TRUMP GETS TROLLED: Pocahontas.com redirects to Elizabeth Warren U.S. Senate campaign website

Democratic vice-presidential nominee or not, Donald Trump will have to deal with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) as the Democrats’ most effective attacker of Trump’s awful record as a businessman and human being.

Oh, and Warren isn’t just straight up attacking Trump. She’s also playing the trolling game and winning big. She bought the domain name Pocahontas.com, which redirects to Warren’s U.S. Senate campaign website.

It’s possible that Trump was planning to buy the Pocahontas.com domain name to create a racist attack site against Warren, but, if he is, he’ll have to find another domain name to do it under. I would have expected it to be impossible for Pocahontas.com to be purchased by a political figure of any kind, since I would have expected that domain name to be in Disney’s possession (Disney produced a historically inaccurate animated movie called Pocahontas, which was released to theaters in 1995 and released on VHS a year later).

Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Elizabeth Warren have failed in an epic way.

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Howard Dean launches ageist attack on Elizabeth Warren

Former DNC Chairman and pro-Hillary Clinton superdelegate Howard Dean is trying to pour cold water on the idea of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) being the running mate of our party’s presidential nominee, whether the presidential nominee is Clinton or, less likely, Bernie Sanders. In the process, Dean attacked Warren for being too old for whatever fits his description of an ideal presidential candidate:

“Certainly somebody like that would be very helpful,” Dean said about the the Massachusetts senator.

But then he added, “I strongly believe we ought to have somebody under 50 on the ticket. I think the Baby Boomers have run this country for too long. We stepped away from that with (Barack) Obama; we don’t normally go back a generation. We’re gonna have two Baby Boomers running for president on the Democratic and the Republican side. So I would like somebody very much who is not in the Baby Boomer generation. Who is in this new upcoming generation — the younger the better.”

Dean cautioned this wasn’t about Warren herself, “ideologically I think Elizabeth Warren is terrific.” But, he said, there are lots of well-qualified younger options for vice president.

While 2016 is probably going to be the Baby Boomer generation’s last hurrah in a presidential election, Dean’s remarks about Warren are ageist and absurd. In fact, Warren is actually younger (66 years of age) than either Hillary (68 years of age) or Bernie (74 years of age).

Aside from legal qualifications to be Vice President (Natural-born U.S. Citizen, 35 years of age or older, U.S. resident for at least 14 years), there are two important factors that I will use to determine whether or not I could be comfortable with a particular candidate as our party’s vice-presidential nominee:

1. Whether or not he or she is prepared to take the presidential oath of office at a moment’s notice
2. Whether or not he or she would embarrass the Democratic Party in any way

I prefer the answer to #1 to be “yes” and #2 to be “no” for our party’s vice-presidential nominee. There’s a lot of people who fit that bill, including, but not limited to, Elizabeth Warren. Howard Dean’s real problem with Warren is that he’s an insecure asshole.

Wisconsin Democratic convention provides first real sign of Berniementum

Although Hillary Clinton received the most votes among the 511 individuals who voted in the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Convention straw poll, Hillary received only a plurality of the vote in the straw poll, with progressives mostly united around Bernie Sanders, who came in a surprisingly close (even to a Sanders supporter like myself) second place.

Here are the results of the Wisconsin Democratic presidential straw poll:

• 1st – Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of New York – 252 (49.32%)
• 2nd – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont – 208 (40.70%)
• T-3rd – Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware – 16 (3.13%)
• T-3rd – Former Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland – 16 (3.13%)
• 5th – Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia – 8 (1.57%)
• 6th – Former Governor Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island – 5 (0.98%)
• 7th – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (write-in) – 4 (0.78%)
• 8th – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack of Iowa (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)

Of the 511 straw poll voters, 1 voter, or 0.20% of the total straw poll electorate, did not cast a valid vote for any candidate or write-in candidate in the presidential portion of the straw poll. Of the candidates who received at least one vote, Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley, and Chafee are officially running for the Democratic presidential nomination. A total of 8 candidates received at least one vote. Percentages given for each candidate’s vote total are percentages of the total straw poll electorate.

