DEMS 4

ESTB 11 24

SEE TEAM BLUE DANA NESSEL MI ~ DOGE

SEE MAMDANI ZOH

SEE DEMONIZATION 2 // TERROR BS 3

SEE OVERSIGHT

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AN 10 26

Tuesday marks 28 days until the Nov. 3 election, and Democrats are preparing for a "doomsday scenario," CNN reports.

It's not unheard of for the Democratic Party or presidential campaigns to assemble an army of lawyers ready to file lawsuits or go to judges at a moment's notice. This year, however, something else is brewing, and it's much bigger.

Senior CNN reporter Annie Grayer told Manu Raju that for months Democrats have been working behind the scenes to play out possible scenarios that would have been unheard of even six years ago "because Democrats do not want to leave anything up to chance here."

"Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been convening groups of senators, lawyers, outside experts to do the sort of role-playing scenarios where they're given very specific scenarios to talk through how they would handle potential intervention from the [Donald] Trump administration, what that intervention could look like."

The Democratic doomsday preppers are crafting plans for what would happen if the National Guard was deployed to polling locations by the Trump administration, or even if the Guard soldiers attempt to seize ballots from those locations. They're planning how to deal with misinformation that comes from deep-fake videos and other AI.

"What I've learned is that the senators in these groups were even role-playing different figures in the Trump administration. So, playing the role of attorney general, playing the role of director of national intelligence, playing the role of director, homeland security secretary to get in the position of what possible interference could happen, and then talk through how they would respond to it as Democrats and in the House," said Grayer.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) is working on his own similar effort to walk through 150 threat possibilities and how he would deal with them. He's also traveling around the country to raise awareness among Democratic voters to watch for specific things and report them as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the Senate side is "building the largest election observer program," she said.

"The first time that we've seen that in the Senate," Grayer said, describing official staffers around the country to observe and be prepared to act if some kind of skullduggery ensues.

"What lawmakers realize is they couldn't rely on the national party here," she explained. "They had to build something on their own in this off-year election for Democrats. But so they've tapped into the legal community and built this really strong legal apparatus to be ready to respond at a moment's notice. I talked to one lawyer for this story who told me that she's a go-bag ready, just in case she has to be deployed at a moment's notice."

It suggests that while they all believe strongly in the system and in elections, they're not discounting any possible dirty tricks from the White House, Grayer explained. They intend to cast a wide net of possibilities as Nov. 3 approaches and post-election legal battles begin.

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YIKES?

AN 10 26

Since assuming office last year, President Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on free speech, targeting both journalists and commentators who criticize him and his administration. In theory, Democrats are standing up to Trump's anti-free speech actions — but a new report reveals that, in practice, many Democratic governors seem to be capitulating.

The New Republic's Daniel Boguslaw wrote about how Democratic governors are responding to National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, an executive order that allows Trump to pursue people who are “anti-fascism, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality."

The journalist pointed out that the FBI has tried to force states to work with them in pursuing these initiatives — and they have so far not fought back.

"Gavin Newsom of California shirked the question [of whether he was working with the FBI], telling The New Republic in a written statement only that 'California’s security efforts operate wholly under state law and appropriate safeguards,'" Boguslaw wrote.

He added, "New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s office attempted a more acrobatic maneuver, claiming that 'New York State Police assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force focus only on genuine criminal or terrorism investigations, follow New York’s laws, and do not participate in civil immigration enforcement or the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center.' That answer is misleading. The FBI Joint Mission Center is the central hub for administering NSPM-7, but its participants are only a few dozen federal employees based in Washington, D.C."

Referring to the third most populous blue state, Boguslaw wrote that "Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also demurred on the question of how exactly local and state police are participating in the FBI’s ongoing Illinois NSPM-7 investigations, telling The New Republic, 'Regardless of any actions taken by federal officials under the direction of the Trump administration, Illinois remains committed to maintaining the integrity of its own processes and will continue to ensure law enforcement information is handled appropriately and focused on legitimate public safety purposes, not political agendas.'"

This is not the first time Democrats have been accused of quietly capitulating to Trump while pretending to stand up to him. From college presidents who work with him in squashing pro-Palestine campus protests to law firms that settled with him and abandoned liberal pro bono causes, the left has in general been accused of caving to Trump's bullying instead of fighting him.

In this context, Trump has pursued a number of his media critics, such as sending subpoenas to The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Axios and The New York Times for their reporting. He has also banned outlets like Politico, MS NOW and CNN from covering him in the White House, even outright admitting that it is viewpoint discrimination.

"After MS NOW, CNN and Politico sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president banning their reporters from White House grounds, Trump’s communications team sent congressional Republicans talking points Monday night in defense of the president’s decision," MS NOW's Mychael Schnell reported in September. "According to the document obtained by MS NOW, the White House wants Republicans to argue that “no president has been more transparent or offered more of his time to the press” and that the First Amendment does not grant reporters access to the White House."

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https://oversight.house.gov/members}:

AN 7 26 GARCIA PROMISE TRUMP CORRUPT?

Large law firms are already preparing their corporate clients for the investigations they expect will come if Democrats take over Congress.

Bloomberg Law reportedon Tuesday that the major firms expect there to be hearings involving President Donald Trump's investments, government contracts with allegations of quid pro quo and sponsorships of the Trump ballroom, like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. to name a few.

Brian Smith, a partner at Covington & Burling, said they're starting now.

It’s “getting ready for the potential of investigations in the same area, understanding what materials you have, what risks you have,” he said.

Susanne Grooms, who leads Cooley’s congressional investigations for the global law firm, told Bloomberg, “We map out the landscape of what the Congress will look like.”

Emily Loeb, who co-chairs the congressional investigations firm Jenner & Block, expects the hearings to come largely from House Oversight and Government Reform, House Judiciary, and House Energy and Commerce committees.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Ca.) has started too. The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners about the Trump son-in-law influencing foreign policy for personal financial gain.

He also sent a letter to The GEO Group Inc., a private prison company, that Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been investigating over self-dealing at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem.

For him, Garcia said he connects such investigations to the affordability agenda because these corporations are getting American tax dollars that could be going to help Americans afford healthcare and other items that were cut in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill" passed by Republicans in 2025.

“Part of our agenda is going to be, if there are corporations or large organizations that are working with the administration to rip off the American taxpayer, then that’s going to be exposed,” Garcia said.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) is similarly concerned about companies that have given to one of Trump's projects, which also may have expected favorable treatment.

“Companies that continued to do things by the book, I think, are going to be glad that they did,” he said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is expected to take over the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win in November. When asked about his approach to oversight, he said, “We’re doing everything we can to try to protect the Constitution and the rule of law."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees the funding for surveillance, "the practice of collecting personal information about consumers and then using the data to charge different prices for the same goods."

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) told Bloomberg he'd already submitted letters to at least 25 companies.

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” Pallone said in an interview. “And then we’ll see if there’s necessity for legislation.” While he would hope to get information voluntarily, he said, “there’s the possibility” of using subpoenas.

The House Committee on Natural Resources may seem like a tame group, but Democrats there already released a report called "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday." It alleges, among other things, that the president and his staff "hijacked" the "America 250" celebrations to funnel funding to their own shell company through no-bid contracts.

A Washington Post reportrevealed that among the findings was that donors were tricked into giving to "Freedom 250" by aides who gave them the account information for "Freedom" instead of "America" in wire transfers. If true, that would constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud,.

Donors who gave to "America" were pressured by the Trump administration to withdraw their donations and reroute them into the "Freedom 250" event instead. Trump staff was also accused of taking $75 million of congressionally allocated funds that leaders thought they were getting for America250. The reduction in funds meant that there was less available for planned events around the country.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Ca.) told the Post that he would do a broader investigation when the Democrats are in control.

“If and when we have more tools at our disposal to do investigation and oversight, perhaps in the next Congress you will see a lot more information on this, I’m sure,” he said.

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i am not denier says ron john et al gop wants clean air and water but then

ltr mats 80 dems zeldin

Letter-to-EPA-opposing-rescinding-the-Mercury-and-Air-Toxic-Standards-MATS-rule-1

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AN 6 26

Since 2016, when Donald Trump shattered the Democrats’ blue wall by winning working-class voters across the Midwest, a cottage industry has sprung up on the left dedicated to answering a single question: How can Democrats win back the working class?

The answers come in different forms. Sometimes it is veteran Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders – barnstorming red districts, railing against oligarchy and corporate greed.

