Austin Frerick

I live in a part of L.A. where the cable TV/internet provider, Spectrum, has been running ads that amount to this: they're slowing down the internet BUT if you pay them, they'll speed it up for you. It's kind of like what Amazon did with Whole Foods when they bought it. They raised all the (already high) prices but if you buy an Amazon Prime card, they'll let you buy their not very organic fake health food for what it used to cost. What a deal! Meanwhile... who knew Burger King was so progressive. This ad (above) is really brilliant in exposing the net neutrality scam for what it is.

In an interview with USA Today yesterday, Jeb Bush warned that Trump is going to tank Republican chances in the midterms if he-- and the Democrats-- make the elections about him.

If more congressional candidates did this, many of the country's problems would vanishI was listening to NPR yesterday on a long drive and they were interviewing two dullard Beltway operatives, a dumb Dem and an even dumber Republican. The dumb Dem, when asked about Net Neutrality's salience as an issue said no one cared much about it. And the dumber Republican went one further to say no one even knows what it is.

Yesterday, Bernie penned an OpEd for The Guardian, Let’s Wrench Power Back From The Billionaires. I wonder if he offered it to the NY Times, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today first.

Austin Frerick, a former economist in the Treasury Department is a nice-looking young guy, but he doesn’t appear at all in his first video ad. Instead the ad is a monologue by Chris Peterson, the former president of the Iowa Farmer’s Union. Peterson explains why Iowa farmers should be supporting Frerick for Congress in the 3rd congressional district. IA-03 is a swing district that includes all of southwest Iowa, from the entire Des Moines metro to the Missouri River, including Council Bluffs and the suburbs east of Omaha.

Before Bruce Barlett served in George H.W. Bush’s Treasury Department, he was a Reagan economics advisor and before that he worked as an advisor to Ron Paul. He labored away as a tax specialist for the Heritage Foundation. Since then he’s quit the Republican Party and is now an independent, although, he likes to say, an independent Reaganite.

On Wednesday morning the House Democratic caucus voted to replace John Conyers as Ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee with Jerry Nadler (D-NY). The secret ballot was 118 votes for Nadler and 72 for Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

The Last Supper by Nancy OhanianMonday, before Ryan passed his TaxScam through the House, Matty Yglesias defined what he sees as the full-scale looting of America.

The Des Moines Register released a new Iowa Poll that bears out what many are taking away from the incredible surge in support for Democrats in beet red Alabama this week. Iowa is a purple swing state that had swung very blue in recent years-- and then swung back. Obama beat McCain in 2008, 828,940 (54%) to 682,379 (44%) and beat Romney in 2012, 822,544 (525) to 730,617 (46%).