Pramila Jayapal

First the bad new-- courtesy of Newsweek-- Marco Rubio admited that the Republican tax cut plan, which benefits corporations and the wealthy, will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it.

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.

I was surprised on Monday when Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget said that the budget the Trumpanzee Regime presented to Congress is not serious. Putin put a post-literate monstrosity in the White House. Jonathan Bernstein pointed out that Trump didn't read-- let alone write-- the budget; Mulvaney and his staff did.

4 inches-- what if she had worn sneakers?Señor Trumpanzee signed the budget deal this morning that the House passed 240-186 at 5:32 AM, ending Rand Paul's evening government shutdown. I wonder if he would have signed it if it included a couple of lines about not deporting DREAMers.

So what about that stupid Nunes memo? What a joke!

Neither Will Hurd (R-TX) nor Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA) are very popular in their districts and, frankly, neither deserves reelection. A Democrat is likely to beat Hurd, although the DCCC and the Castro Machine have its fingers on the scale for a worthless Blue Dog in South Texas. And it will take some time before a progressive is in position to primary Aguilar in the Inland Empire. They’re both useless back-benchers from overwhelmingly Hispanic districts and this week they co-sponsored a DACA compromise-- a “discussion draft” ahead of Trump’s January 19 deadline.

Every time we write about which freshmen in Congress have lived up to their promise during the 2016 campaign, at the very top of the list-- along with Ro Khanna and Jamie Raskin-- in Seattle's favorite daughter, Pramila Jayapal.

Bernie, responding to Jeff Sessions push to drag the country backwards on marijuana legalization: "No, Attorney General Sessions. Marijuana is not the same as heroin. No one who has seriously studied the issue believes that marijuana should be classified as a Schedule 1 drug beside killer drugs like heroin. Quite the contrary.

On Wednesday morning the House Democratic caucus voted to replace John Conyers as Ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee with Jerry Nadler (D-NY). The secret ballot was 118 votes for Nadler and 72 for Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).