Or it’s Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who after the 2024 election declared, “Democrats must reclaim our identity as the party of the working class.”

Or the answer comes from a new generation of candidates – tattooed veterans, mechanics, bartenders – whose biography is supposed to do the political work that policy has not.

Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who has become the left’s latest blue-collar savior, put the theory in its most unguarded form.

“We are in a form of class war,” he says. “And if the Democratic Party is going to have a future with working people, it needs to pick the side of working people.”

How does he define the working class? “Essentially everybody who isn’t making all their money on an immense amount of wealth.”

The theory is all the same: Somewhere out there is a latent working-class majority, held together by shared economic grievances, waiting to be politically reassembled to vote for Democrats. The New Deal did it – Democrats can do it again.

I’m a political scientist who has written extensively about rural and working-class communities. I believe it is an open question whether these reformist Democrats are really interested in understanding working-class voters on their own terms. Because working-class voters, as they tell us themselves, are not simply waiting to be activated by the right program, the right messenger, the right phrase. “Fight the oligarchy” probably isn’t going to do it.

Working-class voters have a worldview. For 50 years, it has been growing less compatible with the Democratic Party’s – not because working-class voters changed, but because Democrats did.

Working-class identity

Since the early 1950s, the American National Election Studies has asked respondents whether they think of themselves as members of the working class. This article uses my analysis of that data.

While a larger proportion of the electorate has obtained a college degree and household incomes have risen, the share of Americans who consider themselves working class has remained remarkably stable: roughly 35% of voters for the past 70 years, 38% in 2024.

Working-class identity is something more durable and culturally grounded than a description of who isn’t a billionaire. It is a specific way of looking at the world.

There are conventional ways to define the working class, but they often miss how people understand their own place in society. In the 2024 American National Election Studies, for example, 21% of those who identify as working class have a college degree, only 5% belong to a private-sector union, and 37% own stocks. Conversely, most Americans without a college degree do not identify as working class.

Working-class voters have never been a predominantly Democratic group – not even at the height of the New Deal coalition. Based on the American National Election Studies self-report measure, the working-class share of the Democratic coalition peaked around 56% in 1960 and has fallen more or less continuously since, sitting at just about 30% today.

Meanwhile, the share of working-class voters who identify as Democrats has been declining for half a century: A majority did so in 1958, but not since.

Working-class voters have not become Republicans. Only in 2020 and 2024 – the first time in the survey’s history – did more working-class voters identify as Republican than Democrat, and even then by narrow margins.

The data shows a working class that is politically homeless: estranged from the Democrats, not captured by the Republicans, stuck in the middle with diminishing attachment to either party.

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Economic abandonment

So what drove them out?

A segment of the progressive left has a ready answer: Democrats abandoned working-class voters economically – on trade, wages and industrial policy. Working-class voters responded rationally. Fix the economics and the coalition comes back.

Trade is where the argument is strongest. In 1988, roughly 74% of both Democrats and working-class voters groups favored limits on imports to protect American jobs.

By 2024, only 26% of Democrats favored limits, while a majority – 54% – of working-class voters continued to do so.

Unlike most Democrats, many working-class communities do not see globalization in their interest. Running alongside the trade gap is a widening divide over values that no tariffs can fix.

What fairness requires

In 1984, Democrats and working-class voters broadly agreed that treating people more equally would mean fewer social problems. A divergence opened after 2008 and accelerated after 2016, with Democrats now 28 points more likely than working-class voters to think we should worry more about equality.

In 1986, half of mainstream Democrats and a slightly smaller percentage of working-class voters agreed with the idea that Black Americans don’t succeed because they don’t try hard enough. By 2024, Democratic agreement had collapsed to 13%. Working-class voters declined too, but to 32%.

The gap that opened between them is not primarily a story about rising working-class racial resentment. It is a story about the Democratic Party’s rapid post-2008 shift toward a worldview that places far greater explanatory weight on structural barriers and far less on individual effort and personal responsibility.

Working-class voters, who historically have understood their own lives through a framework of hard work and earned reward, did not shift so dramatically.

Alignment becomes division

On cultural questions, the pattern persists: Working-class voters did not move right in reactionary revolt. Democrats moved left.

In 1986, similar levels of Democrats and working-class voters agreed with the statement “This country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family ties.” By 2024 a 25-point gap emerged.

On whether religion is an important part of their life: a near-zero gap through the early 1990s, but 17 points by 2024. On abortion, a 3-point gap in 1980 became 30 points in 2024. Regarding whether immigration levels should be increased, the two groups were virtually identical in 2000 – around 8% support – but by 2020 Democrats were at 48%, working-class voters at 24%.

But even where working-class voters nominally agree with a Democratic policy goal, they don’t trust the institution being asked to deliver it – a distrust decades in the making.

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How the ‘system’ plays

In 1958, working-class voters and Democrats were within 5 points of each other on whether government wastes a lot of tax money. By 2024 that gap reached 27 points – not because working-class voters lurched toward anti-government extremism, but because mainstream Democrats became dramatically more trusting of government as an instrument of social change.

Working-class voters are 17 points more likely than Democrats to say people like them have no say in what government does. In 2024, 88% of working-class voters and 75% of Democrats said government is run by a few big interests. Both groups agree the system is captured.

Yet the Democratic policy response, invariably, is to expand the system.

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On support for expanding government – from healthcare to jobs to environmental programs – Democrats and working-class voters have diverged dramatically since the 1980s. By 2024, there were approval gaps of between 20 and 30 points on providing government health insurance, environmental spending and a guaranteed jobs program.

On every major plank of the progressive economic agenda, Democrats are now substantially to the left of the workers they claim to champion.

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Not all class war

Working-class voters have been telling pollsters for 60 years that the political system doesn’t hear them. Democrats, over the same period, have grown more comfortable with the institutions working-class voters have increasingly less faith in.

This distrust is the accumulated residue of specific experiences: deindustrialization that happened on government’s watch, trade deals that economists endorsed and workers paid for, a 2008 financial crisis response that saved the banks and foreclosed on their homes, an opioid epidemic that regulators missed entirely.

To be fair, this is precisely what the new crop of reform candidates say they want to fix. The argument that the right candidate can move the needle is not crazy. Candidate quality matters. Personal trust can substitute for institutional trust, at least at the margins.

But economic grievance politics is a very small slice of what working-class voters are telling us. The data documents a comprehensive, decades-long divergence in how working-class voters and mainstream Democrats understand fairness, government, personal responsibility and social change.

Reducing that to class war jams working-class voters into a prefabricated progressive agenda rather than taking seriously what they are actually saying.

Nicholas Jacobs, Goldfarb Family Distinguished Chair in American Government, Colby College; Institute for Humane Studies

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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DRAFTING ON MILLER TRUMP bs POST KIRK?

AN 10 25

'I don’t negotiate with terrorists': GOP congressman targets Democrats in outrageous rant // COMPROMISE?

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AN 1 26

Amidst national outrage this week over the killing by Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent, members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation on Saturday were blocked from full access to a federal immigration detention center in the city—but at least one lawmaker among them warns something much more sinister is now taking place in the state.

“I was just denied access to the ICE processing center at the Whipple Building,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who represents the state’s 5th District. “Members of Congress have a legal right and constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight where people are being detained. The public deserves to know what is taking place in ICE facilities.”

Omar shared a video of herself, along with Reps. Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison, outside the facility as large numbers of masked federal agents in protective gear blocked the driveway entrance.

In a telephone interview with MSNOW, Omar later explained that she and her colleagues arrived at the facility Saturday morning in order to conduct oversight activities. While Omar said they were initially allowed to enter the building, they were shortly after told they “had to wait until higher-ups were able to come speak with us.”

It seemed to Omar, she said, that the order to halt their visit “maybe came from Washington to deny us the proper access that we needed to complete those oversight duties that we are obligated as members of Congress.”

Calling it a clear violation of their oversight authority, Omar and Craig explained to reporters what happened after they were denied further access to the facility:

Congresswoman Craig also spoke to MSNOW’s Ali Velshi:

Noting the size and scale of the presence of armed federal agents now deployed in her state, Omar suggested in her interview with MSNOW that the recent Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations being conducted serve no purpose other than to harass and terrorize local communities. That militarized presence has only grown since Trump ordered more agents to the city following Wednesday’s killing of Good and the protests that have erupted as a result.

