You Have To Be Crazy To Expect The Institutional Democratic Party To Be Anything More Than The Lesser Of Two Evils-- Two Really Evil Evils

After the massacre in Las Vegas normal Americans thought it would be the perfect time to push for saner gun policies, not just banning bump stock devices (a ban opposed by the NRA)-- which have no other purpose but to turn legal semi-automatics into mass murder machines as they did in Las Vegas-- but to prevent dangerous and mentally ill people from buying guns and ban military hardware from American streets. But Republicans will have no of it-- and neither will the Democrats' Senate Leader, Chuck Schumer. Schumer is telling other Democrats to ignore "pressure from activist groups that argue the party needs to take a stand given the string of mass shootings across the country." Activists are incensed but Schumer is unmoved. He's thinking about reelecting conservative red state Democrats like John Tester (MT), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Donnelly (IN), etc., who, supposedly, will be hurt if Democrats even propose modest legislation that is overwhelmingly popular. Schumer seemed to have bought into the GOP-NRA perspective that banning weapons of mass murder is that same as confiscating everyone's hunting rifles and guns needed for home protection. But, as we mentioned the other day (and most days), there's a reason some people call the party which is supposed to be the vehicle for the legitimate rights of working families, the Democraps. With leaders like Schumer, Hoyer, Crowley, Wassermann Schultz, Emanuel and now even Pelosi, it's too much to expect anything but crap from them.

David Dayen's New Republic piece, The Democrats' Dianne Feinstein Problem this week was a good illustration of the cesspool the DC Democrats are swimming around in. "The 50-year-old president of the California state Senate last week announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate against longtime Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 84," he wrote. "Like Lieberman, Feinstein occupies the right flank of the Democratic Party, even more so in an era of resistance and progressive resurgence. California’s kooky electoral rules make it likely that Feinstein will face de León in a general election matchup, with similar dynamics to Lieberman vs. Lamont. And every Democrat in the Senate, at a time when they are striving to win back the chamber, will have to answer: Do you support a colleague, or the challenger who best represents the political moment?"

Feinstein’s political instincts were apparent when she loudly supported the death penalty at the 1990 state party convention, drawing a chorus of boos—which she subsequently used in campaign ads to prove her distance from the liberal base. Perhaps no Democrat in the past two decades has been as committed to expanding the national security state than Feinstein (again, like Lieberman). On domestic policy, she supported the Bush tax cuts, permanent normal trade relations with China, and the bill that repealed Glass-Steagall’s financial reforms. While strong on gun safety, women’s rights and the environment, Feinstein has openly courted the center and rejected the left since coming to Washington. Just this year, she told the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco that Donald Trump could mature into a “good president.”

...Progressives are likely to make the Feinstein–de León race into a litmus test, as well they should. Feinstein is clearly too conservative to represent one of the nation’s most liberal states. If Democrats who want to lead the party end up siding with her, they do so at their peril.

The DCCC thinks they're smart-- they're anything but smart-- for running Blue Dogs, New Dems others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party as if they were real Democrats in districts where Bernie beat Hillary. All that will do is hold down 2018 turnout, killing Democrats up and down the ballot. Leave it to a moron, Ben Ray Lujan, who has asked Rahm Emanuel, the architect of that failed strategy, to teach him how to run the DCCC. Meanwhile, the Establishment's DNC puppet, Tom Perez, now appears to be purging the DNC of Bernie supporters.

A shake-up is underway at the Democratic National Committee as several key longtime officials have lost their posts, exposing a still-raw rift in the party and igniting anger among those in its progressive wing who see retaliation for their opposition to DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

The ousters come ahead of the DNC's first meeting, in Las Vegas, Nevada, since Perez took over as chairman with a pledge this year to unite a party that had become badly divided during the brutal Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton 2016 primary race.

Complaints began immediately after party officials saw a list of Perez's appointments to DNC committees and his roster of 75 "at-large" members, who are chosen by the chair.

The removal and demotion of a handful of veteran operatives stood out, as did what critics charge is the over-representation of Clinton-backed members on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which helps set the terms for the party's presidential primary, though other Sanders and Ellison backers remain represented.

Those who have been pushed out include:

• Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chairman and longtime DNC official who ran against Perez for chair before backing Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Buckley lost his spots on the Executive Committee and DNC Rules Committee.
• James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute and prominent Sanders backer, is no longer co-chair of the Resolutions Committee and is off the Executive Committee, a spot he has held since 2001.
• Alice Germond, the party’s longtime former secretary and a vocal Ellison backer, who was removed from her at-large appointment to the DNC.
• Barbra Casbar Siperstein, who supported Ellison and Buckley, was tossed from the Executive Committee.

The moves exposed a rift in the partnership between Perez and his deputy chair, Ellison, who have publicly broadcast their "bromance" since Perez tapped Ellison for the post in a show of unity after their hard-fought race this year for the party's chairmanship.

"I’m concerned about the optics, and I’m concerned about the impact," Zogby said of the changes. "I want to heal the wound of 2016."

Buckley said that while he understands Perez, as chairman, can do as he pleases, "it's all just very disappointing."

Germond has been on the DNC since the 1980s and was a vocal backer of Ellison for DNC chairman.

"It is quite unusual for a former party officer who has been serving on the DNC for forever to just be left out in the cold without even a call from the chairman," Germond said. "So I assumed it had something to do with myself support for Keith."

"I understand that I fought very hard for Keith Ellison. And I understand that to the winners go the spoils," she added.

The DNC denied any retaliation, saying that the changes were an effort to diversify and freshen the party’s leadership and that all the party’s officers had a chance to offer input. They touted new additions like Marisa Richmond, a millennial black transgender activist, and the first Dreamer member, Ellie Perez, to point to the DNC's efforts at diversity.

What's the cutoff point for millennials? Perez's black transgender millennial may actually be black and transgender but she's also 57. What what would you expect from any organization so recently run by Debbie Wassermann Schultz but systematic lies and treachery? And somehow, somehow, somehow... don't ask me how, Perez has made sure lots of scumbag lobbyists and power-brokers, hated by Democratic voters, are joining his army of millennial black transgender activists on the DNC. Jennifer Epstein reported for Bloomberg Politics that "The Democratic Party this week plans to name 75 people including lobbyists and political operatives to leadership posts that come with superdelegate votes at its next presidential convention, potentially aggravating old intraparty tensions as it struggles to confront President Donald Trump." We all just love those super-delegates, right? One, Joanne Dowdell, is even a lobbyist for Fox News.

Party spokesman Michael Tyler [a notorious paid liar who could go to work for the Trump White House tomorrow and never miss a beat] stressed the demographic reach of the at-large nominees, saying they 'reflect the unprecedented diversity of our party’s coalition.' The party is doubling the representation of millennials and Native Americans on the DNC and increasing the number of Puerto Ricans, he said.