Last Call For Sitting This One Out

Neither China nor Russia will attend a Vancouver diplomatic meeting this week of major world powers on North Korean sanctions and nuclear proliferation, meaning the conference is basically nothing but show.

Foreign ministers from around 20 nations gather on Tuesday to discuss how to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions through diplomatic and financial pressure, but China, seen as a key player in any long-term solution, will be absent.

The Vancouver meeting, co-hosted by Canada and the United States, comes amid signs that tensions on the peninsula have eased, at least temporarily. North and South Korea held talks for the first time in two years last week and Pyongyang says it will send athletes across the border to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

But the United States and others say the international community must look at ways of expanding a broad range of sanctions aimed at North Korea’s nuclear program.

“There is growing evidence that our maximum pressure campaign is being felt in North Korea. They are feeling the strain,” said Brian Hook, the State Department’s director of policy planning.

Hook told a briefing in Washington that participants, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, would examine how to boost maritime security around North Korea to intercept ships trying to defy sanctions as well as “disrupting funding and disrupting resources.” 

The 17-nation Proliferation Security Initiative, which aims to prevent the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, on Friday said “it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts to put maximum pressure on North Korea”.

But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown no sign of willingness to give in to U.S. demands and negotiate away a weapons program he sees as vital to his survival.
Another challenge in Vancouver will be the absence of China, which has significant influence in North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang’s only ally and its chief trading partner. 

The meeting primarily groups those nations that sent troops to the Korean war of 1950-53, when China fought alongside the North. Beijing condemned the gathering. 

“Holding this kind of meeting that doesn’t include important parties to the Korean peninsula nuclear issue actually cannot help in advancing an appropriate resolution to the issue,” foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing.

China doesn't want to lower the boom on Pyongyang, not with tens of thousands of US troops nearby in South Korea.  It's not like they trust Trump, either...or Russia for that matter.  People keep forgetting that Russia shares 2,600 miles of border with China and that Putin's power grabs in Europe don't exactly endear him to Beijing.

The US wants China to do the heavy lifting on reining in Kim Jong Un and his nuclear ambitions and they don't want any part of it, not yet anyway.  The two Koreas may be making nice for the Winter Games next month, but after that who knows.  It's a mess.

Certainly Trump won't make things better.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Part of the reason why Republicans have been able to do lasting damage to the country over the last eight years has been their historic midterm wins in 2010 and 2014 that shifted blue and purple states into Republican hands, not just governor's mansions but entire state legislatures in states like Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Virginia.

But the ongoing disaster that is Trump is finally breaking the GOP stranglehold on America.  Just six months ago, Republicans controlled 35 of 50 states.  That's already started to change as the country shifts back in response to the GOP, and 2018 will go a long way in deciding how 2020 plays out.

Buoyed by November election results, a surge in fundraising and expectations of a massive liberal wave, Democrats are preparing for an assault on one of the GOP’s most heavily fortified positions: governor’s mansions.

It’s a far cry from last summer, when Democrats bottomed out at the state level. Back then, after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice switched allegiance to the GOP, the number of governorships in Democratic Party hands fell to just 15, a historic low.

But the atmospheric conditions have changed since then. Republicans are hampered by an unpopular President Donald Trump. Suburban voters are threatening to desert the party en masse. And Democrats have seen a massive increase in their fundraising numbers after gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey in November.

The GOP is forced to defend 13 states that former President Barack Obama won — from Maine to New Mexico to Wisconsin — while Democrats are protecting just one — Pennsylvania — that fell to Trump.

Republicans now admit that a handful of once-competitive battlegrounds are nearly out of reach for them in 2018. Meanwhile, Democratic hopes are rising in a handful of conservative strongholds.

“I would describe our attitude as rational exuberance, and the reason I say ‘rational’ is it’s based on objective evidence that’s consistent in basically every election since the 'stable genius’ got to the White House,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, using Trump’s recent Twitter description of himself. “The map has expanded in the last several months, because these patterns exist even in red states."

Democratic confidence has been building since the party’s sweeping wins last fall. At the DGA’s meeting in New Orleans last month, political director Corey Platt gave governors a presentation indicating that the organization is now targeting 17 GOP-held seats for pickup in 2018, according to slides from the presentation obtained by POLITICO.

The growing optimism on the left is mirrored by a burgeoning Republican pessimism, according to a wide range of GOP operatives and lawmakers involved in this year’s races.

This is the kind of fighting I want to see.  If the Dems cant take back even half of those 17 states,  the country's politics shift dramatically.

I think it will be more.  Dems taking back a majority of states will go a long way towards starting to repair the damage from Trump, and putting the pieces of this country back together.