“ Protest is as American as apple pie,” said Omar. “People come out to register their opposition to what they do not like or want to accept. It is important for people to be able to do that in a democracy.”

“What we are seeing right now, not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate people enough where they are able to invoke the Insurrection Act to declare martial law.”

“There is,” she continued, “no other justifiable way to describe what is taking place in Minneapolis at this moment. There is no justifiable reason why this number of agents is here in our state.”

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ANNO LOST

AN 10 25

Roosevelt University political science professor David Faris warned The Nation that blue states may have to resort to a ‘tax strike’ to stop being the MAGA regime’s ‘second tier’ Americans.

“Since his election, Trump has … treated blue states not as equals … but rather like defeated vassals who must pay tribute to their new emperor in the form of policy capitulations and abrogations of their constitutional rights,” said Faris, adding that Trump’s explicit mandate to make blue states suffer “is the gravest threat to the constitutional union since the Civil War.”

“Last week, Trump escalated this campaign of autocratic intimidation by screaming on his fourth-tier microblogging website that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be imprisoned,” Faris said. “His corrupt henchman — er, ‘immigration czar’ — Tom Homan has distributed threats of arrest on cable news like he’s tossing paper towels to hurricane victims, against everyone from New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to California Governor Gavin Newsom.”

Meanwhile, Faris said Trump and his “Cabinet goons can count on the reliably servile U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to do whatever the administration asks.”

Faris said Trump is also using ICE to disproportionately target blue states and Democratic-run cities, with CNN reporting that Trump’s troops deliberately marching up and down Latino-majority streets is “killing business” and shutting down whole sections of Chicago.

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“Citizens in blue states feel like they are living under a constant state of military siege, rhetorical harassment and punitive partisan budgetary cuts because that is in fact what is happening. And it is not sustainable for another three years,” said Faris. “The compact between the states is not magical or self-executing or ordained by divine providence to ensure that it can’t be undone by ruthless MAGA tyrants. It has fallen violently apart once before.”

Faris said blue state officials are already mulling a tax strike.

“In 2024, California and New York alone combined to send nearly $1.2 trillion in income and other taxes to the federal government, making up close to a quarter of all revenue. The reliance of many small, rural Republican-leaning states on federal funding is well known,” Faris said. “… By themselves, the states that voted for Kamala Harris — leaving aside the consensus battleground states — represent half of all federal tax revenue.”

The gamble, said Faris, is that Trump’s own diminished IRS would not be able to summon the resources or personnel to verify and punish citizens participating in a strike, even though Faris said Trump appears more than willing to muster some form of federal force to discourage a protest from taking “root on its own.”

Another option, said Faris, could be a national general strike with infuriated federal workers walking off their jobs and bringing society “to a screeching halt.”

“If workers in just the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs went out at once (they would need to resign, take time out under the Family and Medical Leave Act, or find some other workaround to avoid prohibitions on striking), and if they were joined by, say, public school teachers, the country would be snarled in an almost unimaginably chaotic crisis within 24 hours.”

Read the Nation report at this link.

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an 10 25

'Perfect storm': Alaska Democrats flip GOP seat for the first time in 10 years

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TTW

July 8, 2025

Democrats Trying to Copy Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 Model

Here is more from the New York Times:

*Mr. AndreiCherny, the co-founder of a nearly two-decade-old liberal policy journal, is organizing a group of Democratic thinkers to recreate what Mr. Trump’s allies did when he was voted out of office: draft a ready-made agenda for the next Democratic presidential nominee.

*They’re calling it Project 2029

*The title is an unsubtle play on Project 2025, the independently produced right-wing agenda that Mr. Trump spent much of last year’s campaign distancing himself from, and much of his first few months back in power executing.

*They plan to roll out an agenda over the next two years, in quarterly installments, through Mr. Cherny’s publication, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. The goal is to turn it into a book — just like Project 2025 — and to rally leading Democratic presidential candidates behind those ideas during the 2028 primary season.

*Ms. Neera Tanden, leader of the Center for American Progress, is part of a sizable advisory board for Project 2029 that includes Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Anne-Marie Slaughter, the chief executive of New America; the economist Justin Wolfers; Felicia Wong, until recently the president of the progressive Roosevelt Institute; and Jim Kessler, a founder of the centrist group Third Way.

A number of others are involved in Project 2029, including Marc Dunkelman, a fellow at the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University.

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7 25 TEXAS GERRY GAVIN PRTIZKER ILL HOST DEM REP REFUGEE

'This is a war': Hochul joins blue-state push in brewing gerrymander arms race

David Badash

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email g 7 25

We’re kicking off our tour in Phoenix, Arizona, alongside firebrand Senator Chris Murphy, leading progressive Representative Jasmine Crockett, and climate champion Representative Yassamin Ansari, rallying against Representatives David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani—two of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress—who just voted to hand billionaires a huge tax cut, paid for by the working class.

Then, we’re headed to Omaha, Nebraska, where Republican Representative Don Bacon is retiring from his swing district—which Kamala Harris won in 2024—because he’s too afraid to face his constituents, giving Democrats a golden opportunity to pick up a critical House seat. We’ll be joined by powerhouse Senator Elizabeth Warren and rising star Representative Maxwell Frost.

And we’re partnering with MeidasTouch—the fastest-growing independent and wildly popular media network—to broadcast our events far and wide to reach audiences on YouTube and digital platforms that have tuned out traditional media.

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an 7 25

Over the weekend, Vox posted an interview with Vox journalist Christian Paz, who’d reported previously that the Democrats were ripe for a grassroots takeover like the alleged one that overtook the GOP. The headline claimed to explain “the Democrats’ Tea Party moment.”

But unlike the headline, in the interview Paz was more circumspect about the actual existence of a Tea Party-style movement inside the party. The best that can be said, he said, is that “the base has never really been as angry as it is right now. What we’re seeing is a combination of anti-Trump anger, wanting a change in direction, wanting a change in leadership, and also some folks who are like, maybe we should become more progressive as a party” (his stress).

What are they angry about?

To hear Paz tell it, Democratic voters are angry with party leaders for failing to concentrate on “a working-class vision for Americans. They should be more focused on kitchen table affordability issues” (his italics).

But if you listen to Democratic leaders, like Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House, that’s all they talk about. They speak endlessly about the need for the parties to come together and solve economic problems that all Americans share, and to rise above the bickering and the partisanship, and find common ground.

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But despite that, the Democratic base is still angry.

Why?

Brad Lander suggested it’s because the real division in the party isn’t, as Paz suggested, between “the establishment” and progressives, but between “fighters and folders.” New York City’s comptroller said that’s what voters saw in candidate Zohran Mamdani when they gave him victory over Andrew Cuomo in that city’s Democratic mayoral primary.

“People want someone to go to bat for working people, paint a real vision of a city people can afford, fight for it and get on the field,” Lander told CNN last month. “And that’s what I think Zohran did.”

I have my own theories about the Democratic leadership. You can read more about them here, here, here and especially here. Basically, it’s that leaders don’t want to fight, because fighting is risky. But I wanted to bring into the conversation someone who has deep insight into the party, and who understands its mechanics and what it takes to win.

So I got in touch with Dana Houle. He has worked in organized labor, was once a congressional chief of staff, and managed campaigns from the local to the statewide level. His Bluesky feed is indispensable.

In this first of two parts of our conversation, Dana explained the true root of the problem: defeat in November. Whenever the Democrats, or the Republicans, lose a presidential election, Dana told me, there’s always a period of anger and distrust between the base and the elites.

Dana told me that as a consequence of this fundamental, it’s tempting to look for an “insurrection” of some kind, like the one that took place in 2010, when the Tea Party destabilized the old GOP establishment.

But, as Dana told me, the Tea Party is a terrible analogy. For one thing, it was a phony “revolt.” For another, it represented a serious policy fracture between Republican elites over the issue of immigration. Dana told me that the Democrats, meanwhile, agree on virtually everything, policy-wise. What they disagree on is style and strategy. More than anything else, however, the Democrats still believe in democracy.

“I don't think anyone has a clear idea of what the base-leadership tension will create, but I don't think it will lead to nihilism, and the Tea Party definitely was part of the GOP's devolution into nihilism.”

Do the Democrats have a trust problem? The base of the party is restless and its leaders don't seem to be hearing it. I am thinking of Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City, but not only that.

Whenever a party is locked out of power at the national level, there's a trust problem. It was different in 2021 with the Republicans, because, well, almost everything is different with Trump. But Democrats in 2017, Republicans in 2009, Democrats in 2001-2006 – people get mad at their party for losing. And obviously the stakes are much higher now.

