So Much Depends on the Recruiter

 

He’s a former Catholic who supports abortion rights; he has been a hunter since he was 12 but advocates gun-safety legislation. He’s a decorated warrior who’s wary of war; and perhaps most important, he sympathizes with some of Trump’s supporters but thinks the president threatens American democracy.

--Description of Rep. Jason Crow (Colo., 6th CD) 

Representative Crow makes a strong impression. He can flat-out stare down a camera. He projects granite -- integrity that ain't messing around, a high intelligence, a b.s. detection system unimpressed by status, wealth, or pure cussedness. Crow earned that mensch character growing up in a working-class family. His grandfather was a bricklayer. Jason himself did construction to afford college, joined the National Guard and ROTC programs for the same reason -- financial need. But we know, intelligence will out! 

His service in the National Guard moved to active duty as a private after 9/11. He quickly became an officer, a paratrooper, and a Ranger — "perhaps the pinnacle of the U.S. Army," said David Ignatius, who knows Crow well. Crow was deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the fabled 82nd Airborne Division. There's no denying the congressman's smarts, or his gumption. Ignatius:

After Iraq, Crow joined the Joint Special Operations Command, perhaps the nation’s most elite combat team, composed of Army Rangers and Delta Force operators and Navy SEALs. He deployed with JSOC twice to Afghanistan as a member of the Joint Strike Force assigned to capture or kill “high-value targets” in al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Much of his work involved intelligence missions against the Haqqani network along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

After his service in the Army, he went to law school in Denver, and was heavily recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to run for Congress in Colorado's 6th Congressional District, a slice of real estate that had never before elected a Democrat. He rose to prominence in the House as quickly as he had in the Army. He was named a House manager for Trump's first impeachment, and I remember his manner on TV as riveting. Early this year Crow was named a co-chair of the DCCC's candidate recruitment, in charge of making the Blue Wave of 2026. I can't imagine a better man for that job.

Crow showed off his first class of recruits recently at a training session in Washington: "The gathering ... was a snapshot of how Crow thinks the party can return to its working-class, pro-defense roots — while also mobilizing young voters seeking change. The group ... included a farmer, a part-time waitress, an emergency room doctor and a half-dozen veterans." Crow stood before them dressed in jeans, boots, and an open-necked shirt. He urged them to campaign next year as if they were running for mayor: "Be local, be authentic, don’t listen too much to campaign consultants, and be ready to separate from an often-unpopular national Democratic Party brand." (We all have our own lists of shit we wish never to hear from another Democratic candidate. Fill in the blanks yosef.)

Crow told Ernest Luning at Colorado Politics how brutally honest he was when pitching a run to a possible candidate: "Listen, this is not going to be easy. This is going to be really hard. It might be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. But you know, I’m not asking you to storm the beaches of Normandy for our country. I’m asking you to step up and throw your hat in the ring for a race. Your country needs you.”

Indivisible's 2026 Primary Plan

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

--Will Rogers

I've always been a "party man," a partisan Democrat out to elect Democrats at every level of public life. I've always dreaded primaries, because some divisions refuse to heal. So I've been "establishment" in that sense. But I'm also pretty quick to react to behavior that violates my essential political values, and I'm just as likely to say, "Go ahead and rock that boat!" I've helped win a primary or two, and I've also helped lose a few. I actually know in more detail than I'll ever divulge exactly what Will Rogers was talking about.

But the utter blindness on the part of seven Democratic senators and one independent senator to the recent effectiveness of stiffened spines on the progressive side -- last Tuesday's national landslide hello! -- sent me into a downward spiraling invention of new obscene phrases to express my anger and my growing disdain for the party establishment, that somewhat mythical creature, wherever on earth they congregated to decide to once again cave.

So it doesn't bother me a bit to see the progressive rump org "Indivisible" fill in the void where the Democratic Party looks tired and feckless. Indivisible is on the ground everywhere, including an active chapter in Watauga County, where they organized local "No Kings" rallies attended by thousands. Indivisible is calling for primaries against the Democratic deaf, dumb, and blind -- whoever they are, at whatever level on the ballot. That is not going to be welcome news for my party's establishment, especially the progressive strategists who scold us if we wanted shed of Joe Manchin. Their argument: A rogue conservative Democrat is still better than any trump Republican. (Yeah, probably ... but still. See what I mean about "some divisions refuse to heal.")

Wikipedia on Indivisible:

Indivisible is a progressive movement and organization in the United States initiated in 2016 as a reaction to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. The movement began with the online publication of a handbook written by congressional staffers with suggestions for peacefully but effectively resisting the move to the right in the executive branch of the United States government under the Trump administration that was widely anticipated and feared by progressives. According to American urban policy analyst Peter Dreier, the goal of Indivisible is to "save American democracy" and "resume the project of creating a humane America that is more like social democracy than corporate plutocracy."

