The former Mpls. Mayor Rybak gets Strib to publish an op-ed saying PACs poison processes, and that the DFL caucus system is flawed by being run by factional insiders where ordinary people won't have anything to do with the diddling.

 And perhaps if the current mayor was less of a belligerent authoritarian cuss, things would be better. And don't get me started on rank choice voting being an evil favoring name recognition of an incumbent. As a too-easy second or third choice.

Actually, Rybak did not exactly say things as headlined - link, the DFL caucusing is deliberately rigged against outsiders to favor inner party interest  blocs; it's true it is, but he said it more politely.

So, not critical enough, but otherwise spot on. 

As a Bernie progressive, the BS of it all and middle of the road dumplings ending up on ballot has turned me off to where I vote DFL because of Republican brain death, but feel cheapened and a bit unclean by it all.

And the media letting GOP voice shaping of issues to transgender immigrants, or some such while healthcare statewide sucks, and nobody can live on a minimum wage job to where it's a bad joke, the media are not helpful. That's a polite way to characterize the stretch Strib and others have to make in an Internet era.

All told, there's got to be a better way. DFL inner party stuff is so numbingly tedious, so start looking there for a better way. Don't stop there. But start there.

Get this - there even is a DFL school of "thought" that hand addressed envelopes are more personalized than mailing labels, so make-work crap happens.

Needlessly!

 

Foul and inexcusable apparent misappropriation of Tom Emmer's NIL, to where if it were Caitlin Clark, she might sue. As no Emmer fan, Crabgrass nonetheless believes in fair play. This is unfair and Emmer. faults and all, deserves more decent treatment than this.

Jill Barcum is a writer forl Strib, and penned this April 27, 2025 item:

 

Burcum: About that so-called ‘pill penalty’

Flyers urge consumers to take action beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry. But the campaign completely misses the bigger threat to new drug development: massive research cuts.

 [...]

The pill penalty campaign is about protecting pharmaceutical profits from the federal government sensibly wielding its vast purchasing power to drive down drug costs through price negotiation.

The pill penalty campaign is also misguided and ill-timed. There’s a far more massive threat to medical breakthroughs right now: the sweeping research cuts and freezes put in place under President Donald Trump’s administration.

This “has brought biomedical research to the brink of crisis by holding up much of the $47 billion the United States spends on the field every year,” the New York Times reports. [...]

It is unclear when the money will reach the labs of the scientists in Minnesota and elsewhere. This foundational research paves the way for next-generation medical treatments. Where’s the bought-and-paid-for outrage over these chain-saw-style cuts?

Hopefully Emmer, if he goes on record will mirror the outrage being mentioned.

Continuing with the op-ed:

The pill penalty mailers instead take issue with new measures adopted by the federal government to drive a hard bargain. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes provisions empowering “Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies to improve access to some of the costliest single-source brand-name Medicare Part B and Part D drugs,” according to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

[...] Understandably, “the federal government is the largest purchaser of prescription drugs in the United States,” reports the Congressional Budget Office.

The private sector famously wields its purchasing power to drive down prices for consumers, with Walmart a prime example. [...]

The pill penalty campaign takes issue with the timing for when drugs become eligible for price negotiations. There are two main groups of drugs involved.

The first: small-molecule drugs, which are often pills or capsules and considered easier to manufacture. Ibuprofen is an example.

The second: biologics, which are more challenging to manufacture and typically used to treat more medically complicated, chronic or rare diseases, according to the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy. Humira, which treats rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, is an example.

The two classes are given different time periods for legal protection from competition to protect drug manufacturers’ investment in developing them. Biologics receive 12 years, while small-molecule drugs are protected for five years under law.

The IRA drug negotiation provisions also treat the two drug classes differently when it comes to price negotiations. Biologics are exempt for 11 years, while small-molecule drugs get seven years.

[...] A bill dubbed the EPIC Act, introduced by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., would lengthen the exemption for small-molecule drugs from seven years to 11 years, with the extended time period benefiting drugmakers’ bottom line. Cost of the “fix” is estimated at $10 billion.

An organization called Commitment to Seniors paid for the pill penalty flyers. It’s linked to American Commitment, headed by Phil Kerpen. He previously worked at Americans for Prosperity, a group “heavily financed by Koch Industries, which is owned largely by billionaire Charles Koch,” FactCheck.Org reports.

I asked PhRMA, the drugmakers’ trade organization, for a statement. [...]

A spokeswoman pointed to a new analysis concluding that “early-stage investment in small molecules has dropped nearly 70% since the IRA was introduced.” The analysis’ authors: Vital Transformation, which describes itself as a “small, unique consultancy focused on addressing the challenges of today’s modern healthcare system.”

A study worth the website it's written on - that said, continuing -

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat, took a different view. “Pharma is trying to undo all the progress we’ve made over the last few years to stop them from ripping off Americans. Seniors should know the truth about who is behind this campaign, and what’s at stake.”

[...]  Let’s not forget about seniors struggling to afford their medications. Should they be asked to wait four more years for more affordable drugs?

And if the IRA provisions are a threat to new drugs and treatments, consider again the bigger threat posed by massive research cuts. Where are the slick flyers protesting this? Because outrage is certainly in order.

Bottom line truth is that this Epic Act is a sop to Big Pharma and, as Tina says, a ripoff. Emmer is wise enough to not be a House Epic Act cosponsor - at least so far.

