Yesterday Bernie released his Medicare-For-All plan. The idea of this kind of coverage goes back a long way. When Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was unifying Germany in the 1800s, his government came up with a plan for non-profit insurance companies to cover all German citizens. His model was widely discussed in the U.S. and, more or less the one in use not just in Germany but in France, Belgium, Holland, Japan and Switzerland.
The jumpy video above is from a CA-45 (Orange County) Democratic Forum hosted by the Laguna Woods Democratic Club. Notice Brian Forde, an "ex"-Republican using Republican talking points about "access." Access means anyone can buy health insurance-- if you're rich enough to afford it. Forde may have switched his party affiliation a few weeks or hours or months ago and may be trying to appeal to low-info Democrats but... he's still just a Republican. Right after he spoke, Kia Hamadanchy, a former staffer for Sherrod Brown, talked.
You may well have woken up yesterday to Señor Trumpanzee's tweet (below), taking-- or at least sharing-- the "credit" with congressional Republicans obsessed with destroying the consumer protections the Democrats made some terminative steps towards implementing-- despite obstruction from the corrupt Blue Dogs and even more corrupt New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- while they were in power.
Gil Cisneros-- Does this look like an "ex"-Republican to you?A trusted political operative told me today about an encounter he had with a scumbag multimillionaire "ex"-Republican who the DCCC is trying to impose on a district filled with progressive Democrats. The "ex"-Republican is running as a Democrat and pretending to take progressive-- or progressivish-- policy positions.
Republican-lite Dave Min and his mentorDo you know how many candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination to run in Orange County against Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters, who doesn't even live in her own district? Even if you think you know, you don't, since there are 2 or 3 more (including Brian Forde and Rachel Payne) than the already 5 declared candidates, getting ready to jump in.
Henry Cuellar, Trump's most devoted Democratic supporter in CongressThe team of statistician-types over at FiveThirtyEight have put together an essential page called Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump and they keep updating it. The track how often each member of Congress votes with and against Trump. You can look at all the scores at the link just above.
I woke up this morning and my e-mail box was filled with messages about this report, Rigged by Brett Murphy for USA Today. I had missed it when it ran a few days ago but. My correspondents were insistent it is a must-read. And it is. It’s worth reading in full— though probably not on a full stomach.
Friday afternoon, we mentioned that the RNC met last week in California and that Trump sent them a crackpot video about how he would campaign for their candidates in the 2018 midterms. That caused alarm-- a great deal of alarm.
Since the Congressional Budget Office announced that they're nowhere near scoring TrumpCare 3.0-- and won't even have it for next week either-- Ryan could surprise everyone today and announce an instant vote. I think if the House Republicans have the votes to pass it-- regardless of how flat on its face it would fall in the Senate-- Ryan and McCarthy could actually succumb to Trump Regime pressure and call for the vote in a few hours.
The other day David Dayen told me about a UC Irvine professor and consumer advocate he knows, Katie Porter, who has decided to challenge Mimi Walters for the Orange County congressional district that stretches from Anaheim Hills and Villa Park through Tustin, Irvine and Lake Forest down to Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. Very exciting candidate-- and not the only very exciting candidate running in that district.
