JaneAusten

This is an excellent article. Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion, because the wage gap is still growing, the upper 1% have seem their incomes increase by something like 400% while wages for these folks really haven't budged. A more progressive tax plan(which we actually had during the 50's, 60's, and 70's) yes even under Eisenhower and Nixon, would IMO help that. But Eisenhower and Nixon would both be considered Democrats today.

I may have my issues with Sanders and I am not crazy about Chris Hayes constantly being in the tank for him(Maddow and O'Donnell actually have a variety of serving democrats on) but I have to agree with Sanders on this that this was not a healthcare bill but a huge tax cut. But I love the part at the end when they got Trump saying that the Australians have better healthcare. I hope they do use this quote from Trump. They should actually put it in ads and run it in areas Trump won http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-touts-australias-health-system-bernie-sanders-delight

You will appreciate this just as you said earlier today

Kasich is gearing up to run in 2020 isn't he? He's he only prominent GOPer that has stayed away from all of this and has been a cautious supporter of the ACA. I have no interest in seeing another ideologue in the white house(we have Pence there now). Our Governor Rauner in Il a GOP idiot. He indirectly slammed all of the R's in Illinois who voted for this(Rauner is running for re-election in 2018) but he never make any kind of statement on this before the vote, knowing it would have likely ginned up more opposition to the new bill. He's a coward http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170504/NEWS03/170509917/house-passes-obamacare-repeal. He does this now so he can tell people he was against Trumpcare when election season comes.

Oh by the way Senate GOP will craft their own bill

Kasich didn't want them to vote for this and I am not sure as to the tally and how many Ohio house reps voted yes. But calling your rep still to voice disappointment and then calling your senators now is the next step. And if you can afford it, send a couple of dollars to anyone of these idiots who voted for this craven bill. I am honestly hoping the CBO score which was bad before is even worse. The WSJ had an article this morning that talked about how the GOP back=doored terms in the new bill allowing employer plans to also follow the same guidelines, so if people think having an employer plan will make them safe, good luck

No all the dems voted no The 4 R's in Il on the fence all voted Yes. Roskam I don't get because he is definitely one that just sealed his fate.

My litmus test on these EO's is whether the ACLU takes action. They already said yesterday on both EO' that they were prepared to challenge them. If they don't IMO you know it's all smoke and mirrors. The press is so dumb they are playing right into Trump's hands. On another topic, I had to laugh. Reading a tweet from Matt Fuller who said that in the White House, Trump fears voters will blame him for the healthcare bill and not the other legislators. He also made very little reference of the new bill at his brownshit half full rally in Harrisburg on Saturday. Even he knows its a turd but thinks he wouldn't be held culpable if he put his signature on it. Clueless.+ UPDATE:

ITA agree on the Obama's. The Clintons from day1 had a shady reputation before even Washington. It's not a criticism of them either just a fact. Which is why the questioning of Obama on his actions post presidency by the likes of Sanders and Warren are disturbing. You can have your issues on how Obama dealt with many issues(I do) but there is a lot of love of the Obama's and criticizing by Warren and Sanders accomplishes nothing. In fact it shows their own political naivete. There was a way both could have raised their concerns about Wall Street while not sounding like they were judging Obama. Obama and Bill Clinton were both experts at soft peddling.

The left has already started by deriding Obama for having to now do 4 more wall street speeches to pay for helping inner city kids. I swear you can never win with any of them. Unlike Hillary, Michelle looks like she will be staying far away from politics.

So there is a rumor going around Capital Hill that the democrats actually want this house bill passed(the senate has already said they aren't passing it without a lot of revisions that would alienate the freedom caucus yet again) because they want moderate GOPers that vote for it on record for 2018 elections.

Interesting thread on an analysis done on Trump-Obama voters and democrats who did not vote. Lots of valuable info but my one problem is they don't address voter suppression as a partial factor in turnout.

