Why the Democrats won't win back Congress in 2018 -- #67233

"John , we’ve never been this mad -- and we're asking you to sign your name and condemn Trump for pardoning Joe Arpaio." -- Email solicitation from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Really?

They've never been this mad?

Not at the Long War? Not at the massacre of the middle class? Not at institutionalized racism? Not at the collapsing infrastructure? Not at the privatizing of the public schools? Not at Wall Street predators? Not at the destruction of the labor movement? Not at two minority presidents out of three? Not at the growing ranks of the poor? Not at pharmaceutical price-gouging? Not at mass incarceration?...

What he did.

It shouldn't be hard to head off Trump tonight before he escalates the war in Afghanistan.

Somebody tell him.

Obama already did it.

Does anybody know where the alt-left meets?

I want to join.

Crossed fingers # 6,010,043

Harper's says that, of the $16,000,000 Carrier promised Donald Trump it would spend on its Indiana plant to save American jobs, 100% of the money will be used for automation.

"It's like I don't recognize the country I'm living in."

It's more like we're getting to know the country we're living in.

We can't lose sight of the millions deported by the Obama administration. We can't deny decades of lynchings and Jim Crow. We must not forget "No dogs or Irish." We fought a brutal civil war over the holding of human beings as property. We still live in the shadow of slavery. We have never atoned for the near-extermination of Native Americans.

Fake news? We live a fake history.

Are the Democratic Socialists of America For Real?

In the last year, the biggest American socialist organization has experienced a surge in membership. "As it builds on this momentum, there are several big questions facing DSA. What is its relationship to the Democratic Party? Should central leadership serve as administrators or ideological tone-setters? And how can its membership -- which skews white and male -- come to represent an increasingly diverse country?" In other words, can it can transform enthusiasm into real and effective political power?

Are the Democratic Socialists of America For Real? by Kate Aronoff (The New Republic, 2017-08-07)

What a laugh

The Security State has always included an ample admixture of self-parody. The CIA’s arsenal of weapons against Fidel Castro, for example, included a fungus-infected scuba suit, a poison-filled hypodermic needle hidden in a pen and, no kidding, an exploding cigar.

RIP

"I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning." -- Sam Shepard.

Big problems require big solutions

A confused and befuddled Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, grasping at straws, have a formulated a nearly perfect compression of their tired lesser-of-two-evils rhetoric -- "A Better Deal," promoting the new slogan under the misapprehension that it's bad marketing instead of bad politics that's the cause of their electoral headaches.

The road to capitalism triumphant is pocked by financial crises: 1819, 1837, 1857, 1884, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1937, 1974, 1987, 2008... 

But what accounts for that long break after WWII, 30 years of widespread prosperity and economic growth? 

One key factor, besides sizable opportunities in the construction industry afforded by worldwide devastation, is that during these decades banks were severely regulated, capital movement was constricted, exchange rates were limited.

In judging the seriousness of the Democrats in the months ahead, their willingness to rein in the financial giants will be key. Other vital issues -- infrastructure, empire, jobs, climate change, affordable universal education and health care -- cannot be addressed by a party still afraid to pursue any policy that might inconvenience rich people.

We need a new era of big government to address big problems. More than a Better Deal, we need a Big Deal.

quote unquote: James Baldwin

"I have met only a very few people - and most of these were not Americans - who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear. It can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the

American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster. Whoever doubts this last statement has only to open his ears, his heart, his mind, to the testimony of - for example - any Cuban peasant or any Spanish poet, and ask himself what he would feel about us if he were the victim of our performance in pre-Castro Cuba or in Spain. We defend our curious role in Spain by referring to the Russian menace and the necessity of protecting the free world. It has not occurred to us that we have simply been mesmerized by Russia, and that the only real advantage Russia has in what we think of as a struggle between the East and the West is the moral history of the Western world. Russia's secret weapon is the bewilderment and despair and hunger of millions of people of whose existence we are scarcely aware. The Russian Communists are not in the least concerned about these people. But our ignorance and indecision have had the effect, if not of delivering them into Russian hands, of plunging them very deeply in the Russian shadow, for which effect - and it is hard to blame them - the most articulate among them, and the most oppressed as well, distrust us all the more... We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is. Anyway, the point here is that we are living in an age of revolution, whether we will or no, and that America is the only Western nation with both the power, and, as I hope to suggest, the experience that may help to make these revolutions real and minimize the human damage." -- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

When you hear the word bipartisan, reach for your gun.