I'm not sure Mamdani fits here. First, it's a local race, in a city that's unique and that gets far more attention than LA or Chicago or Houston or Phoenix, because that's where the national media and the financial industry are based. Second, it was a weird race; other than Jerry Brown, it's hard to think of an ex-governor who ran for mayor.

Unlike Brown, Andrew Cuomo was disgraced, and he was also widely loathed. That's how the race started. Mamdani and Brad Lander joining together on the "don't rank Cuomo" and then seeing the results shows a lot of that race was "anyone but the sex pest." That's probably one of the reasons all the big players except Tish James stayed out of it.

There is, of course, the fact that both Democratic congressional leaders are in New York, but I don't think they were factors in the race, and I don't think the mayoral race has anything to do with their challenges and what people think of their performance as leaders.

https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lsmxrs4z3k2w

To what extent is the Tea Party angle within the Democratic Party real or imaginary? Lander said the true fault line in the party is not between moderates and progressives, but "fighters and folders." No is really saying "tea party" because it was mostly astro-turf, but lots of people want confrontation by the Democrats, a la the tea party.

That's an important point – that the Tea Party was largely astro-turf. I think Lander is correct, but if I had to look for a recent analogy I'd go back to 2002-2005, when disgust over too many Democrats supporting the Iraq War contributed to the rise of the Netroots, propelled the campaigns of General Wesley Clark and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, and led to the election of Dean as DNC chair.

I don't think anyone has a clear idea of what the base-leadership tension will create, but I don't think it will lead to nihilism, and the Tea Party definitely was part of the GOP's devolution into nihilism.

Voxposted a headline recently thatasserted as fact the existence of a Tea Party-type movementwithin the Democratic Party. But the interview was highly informed by Bernie Sanders' rhetoric, especially understanding the problem as between progressives and "the establishment." What are the real fault lines in the party?

The Tea Party is a horrible analogy for the current Democratic Party. The Vox piece made it sound like it was a response to deficits. That was part of the astroturf messaging, but that wasn't and isn't a fault line in the Republican Party: elites and the base care about deficits when Democrats are in charge, not when Republicans are in charge.

But there was a big policy rift in the Republican Party.

Remember when George W Bush, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback and most of the Republican leaders tried to pass comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of what the United States Chamber of Congress had wanted? That was a policy rift.

And it remained one that Trump exploited. In that first Republican primary debate, he mentioned ending birthright citizenship and most of the other Republicans on the stage were dumbfounded.

With Democrats, there really aren't those kinds of policy rifts.

In Congress, there's wide agreement on most policy matters, from the most moderate Democrat to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. That's in part, because much of the last 15 years has been about the ruralification and dumbification of the Republican Party.

In 2010, Democrats held three of the four Senate seats and both House seats in the Dakotas. They held both Senate seats and two of three House seats in West Virginia. They held three of the four House seats in Mississippi. Their congressional majority was still, as it had been since the Civil War, rooted in the South. That's all changed.

There are hardly any Democrats representing large numbers of rural whites. Democrats are no longer split between northern/urban liberals and white rural southerners. They're now the party of cities and suburbs, with some rural Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.

And they largely agree on policy!

There's no simmering conflict between Democratic elites and the Democratic base like there was within the GOP on immigration, which was also a class and status revolt. Democrats are mostly arguing about style, tactics, rhetoric, personalities, what issues to prioritize, our modes of communication and organizing – that kind of thing.

NOW READ:Bloodthirsty Republicans need to stop their praying

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A House Oversight Committee hearing grew tense Thursday when Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) accused several Democratic governors of breaking federal law.

“You're in violation of federal law. Charges for obstruction should be brought against each one of you for doing this, I'll leave that up to the Department of Justice,” Palmer told New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who quickly pushed back: “That's 100% false.”

Palmer escalated, calling for obstruction charges against the governors. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back sharply with a point of order to chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.) : “That was intimidation of the witness ... Raising the prospect of charges against witnesses is a form of intimidation. Is it not?”

Palmer then responded, “I strike those words.”

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Hochul appeared on Capitol Hill alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to defend their states’ sanctuary policies before the House Oversight Committee. Republicans on the panel linked those policies to rising crime tied to undocumented immigrants, while Democrats argued the protections are more critical than ever.

One of the most pointed exchanges came between Hochul and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a longtime critic who has hinted at challenging Hochul for governor in 2026.

Stefanik used her full questioning time to go after Hochul, citing violent crimes in New York City that she blamed on the state’s sanctuary stance.

"You are not advocating on behalf of these victims. You are shielding illegals. Even in your opening statement, you prioritize putting illegals first," Stefanik said.

"That is not true," Hochul responded. "Rather than going after the viral moment, I suggest you look at the facts."

"No, no, no, I'm standing up for New Yorkers," Stefanik shot back.

Watch the video of the confrontation below, or byclicking this link.

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Donald Trump suffered a major setback during his first presidency when Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms and enjoyed a net gain of 41 seats. Now, with Trump serving a nonconsecutive second term, Democrats are looking to the 2026 midterms and hoping for another blue wave.

But The Nation's John Nichols, in an article published on June 9, stresses that for Democrats, the path to defeating Trumpism doesn't start in 2026 — it starts with the elections being held this year.

In 2025, elections range from gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey to special elections in the U.S. House of Representatives to state legislature races. In Philadelphia, progressive Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner is almost certain to win a third term after defeating a primary challenger by double digits.

"Trump’s approval ratings have tanked, and protests over his administration’s attacks on science, health care, immigrants, judges, and anyone else who gets in his way take place nearly every day," Nichols observes. "While the turn against Trump and Trumpism is glaringly evident, it is equally evident that this president is a master of self-deception. And while Trump has a history of denying election results, Republicans won't be able to spin their way out of serious electoral setbacks if they come in 2025."

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Nichols continues, "In Virginia, where Republicans won every statewide race in 2021, control of the House of Delegates is up for grabs. If Democrats win there as part of a broader sweep of New Jersey and the rest of the country's odd-year election map, it will send a devastating message to the (Trump) Administration."

In New Jersey, Democrats and Republicans haven't chosen their gubernatorial candidates yet. Many New Jersey Democrats are feeling bullish about Rep. Mike Sherrill (D-New Jersey), believing she could be quite competitive against GOP gubernatorial hopeful Jack Cittarelli (who Trump has endorsed even though he was critical of Trump in the past).

Meanwhile, in Virginia, Democrats have already settled on former Rep. Abigail Spanberger as their 2025 gubernatorial nominee.

"Virginia Democrats know what’s at stake," Nichols explains. "For the first time since 2013, they united behind a single gubernatorial candidate, former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, before the state's spring primary. And for the first time in decades, the party has fielded candidates in all 100 races for the (Virginia) State House of Delegates. One of the reasons for this is a concerted organizing effort by Dr. Fergie Reid Jr., a retired physician and the son of Dr. William Ferguson Reid, the pioneering civil rights activist who in 1967 unseated a segregationist to become Virginia’s first Black delegate since Reconstruction."

Nichols adds, "The senior Reid turned 100 in March and urged Virginia Democrats to honor his longevity by filling ballot lines in every legislative contest. But it was more than nostalgia that helped them achieve a full slate. As Reid Jr. told the Virginia Mercury, 'Virginia is the first opportunity for really any state in the United States to answer back to what’s going on in Washington right now. It's going to send a big, loud message to the rest of the country and to the world that not everybody in America is with Trump.'"

Nichols describes Virginia and New Jersey as "the most important electoral dominoes in 2025."

"If they fall to the Democrats, and if other contests this November follow suit," Nichols observes, "that could significantly boost Democratic recruitment, fundraising, and organizing prospects in the 2026 midterm races for control of Congress."

*Read John Nichols' full article for The Nation at this link.

mAXINE dexter Rep ore hjr 54 6 25

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Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump, with the help of billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has sought to vastly reduce the number of government workers through mass firings, drawing concern, criticism and several legal challenges.

According to a report from Reuters, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body created through an executive order, has prompted the firing, severance and early retirement of more than 260,000 government employees. However, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has issued a temporary restraining order, blocking efforts to restructure the federal government.

In March, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his own DOGE-related cuts, aiming to terminate 20,000 full time employees and reorganize the department’s 28 divisions to 15. The department has also closed its regional offices in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, halving its total regional facilities.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

However, a coalition of 20 attorneys general, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, have taken legal action against Kennedy and several department officials, arguing these cuts would functionally dismantle the DHHS.