Sunday Long Read: Native Lives Matter

BuzzFeed's John Stanton gives us this week's Sunday Long Read, a hard reminder that there's one ethnic group in this country that faces even worse odds of being victims of police brutality than African-Americans do.

Hours after seeing her 14-year-old grandson, Jason, lying in the street just feet from her home, with police and EMS hovering over his motionless body, Cheryl Pero found herself in the cavernous gymnasium of the Bad River Reservation community center.

Cheryl and her husband, Al, couldn’t go home — where they’d raised Jason since infancy — because it was a crime scene.

So the family awaited word in the local gym about why an Ashland County Sheriff’s deputy had just fired two shots into the chest of Jason, who friends and family say was a relatively normal, happy child. With news of the shooting spreading rapidly via text message and Facebook, members of their tight-knit tribal community soon joined them.

Tracy Bigboy, a neighbor and victim services coordinator for the tribal government, was dispatched to take care of the Peros’ needs. She stood in the cold air outside of the community center, quietly smoking a cigarette, until Ashland County Sheriff Mick Brennan pulled off Highway 2 and into the parking lot.

With his squared-off shoulders, neatly cropped silver hair, and mustache, the 62-year-old Brennan has a carefully crafted by-the-book reputation and looks every inch the small-town sheriff. As he and one of his investigators approached, Bigboy stopped them, warning the sheriff that emotions were running high inside the gym and urging him to talk to the family privately.

As the Peros huddled in private with Brennan, it seemed to the family that the sheriff hadn’t come with answers, or even condolences. His main message, as the grieving Peros remember it: Let him control the public narrative of Jason’s death.

“Don't talk to the media,” Bigboy and the Peros remember Brennan telling them. “Let us go first so we can tell you what to say.” And they say he had a warning for the community: Settle down and don’t riot.

Now, two months after Jason took two bullets to the chest on Nov. 8, his family still doesn’t know exactly what happened the morning that Deputy Brock Mrdjenovich shot him dead. Jason’s family says the sheriff has told them nothing, and Brennan did not respond to multiple requests to speak to BuzzFeed News about the shooting and about local law enforcement’s relationship with the Bad River community. Michael Nieskes, the St. Croix County District Attorney who has been appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate the case, declined to comment.

The feeling of sadness and loss is palpable among members of the Bad River Band. But there’s also a deep sense of numbness and fatalism here that manifests in the nonchalant ways people talk about other violent encounters involving law enforcement and Native Americans. Jason’s death was at least the second time in as many months that a member of the Bad River Reservation had been killed by uniformed officers: On Oct. 28, a Jackson County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed 27-year-old Lucas DeFord in nearby Black River Falls.

Locals have long complained about being pulled over for what they consider no good reason. “Driving while Indian,” they call it. And then there’s “the women,” a sort of shorthand that refers to allegations detailed in federal lawsuits that Sheriff Brennan did nothing as one of his jailers repeatedly raped and assaulted Native American women. “You’ve heard about the women, right?” locals say almost between thoughts.

The lack of information since Jason’s shooting has only compounded tensions here, laying bare the deep-rooted, systemic racial divisions between the Bad River tribe and the white community of Ashland.

“This has been going on for generations and generations, and it’s not going to stop,” Bigboy said.

The death of a young Ojibwe boy at the hands of a Wisconsin sheriff's deputy turned into a major news investigation of county law enforcement and the criminal mistreatment of peoples America long ago trapped in the hell of reservations.  Still trapped today, with police still treating them even worse than black America.

And that's saying something.

Not The Chelsea You Thought Would Run

I don't have any problem with Democrats running for Senate in 2018, the more the merrier.  But trying to primary a sitting Democrat in a safe blue state is going after your own party, and Chelsea Manning damn well knows it.

Chelsea Manning, the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, has filed to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, according to federal election filings.

Manning, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, would be challenging Democrat Ben Cardin, who has served two terms in the Senate and is up for re-election in November. Cardin is Maryland’s senior senator and is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a third term.

Manning, 30, who is formerly known as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Last year, then President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to time served and she was released from a military prison in Kansas.

The news of Manning’s filing caught Maryland’s political class by surprise on Saturday afternoon.

Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has an extensive fundraising base within Maryland and is not considered particularly vulnerable to a challenge from within the state. However, an outside candidate with national name recognition, such as Manning, could tap a network of donors interested in elevating a progressive agenda.

Cardin’s spokeswoman did not return two messages seeking comment.

Manning moved to Maryland after her release and friends and family raised more than $175,000 to support her through an online campaign. Since then, she has written for The Guardian and Medium on issues of transparency, free speech and civil liberties, according to her web site.

Manning’s statement of candidacy was filed with the Federal Elections Commission on Thursday. She is running as a Democrat and refers to Maryland as her “home state” on her web site.