To say the least, this is the first real sign of trouble for the Hillary Clinton campaign in regards to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite being perceived as the heavy favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary couldn’t even get a majority of the vote in the Wisconsin Democratic straw poll, whose electorate usually consists of Democratic diehards in Wisconsin. More importantly, the Wisconsin straw poll shows that Bernie’s campaign is gaining momentum in a huge way, as he received over 40% of the vote despite a near-blackout of Bernie’s campaign by the corporate media and the political establishment in this country.

The Wisconsin Democratic convention straw poll also featured a gubernatorial straw poll, in which no candidate came even close to a majority of the vote, although there is currently a very strong preference for a gubernatorial candidate from the western part of Wisconsin among many of the Wisconsin Democrats who participated in the straw poll. Here are the results of the gubernatorial straw poll, which also saw 511 ballots cast:

• 1st – State Senator Kathleen Vinehout of Alma – 149 (29.16%)
• 2nd – State Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse – 89 (17.42%)
• 3rd – U.S. Representative Ron Kind of La Crosse – 85 (16.63%)
• 4th – State Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca of Kenosha – 64 (12.52%)
• 5th – Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson of Kaukauna – 55 (10.76%)
• 6th – Dane County Executive Joe Parisi of Madison – 11 (2.15%)
• T-7th – Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk of Madison (write-in) – 3 (0.59%)
• T-7th – Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold of Middleton (write-in) – 3 (0.59%)
• T-7th – State Senator Chris Larson of Milwaukee (write-in) – 3 (0.59%)
• T-7th – State Assembly Assistant Minority Leader Katrina Shankland of Stevens Point (write-in) – 3 (0.59%)
• T-11th – Business executive Kevin Conroy of Madison (write-in) – 2 (0.39%)
• T-11th – Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ of Jefferson (write-in) – 2 (0.39%)
• T-11th – Former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Mike Tate of Milwaukee (write-in) – 2 (0.39%)
• T-11th – State Representative Chris Taylor of Madison (write-in) – 2 (0.39%)
• T-11th – State Senator Lena Taylor of Milwaukee (write-in) – 2 (0.39%)
• T-16th – State Representative Mandela Barnes of Milwaukee (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Madison Metropolitan School Board Member Mary Burke of Madison (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Mayor John Dickert of Racine (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – State Senator Dave Hansen of Green Bay (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Political activist Mike McCabe of Madison (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – U.S. Representative Gwen Moore of Milwaukee (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Mayor Justin Nickels of Manitowoc (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – U.S. Representative Mark Pocan of Town of Vermont (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – Manufacturers’ sales representative Neal Plotkin of Milwaukee (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)
• T-16th – State Representative Dana Wachs of Eau Claire (write-in) – 1 (0.20%)

Of the 511 straw poll voters, 25 voters, or 4.89% of the total electorate, did not cast a valid vote for any candidate or write-in candidate in the gubernatorial portion of the straw poll. I am unsure about which municipalities Joe Parisi and Mike Tate live in; as a result, I listed either the county seat of their home county (for Parisi) or their birthplace (for Tate). Some sources list Mark Pocan as living in either Madison or Black Earth; Pocan’s campaign website lists him as a resident of the Town of Vermont in Dane County. WisPolitics.com misspelled the name of Justin Nickels on their online results sheet; they listed Nickels as “Justin Nichols”, likely due to the individual who wrote-in Nickels misspelling his last name. The only information I could find about anyone from Wisconsin named Neal Plotkin is from a 2012 article in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle that listed Plotkin as a manufacturers’ sales representative from Milwaukee, so this is presumably the Neal Plotkin that the individual cast a write-in vote for. A total of 26 candidates received at least one vote. Percentages given for each candidate’s vote total are percentages of the total straw poll electorate.

