Zephyr Teachout

Glick, bad news-by David KeithI taught calculus in college.

You probably remember how excited we were to see progressive icon Zephyr Teachout take on corrupt conservaDem Andrew Cuomo for governor of New York in 2014. She did remarkably well outside of Machine-controlled parts of New York. She won 30 counties, some with over 70% support. This week she announced that she's running for the open congressional seat-- Republican Chris Gibson isn't seeking reelection-- encompassing an area she swept when she ran against Cuomo.

You probably remember Zephyr Teachout's spectacular run against Andrew Cuomo in 2014. He beat her in the big city machine counties but she won Albany, where they know him best and she won up and down the Hudson Valley as well. In fact, of the 11 counties that make up NY-19, the seat Chris Gibson is giving up at the end of the year, Zephyr won 10. The biggest county in the district is Ulster, where she beat Cuomo 69.95% to 27.41%. Dutchess is the second biggest county and she beat him there 57.51%- 40.36%. The comes Rensselaer where it was Zephyr 63.42%, Cuomo 33.02%.

Tuesday, in covering Sheldon Silver's guilty (on all counts) verdict, we mentioned that his attorneys had argued that in charging him, "Bharara had sought to criminalize the kinds of activity in which state legislators routinely engaged" (i.e., taking bribery and kickbacks).

The gang's all here: Silver, Rangel, Clinton, Paterson, SchumerIf you read any of the pre-trial coverage of Sheldon Silver's corruption case, it will come as no surprise to you that spontaneous festivities broke out up and down the halls at DWT when he was f

When the House passed, 343-86 a bill to repeal Glass-Steagall in the summer of 1999, only 69 Democrats, 16 Republicans and 1 Independent stood in opposition. The Independent, of course, was Bernie Sanders. Many Members who made that vote, which turned out to be so predictably catastrophic for the U.S. economy, are no longer in Congress. But many are. Tammy Baldwin (D-WA), like Bernie now in the Senate voted NO; so did now Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS).

Greg Sargent raised the warning signals, based on a new poll released yesterday by Stan Greenberg, that core Democratic voters-- particularly millennials (but also unmarried women and minorities-- are not as energized by the 2016 elections yet as core Republican voters.

Over the weekend, one of the most talked-about pieces from the mainstream press was Patrick Healy's NY Times report on dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party establishment, "Democrats Find That Anti-Establishment Isn’t Just a G.O.P. Theme." "Anger at the political establishment," Healy wrote,

Yesterday, the political reform group headed by Zephyr Teachout, MAYDAY.US, released a poll by PPP showing incredibly strong bipartisan support for the need to fundamentally reform the way this country funds campaigns. Teachout:

This week's guest on Bill Moyers shows were two academics-- Zephyr Teachout And Larry Lessig-- who "decided to practice what they preached. They left the classroom, confronted the reality of down-and-dirty politics, and tried to replace moneyed interests with the public interest." Teachout stunned Andrew Cuomo and his backers by winning over a third of the vote and 30 of New York's 62 counties. She won Ulster County with 70%, Schoharie County with 71.7%, Columbia County with 77.9% and Albany County, where they know Cuomo best, with 61.9%. Cuomo spent $60.62 per vote.