and after President Trump’s July 25, 2019, call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky;
• Diplomatic cables that relate, among other issues, to the President’s decision to withhold vital military aid to Ukraine and document interactions with Ukrainian officials about matters under investigation;
• Text messages and electronic communications, including from personal devices, from witnesses in the inquiry; and
• Memoranda to file drafted by Department officials, including memoranda that document efforts to press Ukraine to initiate politically-motivated investigations to benefit President Trump and that raise concerns about false representations by the Department to the Committees and that document efforts to intimidate or silence employees.

“The Committees consider the refusal to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena as obstruction of the lawful functions of Congress and of the impeachment inquiry. Because the Committees have gathered evidence about the direct relevance of these documents, including highly significant information contained in these materials that pertain to allegations that the President abused the power of his office for personal political benefit, the Committees may draw the inference that their nonproduction indicates that these documents support the allegations against the President and others.

Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) reminded us today that "Trump abused his power and threatened our national security when he attempted to extort Ukraine into investigating a political rival. Instead of upholding their oath to defend the Constitution, House Republicans have decided to defend the President. They complain about the process, but remain silent on the President’s crimes. This is a shameful abdication of responsibility, and a historical embarrassment to our country."

Early this morning, the White House officially responded to yesterday's childish and ineffectual Republican Party tantrum and pizza party on Capitol Hill: