Dayna Steele

You know how gung-ho we've been about the Houston-area race pitting progressive Dayna Steele against right-wing ideologue Brian Babin. He's a Freedom Caucus extremist. Dayna's someone who wants to make life better from people in southeast Texas. Big difference. Anyway, Imagination Worldwide has been working on a document-series for Amazon-Prime and Google Play that will premiere September 4, with a new episode airing every 2 weeks until election day. Above you can watch the trailer for the first episode.

I still have some wealthy friends from when I was, as Andy Paley always called me, Corporate Howie. These friends are rich but progressive. I had lunch with 4 of them the other day and they said they'd like to do a fundraiser for Beto O'Rourke. Running in Texas-- with all those media markets-- costs a fortune. When Ted Cruz ran in 2012, he spent $14,031,864-- mostly in the Republican primary. Democrat Paul Sadler spent $510,439.

My congressman, New Dem Adam Schiff, didn't join the new Medicare-For-All Caucus. I bet his constituents would freak out if they know. In fact, though I'm not a betting man, I'd bet a lot on that assertion. Some of the most progressive Democrats in the country live in Schiff's district-- West Hollywood, the Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hollywood, East Hollywood, Silverlake, Glendale, and Burbank.

In 2010 Democrats had been in control of Congress for two terms and they were loaded with campaign cash. Democratic incumbents outspent Republican challengers-- sometimes by immense margins, double, triple, three times, four times... Let me show what I mean. In 2010 Jim Oberstar-- first elected in 1974-- was the longest-serving member ever of House from Minnesota.

The Oklahoma Republican Party knew that putting Question 788 on the general election ballot could be very bad for them. It was expected to turn out an inordinately large number of people who don't usually vote-- and those people would not be conservatives. So they put Question 788 on the primary ballot on June 26.

Everyone at Blue America thought that the longest long shot we were taking this cycle was backing Alexandria Ocasio. "That's impossible," people told us. "If you couldn't take a nobody like Dan Lipinsky down, how you going to take down Joe Crowley?!?!" Well, to start, we didn't take down Joe Crowley. Alexandria did. The voters in the southwest Bronx and north Queens saw the contrast between the two candidates and made the easy choice.

Digby's tweet was so strong and to the point yesterday; every word completely precise-- like a Joni Mitchell song. "God he's dumb. Malevolent too. And psychologically unfit. But really, really dumb. I can't think of anyone in history with this particular combination. We just don't have a roadmap to deal with a very stupid, dishonest, narcissistic demagogue.

If Dayna Steele, who won her primary, 72% to 28%, and will now move on to face far right incumbent, Brian Babin, was just another garden variety Democrat there would be little reason to talk about their November contest. But she isn't. Dayna is an icon in the district, once the music director for KLOL, Houston's top rock station. Everyone knows her as the person who introduced them to their favorite artists.

On Thursday evening the Houston Chronicle reported that when Blake Farenthold slithered out of Congress last week he did so without repaying the $84,000 he stole from the taxpayers to cover up the charges that he had sexually harassed a female staffer.

Dayna with...