Manning’s first column for The Guardian said Obama’s election in 2008 was a political awakening for her. Manning wrote Obama left behind “hints of a progressive legacy,” but very few permanent accomplisments.

“This vulnerable legacy should remind us that what we really need is a strong and unapologetic progressive to lead us,” Manning wrote. “What we need as well is a relentless grassroots movement to hold that leadership accountable.”

If you're wondering why Ben Cardin in particular is Manning's target as opposed to well, going after a Republican in order to give the Dems the seat they'd need to take control of the Senate, according to Wikipedia, Cardin's on the following Senate committees:

• Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
• Committee on Foreign Relations (Ranking Member)
• Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy and Environmental Policy (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism (Ex Officio)
• Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues (Ex Officio)

 and one caucus of note for our purposes:

• Senate Ukraine Caucus[9]

Just a theory, but if I was Manning, and I wanted to cause trouble for say, I dunno, a safe-seat Senate Democrat who might be a problem for a specific large European/Asian country who has a "special" relationship with the current orange occupant of the Oval Office, Cardin would be the guy I'd want to remove from the game.

Putting that out there.

Hawaii Five Uh-Oh

We really are all going to die in pitiless nuclear fire, aren't we?

The authorities confirmed on Saturday that there was no ballistic missile headed toward Hawaii, minutes after an emergency alert was sent to cellphones there urging people to seek immediate shelter, leading to chaos and confusion.

“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII,” the alert said. “SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

A corrected alert was sent out 38 minutes later. “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii,” it read. “Repeat. False Alarm.”

Gov. David Y. Ige later told CNN that someone had “pressed the wrong button” during a shift change at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

The episode came at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea, which has said that it has successfully tested ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat of Hawaii, tweeted shortly after the first alert was sent that she had confirmed that there was no missile.

Well cool, so the system works, mostly.  I bet it's computer-based.  I bet we totally don't have to worry about anyone hacking that particular system and using it to maybe, I don't know, do something stupid when we have a guy in the Oval Office with no self-control and a short fuse.

I'm sure it's okay.

View image on Twitter

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

GOP Gov. Matt Bevin makes good on his threat to start kicking Kentuckians off Medicaid as new Trump regime rules to saddle Medicaid recipients with work requirements and premiums means at least 100,000 will lose their health coverage.

Kentucky on Friday became the first state to win approval from the Trump administration to impose strict work requirements on its Medicaid beneficiaries. 

The state will require able-bodied adults without dependents to work at least 80 hours a month to qualify for coverage. 

The state will also require people who gain coverage through the Medicaid expansion to pay monthly premiums, based on income levels.

Kentucky is one of ten states seeking waivers to require certain Medicaid beneficiaries to work in order to be eligible for the program. 

The approval comes just one day after the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced new guidance intended to encourage states to apply for such waivers, something that has never before happened in the 50-year history of the Medicaid program. 

“CMS has long supported policies that recognize meaningful work as essential to the economic self-sufficiency, self-esteem, well-being, and improved health of people with disabilities,” the agency wrote in its approval letter to the state. 

“Given the potential benefits of work and community engagement, we believe that Medicaid programs should be able to support these activities and test incentives that are appropriate for this population and lead to improved health outcomes,” the agency wrote. 

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), a fierce opponent of ObamaCare, was elected in 2016 partly on a promise to change the state’s expansion of Medicaid that came as part of the law. 

Bevin has said the program is not fiscally sustainable, but the state’s uninsured rate has fallen from about 20 percent in 2013 to less than 8 percent by 2016 -- among the largest coverage gains in the country. 

The waiver also would impose a six-month coverage lockout if Medicaid beneficiaries get a new job or a new salary and don’t tell the state.

I fully expect Kentucky's uninsured rate to skyrocket back into double digits, along with the state's mortality rate.  This is going to start killing people, full stop.  People aren't going to be able to afford Medicaid premiums, they aren't going to be able to keep and hold jobs because of illness in a right-to-work state where one missed shift means you lose your job. 

What if you get laid off?  What if you're, say, one of the Sam's Club workers living in Kentucky on Medicaid and you show up to work only to find your store permanently closed with no warning?

Oh well, there goes your Medicaid.  Sorry.  There goes your health care.  There goes your livelihood, because now you're out of the program and too sick to go around hunting for a new job.

The issue with work requirements for Medicaid isn't to help "transition people to better outcomes" it's to punish people until they drop out of the program so the state spends less money on them (and if they die, bonus!)

The vast majority of able-bodied, adult Medicaid recipients are in families where at least one adult is working and qualify for the program because they have low-paying jobs that may not even offer health benefits, let alone insurance these workers can afford.