The Epic Act is cooked up by a few trainwrecks, i.e., GOP Senators, and has House member sponsors the companion measure, H.R. 1492 where the sponsorship currently is the "bill has 37 cosponsors — 36 Republicans, 1 Democrat — plus its sponsor." So far, Emmer's name is NOT on as a cosponsor!

Yet the scurrilous flaks behind the mischief abuse the man's NIL property rights:

 

 

 

 

 

partial screen capture - image source

 And checking that source these buggars claim, "82 percent of seniors SUPPORT THE EPIC ACT TO ELIMINATE THE PILL PENALTY" with added tiny text,"[ source: McLaughlin & Associates]" for that absolutely unreasonable assertion.

So who are those assholes, this image:

click the image to enlarge and read

 As trustworthy a source as the Koch people who are abusing Emmer's NIL.

What a bunch of liars and Bumsteads. Emmer is GOP House whip, and does not need these bumblers damaging his reputation. While not a Crabgrass favorite, he deserves a fair shake and these idiots are immitating his own mailers as if he's one of them. He is a few notches above these clowns but that sets the bar low anyway.

__________UPDATE__________

That flyer, those behind it, seem to also be hanging McLaughlin & Associates out to dry on the same line they've put Emmer. 

This M&A item seems to distinctly contradict any Big Pharma misjudgment alleged to be held by a majority of senior citizens. Hang the seniors out to dry too?

This whole Epic Act nonsense seems to be a creation of North Carolinians, who should have better judgment - judgment beyond money is green, go for it.

 

EmptyWheel notes: "16 House Dems Ask Law Firms that Capitulated to Trump If They’ve Thought about Their Bribery Exposure"

 The item speaks for itself, with reader commentary.

There is federal law and a DOJ unlikely to make waves; then state law and international anti-corruption law is mentioned in comments, and there was negotiation and agreement somehow formed in at least six separate instances between big law firms and Trump's people. Presumably those inside the firms in some manner agreed before the deal closed. Perhaps there was broad discussion within some firms before agreement was final.

In exchange for relief from threat of sanctions things were bargained for and concessions were given, for a favorable official action. 

It is an interesting read. The linked item consolidating the House letters: https://min.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/min.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/04.24.25-letters-to-law-firms-on-trump-administration-agreements-all.pdf

It seems many pages long but it is aggregating all the letters sent to each of the firms that caved. Details may vary but in essence, identical letters.

Bull in a China shop.

 

Huh?

AP Link.

__________UPDATE__________

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendanahern/2025/04/24/china-market-update-tariff-talk-roller-coaster-continues/ - which states:

Premier Li and the State Council once again reiterated that it is necessary to “stabilize the stock market and continue to promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market." Mainland media outlet Yicai noted that U.S. shipments of liquid natural gas to China went to zero in March, versus 412,500 tons in March 2024, as China’s 99% LNG tariff and 94% oil tariff take hold. The European container shipping index futures fell -9% overnight. It is hard to know whether fewer boats going to the U.S. means more supply for Europe, leading to the price decline, or indicating the trade war is weighing on the global economy. Regardless, the two sides should get talking, in my humble opinion.

If any segment of the U.S. economy should suffer, it's that one. NOTE: You will not see any sign of price adjustment at the pump. They got you and know it, so you hope at least the Chinese economic adjustment pinches them. They earned scorn, so don't feel inhibited in showing it.

 

Harvard's anti-bullying lawsuit. Standing up for truth, justice and the American Way.

 The 51p complaint is online here: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Harvard-Funding-Freeze-Order-Complaint.pdf

Interestingly, Trump, himself is not a named defendant, his cabal persons are named. (Would SCOTUS say they have derivative presidential immunity? Would SCOTUS say they are above being held in contempt? There, we wait and see.)

And, First two sentences of the complaint: 

Scientific advancement and the pursuit of knowledge fuel America’s innovation, economic success, and global leadership. The commitment to expanding human understanding is foundational at American universities, including Harvard, the Nation’s oldest institution of higher learning 

So America's innovation, economic success,and global leadership, essentially reduces to truth, justice and the American Way, if you allow a bit of imagination into thinking.

Functional equivalence. It's there if you want to see it. And being a bastion of scientific advancement and the pursuit of knowledge is neither shabby, nor wrong headed. It is The American Way, sort of. At least an arguable part.

In any event, the Complaint's opening is not boring boilerplate, though it is legalese.

In reading a complaint there are many ways to do it. Here the start is to scroll to the prayer for relief, and the signature page. What's wanted, and who's arguing for it.

The prayer for relief is at p.48-9. Below is a screenshot of the signature page. 

click image to enlarge and read

With a host of lawyers from DC and Boston and elsewhere signed up, Harvard can equal Bondi's DOJ in paperwork, and likely will do things better, being chosen to do better. Which of the named lawyers are Harvard Law School alums would be interesting to know, but not worth researching. Likely all or most. Steven P. Lehotsky signs as lead counsel. He is an HLS alum. Federalist Society contributor. Scalia clerk. ALI member. Wilmer Hale alum. LehotskyKellerCohn is the lead firm, with the named founding three all counsel under the complaint.

Historical background and summarzation of the litigation by John Timmer of Ars Technica lays a groundwork for any further study readers wish to do. 

