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Dianne Feinstein is vulnerable

The California Democratic Party (CDP) declined to endorse anybody in this year’s U.S. Senate race. Since the two most popular candidates are Democrats - one of whom will almost certainly win in November - some may see nothing more than a decision not to upset an apple cart that’s rolling downhill.

Still, the result is surprising if only because front runner Dianne Feinstein could muster only 37% of the vote of CDP delegates. Feinstein of course is the octogenarian San Franciscan who rose to national prominence forty years ago in the aftermath of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Little known Kevin de Leόn copped 54% of the vote.

This is how Democrats win

It looks like the Democrats have picked up a seat in the Missouri state house. 20-something Mike Revis won in a district that went for Trump by over 30 points. How'd he do it? He ran as a progressive populist. The first two of five issues at his website:

1) "Support public education" over charter schools.

2) "Defend the rights of working people" and oppose right to work which he calls a "bad idea pushed by corporations to lower wages."

Oprah for President?

After delivering a powerful speech at the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey is being touted as a potential Democratic Presidential candidate. In response, at least one liberal website - DailyKos - posted an article bashing her for allegedly supporting America's destruction of Iraq beginning March 2003. It is true that she aired a program in October 2002 that was light on facts and heavy on pro-war propaganda.

But to Oprah's credit in the months immediately preceding "Shock and Awe," she gave significant time to anti-war activists like Phil Donahue. She earned Michael Moore's praise for televising a 1980s photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand.

Georgetown’s anti-union position is contrary to its commitment to social justice

As a 1990 graduate of Georgetown University’s law school and the father of an undergraduate, I was disappointed to read that the university is attempting to thwart the unionization efforts of working graduate students [“Georgetown declines to support union effort,” Metro, Dec. 7].

A Pelosi/Raskin Townhall

A raucous standing room only crowd greeted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-8) at Rockville's Luxmanor Elementary School cafeteria early Saturday (Nov 4) morning. The Democratic representatives along with several Montgomery County residents came to discuss the dangers to Maryland and the nation that they see in the Republican House tax bill.

Speaking first at the town hall he had organized, Raskin attacked the plan for being largely composed of corporate giveaways. These include a drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 12% on income currently stashed overseas and 10% on profits from transnational activities. Deriding the bill as the “billionaire tax break and job cutting plan,” Raskin noted also that the Republican plan slashes $1.5 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over a decade.

Reforming Weinstein's Hollywood

Former movie producer Harvey Weinstein is a serial sexual harasser, exercises zero anger management, and abuses nearly everybody with whom he has contact. He is one among a number of powerful, or once powerful, Hollywood men who share some or all of these behaviors and characteristics. Trying to avoid the rapists, gropers, and grinders is, therefore, a very serious dilemma for women in the entertainment industry. Sadly, it’s not the only one.

The Clinton Double Standard?

Branko Marcetic has a strong piece at the Jacobin called the Clinton Double Standard. He argues that liberals have given the Clintons a pass for harassing behavior that is not dissimilar to what Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, and other are alleged to have done. What makes the article especially trenchant is that Marcetic provides an out for pro-Clinton liberals.

Pawns in the Game

While watching the documentary Don’t Look Back about Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, I was struck, as so many others have been, by the dichotomy between Dylan the young man and Dylan the artist. As a man, he comes across as immature, petulant, and sometimes downright nasty. As an artist, his musical genius shines through every guitar strum, harmonica chord, and whiny nasally sung note. In one uncomfortable hotel room scene, Dylan wields his multifarious talents - he’s a master songwriter, lyricist, guitar player, and troubador - as weapons against the outclassed Donovan. But Dylan also evinces humanity, humility, and empathy in his public performances.

Democratic Opportunity

The Democrats have a great chance to win back many of the working class Midwesterners who were pivotal in last year’s election even if some Trump voters are deplorable racists who cannot be reached through rational argument. A study by professors from the University of Minnesota and Boston University concludes that Hillary Clinton’s narrow loss may be attributed to her relative hawkishness. For example, Trump came out in opposition to the Iraq War far earlier than Clinton grudgingly admitted it was a mistake. Likewise, analyses from such disparate and credible sources as Scientific American, CNN, and Fortune Magazine see Trump’s opposition to free trade as an important factor in his victory.

MD has a lot to lose if Obamacare is repealed

Maryland, particularly Montgomery County, has become a bright spot in the national health-care picture. From 2012 to 2015, subsidies to health insurance purchasers and the expansion of Maryland’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act caused the percentage of uninsured Marylanders to fall from 10.1 percent to 6.7 percent. The national average is 9.4 percent. . .

Read the rest of my Washington Post op-ed here.

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