Indivisible's founders, Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, were included in Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2019. 

Indivisible's 2026 Primary Plan (ALL-CAPS included)

WE HAVE BEEN FAILED BY DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP, AGAIN.

After the largest mass protest in U.S. history, after a historically successful election for Democrats, and while poll after poll shows that Republicans have the weaker hand in the shutdown fight, Democrats in the Senate have chosen to surrender. As minority leader, Chuck Schumer has demonstrated that he has no strategy, no savvy, and no spine. By allowing his caucus to cave to the will of the regime, he has proven that Democratic leadership is defined by fecklessness in the face of authoritarianism.

 

THAT’S WHY INDIVISIBLE WILL BE LAUNCHING THE LARGEST PRIMARY PROGRAM IN OUR HISTORY, GUIDED BY A GRASSROOTS NETWORK THAT IS PISSED OFF.

We must turn the page on this era of cowardice. We must nominate and elect Democratic candidates who have an actual backbone. And we must ensure that the kind of failed leadership we see from Senator Schumer does not doom a future Democratic majority.

THIS COUNTRY NEEDS DEMOCRATS TO FIGHT LIKE AN ACTUAL OPPOSITION PARTY TO AN AUTHORITARIAN REGIME.

We need them to fight like lives depend on it, because they literally do. Republicans are working to strip away healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans; they are enabling a would-be king to undermine our democracy; and they cheer on the invasion of our cities and kidnapping of our neighbors. And too many elected Democrats are content to watch from the sidelines as they do it—or worse, abet this machine of corruption and abuse.

IN 2026, WE SAY: NO MORE.

If a Democratic candidate isn’t willing to leave it all on the field, it’s time for them to get out of the way or be pushed out of the way. If a Democratic candidate is flirting with the forces that elevated Trump and helped him consolidate power, they have no place in the future of this party.

THE INDIVISIBLE BASE IS READY TO FIGHT FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WE DESERVE.

Right now, we’re talking with our grassroots network to understand where they want to see this fight go. Indivisible groups are the leaders of this movement, and they are not backing down. Decisions on primaries will be guided by them. Victories over the status quo will be powered by them. And our new leaders will be accountable to them.

BECAUSE INDIVISIBLE UNDERSTANDS THE CLOCK IS TICKING, AND WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR DEAD WEIGHT IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. IT’S TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE.

When They're About To Take Away Your Only Method for Surviving the Trump Years

 

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

--H. L. Mencken

Effing Republicans in Congress! 

[Credit: The Hill]

The hemp industry is scrambling to stave off what representatives are saying could be an extinction-level event engineered by Republicans in Congress.

The Senate late Monday passed a funding package that would reopen the government and fund the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Tucked into the funding bill is a provision that would re-criminalize many of the intoxicating hemp-derived products that were legalized by the 2018 Farm Bill.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) waged a last-minute fight to try to keep the provision out, threatening to drag out the process of debating the underlying bill until he got a vote on an amendment to strip the language.

He got the vote on Monday; Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) were the only Republicans who voted in favor.

“The bill, as it now stands, overrides the regulatory frameworks of several states, cancels the collective decisions of hemp consumers and destroys the livelihoods of hemp farmers,” Paul said on the floor ahead of the vote. “And it couldn’t come at a worse time for America’s farmers. Times are tough for our farmers.”

The provision “prevents the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-based or hemp-derived products, including Delta-8, from being sold online, in gas stations, and corner stores, while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and industrial hemp products,” according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary....

No MAGA Left Behind

Mark Meadows

President Donald Trump has pardoned a long list of his political allies for their support or involvement in alleged plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to the Department of Justice’s Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin.

The individuals listed in a proclamation, which Martin posted on X late Sunday, include high-profile figures like Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and the president’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, among dozens of others.

“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” read the document, which gives the date of November 7 in its text and the president appears to have signed.

It includes a “full, complete, and unconditional pardon” for those named, including some of the president’s co-defendants who were charged in Georgia for trying to subvert Trump’s 2020 election defeat

[CNN]

Just a Few Months Distant -- The Most Important Republican Primary Race

 

Paul Specht just published on the WRAL site a very long and thorough introduction to everything Berger v. Page, the Republican primary next March which will determine whether The Notorious Phil Berger keeps his job as President Pro Tempore of the NC Senate or Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page ousts his ass once and for all. I would have to say that I'm rooting for the sheriff.

Apparently, the real prospect that the All Powerful Berger could be beat by a popular and upstanding opponent has apparently induced "third-party groups to set up websites and social media accounts to attack Page, while also launching ads that promote Berger," according to Specht. It's gotten personal and nasty, enough so that the Chair of the Rockingham County Republican Party, Diane Parnell, remarked to Specht, “I’ve never seen it this ugly.”