There are more items worth attention. From the complaint (with footnoting omitted):

2. [...] To date, the Government has — with little warning and even less explanation — slashed billions of dollars in federal funding to universities across America, including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern. This case involves the Government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard.
3. On April 11, 2025, citing concerns of antisemitism and ideological capture, the Government identified ten conditions Harvard must satisfy to receive federal research funding already committed to by the Government and relied on by Harvard, its researchers, and its affiliates (the “April 11 Letter,” attached as Exhibit A). Ex. A at 2, 4. The Government dictated that Harvard “reform and restructur[e]” its governance to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators. Id. at 2. It required that Harvard hire a third-party to conduct an “audit” of the viewpoints of Harvard’s student body, faculty, and staff. Id. at 3-4. Then, based on the results of this university-wide viewpoint audit, Harvard must “hir[e] a critical mass of new faculty” and “admit[] a critical mass of students” to achieve “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit”—to the Government’s satisfaction as determined in the Government’s sole
discretion. Id. And the Government has demanded that Harvard terminate or reform its academic “programs” to the Government’s liking. Id. at 4. All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.
4. Harvard is committed to “combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry” and to “broaden[ing] the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within [its] community.” Harvard is actively undertaking structural reforms to do both. And while important steps have been taken, Harvard acknowledges that there is still “much work to do.” Harvard also fully recognizes the requirement that it comply with all federal laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
5. But, as Harvard made clear last week in a letter to the Government (attached as Exhibit B), “[n]either Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” Ex. B at 2. In the words of Harvard’s President, Alan M. Garber, “[t]he University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” “No
government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”. In response to Harvard’s defense of its own constitutional freedoms, the federal Government announced that it was freezing “$2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60M in multiyear contract value to Harvard University” (the “Freeze Order,” attached as Exhibit C). Within hours of the Freeze Order, Harvard began receiving stop work orders. The freezing of federal funds amounts to final agency action and has put vital medical, scientific, technological,
and other research at risk. And that risk is growing. Just yesterday, it was reported that the Government is “planning to pull an additional $1 billion of [Harvard]’s funding for health.

NOTE: The Government's bullying letter is online as is the Harvard response. Both items and the complaint are documents accompanying a Harvard website, https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/

That dedicated website is a helpful point from which further research and reading can begin.

https://www.theeditors.com/p/harvard-hires-a-scalia-clerk-to-challenge-administrative-state-steven-lehotsky-nra-vullo is a perspective enlarging item.

 Eugene Volokh (Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law) has, among other posts, commented on the intimidation of universities and law firms, and specifically the Harvard situation. Naturally, his posts (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any institution. 

In particular, this April 6, 2025, item, and here, are of interest.

 The idea is not to exhaustively survey public commentary. Enough source material is given that intelligent search can be begun by readers interested in more detail.

For most readers enough links are given. 

.............................

Crabgrass opinion is Trump is being a cosmic asshole and should stop. Beyond that, the bullying on several fronts is worrisome and there are four more years of it. This man, his hangers on, are dangerous. Opinions can and do differ. He won the election by a narrow margin, but nonetheless it was a win. Now he is trying to rival the gentleman running El Salvador and the gentleman running Hungary, both being bad role models who intrigue Trump.

Canada and Denmark/Greenland have cause to worry, while China has size and may teach a lesson, with the EU and financial forces in the US of A aiding the teaching. There is SCOTUS, where stuff happens, but there should be a limit to how facilitating others there (besides Thomas and Alito) will go.

Congress is under Republican control in both houses, each of which lack a spine.

The Dems try, but the forces against them outnumber them.

 

The one still alive has reckoning to do.

 

image source

Sadness.

This is a different post than was initially intended. News changed things.

Yesterday an unscheduled trip, J.D. Vance to the Vatican, an audience with Pope Francis. The Vatican was kind enough to share this video of Vance's reception at the Vatican and attending an apparent Easter mass. Also, there is a video of Vance and family departing.

Today, Francis is dead. Only one man on the entire earth knows now what that audience involved. A sincere hope is that Vance's heart was moved and his mind impacted. Francis will be missed.

It is a good development that this audience was possible.

The Roman Church shall move to appoint another Pope. In due time.

Francis wanted and was able to have this action late toward his death. It seems a good thing it was enabled. It had to have been a major thing to Vance, in his life.

May the greatest good come of its happening. 

All for today.

Chris Murphey - There is a mental "hold on" I can sometimes feel when a politician is touted by a well compensated consultant with whom the relationship goes beyond the norm.

Link. It speaks for itself, hence no excerpt. And I say that while knowing MN5 Rep. Omar's spouse is also her contracting consultant. Somehow I am more accepting of the Omar marriage situation than Murphy's, and it is something I feel but cannot logically explain.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Tara%20McGowan&ia=web

 My mind reflects back to 2020 and the Iowa caucus SNAFU where who was who in the messup may have been fudged over, and then now, McGowan did not push Harris over the finish line as other than second highest vote getter in 2024.

Who am I to judge? One voter, one vote, and I did back Harris in hopes she'd win, being the not-Trump. It was unclear where she was on real substance and the  issues Bernie is clear about, but it was brought home - she was not Trump.

I admit to letting a feeling or uneasiness here, with Murphey and his consultant where logically, who's to say?

I did not like the Mayor Pete ending up atop the Iowa caucus results, but have no evidence nor grounds to say there was anything unfair in how things then shook out.

I was and remain unhappy over the short Mayor Pete and Sen. Klobuchar stub campaigns unfolded on the eve of the South Carolina primary election coincidentally with Clyburn endorsing Biden. As if planned to so fold, but to run before that with an aim to stymie Bernie and Warren in their effort then.

