Iowa

Every Democrat running for Congress against an incumbent Republican is hoping to find a video like this one of white supremacist Steve King endorsing his pal Donald J. Bacon. I hope Kara, the progressive Democrat running for the Omaha-based congressional district currently occupied by Bacon can make good use of it. This particular tape was mae in 2016 and shows King, the ardent white supremacist and rape-and-incest booster proudly endorsing Bacon. The two have been fast allies ever since, almost always voting in tandem. They both vehemently oppose a woman's right to Choice.

J.D. Scholten came very close to beating racist incumbent Steve King in 2018. With no help from the DCCC, congenitally distrustful of progressives, Scholten a former baseball player and first-time candidate, outraised King better than three to one and, in a district with a PVI of R+11 where Obama lost both times and where Trump clobbered Hillary 60.9% to 33.5%, held King to just 50.3%.Since then, King was kicked off his committee for his unhinged racism and has been shunned by his own party.

Status Quo Joe by Nancy OhanianMatt Stieb's New York Magazine story about Biden gaffe-ing his way across Iowa, was filed and published yesterday before the biggest Biden embarrassment of the day. The Status Quo Joe handlers have let him off his leash for the weekend in Iowa. They probably wish they hadn't.

Iowa's four congressional districts. Note Cedar Rapids in the First, Davenport and Iowa City (a college town) in the Second, Des Moines in the Third, and Ames (the other college town) in Steve King's Fourth (source).

Yesterday our old pal, former baseball player JD Scholten launched the second part of his campaign to replace Iowa neo-fascist and white nationalist Steve King with a stunning video narrated by Kevin Costner (Field of Dreams). Last cycle-- with zero help from the DCCC, of course-- JD shocked the political punditry by nearly beating King in the gigantic rural Iowa district that sits in the northwest and central part of the state, stretching from Sioux City to Ames and New Hampton in Chickasaw County in the eastern part of Iowa-- 38 counties.

As Philip Bump pointed out yesterday in his Washington Post column, after Trump's latest anti-Fox Twitter-tirade, "Trump’s objection to Fox News polling is possibly largely due to the fact that they’re good polls.

Today, the New York Times reported that "the fall in longer-term bond yields has not been matched by a fall in shorter-term rates. For example, a 30-day Treasury bill is yielding 2.35 percent-- meaning you can earn more on your money tying it up for a month risk-free than you can tying it up for a full decade. This is not normal. It is called an inverted yield curve, and historically it has been viewed as a sign of a recession in the offing.

In this MSNBC promo-video, Chris Hayes says something worth remembering when you decide who to vote for: "Who will they fight for? What will they fight for? Can they be trusted to do what they say? Everything else is noise." A few days ago, writing for CNN.com, Jill Filipovic asserted that the biggest 2020 mistake the Democrats could make would be to nominate Status Quo Joe.

The big Politico headline early yesterday morning, Trump disputes impact of tariffs on American consumers, but warns China not to retaliate, was instantly controversial on two levels. First...

Waste of a seat-- but better than a RepublicanThis is the 4th in our series about the 2018 freshmen.