There is a conservative majority in Congress that persists no matter which party controls the big corner offices. When you hear the word bipartisan, remember that it is most often used to describe something like Bob Corker and Mark Warner, just say, getting together to craft a deal to advance corporate interests at your expense.

This is the affection won by Democrats who fight for the people.

Donald Trump takes the fun out of dysfunctional.

Heh Heh

Gavin Newsom posted this on Twitter. The illustration is from an Australian news outlet.

Quadruple bogey.

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning aired a pop quiz:

"The capital city of your closest ally is attacked. Do you…:"

A) Retweet Drudge before being briefed.
B) Use the attack to lobby the Supreme Court overturn lower court rulings that said your travel ban is unconstitutional.
C) Openly attack the mayor of the city under assault and quote him out of context.
D) Go golfing for the 22nd time in your 19-week tenure.
E) All of the above.

(By the way, the answer is E.)

The political horse race

Democrats for Ohio governor in the news today: Schiavoni, Pillich, Whaley, Sutton, Cordray, Springer... The only question: Who will Win, Place and Show?

The mainstream media never -- never! -- tells us what candidates stand for. We knew far more about Always Dreaming on Derby morning than we'll know about our next governor when we get up on election day.

Body slamming the electorate

Absentee balloting, as it was originally conceived, is a good and necessary thing. There is no reason that people away from home, disabled or living in nursing facilities should be denied their franchise. But the abuse of absentee voting by both parties has reached a point where in many districts the outcome of elections are determined by party loyalists who have not bothered to consider and compare the actual candidates.

A dramatic example of this is happening this week in Montana's special congressional election, where the local sheriff’s office cited GOP candidate Greg Gianforte on a charge of misdemeanor assault for “body slamming” journalist Ben Jacobs after he asked the Republican about the GOP's recently passed health-care bill. It is more than likely that at least some voters undecided or leaning toward Gianforte will reconsider their vote in light of his seeming inability to control himself under pressure. How likely do you think it is that the outcome of the race will be changed, however, when you consider that election analysts estimate that roughly two-thirds of early votes had already been cast before one of the candidates faced an assault charge?

One possible way of fixing early voting abuse would be to permit absentee ballots to be mailed no sooner than three days before election day; ballots with earlier postmarks would be disqualified. To keep party operatives from rounding up ballots weeks in advance and bulk mailing them within the deadline, absentee ballots would also be required under penalty of law to be signed on the day they were mailed. Such a deadline would not seriously inconvenience any of the intended users of absentee voting, those actually absent from their precincts, while allowing campaigns to play out to the fullest extent possible.

For the Record:

"This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" -- Pres. Donald Trump

"As the Representative of Salem, MA, I can confirm that this is false." -- Rep. Seth Moulton

A new New Deal

In another ridiculous discussion of Bernie Sanders' undermining of the grand old Democratic Party, this: "We are the only party in the last 100 years to successfully push this country toward real progress."

This is absolutely true. It also ended about 45 years ago. The history of the country since the early 1970s is a record of decline. And since the 70s, the Democrats have held the reins of power more often than the Republicans. In that time, we have suffered militarization of foreign policy and, domestically, of the police; incarceration of vast numbers of citizens; severe decline of infrastructure; neglect of public services; huge transfers of public wealth into private hands; decimation of the middle class; a housing crisis; increased poverty...

It is true that more Democrats than Republicans resisted these developments, but not a majority and not the leadership; that is an argument for electing Democrats with those principles and policy goals; it is not an argument favoring continuing control of the party by neoliberals. Most Democrats agree on social issues (abortion excepted), but that's not why we're Democrats; you can be a liberal on social issues and still favor right-wing and libertarian economic policies. The reason to make progressive economic policies primary is that they are the area of broadest agreement among Democrats (neo-liberals excepted), and the guarantee of a decent life -- basic income, a roof over one's head, the ability to be properly educated and trained, protection from impoverishment by medical catastrophe, job loss or old age -- has the broadest appeal to the electorate.