And never mind that there are a lot of good, sometimes unavoidable reasons why even a part-time job isn’t an option for people who, say, have chronic illnesses not severe enough to constitute a disability; or who are caring for an ill or elderly relative; or who are full-time parents; or who are enrolled in school.

And the next time the unemployment rate spikes and people find themselves out of work and uninsured, these work requirements are going to make it even harder for them to keep their lives together.

The policy the Trump administration is enacting are based not on data but on an ugly stereotype many Americans hold about people who rely on Medicaid and other programs to get by. Accordingly, 70 percent of Americans said they supported work requirements in Medicaid in a survey the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation conducted in June.

Imagine Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen,” only this time she has diabetes and can’t be on her feet all day. The Trump administration’s solution to this woman’s problems is to make it harder for her to see a doctor and fill her prescriptions, so she gets sicker and is less likely to find steady work.

That's exactly who's going to lose health coverage and won't be able to afford insulin shots.  And there are going to be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of cases like this in Kentucky.

“With the approval of the Medicaid waiver, the historic progress Kentucky has achieved in health care in recent years comes to a halt,” said Dustin Pugel, a policy analyst with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. “New barriers to getting covered and new ways of getting kicked off coverage will hurt working Kentuckians, health care providers and our economy. Rather than saving monies, the waiver creates new costs in expensive bureaucratic systems and reductions in the health of our workforce. These radical and counterproductive changes will result in nearly 100,000 Kentuckians losing coverage."

So now it's not Matt Bevin kicking tens of thousands off Medicaid, it's those lazy people who are kicking themselves off.

Because basic health care isn't "sustainable" for Kentucky.  And apparently neither are good schools, working roads and bridges, clean water, reliable sanitation and power and internet access.  Bevin has trashed all that in the two years he's been in office.

And now he's wrecked Medicaid expansion, just as he promised he would.  And we voted for him anyway.  Congrats, Kentuckians.  You just signed your own death warrants because you hate Obama that much.

Bloody idiots.

Last Call For Mutually Assured Distraction

The draft of Trump's nuclear policy has been leaked by Huff Post and it's pretty much as awful as you would expect from the tangerine tyrant.  It calls for a considerable increase in the number of US nuclear weapons, and most heart-stopping of all, calls for a considerably lower bar for the use of nuclear weapons.

In his first year in office, President Barack Obama gave a landmark address in Prague in which he famously affirmed “clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” The commitment to total nuclear disarmament was a major departure from the George W. Bush administration — the first time, in fact, that the United States had declared a nuclear-free world a major policy goal.

Now, eight years later, it’s the Trump administration’s turn to lay out its nuclear weapons policy. And according to a pre-decisional draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) obtained by HuffPost, Trump’s Department of Defense has gone a decidedly different route: new nukes, for no good reason.

The final version of the NPR is scheduled to be released in February. You can read the draft in full at the bottom of this article. A Defense Department spokesperson declined to comment on the draft, saying that the agency “will not discuss pre-decisional drafts of the document.”

In October, NBC reported that President Trump had told a gathering of high-ranking national security leaders that “he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.” While the report doesn’t nearly go that far, it does call for the development of new, so-called low-yield nuclear weapons — warheads with a lower explosive force.

The logic of those pushing for the development of smaller nukes is that our current nuclear weapons are too big and too deadly to ever use; we are effectively self-deterred, and the world knows it. To make sure other countries believe that we’d actually use nuclear force, the thinking goes, we need more low-yield nukes.

But official language around nuclear weapons is slippery and euphemistic. “Low yield” suggests a softer sort of weaponry, diet nukes, until you realize that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were technically “low-yield” weapons.

Trump’s NPR draft euphemizes the euphemism, referring to low-yield weapons as “supplements” that will “enhance deterrence.” The document claims that Russia is threatening to use these smaller nuclear weapons; the U.S. needs to match and deter the Russians in kind.

The draft document also raises the questions of in what situation these new "low-yield supplemental weapons" would be used: in a variety of situations, and against non-nuclear nations or against non-nuclear groups.  You know, like terrorists or "shithole countries" as Trump likes to call them.

Wow. Important @ashleyfeinberg scoop. The Trump Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is as about as bad as expected. Calls for new, "more usable" nuclear weapons and expands the number of scenarios that might lead Trump to use nukes. Some addtl observations ... 1/ https://t.co/JhWgqD8Yca

— Daryl G Kimball (@DarylGKimball) January 12, 2018

That entire thread from arms control expert Daryl Kimball is astonishing.  This draft is a plan for a nuclear "miscalculation" that will lead to catastrophe.

After all, we've used nuclear weapons before...