If the court doesn’t provide immediate relief, and the case is allowed to play out, Nessel warned that these cuts could cause “immeasurable harm” to the nation and its health system.

“You’re essentially leaving the agency, as a whole, completely dysfunctional by eliminating so many departments or regions, you know entire offices just wiped off the map and, of course, getting rid of some people with some incredible expertise,” Nessel told the Michigan Advance

The DHHS is eliminating roughly 3,500 employees at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control, 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health and 300 at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

It will also work to consolidate the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health under the new Administration for a Healthy America.

Public health and infectious diseases know no borders, Nessel said, warning that the decision to shutter regional health programs, close CDC labs and close all 10 of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ regional offices jeopardizes public health in every community.

“Also it’s just a flagrant violation of the law. Disregards the separation of powers, and it places this new burden now, of course, on the states, because there are certain things that you rely upon the federal government to do, especially in terms of coordinating efforts between the states,” Nessel said.

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“Let’s say you have an outbreak of a new variant in bird flu that could impact the entire country. Maybe that happens in Vermont. Is Vermont supposed to coordinate that response with Michigan? You know, it’s the CDC that does that. How are we supposed to make up for that?” Nessel questioned.

While the state has its own lab testing capabilities, the federal government and its labs act as a conduit for sharing data with the states and across the nation, as well as monitoring other countries.

“They fill this incredibly important role in terms of preventing the next global pandemic and mitigating it here in Michigan. And it’s a burden that, frankly, the state simply can’t sustain. It’s the reason why we have a federal government,” Nessel said.

Additionally, it’s the federal government’s job to ensure its laws are enforced, Nessel said, and Congress delegates money to ensure those laws are complied with. Deciding to withhold those funds and cut staffing without regard for which workers are essential, and shutting down offices without regard for whether the department can continue to comply with federal law not only violates the law and the Constitution in a myriad of ways, Nessel contends, but it compromises the safety and health of people in Michigan.

While Kennedy said the intent of the cuts was to address waste and inefficiency within the department, Nessel said the argument doesn’t hold water due to the way the DHHS approached its firings.

“It’s not as if it took any significant period of time to evaluate, you know, is this really a necessary function of the government, and do we really need this to fulfill the mission of this agency? There were no determinations of any kind made like that” Nessel said, pointing to comments Kennedy made to the media where he admitted 20% of cuts at the agency were a mistake, and would need to be reinstated.

[VID] He he had forgone a line-by-line review of each employee’s jobs because “it takes too long, and you lose political momentum.”

Among those cuts were doctors and the administrator of the World Trade Center Health program, which certify illnesses in first responders and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as part of the requirements of the Zadroga Act, with the New York Daily News reporting nearly all 16 employees cut from the program had been rehired as of May 7, including the program’s director, James Howard.

“If you were more careful and cautious before you fired them in the first place, maybe we wouldn’t have this issue,” Nessel said.

The case filed by the attorneys general points to several other examples of offices impacted by the cuts, including the Food and Drug Administration missing a vaccine application deadline and canceling a critical test for the bird flu virus, suspending the testing program for a year.

The case also points to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views and history of promoting misinformation about vaccination.

According to the filing, some FDA employees were told to go home following the March 27 downsizing announcement and prepare for the possibility that they would not be back. If they received a termination email, they would lose access to the building.

“Beginning in the early morning of April 1, 2025, HHS employees in all offices, administrations, agencies and sub-agencies began to receive termination notices. Some employees had not seen their early morning termination email before leaving for the office, and were surprised when they arrived at work to find their access cards had been deactivated,” the case reads.

“Many notices contained errors. For example, some listed incorrect information about workers’ recent performance ratings. At FDA, the listed point of contact for the Equal Employment Opportunity office had departed a month earlier,” it says.

While this case doesn’t directly address that lack of support and protection for employees, several unions and groups of federal employees have taken legal action on these concerns.

“It’s embarrassing and disturbing to see any workers treated like this, but especially, you know, ones that have worked so hard to protect the American people,” Nessel said.

She also pointed to the ways these firings would impact the economy, calling them “penny wise but pound foolish.”

In the announcement, Kennedy promised to lower costs for taxpayers, with the 10,000 person layoff expected to cut down on $1.8 billion a year. However, Nessel said these costs would crop up in other ways.

“What has a bigger impact on the economy than people’s health, you know? If people are too sick to be able to work, that’s a problem,” Nessel said, noting that widespread infectious disease can have a devastating impact on the economy.

“It’s not just that we’re not really saving money. We’re going to lose an unknown amount of money, an untold amount of money, if people who could otherwise have been healthy are not healthy,” Nessel said.

While Michigan is still assembling its state-specific declarations, these firings will also impact the state’s efforts on issues like mental health and create issues in how they distribute resources within their budgets, Nessel said.

“If we’re trying to prioritize and say, ‘Well, how much money are we going to spend on substance abuse, or how much money are we going to spend on mental health treatment?’ It’s kind of important to know how much of it you’re going to get from the federal government. And because this is done in such a chaotic manner, it’s really hard to know,” Nessel said.

In addition to their case on the mass firings, Nessel and 23 other attorneys general filed suit against Kennedy and the DHHS for terminating almost $11 billion in critical public health grants across the country.

That includes $379.3 million in grant funding awarded and owed to the State of Michigan for certain mental health and substance abuse grants and grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meant to support infectious disease control and vaccinations for children and vulnerable adults, among other programs.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

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On Saturday, April 19, large demonstrations protesting against President Donald Trump's policies were held in major U.S. cities ranging from Boston to New York to Portland, Oregon. And a recurring theme is that the Trump Administration, from mass deportations without due process to bullying universities and law firms, is pushing the United States into authoritarianism.

The Washington Monthly's David Atkins, in an article published on April 23, emphasizes that the Democratic Party can play a key role in preventing the U.S. from sinking into "authoritarianism" but will need to be a lot more forceful in its efforts.

"When pressed, (Democratic) Party leaders often respond that they can do little substantively," Atkins explains. "That protests are performative. That voters are tired of drama. But that's not the point. The point isn't what Democrats can do today. It's what they're signaling they're willing to do when they return to power. If Trump and his allies face no meaningful consequences, they have no reason to stop."

Atkins continues, "If Republicans don't believe that Democrats will act with equal force to protect democracy —legally, aggressively, unapologetically — then there's no deterrent to further escalation. As Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker put it, 'Bullies respond to one thing only: a punch in the face.'"

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Democrats, Atkins argues, "don’t need to mimic MAGA's tactics" but "must prove they have the spine to make authoritarians pay."

"Otherwise," Atkins warns, "they're not a political opposition but a speed bump…. MAGA doesn't fear Democrats because history tells them they need not. They don't believe that future Democratic presidents will use the IRS to crack down on Project 2025 architects, the (U.S. Department of Justice) to investigate Christian nationalist groups, or the FBI to follow foreign influence trails back to their political donors. But they should."

Atkins continues, "Democrats don't need to become liberal authoritarians. But they need to show they're not afraid to use the levers of power to defend democracy, not just in lofty speeches but in institutional terms: subpoenas, audits, investigations, regulation, and prosecution…. If MAGA believes it can consolidate power without consequence, then why not roll the dice on permanent minority rule?"

*David Atkins' full article for The Washington Monthly is available at this link.

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an no lnx

'All hands on deck': Democrats unleash new strategy to derail Trump

People cheer for Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally with Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders at Mullett Arena in Tempe, Arizona, U.S. March 20, 2025.

Matt Laslo April 14, 2025

WASHINGTON — Democrats are getting their groove back. Or, at the very least, desperately trying to.

After some party members faced heckling during recent town halls and even outright protests — including outside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ district office — Democratic Party leaders are going on offense now that Congress gaveled out for lawmakers’ two-week-long Easter recess.

While an increasing number of veteran Democratic lawmakers are facing progressive primary challenges — even as calls to replace Schumer continue growing louder — party leaders are showing a new, more unified front against the president.

“I do not feel a Democratic civil war. If anything, I feel more unity in our party than I've ever felt,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) — who just broke the record for delivering the longest speech in Senate history — told Raw Story. “The threats of what Donald Trump is doing are so real, so urgent, that I see people working in ways and coalitions that are inspiring to me.”