History will look back at the last 40 years as the Reagan-Clinton era. It is time to turn in a different direction, back toward the road to economic and social justice that was the promise of Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. We need a new New Deal. The goal should be a great society, not an okay one.

From the Say Wha? Desk

From the Your-Mouth-To-God's-Ear Desk:

“I’m not a candidate for FBI director.” -- Rudy Giuliani, at the Trump hotel bar in D.C. after midnight early Wednesday morning.

Who's on first?

It's revealing that the establishment media in the U.S., having taken repeated notice of the number of French voters who abstained or cast blank ballots in the French presidential election to raise questions about Emmanuel Macron's legitimacy ("blank invalid ballots account for 9% of all registered voters; abstention rate at 24.52%"), is not similarly troubled about the U.S. government's legitimacy given that about 40% of adult Americans routinely abstain from voting.

"French election results: The case for saying Marine Le Pen actually came third," as one headline put it. Applying this analysis to November's results, Donald Trump came in third, Hillary Clinton second, and -- to the relief of most Americans -- None of the Above is president of United States.

From the Money-Talks-Bullshit-Walks Desk:

“No district is off the table." -- Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the House Democratic campaign chairman.

Except, so far, for Kansas and Montana. In other words, except for two out of three.

Fight!

Republican Tommy Pope is favored over Democrat Archie Parnell in SC's 5th District next month. That contest is unlikely to see the same magnitude of investment from national parties and superpacs currently flooding the special elections in Georgia and Montana. Apparently, it will be more like the Kansas race that was narrowly lost because of the national Democrats' disinterest.

So much for the "50 States" strategy.

If the Democrats are serious about winning in 2018 and 2020, they will need to treat every contest seriously, not least because a losing race can lay the foundation for a win later and can influence outcomes in neighboring districts and in contests further up the political food chain, such as governor and senator. The Working Families Party, Greens, independents, et al might want to look at whether the Democrats' strategy of giving up various congressional districts and senate seats without a fight is an opportunity.

Yelling at buildings is not enough

The resistance is gratifying and fun and maybe consciousness-raising, but real change will come from an aggressive and eventually victorious opposition.

In the fight over the omnibus spending bill, the Democrats didn't do too badly: no funding for the border wall; no penalty for sanctuary cities; no rollback of environmental programs; no gutting of consumer financial protections; plus funding for ACA subsidies, Planned Parenthood, miners’ health benefits, and Medicaid payments for Puerto Rico.

But both the reactionaries now in power and the neoliberals they replaced must be overcome in 2018 and 2020 if the republic is to be set back on the road toward economic and social justice from which it was deflected 40 years or so ago. It will do us no good to go back to the politics and policies that made the reactionaries' victory possible -- inevitable -- in the first place.

Comprehensive Government Funding Bill Released (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations).

At the gym

Amazon Prime streaming just delivered, in sequence, R. Stevie Moore, Delbert McClinton, Ben Webster, Eden Atwood, the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, Jim Hall, Bessie Smith, Johnny Hodges, Horace Tapscott, Tommy Dorsey, Alan Holdsworth, Hoagy Carmichael, the MGs, Glenn Miller, Don Byas, Bach's Mein Herze, Casey Bill Weldon, Billy Eckstein, Anita O'Day, Ida Cox with Papa Charlie Jackson, and Isaac Hayes.

Newspeak

"War is Peace" has been the watchword of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama: each liked to wave his gun around. Dropping bombs on people is a presidential pastime, because it is as easy as ordering dessert and, for the commander in chief, politically risk free, American voters valuing as they do looking tough over being tough. Joining the Democrats in rechristening the various military adventures he inherited as "Trump's wars" will not end militarism. To succeed, the peace movement, should it remobilize, will need to take on both parties. Both are drenched in blood.

quote unquote: Woody Allen

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." -- Woody Allen

A Poster Is Worth A Thousand Words Dept.

How many people are locked up in the United States?

DINO Mite

Sen. Joe Manchin ("D"-WV) attended Donald Trump’s signing Tuesday of his executive order on energy, designed to unwind former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Manchin said in a statement that "the Clean Power Plan failed to balance economic and environmental interests.”

