New Dems

  I was speaking with a congressional candidate the other day. And she asked me if I know a particular member of Congress who had called her recently.

Thursday night during the debate Biden accidentally answered "yes" when asked if he favored closing down the oil industry. He had had a senior moment and he didn't mean that, explaining to journalists a short time later that "We’re not going to get rid of fossil fuels. We’re going to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels." A step in the right direction.

What's worse? This or supporting another dynast?  The New Dems, even more so that the withered and impotent Blue Dogs, are the heart of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. They are Wall Street and corporate-America sell outs and have more in common with Eisenhower-era Republicans than they do with progressive Democrats.

Last week, we noted that the U.S.

Pelosi made a very big mistake a couple weeks ago. She endorsed Joe Kennedy III in his bid to unseat and replace Massachusetts progressive Ed Markey. Pelosi's endorsement immediately turned the race around. Kennedy had been substantially ahead and Pelosi's kiss of death, brought a tidal wave of momentum into the race-- for Markey. Since Pelosi's endorsement there have been two public polls.

2018 DCCC recruit Jeff Van Drew is honest enough to be running for reelection as a Republican. Other 2018 DCCC recruits are being endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce. Maybe someone needs to change the DCCC-- drasticallyProgressivePunch has awarded grades of "F" to 108 Democrats in Congress. 35 of them are part of the the most right-wing freshmen class in the history of the modern Democratic Party.

The New Dems don't just endorse anyone who asks them for an endorsement and they don't sell endorsements as part of a protection racket the way certain other caucuses do. They vet their candidates very carefully and if they detect any fiscal progressive streak-- BOOM!-- it's over. The New Dems are the dominant part of Congress' Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

Eva: "Back in 2015, my opponent switched parties from Republican to Democrat. But if you look at his track record, you couldn't tell the difference. He's voted to roll back important banking regulations adopted under Dodd-Frank, weaken the federal minimum wage bill, he accepts corporate PAC money from private health insurance companies and Big Pharma, and now wants to gut two of our most important and most popular safety nets.

In Poland, solidarity overthrow a tyrannical occupationIn 2014, there were over a dozen Democrats running for the West Side of L.A. congressional district Henry Waxman was retiring from. The DCCC/EMILY's List conservatives had some awful status quo candidate, Wendy Greuel, they were funneling immense support to. EMILY's List spent $158,516 on one of their typical smear campaigns against progressives and Greuel spent $1.3 on the primary.

Feel the love?In 2006, I started interacting with other progressive bloggers nationally through some e-mail groups. I freely shot off my mouth pretty regularly and often attacked Rahm Emanuel, than head of the DCCC. I assumed the 600 or so people on the list knew what I knew about Emanuel and his record as a neoliberal, self-serving and corrupt shit head. Bad assumption.