The midterm elections are more than a year and a half away, but Democrats say their new strategy is about more than the next election. With House Speaker Mike Johnson controlling a mere seven-seat majority, Democrats say pressuring vulnerable Republicans now is their best chance to derail Trump’s aggressive agenda.

“If we can win over three or four people in the House, we win”

After a handful of Republicans faced vitriol at recent town halls, GOP leaders have been coaching rank-and-file members to avoid the public gatherings when back in their districts these next two weeks.

“Town halls have become a tool of the left to shout everybody down,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) — who says he still plans to meet with constituents over recess — told Raw Story. “It's a hate Trump rally.”

Democrats say that’s because the American people hate Trump’s policies, especially the dismantling of the federal government by billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE. And they sense an opening.

“If you're not doing town halls, you're not really doing a big part of your job,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) told Raw Story. “They can run, but they can't hide.”

The seven-term congressman is chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. While he knows how to rally progressives, he says the anger on display at town halls nationwide has been coming from voters of all stripes. So he gets why Republicans are hiding from their voters.

“They're p—ed, they're nervous, they're scared,” Pocan said. “And so they express that.”

Instead of deflecting that anger and angst, Democratic leaders are now trying to harness that energy.

That’s why over the next two weeks Booker, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and other younger, popular House Democrats are fanning out across the nation and rallying the party’s base at town halls in battleground districts. The funny thing is that this isn’t an election year.

“Normally in election cycles, I'm all over the country trying to help people, but I'm working even harder now trying to help local parties, trying to help congressional candidates,” Booker said. “This is all hands on deck.”

“Is this a little too early to rev up the base for the midterms?” Raw Story pressed. “Or they're already revved up?”

“What the effort is right now, it's not the ‘26 midterms; simply, it's getting a few Republicans to switch their votes,” Booker said. “If we can win over three or four people in the House, we win.”

And Democrats haven’t been winning lately, at least not in Trump’s Washington.

At the Capitol, even though the GOP’s been divided on some big ticket times — like over whether extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts needs to be paid for or not — Republicans on Capitol Hill have pushed their differences aside to advance Trump’s controversial nominees and agenda, from dismantling federal agencies to speeding up mass deportations.

Being locked in the minority on both sides of the Capitol leaves Democrats few legislative options to combat Trump, so Democrats are taking their show on the road and supporting grassroots pressure campaigns on more moderate Republicans’ home turf.

“This is why me and others are looking towards swing districts, where clearly the stuff that's being proposed is not popular amongst some of these Republicans. And we know their base in their districts, Republican and Democrat, are against what's happening,” Booker said. “So we just want to do everything we can to lead in this moment, and the elections will take care of themselves.”

Elections may take care of themselves, but party leaders in Washington are helping with these efforts a great deal.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC) sponsor the town hall tour.

In just the last three weeks, they report hosting 71 town halls across 35 states. They say the momentum’s only just beginning to build, even as they feel emboldened for one of the first times since getting shellacked in November.

"People are engaged and paying attention"

Even as they’re locked out of power in Trump’s Washington, Democrats are feeling new wind in their sails after the party overperformed in two recent Florida special elections, while also besting Musk and Trump in the record-shattering $100+ million battle for control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.

“These are all positive things. Like, do they mean any one result? Like, no, but it's all going in the right direction,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) — the number three most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives — told Raw Story. “People are engaged and paying attention.”

While Democrats’ ultimate aim is winning back majorities in Congress and recapturing the White House in 2028, party leaders are hoping energized and vocal voters can help them do what they’re otherwise powerless to do: derail Trump’s agenda.

“Politics takes care of itself if we focus on people, and I think standing up for people right now and leaders — leaders, whether they have title or not — leaders need to be standing up for others,” Booker said. “That's going to create momentum to stop Donald Trump.”

NOW READ: Trump is drinking his own Kool-Aid as evidence of his dementia grows

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Facing a midnight Friday deadline to prevent a federal government shutdown if no budget is passed, the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, insists he has the votes to secure a continuing resolution, a “CR,” and without any help from Democrats. Democrats have vowed to oppose the measure, citing its spending cuts to health care and veterans’ benefits, as well as the inclusion of controversial policy provisions — despite Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole’s specific claim to the contrary.

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday wrote: “House Republicans want to gut Medicaid. Hard pass.”

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“The 99 page bill continues funding levels for federal agencies through September 30, 2025,” NPR reports. “GOP leaders argued the bill was largely a ‘clean’ continuation of current funding levels, but it does include a boost for immigration enforcement and a boost for defense programs.”

It also includes a little-noticed provision, however, that, according to one longtime congressional staffer, “preemptively surrenders” Congress’s constitutional authority to block President Donald Trump’s highly controversial and unpredictable tariffs, which he appears to be imposing and rescinding on a whim.

Here’s how one noted economist explained President Trump’s tariffs on Tuesday:

“Tariffs are on/off/paused, and are targeted/universal, applied to our friends/foes/everyone, starting sooner/later. They’ll be in place for the short/long run because they are a useful policy/bargaining chip, and will solve our problem with fentanyl/deficits/manufacturing/revenue,” wrote Justin Wolfers a professor of economics and public policy.

Meanwhile, that provision House Republicans quietly inserted into the bill that at least temporarily would revoke their authority is now getting some attention.

“Republicans snuck a provision into the rule for the CR that would preemptively surrender congressional authority to block tariffs,” observes Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “When House Republicans vote for this rule today, they will also be voting to support Trump’s tariffs and all the resulting damage to the US economy.”

Congressman Beyer, in a joint statement with U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA), blasted the rule:

“”Every House Republican who votes for this measure is voting to give Trump expanded powers to raise taxes on American households through tariffs with full knowledge of how he is using those powers, and every Republican will own the economic consequences of that vote. It speaks volumes that Republicans are sneaking this provision into a procedural measure hidden from the American people.”

“While [Trump] babbles about making Canada the 51st state, your groceries and housing are getting more expensive and your retirement accounts are getting crushed- and House Republicans are supporting him every step of the way.”

The provision might be able to be removed if the House voted to do so after the CR is passed, but chances of that happening — voting to oppose a core tenet of Trump’s agenda — are slim if the GOP holds the House majority. Trump would also have to sign the bill, or the House would have to overturn a veto.

Some House Democrats are explaining their opposition to other provisions in the continuing resolution, which one of them, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), appears to compare to an exercise in bondage.

“I don’t know whether the GOP will get the votes on their disaster of a bill this week. But I do know that majorities of Republicans voted against similar bills for all of the last 2 years. So what is making them strap on the ball gag and climb into Trump’s dungeon now?” Congressman Casten wrote on social media.

Noting that “Congress has the Constitutional power of the purse and has reaffirmed it through multiple laws (Impoundment Control Act, Anti-Rescission Act) that are being used by multiple courts to block the WH’s over-reach,” Casten warns that the CR “has language that would weaken those cases.”

“This is what you do to cower before a mad king. It is not what you do if you are defending a constitutional democracy,” he declares.

And continuing his explanation for opposing the bill — and continuing his ribald language, Casten notes that the bill “would cut ~$28 billion in funding we passed under the PACT Act to make sure veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and toxic burn pits get healthcare coverage. P---ing on US veterans is a choice.”

There’s more.

“It would slash funding for USDA food inspectors. You know, the people who go into monitor the spread of avian flu, or to make sure you don’t have E. Coli in your lettuce,” he writes.

“It gives the White House much more discretion over public-private partnerships, essentially allowing them to prioritize infrastructure projects (highways, rail, etc.) only in their political supporters communities. That is anti-American, in the purest sense,” says Casten.

“It cuts rent subsidies for low-income folks. Which means a whole lot of landlords are going to find themselves forced to evict some ~32,000 families. If you think your community needs more homelessness, that’s a good idea. Otherwise… really f’ing dumb.”

Congressman Casten concludes, “Here’s the bottom line. When faced with a constitutional crisis, some members of Congress are fighting back. Others are strapping on the ball gag, climbing into Trump’s dungeon and assuming the American people share their masochistic fetish.”

Casten also includes in his analogy Fritschner’s observation about stopping their ability to block Trump’s tariff’s. He responds: “This is how you legislatively mandate the ball gag.”

See the video above or at this link.

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The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is now hoping to sneak through language in a must-pass government funding bill that could kneecap Congress' ability to check a president's ability to impose tariffs.

