Last Tuesday one of the most promising candidates running for governor, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, lost his race. I tweeted that he ran a great campaign but that it was now time to get behind Gretchen Whitmer and help her defeat Trump's hand-picked extremist candidate Bill Schuette. One of the first people to "like" my tweet was Abdul.
New polling shows that while normal people are aghast at Trump's treasonous behavior in Helsinki and his supine posture towards Putin, Republicans overwhelmingly approve. A CBS News poll shows that 83% of Democrats and 53% of Independents disapprove of how Trump handles Putin, while 68% of Republicans approve.
Normally, I don't buy into "lesser-of-two-evils" politics. If Democrats nominate a corrupt reactionary Blue Dog, I'm at least as incensed as I am over a Republican. That's not going to change either. And, I'm still saying that "normally" no longer applies, not with Trump and his Congress-ful of enablers and rubber stamps.
As you see from the responses from the pessimistic commenters on my Friday night tweet, not everyone feels Señor Trumpanzee's decision to enable insurance companies to start denying insurance to people with "pre-existing conditions." Ending that practice was always one of the most popular pieces of Obamacare, even among people who didn't support Obamacare.
Before you read J.D.’s guest post, you might want to take a look ay the brand new Iowa Survey results. You’ll notice that in IA-04, the most Republican district in the state, only 49% approve of Trump, only 43% approve of Republican Governor Kim Reynold’s job performance and that just 26% approve of the Republican-controlled state legislature.
In 2008 Obama had a hefty win in Iowa-- 54-44% against McCain. 4 years later Obama beat Romney 52-46%. Then 2016 was a catastrophe in this once-blue-trending purple state. The Republicans started winning everywhere. The DCCC, tone def as always backed a wealthy "ex"-Republican pile of EMILY's List dung as the congressional candidate in the bluest district. The whole party fell apart. There couldn't have been a worse candidate than Monica Vernon. Except for the one the Democrats ran for president-- the polar opposite of what Iowans wanted as President.
IA-04 is a prohibitively red district. It was the only district in the state that Trump won with a majority. In fact, he beat Hillary 60.9% to 33.5%. And the incumbent crack pot, neo-Nazi and racist Steve King (he prefers the term "white nationalist") won reelection with over 60% in 2016 and in 2014 and even built a well-known and well-financed Democrat, for Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack, 53-45% in 2012.
My best friend Roland teaches science to elementary school kids in Compton, California. When he saw this headline Wednesday night he shook his head and asked me if I thought people around the world were going to see it too. Tim Cama's report for The Hill was mind-boggling; what century was he writing about!
Maybe you got an email filled with outrage over Steve King's latest racist statement this week. The DCCC sent one out, asking for contributions. There's a problem with that though. Steve King isn't just some loud-mouthed crackpot and bigot; he's also an actual congressman from western Iowa. The DCCC doesn't use the contributions they solicit to beat Steve King.