Police State Of Emergency

Just a reminder of two things: Republicans are fascists, and there's no such thing as a moderate Republican anymore, especially when it comes to the use of police to terrorize people of color.

A years-old debate over use of force by police could resurface in the coming 30-day legislative session, as Gov. Susana Martinez plans to push legislation that would grant legal immunity to New Mexico law enforcement officers for actions in the line of duty. 

The Republican governor, a former prosecutor, says the legislation would provide a shield of sorts for law enforcement officers – provided they’re adhering to training – in a state that has one of the nation’s highest violent crime rates. 

“I don’t believe that police officers should be under this constant threat of lawsuits that will often cause them to pause,” Martinez recently told the Journal. “If they’re following their training, there should be something that protects them.” 

However, critics describe the legislation as misguided and possibly unconstitutional, while citing a recent federal investigation that found Albuquerque police had a pattern of excessive force. That led to a settlement agreement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice. 

“Standing up for officers who are using excessive force and violating the Constitution is exactly the wrong way to move,” said Steven Robert Allen, the public policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union in New Mexico. “I don’t know what problem the governor thinks she’s addressing, but she seems to be going in the wrong direction.” 

In recent years, numerous lawsuits have been filed against New Mexico law enforcement officers, and some of the suits have led to hefty settlement agreements.

I'm old enough to remember when Martinez's name was thrown around as a veep pick for various 2016 GOP candidates as a blue state Latina, and Trump immediately attacked her to ruin that.  It worked, and now Martinez is trying to go for the soft police state in order to burnish her credentials.

You know, she's a moderate.

Deplorables Uber Alles

It's January 2018, a midterm election year, a fresh start, and we're right back to the stories of January 2017 where only Midwestern rural white voters matter, and that the Dems are doomed to utter obliteration unless they "abandon identity politics" and millions of voters of color in favor of winning back rural white guys who watch FOX News and maybe like the Dems once in a while. Politico's Mike Krause laments Terry Goodin, The Last Democrat In Rural Indiana™.

From the Appalachian regions of Ohio to the Iron Range of Minnesota and the northern reaches of Michigan and Wisconsin, across Iowa and Missouri and through the southern swaths of Indiana and Illinois—areas in which Bill Clinton triumphed and Hillary Clinton tanked—the quotes from the 72 rural Democrats Johnson interviewed read like a pent-up primal scream. And Terry Goodin’s comments pop out in particular. In the report, he says the Democratic Party is “lazy,” “out of touch with mainstream America,” relying on “too much identity politics” where “winners and losers are picked by their labels.” The Democrats in his district, he laments, “feel abandoned.

Goodin invited me to visit his 562-square-mile district and one of the stops we made over two days was at the Scottsburg garage his cousins operate. In the parking lot, Goodin ran into a man wearing a well-worn cap with a well-known slogan: “Make America Great Again.” Delmis Burns, I would learn later, drives a truck for a living and has known Goodin for more than 40 years and votes for him every time he runs because Burns, despite his preference in the presidential race, is in fact a Democrat. The two men fell into easy banter, and it didn’t take long for Trump to come up. Burns is still pleased with his choice. “They give ‘im hell,” he said, “and he gives it back.” At some point, Burns began talking about the time he was asked at work to train a new driver who was Muslim. He refused. “They’re taught to be nice to you,” he told Goodin, “and then they blow you up.” The comment floated uncomfortably between the two men, although maybe it was just me who felt like that—and the gregarious Burns soon was talking instead about his hat, and some guff he had gotten from somebody who wanted to “knock that off your head,” he said. “I told him, ‘Everybody’s gotta be doing somethin’ when the good Lord calls.’” That got a laugh out of Goodin, and before saying goodbye to Burns, Goodin asked about his “grandbabies.” 

Here in this not even 10-minute interaction, I thought, was the nub of the Bustos report—and the challenge it presents to party leaders who will be asked to grapple with its primary recommendation that Democrats focus on economic matters and steer clear of confrontation on contentious social issues. In theory, it seems obvious the party would do what it must to secure the loyalty of additional voters; in practice, though, this sort of overture means peace-making with people like Burns, through the face-to-face pragmatism of people like Goodin, some of whose views bump up inconveniently against the agendas of interest groups and the platform and mores of the party as a whole. Is Burns worth wooing back? And is Goodin a walking relic—or a key cog in the future of the party? Either way, as Goodin argued in his introductory address to the legislature, this should not constitute grounds for disqualification as a Democrat. “I have fired a gun a time or two, and I am familiar with the Scriptures,” he said. “Some might think that makes me an outcast in my own party. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our caucus is a caucus that values all points of view. There’s enough space for a farm boy like me, as well as woolly liberals.” 

In a nutshell, this is the advice of Bustos’ report: Widen the definition of Democrat. 

