Saturday night I had dinner with Matt Stoller and Ted Lieu. Matt, a former organizer and blogger works on Capitol Hill now as a senior policy advisor. Ted, California's most accomplished state senator, is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Henry Waxman (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Venice, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Torrance, West L.A.) Matt wanted to know why Ted wanted to work in Washington.
Maine Republican Susan Collins makes $174,000 a year, along with great retirement and health benefits-- the same as the boys make. And that's the way it should be. But yesterday Collins, a millionaire, joined the Republican Party filibuster seeking to prevent a simple up-or-down vote on Barbara Mikulski's Paycheck Fairness Act, S.2199.
Although Rick Santorum has reassured his far right-wing allies that Collins has to occasionally make believe dh's a moderate to trick Mainers, she never betrays the GOP when push comes to shove, voters still expect her to come through for the mainstream when it's important. Yesterday it was important, very, very important.
If you signed any of the pathetic Democratic Party petitions yesterday to "tell Congress to overturn Citizens United, you can be sure yopu will be hit up for cash by corrupt Democratic conservatives like Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and that your e-mail address will be widely shared and sold and that you will wish you have never signed a petition that isn't troll Congress anything anyway.
Conservative Democrats who cannot winProgressive Democrats who can winRecent polls-- like this morning's release of the latest NBC News/Marist poll in Kentucky-- confirm what astute observers have been saying for some time: the DSCC braintrust-- Harry Reid, Michael Bennet and Guy Cecil-- are wasting their money on conse
Last night saw primary results come in for Florida, Vermont and Arizona and for primary-runoffs in Oklahoma. The only thing that interests me in Republican results is if the right-wing punters pick an extremist or criminal type who will be easier for a Democrat to beat. Otherwise, their races don't interest me. Let's look at Florida first: no surprises.
Grayson's amendment to stop funding the over-militarization of local police forces never made it to the Senate. The House Republican leaders-- Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy-- teamed up with the House Democratic leaders-- Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn (along with Wasserman Schultz, Israel and Crowley)-- to urge their caucuses to vote against it.
Nixon may or may not have made a deal with Jerry Ford, but he got a pardon and never faced a trial, let alone a prison sentence. He said what many politicians feel about politicians who get caught breaking the law: "the punishment of resignation is more than adequate for the crime." Our corporate elites couldn't agree more. Accountability is for poor people with no power, but for elites with lots of it.Only 15 senators and 5 congressmen have ever been expelled-- and almost all of them were Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War.
Today is Jeff Merkley's money bomb. We gave you a heads up yesterday. Merkley isn't just one of the biggest success stories Blue America has had in backing a progressive because he was able to beat a Republican incumbent; that was just the beginning.
The end of last week saw a lot of outrage on the left. It was primarily directed towards the House Republican racism and xenophobia on display Thursday and Friday. Even left-wing rags like the NY Times and Wall Street Journal were outraged. There was less left-wing outrage directed towards President Obama's horrifying defense of CIA criminal John Brennan, a defense that will dog Obama's legacy for all time.