Oh yeah I agree with all of this. If you follow the liberal rednecks they basically said all of this. The handout aspect is something I believe many democrats just don't understand. And it's one big reason the New Deal was successful. Maybe it didn't turn things around dramatically but Roosevelt and the program which put people to work gave them hope and dignity. But we also have to acknowledge I think that the destruction of unions was probably the largest loss to working class people. And for the democrats their departure has also made it impossible to talk to those folks. I think that loss has been tremendous and people underestimate it. The article says democrats say talking to. to try and win those voters back is likely too hard. Maybe that's because the people who used to do a lot of this were the local union folks, people who worked side by side with them, etc. Oh and I am not discounting Bill Clinton's words and I agree with it. But I am not sure Hillary was ever the person who could do that. Biden yeah I think so. And yes I guess Sanders possibly. I honestly don't believe the WWC are gone. Why? Because those so called Reagan democrats no longer exist. And not any republican has any kind of solution to help them. The issue is communicating a plan and frankly the democrats have and still do now stink at it. And I don't want to sound like I am discounting the mistakes in Clinton's campaign. There were many. And we all know if Trump lost, we would not be hearing about how he sucked as a candidate, etc we would still be hearing how close a race he made it. And in that case I'm not sure I would disagree with them because him winning or even losing a close race would have sent the same message. EDIT: Oh and after I wrote this I remember a point an article I read in WaPo after the election said. And it nailed it. Democrats can talk to the head, Republicans talk to the heart. It doesn't matter if the truth is twisted. Also keep the messaging simple and something that will resonate. Obama's message of hope and change, Sanders in some ways used the same approach(although not as charismatic) keeping his messaging fairly simple. Wall Street taxation, minimum wage, and fair trade(to me that's what his "bad trade deal" message translated to). It doesn't really matter if your policies will help these people if you can't communicate in a way to rally people enthusiastically to your side. (HRC).

This to me this is the misnomer and you can tell me if I am all wet. I don't think they have given up they just haven't been top priority and I do think Clinton did address this(no one listened) in terms of re-education just plain education. We all have to first acknowledge that it's unlikely anyone is going to get a job out of high school to single handedly support an entire family. I was reading the website for Tom Prigg an ex vet who is going to run democratic in a gerrymandered red district in southwestern PA. Part of it former coal jobs, steel jobs which has been decimated. A good part of his message is education and that education is more trade and vocational(high schools don't have vocational education anymore). I'm not blaming the High Schools but many of the skills required are too advanced/complex to teach in high school. Skills required for the advanced mfg jobs that do exist and trade jobs. I think Clinton's plan did include education but the message never got communicated. I personally think until that is acknowledged it's an endless cycle of perhaps those same people drifting between democrats and republicans when those jobs don't materialize as they didn't with Reagan, Bush, Clinton(yes), Bush, and Obama. Things like getting rid of TPP and NAFTA aren't going to solve the mftg jobs gone. Bill Clinton can talk about not giving up the WWC but what exactly did he do for them. Yes he connected to them, could talk to them, the economy was booming under his second term, but were those people any better off? I don't think so and it just got progressively worse.

Democrats say they know exactly why Clinton lost. I am going to stay silent because I am interested in what others think about this.

No. Well I am sure there are some but Indiana - big no. My sister in law lives in southern Indiana and driving through Indiana last spring there were "Dump Pence" signs all over. I also have a very conservative friend who lives there who hated him. Mitch Daniels former Governor was very popular but was non social issues. He was a traditional fiscal republican and had a lot of success in brining business into the state. My friend was a big supporter. Daniels endorsed Pence then of course Pence came in an was nothing like Daniels. He was the author of that disastrous legislation allowing discrimination by businesses to LGBT people based on religious freedom. And you know how popular that law was - it was rolled back. Indiana lost business as a result so of course residents hated him for it. He would have NEVER been re-elected. As a president I don't see him succeeding. He has the charisma of a rock. I've been told the new governor is more in the mold of Daniels but really I have no clue now.