According to a Tuesday article in Politico, Republicans are now aiming to prevent Democrats from forcing an up-or-down vote on President Donald Trump's controversial tariffs. The threat of double-digit tariffs on imported goods from Canada, China and Mexico has already spooked investors worried about a dip in consumer spending. This has resulted in a sharp slide in financial markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 all recently posting some of their worst performances in years.

Trump has imposed the tariffs based on a national state of emergency he declared shortly after taking office relating to fentanyl and undocumented immigrants coming across the U.S. border. Politico is reporting that Democrats have already filed bills aiming to end that national emergency, which could force Republicans to go on the record defending the tariffs ahead of what's likely to be a close midterm election year.

Reps. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) and Gregory Meeks (R-N.Y.) observed that the National Emergencies Act "allows Congress to introduce a privileged resolution to terminate the authority, which must be brought to the House for a floor vote within 15 days." In order to circumvent Democrats, Republicans have since inserted language into a bill that has to pass in order to keep the government funded that prevents a vote to end the national emergency.

Politico reported that Republicans aim to declare that the remaining days in the first session of the 119th Congress "no not qualify as calendar days" in order to prevent DelBene's and Meeks' privileged resolutions from moving forward. This would serve as a loophole around the National Emergencies Act that makes it so Democrats can't force their opponents to go on the record defending the costly tariffs.

"Guess what [Republicans] tucked into this rule, hoping that nobody would notice?” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said. "They slipped in a little clause letting them escape ever having to debate or vote on Trump’s tariffs. Isn’t that clever?"

Republicans have defended the measure by saying it "simply prevents the Democrats from limiting the president’s authority." But Democrats say passing the bill with that rule included would make it virtually impossible for Congress to have a say in tariff policy. Congress aims to vote on the rule Tuesday evening.

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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struggle with flood zone w shit

play dead?! 'Shut up, sit down': Karl Rove explains why Carville’s advice on Trump was 'absolute right'

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Democrats are voicing strong opposition to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget framework, which narrowly passed Tuesday night by a razor-thin margin of 217-215.

The framework is widely expected to cut $880 billion from Medicaid, a program that helps one in four Americans, and another $230 billion from SNAP, which helps feed about one in eight Americans — while raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion to provide a massive $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely for the wealthiest of Americans. People making less than $200,000 a year could effectively see their taxes rise, because Johnson’s legislation does not renew tax cuts from 2017. Johnson’s budget, supported by President Donald Trump, requires a minimum of $2 trillion in cuts to the federal budget.

Every Republican except one voted for Johnson’s budget legislation. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only holdout, refusing to give in to pressure from GOP leadership.

Every Democrat present voted against the bill. Only one was not present due to his battle against cancer.

But every other Democrat showed up and stood firm.

“After 3 surgeries, a blood clot, an infection, & being hospitalized for over a week – the moment I was discharged from the hospital, I immediately rushed to the airport so I could fly to D.C. and vote NO on Republicans’ disastrous budget plan. I’m proud to stand with @HouseDemocrats to fight Republican’s extreme agenda,” wrote U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, (D-CA).

Republicans refused to allow U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), out on maternity leave, to vote by proxy, so she traveled across the country with her four-week old newborn, Sam, to vote against the GOP budget.

I have a message for Donald Trump: nobody fights harder than a mom.

Republican leadership may have denied my ability to vote by proxy but that didn’t stop us from voting against this disastrous budget that strips away health care and food for seniors, veterans, kids and… pic.twitter.com/rfoKNoyeVJ

— U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (@RepPettersen) February 26, 2025

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), largely seen as the loudest and most consistent voice on the left opposing President Donald Trump’s agenda, tore into Republicans.

“Good morning. The House voted yesterday to kick millions of off their health care, close rural hospitals, and shut down addiction clinics. All in order to afford a giant tax cut for Elon Musk, Donald Trump and their billionaire and corporate friends,” he charged Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Senator Murphy denounced the GOP’s “greed” at an outdoor press conference.

Calling the Republicans’ budget framework “the most massive transfer of wealth and resources from poor people in the middle class to the billionaires and corporations in the history of this country,” Murphy (video below) said, “You’re talking about 880 billion dollars of cuts to Medicaid.”

“Now I get it, like, $880 billion. Like, what does that mean? Right? That’s a huge number, nobody understands. Let me tell you what that means. That that means that sick kids die in this country. That means that hospitals in depressed communities and rural communities close their doors. Right? That means that drug and addiction treatment centers disappear. All across this country.”

“That means that millions of working families who have insurance today, because by the way, 24% of Americans get their health care from Medicaid, they all of a sudden don’t have their health care tomorrow,” he continued, adding, “the scope of this greed is something that we have never ever seen before in this country, and we should not accept it as normal in the United States of America.”

24% of Americans get their health insurance from Medicaid.

Seniors. Working families. Millions of kids.

Republicans voted tonight to burn Medicaid to the ground.

And for what? To fund a giant tax cut for their billionaire friends.

A moral abomination. pic.twitter.com/Xez9GmzJlC

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 26, 2025

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) explained how Johnson’s budget legislation came together, and all the things Republicans voted against.

He said Democrats asked Republicans to “vote against tax breaks for people earning over $100 million per year.”

“Every Republican vote no,” he said, regarding that proposal, as well as on protections for large numbers of Americans who need support.

Republicans voted against assuring “the American people that they’re not gonna steal school meals from kids in order to give tax breaks for millionaires,” and on protecting Medicaid, which McGovern noted, “covers 41% of all births in the United States.”

“Nearly half of children with special healthcare needs and five in eight nursing home residents,” he said, are also covered by Medicaid.

“Democrats offered an amendment preventing tax giveaways for people earning over $1 million a year. Every Republican voted no,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “We even offered an amendment preventing tax cuts for people with a net worth of over, get this, $1 billion. Every Republican voted no.”

McGovern: Democrats offered an amendment to protect Medicaid. Every Republican voted no.

Democrats offered an amendment to extend tax cuts for people making under $400,000 while ensuring that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. Every Republican voted no.… pic.twitter.com/IiuC8skXc2

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 25, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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an 2 25 As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attempt to systematically dismantle the United States government, agency by agency, they are working to eliminate vast numbers of employees, removing public data and institutional knowledge, and reportedly accessing sensitive government records and personal information of American citizens. In response, many grassroots Democratic voters are demanding to know what their party’s elected leaders are doing to stop them.

There appears to be a growing sense among some on the left that top elected Democrats are out of touch, unable or unwilling to grasp the severity of what some say is a constitutional crisis and others are simply calling a “coup.”

And while a few House and Senate Democrats this week showed up at the Washington, D.C. offices of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and were denied access, and others held a press conference, few elected Democrats appear to have understood this extremely volatile moment — or at least publicly communicated what is actually going on.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been leading the battle against President Trump and his director of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk.

For the uninitiated, here’s how The Washington Post summed up recent events on Tuesday.

“U.S. government officials privately warn Musk’s blitz appears illegal,” the headline reads. “The billionaire’s DOGE team has launched an all-out assault on federal agencies, triggering numerous legal objections.”

“Over the past two weeks, Musk’s team has moved to dismantle some U.S. agencies, push out hundreds of thousands of civil servants and gain access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive payment systems,” The Post reported. The paper noted that “many of these moves appear to violate federal law, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, one audio recording, and several internal messages obtained by The Washington Post. Internal legal objections have been raised at the Treasury Department, the Education Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the White House budget office, among others.”

Financial Times’ columnist Ed Luce, on MSNBC Wednesday morning, put this moment in starker terms.

“This is a coup that’s happening. It is happening here. It’s happening now,” he declared, as Mediaite reported. “So I think this requires a far more radical and drastic sort of rethink of what the Democrats’ democratic strategy should be.”

On Tuesday morning, Senator Murphy spoke with MSNBC political analyst Anand Giridharadas, who praised him as a “real leader” who started “early” in the Trump-Musk battle.

Giridharadas said that “the Democrats’ transition from being asleep during a coup to being awake during a coup is a trend in the right direction — being awake is certainly preferable to being asleep, and some of that, you know, I think Chris Murphy has been someone who’s been a real leader early in this.”

“But at the end of the day, the Democratic Party right now is completely leaderless,” he lamented. “There’s no real clear sense of fight. You still have these messages of, well, ‘we gotta trust in God,’ or well, ‘we’ll pass a law to regulate the Treasury.'”

“There’s no understanding that this is a very serious concerted an anti-constitutional coup being waged by very determined actors.”