So we who have known the dirt on Berger for years are now learning dirt on Page, and for my money this is the worst revelation to come out of the Berger attack-dogs:

A dozen people have died in [the Rockingham Co.] jail since 2021, according to the Greensboro News & Record. Some of those deaths were by suicide. The family of one of the victims sued the county, claiming deputies were informed of their son’s mental issues but failed to take the proper precautions to ensure his safety. The family agreed to drop the lawsuit after a settlement. Last year, the county’s insurer informed commissioners that they would no longer cover the Rockingham County jail — a development covered by multiple media outlets.

County officials said their insurer, Travelers Insurance, dropped their detention center from its coverage because jail staff failed to report several incidents to the company.

That jail sounds like a black hole, administered by an authoritarian with limited fellow-feeling -- regardless of the sheriff's protestations to Specht that all those deaths -- 12 in the last 4 years! -- are nothing to do with conditions at the jail.

Political Notes -- "Fuck It" Edition

 

Kate Barr, the "Can't Win but Fuck It!" political influencer who has made a second career out of encouraging Democratic candidates to file in districts they can't possibly win -- as an act of revolutionary defiance against Republican gerrymandering -- has announced a new tactic: Can't win as a Democrat? File as a Republican and run a primary against the pasty-assed Tim Moore in Congressional District 14, a safe seat he mapped for himself when he was running the House. It was specifically and quite publicly drawn for him, a lucrative landing pad after Speaker of the NCHouse (which was also a notoriously lucrative perch for Moore -- and don't make me go look up all the investigative pieces exposing his corruption).

Barr told the WashPost, “My message is really about fairness. And it’s consistent with when I ran for state senate district 37 in ‘24,” she said. “We need fair maps. We deserve fair elections. We, as voters, should be able to hold our elected leaders accountable. And it is wrong that we can’t.”

Dave Boliek, the rubberstamp
for suppression of the vote in NC

On Friday, reporter Bryan Anderson broke the news that Paul Cox, General Counsel to the State Board of Elections, resigned his job, citing the highly partisan nature of the new board under Republican control. Guys as extreme as Francis X. DeLuca, former president of the Civitas Institute, and Robert Rucho, former Republican state senator with too many axes to grind, and their new boss, State Auditor Dave Boliek, a former reactionary Democrat with much to prove to his new Republican masters, not to mention the ineffable Dallas Woodhouse, appointed by Boliek to "oversee" county boards of elections -- all of that became too much for a lawyer with professional integrity which was itself based on an understanding that the administration of elections cannot become a partisan battleground, which would violate the statutory mandate of the Board of Elections. Ever since the Berger/Moore General Assembly took the Board of Elections away from Gov. Stein and gave it to the newly minted MAGA Republican Dave Boliek, we've always known what was afoot and what was indubitably ahead of us, ahead of anyone who wants to insure the voting rights and ballot access of all citizens. Paul Cox set a flare over the ice berg's drift.

In January of 2024, an Avery County man named William J. Barthel attended a special meeting of the Avery County Commish, stood at the back of the room so he wouldn't obstruct anybody's sightline, and unfurled a banner which made crude comments about the Commish's clerk, Cindy Turbyfill. The sheriff's department immediately descended on Barthel, told him to take the banner down; he refused; the commish chair told him he had to leave. At which point Barthel, who had been totally silent up to that point, asked "Why do I have to leave?" I'm exercising my constitutional rights. He was uncooperative which led to his handcuffing outside the courtroom. He was charged with disrupting an official meeting and with resisting arrest. After being convicted in Avery District Court, he appealed to the Superior Court and got a two-day trial with a jury before Judge Gavenus. Again, he was convicted, sentenced to 30 days, suspended for 18 months of supervised probation. 

Cohen v. California (1971)
ruled that this banner was free speech

A panel of the NC Court of Appeals just reversed all of that: "[Barthel] argues that the First Amendment protects his silent display of a crude banner criticizing [Cindy Turbyfill] at a board meeting. We agree. The First Amendment shielded his right to stand silently at the back of the boardroom with his vulgar banner during the public comment period. Because his arrest was unlawful, Defendant had the right to resist it without using excessive force. He used reasonable force. We therefore vacate both convictions." Republican Judge Donna Stroud wrote the opinion. Chief Judge Chris Dillon and Judge Fred Gore, two other Republicans, concurred.

I'm deliberately not reprinting here what Barthel's banner said (let alone his highly-offensive-to-many T-shirt), but if you click the link in the previous paragraph, you can read it for yourself in the Appeals Court order. I laughed out loud. And then I had to start googling. The court identified Turbyfill as a commissioner. She's not. She's clerk to the board and also assistant county manager. There's obviously a juicy story behind Barthel's grudge against her. Maybe someone in Avery who reads here will enlighten us.