Anyone read about this https://federalnewsradio.com/government-shutdown/2017/04/white-house-backs-off-as-lawmakers-work-to-avert-shutdown/ "Asked by reporters whether Republicans would have to pass the short-term bill without Democratic votes, McCarthy said, “Yeah.” Democrats have threatened to oppose the temporary spending bill if there wasn’t a bipartisan deal on a $1 trillion measure financing the government through September. Final agreement on some loose ends in that massive measure has remained elusive." So guess what. The 1 week extension got passed and Paul Ryan got 207 GOP votes, not enough to pass the 1 week extension. It got passed gulp "due to democrats" Seriously this is a huge failure for these guys. Healthcare reform could legitimately happen if the moderate GOP and democrats worked together for it. But Ryan and many of the GOP leadership may not be tea baggers, but they are owned by the Koch Brothers. On a completely different topic, I may not always agree with Noam Chomsky, but I respect his intellect and thought process. And I always learn something from listening to him. For those who are interested, he appears on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman fairly often. An except of his recent appearance(you can find the entire interview online on the youtube Democracy Now channel), but here he talks about how and why the Republican Part is the most dangerous entity on earth today. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/26/chomsky_on_the_gop_has_any

So Jane Sanders is and has been under FBI investigation for over a year due to her actions in potentially leading Burlington College to Bankruptcy. You know this would not bother me as much if SHE and BERNIE did not hammer on the FBI investigation into Clinton and calling her corrupt as a result. Jane in particular was hammering away on how the investigation needed to speed up. While this is not Bernie but his wife, it didn't stop many from attacking Bill for events that happened 20 years ago. And I am trying not to relive the primary and move on, but this "faux outrage" over Obama's taking money for a speech by Warren and Sanders will accomplish nothing other than alienating those of us who still respect and appreciate Obama just floored me. This and the 200k the college settled on her when she was fired, might be why those tax returns never got released. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/27/1656995/-FBI-Opened-An-Investigation-Into-Jane-Sanders-At-Burlington-College See this is the kind of stuff that would have been dug up about Sanders had he been the one to run vs Clinton. HRC had plenty of op research that was never used and you can bet the GOP had an even larger bundle. And allegedly Sanders strong armed the bank to give her the loan which had falsified information on it from her. I realize the story by the way is old news but I don't know if the FBI part is. I was not aware of it last year. And the letter was written by a right wing constituent who was likely put up to requesting these documents. I believe she dropped her request.

Nancy Pelosi Challenger So this is how we all unite to fight Trump is by contesting solid democrats. I'm not even a Pelosi fan but seriously they are going to contest her in a solid blue district and not go after a red district you know the districts where all those WWC men they want n the party are? Do what we are doing in Illinois. Gain control of the house first and then start contesting the solid blue districts. We have a lot of cronies here in our state legislature led by democrat Mike Madigan who I would love to see gone. But with our idiot GOP do nothing right to work loving Governor, I am glad Madigan is there now. Anyone else might have rolled over for Governor Rauner. Once Rauner is out, go after Madigan. The so called "progressives" contesting Pelosi's seat should follow the same path. You really want a newbie in the House and the former speaker gone with the GOP and Trump in charge?

It's frankly a silly article and I am not a David Axelrod fan but I enjoyed reading it. For the record as a Chicagoan and a Sox fan like Obama, I was thrilled the Cubs won. I knew mgmt. was serious (unlike when the Tribune owned them) in building a World Series team when they hired Epstein. I'm a big Epstein fan and I think he'd probably do well but I don't believe he has one bit of interest in any of it. I can't imagine why he would. But hey stranger things have happened.

That's why fighting gerry mandering and voter suppression is so important. I don't want to get into purity contests, but it's disappointing to see how unconcerned many democrats are with these things. All this talk of chasing WWC in Wisconsin for example, ignoring that 300,000 voters in that state who voted in the last election in 2012 were disenfranchised due to strict voter ID laws. 75% of those 300k were POC, pretending that eliminating hundreds of early voting sites in NC did not matter because they were in primarily African American communities, or that interstate cross check didn't eliminate over 1 million registered voters from the voter rolls in Ohio, guess what ethnicity they were. Jason Kander's group Let America Vote just opened up an information request inquiry into Indiana whose Sec of State just purged 500,000 voters this past month.

