DuWayne Gregory

Happy Anniversary? This year it will be one full decade since the Wall Street meltdown-- triggered by greed-driven, irresponsible banksters and the politicians who allowed them (for a regular flow of bribes) to get away with murder-- that threw the economy into the Great Recession. Austin Frerick is running for an Iowa congressional seat occupied by a garden variety corrupt conservative incumbent, Wall Street ally David Young.

According to a Gallup survey released a week ago, Trump's overall jon approval is 38% and his disapproval is 56%. What does that tell us for the midterms 9 months from now? Not all that much, primarily because despite Trump's overall poor showing, it's in states that senators and governors are elected and in congressional districts where House members are reelected, not nationally.

"How many sats are the Democrats going to pick up in November," one of the savviest campaign managers I know asked me. I don't know, I told him. Between 60 and 70, something like that. "Why are you losing faith?" he asked. "Last time I asked, you said 75." Oh, it could be 75... or 60 or 70 but you're gonna win for sure. He's worried. They're always worried. Good. They need to be.

Deep State by Nancy OhanianThe House initiated the impeachment process against Bill Clinton in the lame duck session in December, 1998. Two months late the Republican majority Senate found him not guilt of both charges.

A couple of weeks ago DuWayne Gregory was elected to his fifth term as the Suffolk County Legislature’s presiding officer. I met DuWayne a few years ago when he helped me conduct a forum for political science and economics majors at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

I was born in Brooklyn and I went to high school there but in between (and afterwards) I lived on Long Island, first in Nassau County and later in Suffolk County. I have Long Island in my DNA-- and God knows I want to see Peter King out of office in my old neighborhoods. The Lovin' Spoonful may have been a NYC band but no one on the Island in the mid-'60s thought so. Their music was our music and I was so happy to share that music in the clip above for the Blue America DuWayne Gregory billboard truck last cycle.

Last May there was such a big hubbub when progressive activist Christine Pellegrino won a red legislative district right in the heart of Peter King's Long Island congressional district (Massapequa, West Babylon, Babylon Village, West Islip and West Bay Shore). Romney had beaten Obama in that Assembly district and last year Trump eviscerated Hillary with a 23 point margin there.

Sunday, Texas conservative Ted Poe resigned from the Freedom Caucus because of TrumpCare. He was for it. The Caucus was, by and large, against it. Maybe Poe was afraid of Trump's wrath but that is odd in a Houston area district that wasn't especially pro-Trump. Romney won Poe's district with 63%, around the same that McCain won it with. Trump only managed 52.4%.

Let me start by saying it's not a conspiracy. It's just that all the Beltway types live in the same bubble. So when, for example, Cook does their House ratings, they don't look further than the districts the DCCC and NRCC have identified as battlegrounds. Media follows along happily and a kind of a prophecy starts becoming self-fulfilling.