Steve Israel

“No way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday… a week after Jim Foley was beheaded"- Peter KingRoland and I have been traveling all over the world for decades. He'd eat grasshoppers, snakes, monkeys and, in Beijing, dog. So when I wondered if I knew anyone who watched the video of Jim Foley's beheading, I asked Roland. "Are you kidding," he declared in disgust. "I'd never watch the savage garbage." OK, so I don't know any friends or family who did.

Monday morning, Tennessee state Senator Jim Tracy conceded the August 7 Republican primary that had left Scott DesJarlais ahead by by 38 votes; Tracy won't be asking for a recount. So DesJarlais, a doctor whose reputation has been harmed because of a series of scandals involving women patients who he drugged up and had sexual affairs with-- even forcing one to have an abortion (which as a far right Republican zombie he loudly opposes… at least for other women. So the Republicans couldn't quite knock off the wounded and bleeding DesJarlais. Will a Democrat take him to pieces?

Peter King's son Sean works for one of the crookedest lobbying firms in AmericaMost candidates for Congress-- and that includes incumbents-- do not run primarily on a foreign policy platform. First of all, voters do not perceive themselves affected by foreign policy on a day to day basis, and, secondly, the president, in his roles as Chief of State and Commander in Chief, has far more power on foreign policy than any individual member of Congress.

The theory is that fewer young voters, fewer minority voters, fewer single women, fewer poor people turn out for midterms. These groups tend to vote Democratic-- and the groups that do turn out-- elderly whites, more well-off people, ideologically driven extremists-- tend to vote for Republicans. There are two things Democratic candidates can do: try to win over the likely voters or try to turn out their own base in greater numbers.

An abject failure at the DCCC, Steve Israel is likely to do even worse this cycle than he did last time. But he's already warning House Democrats that he isn't done with them yet. He's well aware that no one will tolerate another cycle with his inept and catastrophic handling of the DCCC, so he's insisting on another leadership post.

Red to Blue looks like such a stinker for Steve Israel this cycle that he's started slipping in candidates in blue districts so his batting average won't look as atrocious on the morning of November 5th as anyone looking at his inept recruiting will surmise. A good red-to-blue program would have strong, progressive candidates running against Republicans in blue-leaning districts. Instead, Israel's personal agenda had him out-right protecting Republicans in many of these districts.

If there's one district that demonstrates the venality of Steve Israel and his utter unfitness to head the DCCC, it is the race in southwest Michigan between the hereditary multimillionaire chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton, and Paul Clements, a professor at Western Michigan University, an advocate for middle class families and for environmental sanity. MI-06 has a PVI of R+1, one of only a dozen districts in the country with that rank. Five of those seats are held by Democrats and 7 are held by Republicans.

Yesterday's NY Post found some nicely dressed young people who don't get drunk or get arrested for violent crimes and who knew how to use iPhones and dubbed them the next generation of Republicans, "throwbacks-- spurning drugs, crime and disorder, being sexually responsible and making sound choices about education.

Long Island's 2 crooked congressmenWhen Peter King's congressional district was last redrawn in 2010, it went from a north-south district-- from the Atlantic to the Long Island sound, right across Nassau County-- to an east-west district-- from Lake Ronkonkomo and Sayville, across Islip, Deer Park and Babylon to Levittown, mostly in Suffolk County.

Israel's specialty: wasting resources on conservatives like Jennifer GarrisonBill Scher is a respected liberal author and the online campaign manager at Campaign for America's Future. Maybe he was drunk when he wrote the How Obama's immigration push could hand the House to Democrats for The Week.