We just had 8 years of Barack Obama who I now hear being accused of being a sellout. Don't get me wrong. I have had my disagreements with Obama, but sellout is one thing I would never accuse him of. He can't even collect a record advance for his auto biography without many accusing him of being that. But Obama's charisma and talent is partially to blame for where the dems are. We all(me included) got lazy and took for granted that him being president was the end all be all and allowed those local and state offices to get handed over to the GOP. I agree with most of what Carl said so what's the answer. Do we need another Obama to rally people or do we do what Obama himself just said at that conference he was at the other day and work from the ground up forcing change?

I guess I don't get it. I keep hearing the party is out of touch and that may be true but ok, there is new leadership, a new staff just put in place, so what exactly are people expecting to have happen? The grass roots efforts both Obama and Bernie have been encouraging is happening. That is what I am missing. If the outreach tour was the DNC's first effort, it was a huge failure for 2 reasons, no messaging that I could see and IMO(some won't agree) constant attacks by Bernie on the party. While there are problems, I don't see how constant "they are failing" messaging helps. I just got done listening to Cornell West on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and he's saying the same thing and said that it's time to start a new party and that they are trying to recruit Bernie for The People's Party. According to him all these women who marched in January, the Science Marchers, will all join. He was asked about reproductive rights and while he acknowledged they were important, went back to the "class" differences as the main focus. But you can't talk about class differences and economic equality while dismissing racism and reproductive choices, because it's all intertwined. Again I am asking someone what is it that the democrats need to be doing now that is not happening. My biggest issue is messaging and maybe it sounds simple but it's a huge effort. Marketing is one thing the GOP has done tremendously well. Is that what people are talking about because I am totally missing it.

Not just Cilizza, a whole parade of guess who, white male "journalists" both on the left and right. Josh Barro in particular has some kind of unhealthy stalkerish tendencies with her on twitter. If I were her I'd get a restraining order against the guy, he's that scary with some of his comments. I think he ended up deleting some they were that bad.

You know what gets tiresome is the constant chastising of democrats. While I can agree with a lot of what is said, are people sitting around waiting for the party to do something? Not from what I can see. We have successful local elections in Illinois booting republicans out of some key downstate localities, Thompson in KS gained support with grassroots efforts(no help from the party), Ossoff has had more of the same although his race has certainly been given more attention, but it's all the democrats are out of touch. Who are the people helping Thompson, Ossoff, and Quist in Montana? I don't really know what people are expecting from those in congress. And the people writing these articles in NYC and DC and Chicago and LA are as out of touch as the parties are. (there was an excellent piece in Politico this AM about the MSM and press bubbles that exist that they themselves can't see). Change will come from the bottom up. If people want to influence change that's the way to do it. Do I think the party is a mess - yes - do I think this unity tour was a success - no it was a disaster and never should have happened as is the so called Unity Committee. I think Perez is trying to listen but I think what was needed was new faces and that means NEW not Sanders or Clinton people. I keep thinking back to the DNC chair race and Buttigieg who is the mayor of South Bend and how he might have actually been a better choice now. The party needs to get it's messaging straight and then help promote races that adhere to that messaging. That's what they should be doing. I don't expect a thing from them in Illinois (our own party here is corrupt and those local elections also booted out many establishment dems) but I am also looking at the democratic slate of candidates we have for governor and am encouraged. I'm not taking my anger out on you and please don't feel that way I am frustrated that all the same crap gets regurgitated. Do people really think the image of the party was going to change in 4 months? This has been years in the making. This article has been getting a LOT of attention and criticism. I won't say it's infallible but it does point out some of the issues with the media and press today. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048