As if an ambush of progressives that, in hindsight, circuitously brought Trump a staggared second term. I hold a lingering distaste for what was done.

Where is Tom Perez these days? I wonder about how the door revolved for him.

But I don't care enough about it to try to pin his current status down by researching it. Go figure. 

...............................

Embedded video. 

Archived, and the "See Some Of Our Work" toggle seems to link over.

FURTHER: The DC consultant class has its faults in how it operates. There was plenty of Trump warnings, but little of why Harris was a top notch choice. She really wasn't. It was anti-Trump being the sell, not what a Dem win would mean for the people. It was selling more of the same.

Wall Stree donors, Hollywood donors, Silicon Valley donors - the contest was there, with Trump and Harris each netted to a cash basis. It was ugly. Bloomberg's ton of money against Bernie. AIPAC at play. Meanwhile, the people, fuck 'em, who cares?

Bernie and AOC on tour against oligarchy drew sincere crowds. Who cares?

A candidacy is get me consultants, let the good times roll. And we got Trump, getting even with the world over personal grievances. Not how to run a nation. How to run a cabal and pump out courageousness.

___________UPDATE__________

Consistent with preceding text, the video embedded in this item.  

It is yet another gotcha thing, likely the team discussed wording, and approved.

It says nothing positive about what people crave and how desires can be met. It throws another stone. It plays indirectly on fear mongering, with finger pointing.

What is the HK vision for me and others? Is there one, or is it someone else's job, the vision thing?

An interesting video about a Fight the Olagarchs rally where the videographer gets short trenchent interview segments with Bernie and AOC.

 It is not long nor tedious. It is well done. Link.

Mid-item Bernie interviewed, telling what Trump talks about, what he declines to address, and it is brief but spot on. 

I don't trust Trump and his people to be truthful. Breitbart shows one thing. There was a way to make it more believable, but that was squelched. For what reason, I could guess, but, if you want crediblity, be credible and stow the "Trust Me." [UPDATED]

First, Brietbart publishing something, low cred. Next, what did they publish? And how did they headline and caption it? This image: https://media.breitbart.com/media/2025/04/Trump-Shows-Photo-of-Gang-Tatoos-640x480.jpeg

This headline: Trump Posts Photo of Illegal Alien’s Knuckle Tattoos Amid MS-13 Charges

 Okay. It is a photo purportedly showing knuckle tattoos. Photos can be altered, or generated by AI, and it is someone's fist. Beyond that, "Trust Me," and I don't.

In the text of the published item:

President Donald Trump shared a photo of the tattoos on the knuckles of illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an accused MS-13 gang member, wife beater, and human trafficker amid Democrats’ complaining about the man’s deportation to his native El Salvador. “I was elected to take bad people out of the United States,” Trump said. “I must be allowed to do my job.”

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person,'” President Trump quipped in the caption of his post, sharing a photo of himself holding an image of Abrego Garcia’s hand.

First he should be brought back because he was illegally deported to El Salvador, denied due process, and whethere he's fine or not is irrelevantt, and Trump knows that but cannot  be truthful with the truth and without bullshitting on that detali, poisining his cred overall. He cannot control himself, and lies.  

And if Trump can get away with wrongly deporting Garcia to El Salvador, he can do it with me, and if then discovered as such, however likely or unlikely that is depending on how I'm scooped up and sent, he can say, "Yeah, error. So what?" and I'd need a lawyer, while in absentia, to file habeas - not violation of the APA, but habeas, because SCOTUS says so, even while wrongful deportation with intentional denial of due process and under phony "emergency war" cooked up "necessity" to act without due process is pure 1984 in actual action. 

Upshot. I'm gone into hell, "So what?"

I do not like that scenario, and you should not either, because you/me are interchangeable in that scenario. 

Later the Breitbart item states:

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has especially faced backlash after photos surfaced of him meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.

Angel Moms Patty Morin and Tammy Nobles blasted the Maryland senator this week for meeting with Abrego Garcia after ignoring the murders of their daughters — Rachel Morin and Kayla Hamilton, both at the hands of illegal aliens — in Van Hollen’s state.

Angel Moms are a separate story. Garcia faces no claim he was the perp there.

If Trump was to show a fist photo, as asserted evidence, after the meeting, they could have conditioned the meeting on photo evidence being taken of van Hollen and Garcia's fist being in the same photo, forcing van Hollen to address the so called evidence, if real, but they choose not to. Van Hollen tells the story differently.

I believe him. I do not believe Trump. You work that out for yourself.

And, even if Garcia is MS-13, the main fact we should show fear over is how he was snatched and shipped before any hearing of any kind, and than the pure crap that Trump "cannot" get El Salvador to return him. If you believe that, believe in the Easter Bunny. Actually, the Easter Bunny is more credible. Trump and cohorts are simply bullshitting about, "Gee mistake, but we've no power." 

Holy Crap that does not pass any cred test and the SOB fully and totally knows it has no cred, and deliberately propagates the lie as a show of having the power to do so and get away with it, at least short-term and without consequences. 

He is confrontational about it because he is who he is and that's a Roy Cohn wannabe. As in, if Roy could see me now. 