This Photo = 1,000 Words

 

The back turned on suffering. WTF

Repulsion

 

Trump and his acolytes in Congress can live under a delusion of their massive popularity and stride around like Caesar and his guards, but voters who get to decide these things are largely repulsed.

--Matt Bai

Did repulsion ever win an election? It sure as hell seems to have lost one last Tuesday.

I'm not even thinking of the marquee races in NYCity, Virginia, and New Jersey. Reports from North Carolina of Democratic victories in the municipals -- from big cities to tiny towns -- became too numerous this morning to keep making a list. Down Home, a progressive working-class advocacy org, bragged about a very interesting success rate for Down Home-endorsed candidates in a bunch of small downs. Frankly, the details are maybe not as important as the overall message. My conclusion -- Tuesday's landslide established a shocking divergence from conventional wisdom: All politics are not local. A single national scumbag can juice all the water everywhere -- literally poison it for local Republican podunk candidates who never uttered a MAGA opinion in their lives.

Matt Bai writes ambiguously about whether the Trump effect will work just as well in 2026. Bai has his doubts (I notice a disproportionate number of editorial writers who seem obsessed with bringing down any progressive vibe!). But odds are -- on my green pitch, at least -- repulsion will still play. Because Jethro ain't gonna change. He can't. He's a prisoner of his own malignancy -- greed, lack of empathy, childish insecurity. Perhaps the Supremes will slap him down over his erratic, revenge-motivated tariff program (some commentators think a 7-2 vote against its constitutionality seems possible), but other trumpist cruelties will continue and probably escalate. Members of the NC Republican delegation in Washington, for example, are now pressuring Gov. Stein to invite Trump goon squads to occupy Charlotte.

Trump won't stop. He can't. His habitual character is embodied in his manner of talk -- irrational, distracted, rambling, ultimately incomprehensible, but still dangerous. And like a large thing with teeth, he's always trolling the waters. He bites at any provocation. (Let's strafe Nigeria y'all!) A meaningful congressional Republican uprising against him -- which former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake was calling for this morning in the WashPost -- seems unlikely, given Mike Johnson's playing slobber-mouth in the House. Senator Thune, leading the Republicans in the Senate, isn't about to eliminate the filibuster, and that refusal to give Trump what he wants -- even desperately needs -- will be one small step for mankind. But I don't expect any giant steps away from trumpism to follow it. I'd love to be surprised.

So I'm feeling uncommonly optimistic, and it's making me woozy. Some reports have crossed my desk showing that some Republican gerrymanders may be more properly called "dummymanders," when a redrawing of the map backfires spectacularly. I'm hearing about Republican +5 districts flipping, and I think that upset potential only grows into and through 2026. I'm going to be examining partisan rankings like never before. Of course, the exploitation of our collective revulsion will depend on having credible candidates. And, obviously, voters just declared themselves enthusiastic about all types of Democrats, from avowed socialists, Muslims, atheists, and also safe middle-roaders like Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherill. We need candidates on the 2026 ballot in all General Assembly districts, and I think it doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot whether they're electrifying or rarely inspirational, for opposition and resistance are winning the day.

Blue Wave 2025

 

Virginia. Led by Abigail Spanberger at the top of the ticket (first woman to break that glass ceiling), Democrats swept the contests for all three statewide offices (including the first Muslim as Lt. Gov.) and also expanded their power in the Virginia House of Delegates — undoing GOP gains under Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who energized Republicans with a seismic victory in 2021 that some hoped would be the start of a longer-term movement. Nope.

New Jersey. Democrat Mikie Sherrill beat her Republican opponent by at least 13 points.

California. Gov. Gavin Newsom put Prop 50 to the voters: "Do you agree that we should redistrict our congressional seats to fight back against the Texas partisan gerrymander." The people answered -- not just "yes" but "hell yes! Give us five more Democratic seats!"

Georgia. Two Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for Democrats in nearly two decades.

Mississippi. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats, cracking the GOP supermajority.

New York City. More than 2 million votes were cast in the mayor's race, the highest turnout for city elections since 1969, and the Muslim "Democratic socialist" won with just over 50% of the vote to 41.6% for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent.

Pennsylvania. Voters granted new 10-year terms to three Democratic justices on the state Supreme Court. The three ran without opponents, just a yes or no vote on retaining their seats. 

Ohio. J.D. Vance’s half-brother, Cory Bowman, whom Vance had endorsed as certified MAGA, lost bigly in his bid to unseat the Democratic mayor of Cincinnati.

North Carolina. Still gathering the facts, but it looks like Democrats did very well in the municipals across the state. Boone elected the youngest mayor in North Carolina, Jon-Dalton George. More later.

 

Don't know who did this, but some images that show up on social media sort of beg for archiving.