While the race for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Wisconsin hasn’t really begun to take shape three and a half years from the next gubernatorial election in Wisconsin, there is already a strong preference for a candidate from the western part of Wisconsin. While Kathleen Vinehout got a plurality of the straw poll vote, she didn’t even come close to a majority of the vote, and the top three candidates, which received a combined 63.21% of the vote, all come from the western part of Wisconsin.

If I had been a Wisconsin resident, a delegate to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention, and a participant in the straw poll, I would have voted for Bernie Sanders in the presidential portion of the straw poll and would have wrote-in Lori Compas in the gubernatorial portion of the straw poll (I would never write-in my own name in a straw poll, even though I would be open to the idea of running for Governor of Wisconsin in 2018 if I move to Wisconsin before 2018). Of the candidates who received at least one vote in the gubernatorial portion of the straw poll, I have a favorable opinion of Parisi, Feingold, Shankland, Chris Taylor, Barnes, Hansen, McCabe, Moore, and Pocan, with McCabe, the head of the progressive group Blue Jean Nation, being my favorite of those.

Are Democratic donors only interested in sabotaging political campaigns?

Niko Elmaleh, a New York City real estate developer who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats in recent years, bragged in an email to Democratic National Committee (DNC) Treasurer Andy Tobias and Democracy for America (DfA) Chairman Jim Dean about a plan to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton by having Elizabeth Warren run for the Democratic presidential nomination, only to later drop out of the race after Warren had upstaged Hillary’s campaign:

In his April 3, 2015, email to the small group, Mr. Elmaleh refers to his concern that a lack of a meaningful primary opponent will result in a stale and complacent candidate. He writes, “I think we should seriously consider as an excellent way to keep Hilary fresh in the public eye; Elizabeth Warren should run against her.”

Later in the email he reveals that after an appropriate “show” has been staged, Ms. Warren would be expected to bow out, having strengthened Ms. Clinton as a candidate. “If we can put on a ‘show’ featuring two of the most prominent progressives who are women, it will focus the attention of the bulk of voters on us.”

He then proceeds to land a few glancing blows on the other side’s candidates: “The Republicans’ show is a comic circus and would not compete with ours. Of course, this has to be carefully managed so that Warren can gracefully withdraw after performing this vital task. I don’t think she can win yet (although she could in the future).”

If I were running for public office, I would never take Niko Elmaleh’s money. All Elmaleh wants to do is start trouble within the Democratic Party and cost our party critical elections. While there have been numerous past instances of Democrats upstaging other Democrats who are running for public office (usually in the form of a superb and/or well-remembered speech at the Democratic National Convention or some other political gathering), this is the first time I can recall a Democratic donor being involved in a concerted scheme to sabotage someone’s political campaign by having another candidate upstage him or her. Sadly, the Democratic establishment thinks that grassroots activists are the ones who are causing trouble in the party, when, in reality, their own kind of people is causing a ton of trouble in the party.

If you want a progressive who is sick and tired of big-money political games and is interested in running a real campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, please encourage Bernie Sanders to run for president.

John Kasich is nothing like Elizabeth Warren

John Kasich, the virulently anti-middle class Republican who happens to also be the Governor of Ohio and a possible presidential candidate, went on CNN’s State of the Union political talk show and did two things that set me off. First, he bragged about being a part of the late 2000’s financial meltdown that destroyed this country’s economy (Kasich was the managing director of the Columbus, Ohio office of the Lehman Brothers investment bank until Lehman Brothers went bust). Second, he claimed that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a staunch supporter of protecting consumers and a staunch opponent of “too big to fail” financial institutions, is like him.

You can watch Kasich’s remarks here.

While Warren has zero interest in running for president, there is a night-and-day difference between John Kasich and Elizabeth Warren.

John Kasich has a decades-long track record of opposing labor unions, workers, the middle class, economic strength, and common sense. As a U.S. Representative, Kasich built a very conservative voting record, including demonizing welfare recipients and helping to enact Bill Clinton’s plan to gut the social safety net in this country. As a businessman, Kasich ran the Lehman Brothers office in Ohio’s largest city until Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and the American economy began to collapse. As Governor of Ohio, Kasich tried to bust Ohio’s public employee unions, but Ohioans firmly rejected his anti-worker and anti-middle class policies at the ballot.

Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, is a champion of the middle class, economic strength, and common sense. Warren, who is the Paul Wellstone of our generation, has fought for more regulations on our nation’s financial institutions in an attempt to prevent another economic collapse like the Great Recession. Warren understands how income inequality, in which the wealthiest few percent of people in this country have the vast majority of the country’s wealth, is hurting our economy and destroying what little of our country’s middle class remains. Warren has also stood up to members of both major parties in this country in opposition to free-trade deals that undermine our nation’s sovereignty, such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

John Kasich is nothing like Elizabeth Warren, and he should quit trying to take credit for Warren’s work to make America a better place to live.

16 elected officials and soon-to-be elected officials I’d like to meet in person

Since this will be my last blog post of 2014, I’d like to take the opportunity and list 16 elected officials and soon-to-be elected officials that I’d like to meet in person someday.

16. Minnesota State Representative Carly Melin (D-Hibbing) – Melin, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from the Iron Range region of the state, is like me in many ways: Progressive on a wide range of issues, millennial, not from a large city, loves to use Twitter, and not afraid to criticize Republicans and corporate Democrats.

15. U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston, Illinois) – Schakowsky is one of the most progressive members of my home state’s delegation to Congress, especially on economic issues like the minimum wage and worker’s rights. We don’t have too many politicians who are willing to stand up for worker’s rights here in Illinois, but she’s one of them.

14. Montana State Representative Amanda Curtis (D-Butte) – Curtis won’t be an elected official for much longer after losing her bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Montana, but Curtis is surprisingly progressive for a Montana Democrat. She’s a supporter of background checks on gun sales and she’s progressive on many other issues. Also, she also seems like a wonderful person to be around.

13. Michigan State Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) – Whitmer won’t be an elected official for much longer, but, during her two terms as a Michigan State Senator, she was a fearless advocate for progressive ideas and a vocal critic of the far-right Republicans that run Michigan’s state government.

12. Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette (D-Kenosha) – The only member of the La Follette political family (which produced legendary progressive Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette) that is still in public office, Doug La Follette has served as Wisconsin’s Secretary of State for decades (although his office has very little power nowadays); prior to that, he was a Wisconsin state legislator who was known for championing environmental protection.

11. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Hennepin County, Minnesota) – Klobuchar is perhaps the nicest elected official in the entire country, and she’s built up a solid track record of serving her constituents in Minnesota as a U.S. Senator. I’m not exactly sure what Klobuchar’s hometown is, so I’ve listed her by her home county instead.

10. U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-Atlanta, Georgia) – Lewis, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, is an important person in American history, as he fought to end the Jim Crow laws that discriminated against Black Americans for over a century after slavery was abolished.

9. U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (D-Madison, Wisconsin) – Pocan, by some measures, has the single most progressive voting record of any member of either house of Congress, and he’s also a cool guy.

8. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Burlington, Vermont) – Sanders, who is considering running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, is a strong progressive, especially when it comes to his opposition to rampant income inequality.

7. Dane County, Wisconsin Supervisor Jenni Dye (D-Fitchburg) – Most of you probably don’t know who Jenni Dye is, since she’s a local elected official in Dane County, Wisconsin (specifically, a county legislator), but she is a Twitter master, an all-around cool person, and a strong supporter of women’s rights. Dye is elected to an officially non-partisan office, although she is a known Democrat, so I’ve listed her as such.

6. U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-Tuscon, Arizona) – Grijalva is a strong progressive from a congressional district that includes much of southern Arizona. Grijalva understands better than anyone else the issues that Hispanics face in this country.

5. U.S. Representative Alan Grayson (D-Orlando, Florida) – Billed as a “Congressman with Guts”, Grayson is a notorious progressive firebrand who is often willing to speak his mind in support of progressive values and ideals on a wide variety of issues. More importantly, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get progressive ideals enacted into law, even against conservative opposition.

4. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge, Massachusetts) – No, she’s not running for president, but, make no mistake about it, Elizabeth Warren is the elected official that scares Wall Street fat cats more than any other. She is a fearless advocate for protecting consumers from Wall Street greed and is progressive on many other issues as well.

3. Illinois State Representative-elect Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago) – The only person who is not currently an elected official (although, in just a couple of weeks, he’ll be sworn in as one), Guzzardi ran as a progressive for a state house seat in Chicago’s North Side, took on the corrupt Chicago Machine in the Democratic primary, and won.

2. Wisconsin State Representative Chris Taylor (D-Madison) – One of the most progressive members of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Taylor is a fearless advocate for progressive ideals on a wide range of issues. Prior to entering electoral politics, Taylor ran Planned Parenthood’s Wisconsin political operation.

1. Wisconsin State Representative Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) – If I could only meet one elected official that I like in my entire lifetime, it would be Melissa Sargent, the Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from the East Side of Madison. Sargent is a fearless advocate for collective bargaining rights, raising the minimum wage, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, internet privacy, legalization of recreational marijuana, and many other progressive ideals. More importantly, Sargent is a down-to-earth person who cares about people.

Did Harry Reid throw Chuck Schumer under the bus?

POLITICO published this article about the backroom dealings that resulted in Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a staunch supporter of protecting consumers from Wall Street grid being appointed to a leadership position in the U.S. Senate as the Strategic Policy Adviser of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), which is run by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Wall Street’s favorite Democratic Senator.

Having read the article it sounds like soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) threw Schumer, who, despite being the #3 Democrat in the U.S. Senate, has long been viewed as Reid’s inevitable successor, under the bus by putting Warren into a leadership position:

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has long been viewed as the heir apparent to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, with such strong support among moderates that a group of them privately urged him to mount a coup for party leader after the midterm election meltdown.

Schumer didn’t take on Reid — he’s too loyal — but he is being forced to face a new power center inside the caucus, populists such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

When Reid was in talks with Warren about a job in Senate leadership earlier this month, Schumer suggested tapping moderate Sen. Mark Warner, too, to balance out her progressive politics — or perhaps making her a “liaison to liberal groups,” a narrower job than what Reid had proposed, according to sources familiar with the private talks.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said no to both of Schumer’s suggestions, later taking the job as a policy adviser to Schumer’s messaging operation.

Warren’s rise in Senate leadership – and her popularity among grassroots liberals – represents an unexpected presence in Schumer’s leadership orbit, where he has spent years cultivating a reputation as one of the masterminds of Democratic messaging.

As one Senate Democratic source put it: “The turf [Schumer] thought he knew may have shifted beneath his feet.”

Schumer and his fellow Wall Street Democrats can deny this all they want, but Reid, who is not a hero to progressives by any stretch of the imagination, may have very well ended any chance of Schumer becoming the leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate. It’s pretty clear to me that Schumer got rolled big time by Reid, and Schumer has been trying to cover his ass ever since, first by trying to get Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), a fellow corporate hack, appointed to the DPCC, and then by trying to dismiss Warren and referring to her as a “liberal liaison” to the corporate media.

Elizabeth Warren is not going to be some liaison selling Chuck Schumer’s snake oil to progressive groups. She’s a bona fide progressive who could very well end up being Senate Democratic Leader someday, and, needless to say, Schumer and his fellow old boys and girls network members don’t like that one damn bit.