You/me should not want to be deported as Garcia was, so we should pay attention. It is a major breach of what Presidential discretion means. It is super ugly, as is almost all Trump does. He is the lowest, shabbiest President the nation has suffered. Ever. That said, it is not a cause to trash Tesla cars or marketing outlets. The rule of law means you should be lawful if wanting cred when accusing others of not being lawful. That's clear. That's why this Trump cabal is pushing the Tesla-trashing story. To lower others to their level of lawless nastiness.

Roy Cohn's ghost lives. 

__________UPDATE_________

Some may assert I overstate a concern about intentional citizen capture/deportation worries. In answer -

websearch = "homegrowns are next"

The upshot, Trump admits his cabal is thinking about citizenship capture/deport of some form or manner. He says violent actors, but look at his pattern of revenge against critics and law firms and learning institutions, he's a clear and present danger to the Constitution, the rule of law, and to those who'd criticize him.

In short - the danger is real. He tests the envelope. It is his MO. He builds on what he gets away with once, expanding the reach against others. It is expansionist fascism, and you encountered that term here, first. Take one look, have one listen to Stephen Miller, it's not just Trump.

He wants to annex Canada, take Greenland, and doesn't give a shit about a living wage for MAGA voters who bought into his bluster. He inflamed passions without any real plan or care to help those whose passions he worked over. To him, its a game and he's on a roll. 

Worry. Resist.

SALON - published a month ago, still current, "Can Democrats finally quit the "consultant class"? Newly elected DNC Chair Ken Martin has promised to review the party's existing contracts with consulting firms."

LINK - Posted with the aim of helping Minnesota Sixth Congressional District voters become better informed about things. The headlined question, Crabgrass guesses, NO.

Excerpting:

As the scope of the Democratic Party's 2024 election loss sunk in and the inevitable recriminations began, the so-called "consultant class" emerged as the most unifying target of blame for a party otherwise divided on ideology, policy and personal quarrels. In a forum sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee for the national chair race in January, nearly every candidate pledged to scrutinize the DNC's contracts with consultants, with the stated goal of pruning the organization of those who have for decades helped guide the party's leaders and candidates in an era marked by embarrassing defeats and narrow victories that fell short of expectations.

The winner of that race, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin, said at the time that “D.C. consultants” will “be gone when I’m there.” [...] Martin gets to decide whether to follow or break with that precedent. According to a DNC spokesperson, he intends to stand by his pledge, pending a close review of who on the payroll is worthy of staying or being thrown out.

Related

The consultants are in charge now: How admen and advisers conquered American politics

[...] James Skoufis, a fierce critic of the Democratic Party's cozy relationship with those consultants, also ran for chair before dropping out and endorsing Martin. [...] 

"Many of these contracts, which can be seven or eight figures large, were not earned through honesty and value they bring to campaigns," Skoufis said. "They were instead earned via relationships within the DNC, for knowing a friend of a friend of a congressman, or another consultant, or the right people within the organization."

[...]  Skoufis, who sometimes refers to those consultants as being part of the "cocktail circuit," defined them more specifically as mercenaries who earn lucrative contracts by "drifting from campaign to campaign, administration to administration, cable contract to cable contract, and advise the party’s political hub and candidates, and are often rewarded with more contracts and campaigns," even when the party loses.

For her 2024 campaign, former Vice President Kamala Harris spent hundreds of millions of dollars on consulting and media firms run by Democratic Party insiders, including those who worked for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign. It all amounts to a giant waste of money, Skoufis said, because their advice, [...]  was not rooted in reality, is "totally removed from the desires, needs, and motivations of working class and middle-class voters." 

In this criticism, Skoufis appears to share common ground with a number of consultants and staffers largely from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Those people, many of whom supported the insurgent campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and were once blacklisted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, are quick to distinguish themselves from the much-derided "consultant class."

"They exist largely to protect their own power and keep making money," Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, a group that supports progressive candidates, told Salon. [...]

One Democratic Party-aligned polling firm that has consistently appeared on the DNC payroll, Global Strategy Group, was paid by Amazon in 2022 to help the company suppress a union election at a Staten Island warehouse. [...]  Although the DNC publicly floated a proposal to ban party consultants from engaging in union-busting in response to backlash, they never clarified if the proposal was actually put into effect. Such a proposal would have, in theory, barred the DNC from paying $12 million to Wilmer Cutter Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, a law firm that advertises "union avoidance strategies," during the 2023-2024 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

[...] SKDK, another popular Democratic Party firm and a co-creation of former Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn, recently registered as foreign agents for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even as the party is already facing widespread censure over its support for a country that has been accused of committing genocide.

[...] The most recent failed presidential campaign provides an ideal case study for critics of business as usual. While Harris entered the campaign with some tentative appeals to economic populism and acknowledged that the cost of living was "still too high," she and her surrogates increasingly relied on well-worn arguments about Trump's authoritarian tendencies [running as not Trump but not much else either] and bumbled over how tightly to embrace the Biden-era economy in the face of widespread discontent. By the fall, earlier proposals or promises to crack down on price gouging, expand the child tax credit and impose more taxes on the wealthy had been watered down, while rhetoric against moneyed elites gave way to more neutral appeals like "job creation" and "opportunities for the middle class" — much of this, apparently, at the direction of Harris advisers with corporate ties, according to reporting by the New York Times. [a/k/a bullshitting for the donor class with a belief they could still win just posing as NOT Trump]

One of those advisers, Karen Dunn, was serving as lead trial counsel for Google in a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit at the same time she helped Harris prep for her debate against Trump; two others, Obama campaign alum David Plouffe and Harris' brother-in-law, Tony West, have seats on Uber's senior management team. West reportedly played a key role in convincing Harris to tailor her economic message to be more business-friendly and campaign more with surrogates who could ostensibly provide cross-party appeal, like billionaire Mark Cuban and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.

