Diaz-Balart

Paul Ryan's political raison d'être has been clear since he was first elected to Congress-- slashing the New Deal and subsequent social insurance policies to ribbons. That's what he got from reading Ayn Rand's books when he was just a little right-wing nut in high school.

Thursday the House passed, HR 5279, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, 297-127. All but two dozen Democrats reluctantly voted for it, allowing it to pass in the face of opposition from 103 rabid right-wing Republicans who were prepared to let Puerto Rico descend into chaos and misery.

The nature of political conservatism is corruptionFriday morning the House rejected a plan to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics-- which concerned me, because I just filed a complaint against corrupt conservative Patrick Murphy with it. Right wing New Mexico multimillionaire oil industry crook, Stevan Pearce (R) was behind an amendment to kill it by taking $191,000 out of its budget.

As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline Debbie Wasserman Schultz had already spent $1,300,451 to retain her south Florida congressional seat. Ensconced in a deep blue district whose original very gerrymandered boundaries she drew herself when she was in the state Senate, she's never had an electoral challenge and doesn't know how to run a modern campaign.

While Hillary and Bernie fine-tune their respective approaches to combatting Trump in the general election, it isn't just presidential candidates who will be running against him. Yesterday, Al Franken (D-MN), who won't be up for re-election until 2020, sent out a fundraising e-mail slamming Trump.

Largely at the urging of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DCCC has studiously ignored FL-25 as a pick-up target. There's been a very hands-off policy in a congressional district that stretches from west and northwest Miami-- Fountainebleau, Doral and Sweetwater-- Hialeah and Miami Lakes, west through Collier County and the Naples suburbs and up into Hendry County. 71% of the residents are Hispanic-- just under 40% of whom are Cuban-Americans; there is also a huge Venezuelan population centered on Doral.

Largely at the urging of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DCCC has studiously ignored FL-25 as a pick-up target. There's been a very hands-off policy in a congressional district that stretches from west and northwest Miami-- Fountainebleau, Doral and Sweetwater-- Hialeah and Miami Lakes, west through Collier County and the Naples suburbs and up into Hendry County. 71% of the residents are Hispanic-- just under 40% of whom are Cuban-Americans; there is also a huge Venezuelan population centered on Doral.

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll dug into how independent voters view the two parties. It's just a snapshot in time but 23% of independent voters saw the Democratic Party positively and 37% saw them negatively. Pretty horrible. But it was far worse for the Republicans. Only 8% of independent voters have a positive view of the GOP, while a staggering 52% see the Republicans negatively.

Americans, dumbed down by a lazy, ignorant media and a substandard education system, are fond of the idea that both parties are at fault. OK, Republicans are idiots. What about Democrats? Here at DWT we tend to blame the crumbling from within of the Democratic Party on corporate shills like Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jim Himes and Joe Crowley shredding the Democratic brand on behalf of their own careerism.