“This is the face of what the party is going to have to accept if you want to be in the majority,” Johnson told me. 

“If we call ourselves a big tent party,” Bustos said, “then we should act like it.”

I'm tired of hearing that only white guys from Indiana can save the Democrats.  I'm tired of "making peace" with people  who would soon as call me "one of the good ones" as they would vote for guys like Trump.  I'm tired of being told that wanting a equal playing field is "identity politics" when the other party is openly running on promoting and maintaining white supremacy. I'm tired of being told my intolerance for bigotry is more of a problem than the bigotry itself.

Most of all, I'm tired of having to make excuses for people who have difficulty choosing between what the Republicans openly stand for and what the Democrats openly stand for.

It's not that hard, guys.  One party wants to help everybody, the other party is currently dismantling Medicaid in my state.

The Trump administration took a major step Thursday to let states establish the first-ever work requirements for Medicaid recipients. 

The policy guidance is the most concrete development yet toward achieving goal of tying Medicaid benefits to employment — a long-time conservative goal that has never been permitted since the health care entitlement program for the poor was created 52 years ago.

CMS in its letter to state Medicaid directors outlined the criteria it would use to approve state employment proposals that would require able-bodied, working-age Medicaid enrollees to get a job or participate in a related activity like job training for at least 20 hours a week in order to keep their health coverage. CMS Administrator Seema Verma has made it clear from the moment she took office last year that the Trump administration will approve such proposals, but requests from nearly a dozen conservative states have stalled with federal officials for months. 

Democrats and liberal advocacy groups have warned they will go to court to block work rules as soon as the first state plan — likely Kentucky, and likely very soon — is approved. They argue that Medicaid is a health care program, and adding work requirements do not achieve that and may undermine it. 

“By allowing states to impose harmful work requirements, the Trump Administration is endangering the life support systems millions of vulnerable Americans rely on every day," said Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

This is what Republicans have been wanting to do for 50 years, and now they are doing it.  If you're still unsure about voting for the guys trying to stop them, well, I'm tired of expending my energy trying to convince you of the obvious.

Don't bitch about not enough white guys being in the Democratic big tent when the Republicans are too busy setting their tent on fire.  If it's that important to you, well, Trump will take you.

And I know the next wiseass remark will be "They did go to Trump and that's why the Dems got wiped out."  That's probably true.  But if the fate of America comes down to trying to stop white folks from doing stupid crap, well, we've been fighting that battle for 400 years and taking whatever victories we can goddamn get.

StupidiNews!

• In rejecting a bipartisan Senate deal on immigration reached last night, Donald Trump asked why America had to accept immigrants from "shithole countries" like Haiti and from Africa.
• State prosecutors in Missouri are launching a criminal investigation of GOP Gov. Eric Greitens after he admitted an extramarital affair on Thursday with a woman he allegedly blackmailed.
• Donald Trump has canceled a planned February trip to London to open the new US embassy there, citing his opposition to an Obama administration deal to move it to a new building.
• Turkey has responded to a US State Department travel warning to avoid the country due to risk of terrorist attacks with a warning to its own citizens to avoid the US for the same reason.
• The House has passed a six-year extension of FISA surveillance powers but the measure faces an uncertain future in the Senate and filibuster threats from both parties.

Last Call For The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

For Dems to take back the House in November, the time is now to put candidates in all 435 House districts and line up challenges to run against incumbent Republicans and for open seats, especially in winnable purple suburban districts.  One of those disctricts is OH-1, right here in Cincy, and GOP Rep. Steve Chabot may have finally drawn a considerable Democratic challenger in Aftab Pureval.

Washington Democrats could be close to landing their big-time candidate to take on Congressman Steve Chabot this fall. 

Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval is giving serious consideration to challenging Westwood's Chabot in the 1st Congressional District, Politics Extra has learned. 

A spokeswoman for Pureval's campaign confirmed he is being recruited, but declined further comment.

"I think he's our strongest candidate," Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said. "He's the right kind of moderate that I think fits the district and can help move the political center of gravity back to the middle from its right-wing trajectory in Washington." 

Pureval was in Washington last week to meet with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which so far has struck out in its aggressive months-long effort to find someone to run in the red-leaning district. The DCCC began courting Pureval last spring, just months after he started his first job in public office. 

Washington Democrats also have recruited Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld and Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, but both have taken a pass. State Rep. Alicia Reece has considered a run against Chabot, who is seeking a 12th term.

Pureval is a good guy as far as I can tell.  I was worried about Chabot once Sittenfeld and then Portune balked, but Pureval can win this. Right now the leading Dem in the race is Robert Barr, long time Congregation Beth Adam rabbi here in Cincy and he's got a fair chance of winning, but he has no political experience, whereas Pureval is County Clerk.