[...] "People in the Harris campaign decided that maybe we're going to hit some people that we don't want to hit right now, we don't want to look so anti-corporate. That was clearly a dumb decision," Tobias said. "David Plouffe, Tony West, Jen O'Malley Dillon and the rest have been on podcasts giving 1,000 data points about why the decisions they made with the right ones, so you can't prove that they're secretly trying to help themselves get rich off other corporate clients. But they do have those clients too, right? It really belabors trust with voters who already don't trust Washington in general when these people are the ones with the most influence over the party."

Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and former Harris senior adviser, [...]   acknowledged that Democrats in general struggled with "talking like regular people" and moving beyond an excessively curated, focus group-verified approach to politics in large part because of a lack of class and geographical diversity among consultants.

[...]. "We won highly-educated people in this country and people who make over $100,000, but we're getting killed with working class people. And I don't think we're elevating enough working class people in the party, people who didn't go to college, people who have a different way of thinking about the world because they have a different lived experience."

[...] The party's preference for consultants from well-heeled firms over union organizers or community activists, they say, is a symptom of a Democratic Party unwilling to break ties with the corporate world or eschew fundraising with billionaires, and the symptom will not go away until they cure the deeper sickness. 

[...]

 Closing with separate headlines from DWT items - again from a month ago:

 

Who Can Speak For The Heart & Soul Of The Democratic Party? Not Elissa Slotin, Not Gavin Newsom...

• 
  Howie Klein
• Mar 10
• 8 min read

We're Lucky They Stopped Using Kamala Harris And Liz Cheney!

https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/who-can-speak-for-the-heart-soul-of-the-democratic-party-not-elissa-slotin-not-gavin-newsom

and -

 

Bill Clinton, The Genesis Of The Corporately-Owned New Dems And The Decline Of The Democratic Party

• 
  Howie Klein
• Mar 11
• 15 min read

The Democratic Party Won't Fix Itself— It Has To Be Forced On Them

 

 Those two are not Republicans, but they are what's wrong with the Democratic Party.

 So, two images that show the good, and the bad and ugly, sequentially.

Jay Inslee, on his way out as governor, has opined on Washington's possible enactment of a wealth tax. And - - -

Seattle times local news: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/microsoft-leads-lobbying-blitz-to-fend-off-wa-wealth-tax/ 

Aside from being an action - reaction situation, the truth is Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos could give up a little and not really feel any pinch. It would not make the Bezos yacht any shorter or less luxuriant, nor would it make Bezos' Blue Origin Bimbo launch any less grotesque.  Katy Perry handled her part, and the whole thing was even dumber than had Jeff offered the space ride to the starting five UConn WNCAA basketball tournament winners as a tribute to their having done something. Having deserved a gesture of recognition for something no other starting five did, this year. They could each have taken along their piece of the net stringing that their effort earned each. Jeff and Coach Gino could have been at the capsule retrieval site as part of the total spectacle. Along with the bench players getting to watch.

 

 

 

If Newt Gingrich likes the idea you know it's a stinker.

 https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-response-to-taxing-the-rich-tax-the-poor/

In explaining the Rick Scott agenda, the one Gingrich likes in part, TruthOut notes:

Scott’s plan also includes numerous extremist proposals that could actively harm the government and the public. The plan contains attacks on transgender people, leftists, schools, people of color, and much more. As part of the political right wing’s fascist attacks on education, the plan would shutter the Department of Education entirely. It would also bar any increases to the debt ceiling. Republicans have advocated for such limits to demonstrate their so-called fiscal responsibility, despite the fact that not allowing raises to the debt ceiling could be calamitous.

One thing you can say about Newt, he had a skilled barber. One thing you can say about Scott, he's from Florida. Another, DeSantis is filling his former political shoes, (with lifts).

 

Give the ally of Jim Jordan an interim paycheck: "IRS agent who investigated Hunter Biden expected to be named IRS acting chief"

The quote within the headline is from AP's report.

The inference that a Jim Jordan alliance, to picador Hunter Biden before the DOJ worked him over, as weighing in thinking about him for the job, is a circumfrential inference, where Trump also had a thing over the Bidens and their actions to where he sent Rudy to Ukraine, etc., etc.

................................

Not just a hat tip to the man, a paycheck. He showed initiative.

The stench of Trump's shakedown approach to white shoe law firms, cave and pay or be denied law practice rights, seems an afterthought to too many pundits, if that. The stench is there, the coverage is lacking.

 EmptyWheel opines:

On Same Day WSJ Confirms Boris Ephsteyn Negotiating Trump's Law Firm Settlements, Amicus Raises Bribery Concerns

26 Comments

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April 15, 2025

/

emptywheel

On the same day that some Legal Ethics professors submitted an amicus in the Perkins Coie case worrying that the law firm settlements might expose law firms to risk of bribery allegations, WSJ reported that Boris Epshteyn is the one negotiating this protection racket.

Read more

EmptyWheel includes this link to the Amicus Brief referenced in the post as having been filed in the Perkins Coie suit against Trump's dubious executive order leaning on law firms to pay to play. 

Why MSM declines to take express notice of the problem the Amici clearly lay out is a part of why there is so much submission to Trump's will and to his implicit powers to negatively affect the caving-in party's future well being.

