Robert Mercer

Yesterday started with polls from Georgia, Alaska, Utah and Arizona-- four deep red states that Romney won, respectively, with 53%, 55%, 73% and 54% of the vote.

Rebekah Mercer, Long Island billionaire (center), doesn't care whose pussy Trump grabsI don't think of myself as a philanthropist; in fact, it never crossed my mind until I sat down to write this post. But recently I gave a 7-figure endowment to a university, earmarked specifically to a program for kids from extremely poor families. About a year ago the school decided to honor me with a dinner and ceremony on campus.

Records are important. Political figures like Bernie have spent decades building-- what amounts to-- platforms to run on. When Blue America first started urging people to contribute to Bernie, he was a member of the House, a member of the House who had started and led to Congressional Progressive Caucus and who had been working diligently to push a progressive perspective on issues from economic inequality, criminal justice reform and money in politics to issues around war and peace and equal justice for minorities. These are the things that motivated Bernie's public life.

Saturday afternoon Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith interviewed Ted Cruz in front of a lively audience in Austin, Texas' capital city, famously described as a big blue dot in a sea of red. When Cruz ran for the Senate he lost Austin-- badly. Travis County gave his opponent, Paul Sadler 224,070 votes (59%) and gave Cruz 133,354 (35%)-- around the same outcome that Obama and Romney had the same day. Austin voters believe in science and knowledge and don't believe in the hogwash that conservative ideologues like Ted Cruz peddle.

The above is today's best video. Zephyr Teachout is proving every day in a sprawling upstate New York district that includes part of the Hudson Valley from Brunswick northeast of Albany, down through Kingston and Hyde Park almost to Poughkeepsie and then west into the Catskills through Fallsburg and Wawarsing and up to Oneonta, that she's be a great congressmember for her constituents.

The Republican Party-- especially although not exclusively the Trumpanzee Republican Party-- combines a hatred and bigtry wing with a greed and selfishness wing. And the chat between Dan Rather and Rachel Maddow in the video above focused on David Bossie from the former and Robert Mercer from the latter, both equally dangerous to the country and equally contemptible. The kind of people who support Trump and the same kinds of haters and sociopaths that supported the breakup of the U.S. leading up to the Civil War.

One of the key premises behind Bernie's run for the presidency-- behind his entire career in fact-- is that economic inequality is too great-- dangerously great. This week, the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that economic inequality has grown significantly since 1989. Short version:

Recently a non-profit told me they would be honoring two of their donors with a ceremony and a dinner and that one was me. What an honor! The other honoree, however, presented a conundrum. The co-honoree has been ultra-generous to the charity but he had just given $13 million in support to Ted Cruz's campaign.