Still, either Pureval or Barr would be a welcome change from the awful Chabot, who has been John Boehner's local hatchetman in Ohio for decades.

We'll see, but with both Pureval and Barr now in the race, I'm feeling really good about taking down Chabot once and for all.

Trump Gets The Coaled Shoulder

Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry's big plan to save the coal industry has been completely wrecked by Trump's own appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who unanimously voted to scrap the Trump regime's plan to require states to use more "reliable" coal and nuclear power (and to stockpile coal and nuclear fuel as a "national security issue") over "unreliable" wind and solar.

As proposed, the rule aimed to improve the resilience and stability of the electrical grid. Citing some electricity problems that struck during the “polar vortex”-induced cold snap of 2014, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry proposed that utility companies should pay coal and nuclear plants to keep weeks of extra fuel on hand.

The Department of Energy, which Perry leads, doesn’t have the power to force utilities to follow such a rule itself. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is charged by Congress with regulating interstate electricity sales and some power utilities. Perry asked FERC’s five commissioners to adopt his proposed rule within 60 days.

The plan was always controversial. Critics argued that Perry’s bailout would harm natural-gas plants, slow the growth of solar and wind energy, and introduce new and costly distortions to U.S. energy markets.

They also doubted the logic of the rule, saying that power plants rarely went down because they didn’t have enough fuel on hand. The Rhodium Group, an economics-research firm, found that only 0.00007 percent of U.S. power-outage hours between 2012 and 2016 were caused by a lack of available fuel.

Energy economists and environmental groups also maintained the rule would effectively subsidize carbon-dioxide pollution, which causes global warming. “Doing nothing [about climate change] is already not merited by economics,” Michael Greenstone, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, said in October. “This is like doubling down.”

Worst of all, critics said, the plan would spike Americans’ electricity bills. The energy-consulting group ICF estimated that the rule would cost ratepayers an extra $800 million to $3.8 billion every year.

In a statement on Monday, FERC thanked Perry for his attention to grid resiliency and said it would continue to research and pay attention to the issue. But individual commissioners were more cutting in their replies.

“The proposed rule had little, if anything, to do with resilience, and was instead aimed at subsidizing certain uncompetitive electric generation technologies,” said Richard Glick, a Trump-appointed FERC commissioner, dubbing the plan “a multi-billion dollar bailout targeted at coal and nuclear generating facilities.”

He added that he was sympathetic to the plight of coal miners and nuclear workers, but that helping them was outside the agency’s legal power. “We have a history in this country of helping those who, through no fault of their own, have been adversely affected by technological and market change. But that is the responsibility of Congress and the state legislatures. It is not a role that the Federal Power Act provides to the commission,” he said.

So, if Trump wants to give King Coal a bailout, Republicans in Congress are going to have to do that. And raise power bills for Americans.  In an election year.

Good luck, guys.

The funny part is Trump is so incompetent, he can't even get his own cronies to approve his own quid pro quo plans to reward wealthy coal baron donors.  This should have been a slam dunk, as Trump has appointed four of the five commissioners on the FERC board, and all five of them said "This is stupid even for Trump".

I mean it's obviously the definition of crony capitalism here.  But it was so obvious that even Trump's own cronies wouldn't do it.

How pathetic is that?

Three People Outside Jefferson City, Missouri

I haven't had too much to say on the subject of Missouri's GOP Govenor, Eric Greitens, as he seemed slightly less awful than his fellow Republican Governors, but that bar is so low that apparently Greitens has walked straight into it.

Governor Eric Greitens on Wednesday night confirmed to News 4 he had an extramarital affair, an admission a months-long News 4 investigation prompted.

In a recording obtained by News 4, a woman says she had a sexual encounter with Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and that he tried to blackmail her to keep the encounter quiet.

The details were provided to News 4 by the woman’s ex-husband, claiming the sexual relationship happened between his now ex-wife and Greitens in March 2015. News 4 is not naming the woman and she has not made an on-the-record comment about the story.

According to the ex-husband, the recording was made just days after Greitens’ and the woman’s first sexual encounter. And also that Greitens took a photograph during the encounter to use as “blackmail” according to the ex-husband.

During his campaign and while serving in his first year in office as Missouri’s Governor, Eric Greitens has billed himself a family man. During his campaign announcement, he stated: “I'm Eric Greitens, I'm a Navy SEAL, native Missourian and most importantly, a proud husband and father."

A contrast to the acts the woman accuses Greitens of committing on tape saying his actions were “horrible and disgusting.”

The ex-husband provided details to News 4 of what he claims was a sexual encounter between his now-ex-wife and Greitens back in March of 2015. News 4 has spoken to the woman's attorney who has stated: “No Comment.”