As in, "If he's getting away doing that to top-notch Big Law, what's in it for me besides unneeded grief if I be the nail to be standing up (and getting pounded down). Is this an unfounded and ungrounded view of Trump as being a vindictive person, to a fault? One with Presidential powers, to be feared and placated in any way imaginable? Perhaps another explanation applies. As in,"Just obeying advice of counsel." When Big Law caves, what's an MSM lawyer to say to his/her/their client?

As to the Amici, these are not shabby people looking to gain fifteen minutes of fame, as p.2 of the Brief states:

The full list of amici1 is as follows:
• George M. Cohen, Brokaw Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Virginia School of Law.
• Susan P. Koniak, Professor of Law, Emerita, Boston University School of Law.
• Jonah E. Perlin, Associate Professor of Law, Legal Practice and Senior Fellow of the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center.
• Nancy B. Rapoport, UNLV Distinguished Professor & Garman Turner Gordon, Professor of Law at William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
• Mitt Regan, McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession, Georgetown University Law Center.
• W. Bradley Wendel, Edwin H. Woodruff Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.

Nor are they people with an ax to grind over some prior Trump slight. They see events, and existing litigation, and believe their insight as Amici to be helpful.

Their public service intent and action is laudable, and they merit much respect.

 *opening image and opening quote are from the EmptyWheel homepage --

https://www.emptywheel.net/*

 

 

Palestinian huminatarian aid workers executed March 23 by Israeal "Defense" Forces dug up from mass grave when, also, their buried marked vehicles were also uncovered.

A buried Israeli war crime was dug up. Apparently a video on one of the buried aid worker's cell phone was uncovered showing events. Otherwise the Israelis had a different story which they retracted after the video surfaced. (Lying atop an atrocity.)

These are sick people doing such things. Under conditions of siege, and grossly  disproportionate power to wage war. There is little to say beyond that. Chain of command among the executioners needs to be pinned down.

These are war crimes. Possibly/probably top down per the chain of command.

Sunshine is needed, and absent that video, the lie would be the end of the story.

Ron DeSantis stands with his peers.

 

click the image to enlarge it to see Ron better

USA Today reports:

The Sunshine State is claiming dibs on being the first to officially recognize the Gulf of America as the body of water's new name.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed two bills (HB 575, HB 549) that rename what's known as the Gulf of Mexico in state law and public school textbooks.

The measures' sponsors in the Senate posted photos of themselves with DeSantis in the governor's Capitol office, holding blue Sharpies and green "Gulf of America" road signs.

Don't Florida politicians have real work to do? Seems not.

 

I think those with power are unstable because of the power. They get out their message, but it's a sick message. Unhealthy for the nation.

https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1909808869989056563

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-pamela-bondi-directs-prosecutors-seek-death-penalty-luigi-mangione

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-luigi-mangione-may-100000110.html

Power corrupts in the name of solidifying power against public good.

Luigi Mangione did the nation a favor. The Walmart shooter, not so.

Luigi killed a pathological human, a sociopath putting personal comfort above decency. And for that, another sociopathic crowd wants to make him an example.

The lesson. Don't get caught. Do good violence but don't get caught. 

Those preaching law and order want it their order, not a better thing, but their way or the death penalty. Trump found Pam Bondi by lifting a rock.

Bernie pressing CNN on reporting truth over other things. Being invited to express viewpoints. CNN does well, and deserves praise beyond mere mention for the early effort on the way to 2028.

 Mediate. https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-torches-cnn-in-fiery-clash-at-networks-own-town-hall/

They let him on, he includes a shout-out to AOC and their Oligarchy-is-bad tour.

This web search may help readers looking to reach the full session, in video. 

Audio. Transcript.

Bernie starts "paycheck to paycheck" and expands from that.

Bernie is important because he says truth to those who divert from truth to sophistry; i.e., to the media.

The whole thing is a major reach by CNN to "expand the debate." A praiseworthy step. Listen to it, or scan the transcript, but readers, please, give it due attention.

It is a breakthrough for a progressive, in particular for Bernie, to have an MSM chance.

Schiff's taking lead on the insider trader thing is discussed. But briefly by mention.

Pay attention because Bernie is older than Trump, but fully cogent, so the Biden "slipping" scenario is entirely inapplicable.

__________UPDATE_________

The session half way through listening to it, touches all current issues, incliding Trump leaning on law firms, universities, etc., and in opposition to rule of law.

It is a most lucid discussion of current events. Anderson Cooper as moderator/interviewer does a good job, low key, feeding Brnie chances to expound.

It is a breakthrough. CNN could have had Hakim Jeffries on, and done a same old, same old crapshow. But they did not do that. Instead --- They had an independent of the kind of independence Crabgrass embraces, while like Bernie, caucusing locally with the Democrats.

_________FURTHER UPDATE_________

Bernie faces the problem of economic fairness and says few others do.

And he is correct. Elon Musk puts $200+ millions behind Trump. I don't. I lack the resources to match Elon. He buys a fascist agenda he is in agreement with, and I have my vote.

That is the nub of things, which Harris did not say she'd fix, or even that she did not like it since it was a way of things under which she prospered. Harris lost.

Some of us know how it is, many are distracted and divided, but Bernie will not let us hide from the truth other than by not listening to him and not giving him a forum to explain things. CNN gave a forum, so who's next for not hiding from the truth? 