Senator Murphy shared his concerns—and plan—with Giridharadas.

Giridharadas told Murphy he thought the Senator’s “present-level thinking about the future of the Democratic Party…has been clearer and starker and more honest.”

But he also charged, “I would imagine that 90% of people watching this right now feel profoundly undefended by the Democratic Party.”

Murphy replied, “I do think that people understand that we are the minority party. We don’t run the White House, we are the minority in the House and in the Senate, but we need to act like a real opposition party in the middle of a constitutional and democracy crisis.”

And he offered a plan for his colleagues and grassroots Democrats.

“That means we should not be moving forward nominees or legislation in the United States Senate. Democrats should not be giving votes to nominees or to legislation in the United States Senate until Republicans get serious about this crisis. Democrats should not help Republicans raise the debt ceiling in order to pass their massive tax cut for billionaires and millionaires.”

“Democrats should be leading public gatherings all weekend, all across the country to bring Americans out to show Republicans if they will pay a price. And then Democrats need to speak in really stark terms about what is going on here.”

Calling it “a billionaire power grab,” Murphy said, “I think Elon Musk is trying to steal our money, is trying to steal our data. I think Elon Musk is shutting down the USAD because he wants to do deals with China and make more money. And and I know that there are some in the Democratic Party that, you know, don’t like jumping to conclusions, that there are some of the Democratic Party that don’t like to call out specific billionaires for what they are doing to all of us, but this is a moment in which we’ve got to engage in very, very simple and strong terms about what is happening.”

“Side by side with being a true opposition party in the Senate, using our tools to make life difficult for complicit Republicans, and then going out there and leading a a public engagement, which is I think the next step that we have to do, don’t just fight on the inside, go fight on the outside.”

On social media, Murphy added, “We still have the power to stop this billionaire power grab, but Democrats need to act like our democracy is weeks away from disintegrating—because it is.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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an 2 25

Two Democratic lawmakers stormed into House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) office "unscheduled" Wednesday over President Donald Trump ally, billionaire Elon Musk's new access to the US Department of Treasury's highly sensitive payment system, Politico reports.

Per the report, Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA) and Gwen Moore (D-WI) entered the GOP leader's office after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited Johnson's office to talk Trump's "tax agenda."

Politico notes that "Bessent gave members of Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the payments system last weekend. The system controls trillions of dollars in payments for Social Security, tax refunds and myriad other government functions."

Moore told the news outlet that Bessent had left the speaker's office before the two Democratic leaders around.

"Gwen Moore forced her way in there, and then I got to go in right behind her," Chu said in an interview, according to the report.

"And she was already confronting Speaker Johnson about Treasury Secretary Bessent and the stealing of Americans’ private information," the California lawmaker continued, "tax information that should never be stolen and given to this billionaire Elon Musk."

*Politico's full report is available here.

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an 12 24

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is calling on his colleagues to develop a "battle strategy" against Republican "attacks", as the Democrats to select a new party chair, according to Politico.

Following Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump — in addition to a slew of Democratic House and Senate race losses — Politico reports the Rhode Island lawmaker argues the party needs an "institutional and centralized setup to attack the GOP, writing Republicans 'rapidly and effectively deploy false narratives, while we struggle to bring true ones to bear.'"

To fight back against the right-wing lawmakers, Whitehouse wrote in a letter to party chairs on Monday that building a "war machine" is the only way.

The Democratic leader wrote, "We in Congress customarily say we’re 'fighting' for things when we really mean working or toiling."```

He added, "A fight means a defined adversary, a battle strategy, and actual punches thrown. Done well, it involves exposing and degrading your adversary’s machinery of warfare."

With several contenders in the running — including spiritual adviser and former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley — The Democrats are expected to select the new Democratic National Committee chair in February.

READ MORE:['Fetish for losing elections': Marianne Williamson slammed over latest announ``cement

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an 11 24

Although President-elect Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election was hardly the "landslide" that many of his allies claim it was, Democratic strategists and organizers were clearly disappointed this year.

Trump, according to Cook Political Report, picked up 312 electoral votes compared to 226 for Harris. The president-elect won the popular vote as well, defeating Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in Cook's vote count (as of Friday, November 22). That's a close election — not a "landslide" — but it's a victory nonetheless.

Moreover, Republicans held the U.S. House of Representatives while flipping the U.S. Senate, where they will have a 53-47 majority in 2025. Longtime Democratic Senators Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio were voted out of office.

But Democrats, for all their disappointments in 2024, had their share of wins as well. And The American Prospect's Luke Goldstein, in an article published on November 22, stresses that the Democrats who fared well on Election Night had a "compelling economic message."

"Across the country," Goldstein explains, "candidates not named Kamala Harris found success by more effectively selling the achievements of the Biden Administration and casting a more convincing economic message.… By looking at frontline swing races, it’s very clear that candidates who anchored their messaging specifically in fighting corporate power overperformed the national ticket."

Goldstein adds, "These economic positions weren't branded as progressive or radical but instead, addressed what exit polling showed was top of mind for voters in this election: inflation and overall cost of living."

Goldstein points to Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas), who was reelected, as an example of a Democrat who prevailed with a strong economic message. Others include Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington State), Rep. Pat Ryan (D-New York), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pennsylvania) and Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-Maryland).

Zac Donley, Davids' communications director, told The American Prospect, "High costs, particularly for groceries, have been a top priority that many Kansans mentioned while Rep. Davids was on the campaign trail. She is working hard to reduce these costs through a variety of solutions."

Goldstein notes, "Harris' suburban coalition carried her in blue states, but it couldn't bring in enough working-class voters to win nationally. A compelling economic message was better equipped to do that not just in Massachusetts, but in frontline districts and red states across the country."

*Luke Goldstein's full article for The American Prospect is available at this link.

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an 11 24

In the wake of Republican Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is helping to lead a new initiative that aims to protect state-level democratic institutions against federal overreach.

Polis, a Democrat with two more years in his term, is co-chairing Governors Safeguarding Democracy, alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat.

“We founded GSD because we know that simple hope alone won’t save our democracy. We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it,” Polis said during a call with reporters on Tuesday.

The two governors did not offer details on who else is part of the initiative, though they emphasized it’s nonpartisan and said they have engaged in outreach to Republican governors across the country.

The action items are vague. Pritzker described the goal as one to “leverage our collective strength, experience and institutional knowledge to drive policies that protect the rule of law” among the states.

“We’ll design and implement affirmative strategies to protect the rule of law and deliver for people in the states. We’ll work to reinforce key state institutions to protect executive agencies, elections, state courts and other democratic bodies. Then we’ll develop playbooks to enable governors and their teams to anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats,” he said.

When fully implemented, the initiative will be a “peer opportunity for governors to learn from one another on best practices and policies,” Polis said.

GSD was born out of anxiety that a second Trump presidential term will erode democratic institutions and roll back federal protections in such areas as the environment, health care and civil rights. Some observers worry about possible threats to the integrity of the nation’s election system, independent judiciary and overall civil society. Trump himself pledged to be a “dictator” on the first day of his term to enact campaign promises, and former top staffers in the first Trump administration, such as John Kelly, have said he fits into the definition of fascist.

The new Trump administration is planning an unprecedented mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, an effort that would involve use of the National Guard. Pritzker said the challenge this poses to states is “exactly the kind of question this group would be considering.”

Polis agreed that such a policy would likely not be allowed under the federal code that governs the National Guard and that, as governors, they would not cooperate.

“In terms of safeguarding democracy, making sure that the U.S. military is not used for police actions domestically and is used to defend our freedoms abroad is very consistent with our Constitution, as well as the law,” Polis said.

GSD will be supported by Governors Action Alliance, a new nonpartisan organization, and funded by philanthropic donations. Neither Pritzker nor Polis disclosed donors.

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11 24 an dr earl b

...Don’t breathe the noxious gas that there is a Republican mandate right now. Battleground States flipped. It happens. Here in Wisconsin, Kamala Harris actually got more votes than Joe Biden did on 2020. We worked our asses off up here and simply got beat in large part by the massive rightwing propaganda machine that I warned about above. Wisconsin is 90 percent white and under conventional wisdom should be a bright-red state. It’s not, because we have leaders and ideas that resonate with everybody. In fact … the best thing we can hope for is that Republicans read this election as a mandate, because as you know most of their odious plans will sting their voters at least as much as everybody else. Let them get out over their skies as far as possible, and then watch them crash.

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