Beto v. Ted: Anglo with Mexican name to challenge Cuban-American with Anglo name

Former punk rocker and moderate Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso will announce on Friday that he’ll challenge Senator from Hell Ted Cruz in 2018, according to the Houston Chronicle. Democratic establishment favorite Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio is among other Texas Democrats mulling a run (if you're keeping score at home, Castro was 123rd in the liberal rankings in 2013; O'Rourke ranked 54th).

About that referendum?

We were just kidding.

In November, citizens around the U.S. said they wanted minimum-wage hikes, higher taxes, and criminal-justice reform. Now their elected officials are trying to roll those changes back. “This isn’t how democracy works,” said Justine Sarver, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a nonprofit that works with progressive ballot campaigns. “You don’t get to pick and choose when you like a process and when you don't.”

The rest of the story:
The Legislators Working to Thwart the Will of Voters by David A. Graham (The Atlantic)

I care, you care, we all care for Obamacare

Except for two Democratic members of the House.

The House Budget Committee yesterday approved 19-17 a motion to send GOP legislation to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law to the full House w/o the support of three Republicans: Reps. Mark Sanford, Dave Brat and Gary Palmer, all Freedom Caucus members. Two Democrats, NY Rep. John Faso and MN Rep. Jason Lewis, voted to move the bill out of committee. Without the Democratic votes, the bill would have failed in committee.

Democratic voters in the NY-19 and MN-02 congressional districts may want to start looking at primary challengers.

quote unquote: Jimmy Breslin

"Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers” -- Jimmy Breslin

The People Polled

From FOX poll released yesterday:

"I'm going to read you the names of several individuals, groups, and items. Please tell me whether you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of each one."

Favorable:
Bernie Sanders 61%
Planned Parenthood 57%
The 2010 health care law, also known as Obamacare 50%
Mike Pence 47%
Donald Trump 44%
Elizabeth Warren 39%
Paul Ryan 37%
Nancy Pelosi 33%
Sanctuary cities 33%
WikiLeaks 31%
Chuck Schumer 26%
Mitch McConnell 20%
The Freedom Caucus 19%

Trump does not represent America.

"Americans disagree with President Donald Trump's immigration priorities, according to a new CNN/ORC poll, with nearly two-thirds of Americans saying they'd like to see a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants rather than deportations.

"Trump has made tough border security and strict enforcement of US immigration laws a focal point of his campaign and presidency -- using some of his first executive orders to pave the way for far more deportations and detentions as well as ordering the construction of a Southern border wall.

"But a CNN/ORC poll released Friday finds that the public is actually moving in the opposite direction since Trump has won election." -- CNN 2017-03-17

Raising a brown boy in the time of Donald J. Trump

Sikh-American civil rights advocate Valarie Kaur's plea to her country.

Least Shocking Headline of the Day:

As Rebels Move Out of Colombia Drug Trade,
Corporations Look to Move In -- NewYork Times 2017-03-10

Liberation: The Real "Long War"

Nina Vatolina: Fascism – The most evil enemy of women, 1941.

"No," he explained.

"Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." -- Carson adviser Armstrong Williams, The Hill, 11/15/16.

"Ben Carson Is Confirmed as HUD Secretary" -- New York Times, 3/2/17.

Priorities

"The City Council feels a need for speed when it comes to substantially shortening the runway at Santa Monica Airport." -- Today's paper.

This is the same city council that, in 30 years and counting, has not been able to deliver a commissioned stop sign to Main Street between Hill and Ashland.

And where are those promised parklets, by the way?

What did Donald Trump know, and when did he know it?

General Michael Flynn's traitorous actions are part of a GOP tradition stretching back at least as far as the Nixon-Kissinger "signals" to North Vietnam and Reagan's Iran-Contra-temps, itself organized by the National Security Council.

Reading List:
Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, resigns over Russia lies by Yochi Dreazen (Vox) The fall of Michael Flynn: A timeline 8y Glenn Kessler (Washington Post). Michael Flynn Is Out - Will Trump Be Next? by Mike Ludwig (Truthout)
The Missing Pieces of the Flynn Story (New York Times editorial).
Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence by Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo (New York Times).
Michael Flynn's White House Tenure: It's Funny 'Cause It's Treason by Stephen Colbert (YouTube).

Not The Onion: AZ introduces DIY executions.

As states have faced challenges to carrying out executions by lethal injection, various work-arounds and alternatives have been proposed, including the return of electric chairs and firing squads. Arizona may have come up with the most original concept yet: an invitation for lawyers to help kill their own clients.