_________FURTHER UPDATE__________

To say Harris lost is to say Clyburn, his way of approaching things, lost.

Big time loss. 

Lost big time to a raving Fascist now using bullying to install a tariff dodge to de facto change taxation to where a sales tax hitting the little people will be installed instead of a justly graduated income and wealth tax, which is an option many find more appealing as well as more just. Something worth taking over the Democratic party to reach, in a way the Republican party was taken over by fascists appealing to bad things in people who lack discernment with an oversupply of bias too. Give people, not a subpopulation thing to yin and yang but people what they want, and curb those adept at confusing, manipulating and obfuscating - DC consultants and the politicians they manage - a lesser divisive voice.

Do that, and actual CHANGE and HOPE are not a cynical slogan, but actual reachable goals. Clyburn had to be sidetracked before the prize for us all was realistic. Harris, her millionaire mixed-ethnic family losing big time may have been the thing to do that. 

If we can talk of Clyburn's sidetracking in the past tense, Bernie may be heard. If not past tense, the uphill will be longer and harder. Subpopulation power jealousies and struggles is tne heart of how the wealthy disenfranchise the many by divisive jealousies being exploitable and exploited.

An outlook beyond the Animal Farm's some more equal than others is needed. We are each as human as the next one, and not more or less humanly deserving.

MSM carrying a WaPo item. "Social Security abandons DOGE-led phone service cuts amid chaos, backlash"

 Link. Elon's legions overreached? No. That's impossible. Well, . . .

UPDATE: More Elon Musk in the news - this about his litigation with Sam Altman and OpenAI. 

While watching the tariffs now, tariffs in 90 days show, try websearch = toyota bz3x

As a hint: https://insideevs.com/news/744039/toyota-bz3x-ev-suv-price/

Read that to see if you care. As a bet, Musk cares. Musk has a business model touched by new things.

Nobody but Trump and Bessent and "the team" know what Trump is up to, per tariff games. Here, Crabgrass guesses a bit.

The formula used to set the "terror tariffs" has been found to be simple, and arbitrary, but it got attention.

Now the negotiation, up or down from there, with China at war, economically. That is a show to other economies lesser in size and reach than China.

90 days is a long time for other smaller economies, including individual nations in the EU who want to play separately and allowed by EU partners to, to come forward to the Trump team and do horse trading. They will, or they won't. 

In 90 days those whose love does not fade away will cement something, others will see, and it is not as if anything is frozen long term in 90 days. But a time frame for movement is set.

Anybody who bets on markets while adjustments are being made either has insider information or really likes to gamble. One wonders, of the team Trump has, who in the group traded on the initial announcement, buy low, and the 90 day window announcement, sell on the rebound. One expects somebody is watching for trades corrupted by insider trading, and markets can be each against the other and God against them all. God is watching, or some lesser but functional equivalent.

So if you've not got a great portfolio already, or not one at all but paycheck to paycheck, relax. It is wholly outside of your consequence what is the game being played.

We all, including the worldwide economy, are watchers, and all this shit could tank the worldwide trade and planning markets into uncertainty which could meld into a greater depression than we saw in the thirties. On that positive note, Crabgrass shuts down its guessing, and like everybody else, watches.

One thought, Bessent historically worked with Soros. So -- If anybody now is better fixed to be guessing, based on that history, it would be Soros. To the extent Soros betting is transparent it might be something of a barometer of where things might go. However, it might not. Betting on how Soros is being bet is second level guesswork, so why not find a Voodoo savant to read "signs?"

In a hundred days from now things might be less unsettled.

__________UPDATE__________

Not God. A Democrat. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/schiff-wants-tariff-pause-investigation-over-insider-trading/ar-AA1CCHsq 

Of all things? Not Elizabeth Warren. Not Katie Porter. Schiff running the ball.

From that item, a Schiff video, and this:

Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota, when asked by TIME if Trump should be investigated for potential market manipulation, said: “It’s a great question. He certainly had a lot to gain. I hadn’t thought of that.” 

Earlier on Wednesday, Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat, was one of the first to question whether the tariff pause was tied to market manipulation, as the news came out in the middle of a heated hearing with Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, who had vigorously defended the tariffs. Horsford shouted, “This is amateur hour. You just got the rug pulled out from under you.” He demanded to know whether the administration had deliberately moved the markets. “This is not a game. This is real life,” Horsford said.

Well, opinions can vary, game or not. Games in real life can have payoffs. And Tina takes herself out of the questioning. Leaving it to those not ending their term in office, such as Schiff, who, after all, is ambitious. (You don't believe that, ask Katie Porter.)

Would you put it past Trump or more likely perhaps, Vance the Thiel ally, to take insider profits?

I would not. Again, judgments and opinions can differ. Musk? Already confiictded. DOD and NASA launch money, +++.

What a bunch, that, at a guess, over 50% would think the bunch or a big part of them would gladly take insider profits. My guess. It could be wrong. Sunshine on the question is truly needed. It will distract from or crimp the team's negotiations, but each such negotiation presents its own investment motive for insiders, and what is Bessant's background but trading? 

_________FURTHER UPDATE________

Is this sensible facing a 90 day window of uncertainty? Somebody's showing irrational exuberance. Buy high, sell [guess]. A lot of somebodies. A blinking trend.

 

 

 

April 19 has been agreed upon as the next mass nationwide protest day.

 

 This image was saved from Digbty's Hullabaloo, Open the link, read more.