Dan Canon

You may have read Sean McElwee’s stuff at The Nation or at Rolling Stone. He’s a sharp policy analyst at Demos and he gets stuff right.

Perhaps you heard or read in the last few days that U.S. life expectancy has dropped ny a tenth of a percent in the U.S. since Trumpanzee took over the Oval Office. And it’s his supporters— prescription drug addicts— who are overdosing and dying. Americans can now expect to live to be 78.6 years down from 78.7 last year, primarily because of the spike in drug overdoses. During the campaign, tackling the problem was a constant Trump pledge.

A rising tide is supposed to lift ALL ships, not just the yachts.-Laura Oatman, Orange County Democrat taking on Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48)

The Guaranteed Income (UBI) proposals floating around, courtesy of the Silicon Valley aristocracy, is a dangerous trap, fraught with right-wing austerity dangers. Progressives who have put any time into it are far more interested in the Job Guarantee models, as we discussed here on Tuesday.

Back in September we introduced a candidate into the mix, Kendra Fershee, running in one of the Trumpiest district in the country-- WV-01, where Trump beat Hillary 68-26% and where the PVI is R+19.

Yesterday, Newsweek warned that Jeff Sessions is planning to end the recognition of the legitimacy of medical marijuana before the end of the year.

Normally, Democrats win districts where the PVI is D+something and Republicans win districts where the PVI is R+something. The higher the "something," the more likely that party will win. But it's not always the case. Conservative Blue Dog Collin Peterson represents a Minnesota district with a PVI of R+12 (although last year it was "just" R+6). Serial DCCC incompetence has guaranteed the reelection of Republican David Valadao in a D+5 California district again and again.

Did anyone ever really believe Trump's idiotic campaign promises to drain the swamp that he personifies or hold Wall Street-- which now runs his regime-- accountable? If so... how tragic! Late Tuesday evening Trump had Mike Pence break the 50-50 tie in the Senate that will now allow banks more leeway to prey on their customers without fear of sanctions. That it even got to a point where the GOP-controlled Senate needed a tie-breaking vote from Pence was strange.

Yesterday, writing for the Washington Post James Hohmann made the case that the blundering moron has wrecked the American health-care system by immediately halting cost-sharing reductions for 7 million Americans and now owns the dire consequences.

Southern California's best member of Congress, Ted Lieu, understands the problems small businesses face better than most members. "Republicans," he told us this morning, "love to talk a big game when it comes to supporting small businesses, but in reality most of their policies benefit big corporations.