Robert Reich

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at UC, Berkeley. He was the token progressive in Bill Clinton's very centrist cabinet, where he served as Secretary of Labor. In 2002, he ran for governor of Massachusetts-- Clinton, angered by his book, Locked in the Cabinet, endorsed one of his primary rivals, someone who won less than 1% of the vote-- and came in second in a 5-way race. Reich, the unabashed, cutting-edge progressive in the race, lost out to an uninspiring, unelectable establishment hack, state Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, who took 243,039 votes to his 185,315.

Remember, Trump is a venal, vindictive prickToday, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the TPP, an executive order far more pleasing to progressives-- especially to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Sherrod Brown-- than to the Republican Establishment represented by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. The move is upsetting many in the Republican-controlled Congress, not the least, the two Republican senators from Arizona.

Yesterday, Alan Grayson e-mailed his supporters to ask them to support John Lewis-- which you can do here, at the Resist ActBlue page. When he was in Congress, Grayson always spoke reverentially about Lewis.

Schumer and Trump are both authoritarian assholes and the NY Post report Sunday claiming Trump prefers Schumer to Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan shouldn’t surprise anyone. Schumer and Trump speak the same language and have a certain outer-borough sensibility in common. Ryan, from Wisconsin, and McConnell, from Kentucky, might as well be from Uranus.

What's the bottom line on Russian interference in the election on behalf of Putin's puppet candidate? Was it just propaganda aimed at an easily manipulated U.S. media coupled with fake news aimed at low-IQ voters? Or is there evidence that the Russians actually tampered with easily hackable voting machines in Outagamie Kenosha and Portage counties in Wisconsin, Macomb and Muskegon counties in Michigan and Luzerne and Erie counties in Pennsylvania.

Nita Lowey is 79 and has been in Congress since 1988. The Clintons are among her constituents and she has easy reelection races in this D+5 district. This cycle the Republicans didn't bother putting up an opponent. The district spans northern and western Westchester County and all of Rockland County (40% of the district population-wise).

New York's 11th congressional district includes all of Staten Island and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Fort Hamilton, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Gravesend. Staten Island residents make up between 70% and 75% of the district's voters. Aside from being New York City's whitest congressional district, it's also the most Italian congressional district in the country.

At the convention in Philly, Truthdig founder and editor Robert Scheer ran into Thomas Frank, whose latest book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened To The Party Of The People? is a must-read for all progressives and, hopefully, for some Democrats who aren't already too far gone. Frank admitted Democrats aren't paying the book any serious attention.. His critique-- "that what we have today is a liberalism of the rich...

Duke Hugh and Barron TrumpanzeeA few days ago, Sahil Kapur, reported how Trump's dull and quickly forgotten-- particularly by Señor Trumpanzee himself-- economic speech was meant to stop the hemorrhaging of support from within the fractured GOP. Brian Ballard, a Jeb!

Conventional wisdom, which isn't always wrong-- says that Hillary will win the nomination and that most of Bernie's supporters will coalesce around her to stop Trump. As the #NeverTrump movement dies off among conservatives, it's strengthening not just among partisan Democrats but among progressives.