His now ex-wife wife didn't know he was recording their conversation as she confessed intimate details to him.

This is about as ugly as an affair gets, blackmail, recordings, and a politician that had possibly larger hopes than just the Governor's mansion.  What is it with conservative Republicans who are always screaming about "family values" and then blackmailing women over affairs?

It's depressing stuff.  He allegedly duct taped the woman to exercise equipment in his basement, blindfolded her, and then too a blackmail photo to assure her silence. I hope Greitens leaves office, if any of his "I was a Navy SEAL" honor is intact.

Which, well, he's a Republican politician, so no.

StupidiNews!

• The death toll in California mudslides has risen to 17 as rescuers continue to look for survivors along Southern California coastal areas stripped of trees by last year's massive wildfires. 
• States on both coasts are scrambling for exemptions from Trump regime offshore drilling expansions after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spared Florida's coasts from new oil drilling.
• Canada believes Donald Trump will announce the US pulling out of NAFTA after a sixth round of talks later this month in Montreal, but experts believe he may need Congress's permission.
• A new Cambridge University study finds that the UK could lose a half-million jobs over two years without a Brexit transition deal by the end of 2019.
• Japan will buy four Aegis missile defense cruisers from the US to protect the island nation from North Korean missiles, according to the Defense Department.

Last Call For Motor Voter Over

At every turn, Republicans want to make it harder for American citizens to vote.  They know that if they make it difficult for poor urban, elderly, college and minority voters to vote, they will remain with unchecked power.  No wonder then that they want to now kill the Motor Voter Act, which Mitch McConnell has been trying to destroy for nearly 30 years, and the Roberts Court may be the headsman that swings the axe.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the newest challenge to the law, concerning whether Ohio can remove voters from the rolls who don’t vote over a six-year period. If a voter in Ohio misses an election, doesn’t respond to a subsequent mailing from the state, and then sits out two more elections, he or she is removed from the registration list, even if this person would otherwise be eligible to vote. Critics of this process say it turns voting into a “use it or lose it” right and will open the door to wider voter purges.

Ohio purged 2 million voters from 2011 to 2016, more than any other state, including over 840,000 for infrequent voting. At least 144,000 voters in Ohio’s three largest counties, home to Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, have been purged since the 2012 election, with voters in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods twice as likely to be removed as those in Republican-leaning ones, according to a  Reuters analysis.

A federal appeals court ruled in September 2016 that the state’s purging of infrequent voters violated the NVRA, which states that someone cannot be removed from the rolls “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” As a result of that ruling,  7,500 people who had been purged from the rolls were reinstated and were able to vote in the 2016 election.

Ohio says it should be allowed to remove these voters from the rolls under the NVRA, claiming that “a failure to respond to a notice— not a failure to vote—is the sole proximate cause of removal” under its purge program. Ohio adds that if the Supreme Court finds that the NVRA does prohibit its actions, it would raise “serious constitutional questions” about the law. A supporting brief by the American Civil Rights Union, a conservative group that has sued states to force aggressive voter purges, says that if “the NVRA indeed prohibits the states from utilizing inactivity as a factor that leads to deeming a registrant ultimately to be unqualified—as the lower court found—then the NVRA intrudes on the important federalist balance in the Constitution.”

One of the big reasons that Ohio went for Trump by 8 points in 2016 was that Jon Husted kicked nearly a million Ohioans off the voter rolls, the vast majority were registered Democrats.  Now the GOP wants to repeat Ohio's voter purges in other states.

For its part, the Trump administration has come out squarely in support of voter purges. The Obama Justice Department opposed the Ohio purge program, but Trump’s DOJ abruptly switched sides in the case. “After this Court’s grant of review and the change in Administrations, the Department reconsidered the question,” the DOJ informed the Supreme Court in August. “It has now concluded that the NVRA does not prohibit a State from using nonvoting as the basis for sending a [removal] notice.”

In June 2017, the DOJ also sent a letter to 44 states informing them that it was reviewing their voter list maintenance procedures and asking how they planned to “remove the names of ineligible voters.” If Ohio wins at the Supreme Court, it will “certainly embolden” the department and GOP-controlled states to undertake aggressive voter purges, says Vanita Gupta, who headed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division under Obama and is now president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

And that would open the door to broader challenges to the NVRA. “It’s a hugely significant case,” Gupta says. “If the court comes out with a broad ruling that says inactivity in voting is sufficient proof to kick a voter off of the rolls, that could have broad implications across the country for how voters are purged off the rolls per the National Voter Registration Act.”

In other words, if states are allowed to kick people off the voter rolls for not voting, then make it impossible to register to vote, we're done as a free country.

And the GOP knows it.