The rest of the story:
Arizona's execution protocol invites death row inmates'lawyers to provide drugs to kill their own clients – a suggestion attorneys describe as ludicrous: Arizona unveils new death penalty plan - bring your own lethal injection drugs by Tom Dart (The Guardian)

AR-15: The Gun Behind So Many Mass Shootings

From the It's-All-About-Me Desk:

After exploring the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam for about an hour, Justin Bieber felt it necessary to set down his thoughts about the experience. "Truly inspiring to be able to come here," he wrote in the museum's "special guest" book. "Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."

"What did Trump know, and when did he know it?"

A fellow can dream, can't he?

quote unquote: Albert Einstein

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” ― Albert Einstein

Carpe diem

Democrats are moving quickly to harness grass-roots anger over Donald Trump's first weeks in office in hopes of reclaiming the House majority in next year’s midterms. As of this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hiring full-time operatives to do political organizing work in 20 key GOP-held districts, including that of Rep. Ed Royce of Fullerton, in what is an unusually early investment in House races that won't have declared candidates for months. New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Luján is heading up the effort. Senate Democrats should do the same in every state with a contest next year.

Crowded CA 34

Gov. Jerry Brown has called a special election June 6 and a primary April 4 to replace Xavier Becerra in the 34th Congressional district. The Progressive Caucus member's departure after 24 years in the House creates an unexpected opening in the heavily Democratic district that includes downtown Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, Chinatown and Highland Park.

At least a dozen people have expressed interest in running. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez raised $300,000 in December for the race. According to the L.A. Times,ormer LA City Council staffer Sara Hernandez attracted the second largest amount, $200,000; followed by former Obama administration aide Alejandra Campoverdi with $106,000 and Arturo Carmona, most recently the deputy political

director for Latino outreach for the Bernie Sanders campaign and executive director of Presente.org, with $93,000.

Gomez has the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest public employee union in the nation; at the time he was elected to the state assembly, he was political director for the United Nurses Association of California. Other candidates in the race also have backgrounds in organized labor: Wendy Carrillo is a former journalist and local labor activist and Raymond Meza is an organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 721, which was central in the "Fight for $15" campaign to increase the minimum wage.

Jimmy Gomez is far and away the front runner, but if Arturo Carmona gains the endorsement of the Sanders organization and is able to raise a commensurate amount of dough, at least the campaign will be more interesting to watch.

Every race for Congress counts now, and this is an opportunity to preserve progressive numbers in the federal legislature.

Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez racks up endorsements from Latino elected officials in fight for Becerra's congressional eat. (L.A. Times)

Arturo for Congress

Poor Mike Pence.

He was promised that he'd be the real president.

How mortifying to be forced to defer to President Bannon.

That's what makes him an expert.

According to the AP, Trump's voter fraud expert, Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states.

Don't mourn. Organize!

An ActBlue fundraising page for former Democratic congressional staffer Jon Ossoff’s special election bid to replace GOP Rep. Tom Price passed $420,000 this morning.

The Democrats need to contest every seat that comes up, even if there is little chance of winning this time, to build support for 2018 and 2020. And not with Blue Dogs.

Fight for every seat on the progressive platform that polls show most Americans overwhelmingly support.

Jon Ossoff for Congress.
Jon Ossoff's ActBlue page.

Who will Trump name Poet Laureate?

a) Donovan, because, you know, Bob Dylan
(and because “In love pool eyes float feathers after the struggle/The hopes burst and shot joy all through the mind/Sorrow more distant than a star/Multi colour run down over your body/Then the liquid passing all into all/Love is hot, truth is molten”)

b) Tim McGraw, because, you know, Poet Lariat
(and because "I don't know why I act the way I do/Like I ain't got a single thing to lose/Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy/I guess that's just the cowboy in me")

c) David Petraeus, because, you know, General Petraeus
(and because what do you need to know about poetry to be Laureate, anyway?)

Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tunes

If you think that Rep. Keith Ellison, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus, is going to win the DNC job in a walk, be aware that the party's neoliberals are not going to give up without a fight: e.g., Politico says former "Labor Secretary Tom Perez has raised over $825,000 in his bid to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee."