In Rump's Shadow

Two prominent Rethuglicans face the voters in primaries today: bitter ol' fart Sen. John "McNasty" McCain (AZ) and on-again-off-again-on-again opportunist Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio (FL). Both are expected to win their intra-party primaries over relative nobodies, but the main challenge for them going forward to November is dealing with the elephant turd in the room, their party's candidate: neo-fascist narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump, and his continuing problems with women, Hispanic and other minority voters. Both have indicated their "support" of Rump, despite Rump's smearing of them, disparaging McNasty's POW record and saying he's done little for veterans, and insulting "Little Marco" in many of the party's debates and pointing to his one-time record on immigration reform.

Both have been restrained in their criticisms of Rump, in fear of offending his racist and xenophobic base, although Glug Glug recently said that he stood by what he said in the Rethug primaries about Rump, including calling him a "con man."  With the election heating up, Rump is certain to engage in more outrageous rhetoric, which McNasty and Glug Glug will be asked to comment on endlessly (we hope). The problem going toward November is running on a ticket with Rump at the top, particularly if Hillary Clinton outperforms Rump (more likely in Florida, but not out of the question in Arizona). If swing / "independent" voters decline to vote a split ticket, voting for Clinton and Democrats down ballot, that's bad news for McNasty and Glug Glug. It's good news for the rest of us.

Now More Than Ever: Turn The Senate Blue

Given the cowardly, amoral Republican obstruction of even minimal gun control legislation (some measures gaining the support of 90 percent of Americans), right now the best chance we have of seeing any movement on this is to elect a Democratic Senate. Once again, we're asking, if you have the time and/ or resources, let's help these Democratic Senate candidates running against Republican incumbents turn the Senate blue:

Russ Feingold (WI)

Maggie Hassan (NH)

Tammy Duckworth (IL)

Ted Strickland (OH)

Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)

Jason Kander (MO)

Katie McGinty (PA)


Thank you.

Why We Desperately Need A Democratic Senate In 2017

It just gets worse and worse.

Not only is the Senate Republican "leadership" saying they wouldn't bother to meet with a Supreme Court nominee of President Obama's, much less give them a hearing or an up or down vote, Sen. Mitch "Missy McConnell now says the same might be true if a Democrat is elected President in November and the Senate stays in Republican hands!  Tom Levenson expresses our thoughts:

I didn’t think that anything the GOP could do — especially an act as predictable as this — would do more than deepen my weary sense of “they are who we thought they were.” But this feels like a last straw. I’m just done with allowing any framing of this as “just politics” or what have you. I and a majority of my fellow citizens voted President Obama into office twice. The disrespect to him is something he can handle (better than I ever would). But it’s the delegitimizing of my vote, my choice, my place in American democracy that has just gotta stop. The current Republican Party has to be destroyed, root and branch. They are blight on policy, and a boil on the body politic. Time for them to go.

We all know what we need to do by electing a Democratic President.  But that won't do us much good in the face of unprecedented, un- democratic Republican rule in the Senate.  We need to flip that dysfunctional chamber in order to restore some semblance of a working democracy in America. 

Let's start here:  among the most vulnerable Republican Senators hacks up for reelection in November are Ron Johnson (WI), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Ron Kirk (IL), Patrick Toomey (PA) and Rob Portman (OH).  If you're in a position to work for the Democrats opposing them, please do so with all your energy.  If you can donate to any or all of their opponents, please do so, because it will increase the chances of a Democratic Senate in 2017.  Even if you have a Republican Senator who isn't on this list but is running for reelection this year, do whatever you can to retire him/her.  As Levenson says, they're a "boil on the body politic," each and every one of them.

Here are links to Democrats' campaign pages (where there's a leading Democratic challenger):

Russ Feingold (WI)

Maggie Hassan (NH)

Tammy Duckworth (IL)

Ted Strickland (OH)

BONUS:  Nancy LeTourneau has the list of the Republicans' unprecedented abuse of the President and the Constitution.