March 6, 2024 - We just lost Katie Porter

… Schiff vs. Garvey … Haley out … Sinema out … Allred vs. Cruz …

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We Just Lost Katie Porter

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) didn’t go hard after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in the race to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). And Schiff spent millions to “warn” California about the dangers of voting for former baseball player Steve Garvey, thereby signaling to fans of D4FRFP¹ Donald Trump that they should vote for Garvey.

And even though Garvey barely campaigned, enough MAGA voters showed up that Garvey came in second in last night’s primary to Schiff. Because California’s rules make the November general election a runoff between the top two primary vote-getters, that means it’ll be Garvey vs. Schiff. Porter is out.

And because Porter gave up her House seat to run, that means we’ll have no Porter in the next Congress. Who was watching Katie Porter?!?

Rep. Katie Porter at an Oct. 1, 2020, hearing on drug prices. (Screengrab)

Porter, a former professor, didn’t just put on great shows in Congress, she taught. And she illuminated. Some highlights:

• Porter didn’t just bust Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan for bullshitting, it was about something important: The willingness of Wall Street executives to pledge publicly that they were committed to winning customer trust when, in fact, Porter had proof that the company saw those statements as bullshit. Sloan resigned two weeks later.

• Porter got JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to admit he was unable to solve basic financial problems. Such as whether a JPMorgan Chase teller taking home $29,100 annually could raise her daughter and make ends meet. Should she get a JPMorgan Chase credit card? “I don’t know,” Dimon said. Overdraft at his bank? “I don’t know,” Dimon said.

• When Porter asked Trump Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson about real-estate owned (REO) properties, which fail to sell during foreclosure auctions, Carson replied: “Oreo?” He then said, “Real-estate…organization?” Carson didn’t know that his own agency had a ton of REO housing-loan properties, meaning they were auctioning, and failing to sell, properties rather than working with distressed home-owners. Porter had deftly illustrated the real-world problems that arise when a fake real-estate mogul gives his housing agency to a guy whose expertise was literally cutting apart twins conjoined at the head.

• And then there was that moment that may have saved, I dunno, let’s say hundreds of thousands of people? During five minutes of questioning, Porter got Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield to pledge he would use his legal authorities to make COVID tests available for free, for everyone, in March of 2020.

With Porter out of the Senate race, this also means California’s getting a white, male senator. That hasn’t happened in 30 years. (California’s other senator is Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).) In fact, it’s been 32 years since California didn’t have at least one woman in the Senate.

As Politico notes, while there are some strong Black women candidates in Maryland and Delaware, there’s a chance there’ll be none in the Senate come 2025.

Addressing supporters last night, Porter said, “Someone close said to me, ‘As a woman, if you wait your turn, you won’t get one.’ What I found out over the last six years, is that by and large that is true.” 

In the past, California’s reliably diverse congressional delegations have been an important bulwark against the disproportionate white-dudeism you get in your legislature when your country gives Senate seats to multiple Dakoti and Carolinae.

So this is a big loss. And as for my thoughts about Schiff engineering it…I honestly don’t know. This kind of elevate-the-longshot-fringe-candidate tactic has worked before. And it’s backfired (Trump won!)

In this case, Porter got only 13.81% of the votes (most haven’t been counted yet) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) — who should’ve been made president for life after being the oneoneoneONE member of Congress to vote for checking then-Pres. George Bush’s military authority after 9/11 — got only 7.36% of the vote.

So maybe it was always going to be Schiff vs. Garvey. On the other hand, what if something seismic happens in October — maybe voters find out just how reluctant Schiff was behind the scenes to pursue the Trump impeachment — and now Garvey’s got a real chance, thanks to the boost he got in the primaries from Schiff?

Schiff has a real obligation now not to screw this up. And we’ll see whether progressives succeed at keeping him from moving (more) toward the center (again).

We Just Lost Nikki Haley

Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) reportedly is expected to drop out of the Republican presidential race, meaning the race is now down to a one-on-one contest between D4FRFP Donald Trump and his mouth.

Haley is expected to make the announcement I just made for her during remarks at 10am in South Carolina. CNN reported this morning that she is not — not — expected to endorse Trump right away. At least for the first 30 seconds of her speech.

Instead, CNN says, Haley will be calling on Trump to earn the support of her voters, which he does not need, to clinch the Republican nomination, having won every contest in last night’s Super Tuesday voting except Vermont. It’s not been reported yet how Haley thinks Trump should earn the votes of her supporters, especially since he will not give a shit.

We Just, Uh…Lost?…Kyrsten Sinema

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) wasn’t on the ballot yesterday, but in keeping with her track record of messing things up for everyone, she stole some headlines by announcing she’s ending her own campaign and will step down at the end of this Congress.

That means Arizona will have a one-on-one contest for her Senate seat between Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Literally Nothing Ever Kari Lake, who in her defense has held the position of state governor for almost three years since winning that race in 2022 in her mind.

Lake will now have to defend her non-record of not-governing, without help from the Democratic vote getting split between Gallego and Sinema.

Sinema has been a bete noire of the left, usually mentioned in one acrid breath hissed between gritted teeth alongside Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Sinema left the party in 2022, while Manchin has remained to torment it from within.

But both have also helped the party at pivotal moments. And in writing Sinema’s political obituary (for now) it’s worth considering that her resignation just might mean the left, or Democrats — or whatever we’re calling Commie America-haters these days — was wrong about Sinema.

For years, the knock on Sinema was that she was an opportunist, angling for herself first and foremost, catering to fat-cat donors over her constituents. Well, maybe? But she could’ve stayed in the race. She could’ve extracted concessions from Democrats or their donors for leaving. As far as we know, she didn’t.

I’m not making a case to love her, but I am suggesting that, in general, people are the most complicated, uh, people. Everyone’s the hero of their own story.

And, look, we’ve mostly forgotten what a historic candidate she once was. We no longer remember that she was the first openly bisexual person in Congress, because we’ve become so consumed by speculation that she’s also Republican-curious.

Politico reports that with Sinema’s departure — which was likely in any case — the odds of the filibuster dying are going up.

And, of course, you don’t have to like Sinema for having supported the filibuster — a racist artifact historically used to block voting rights — but just as in international relations, the worst way to take on your adversaries is to assume they’re motivated by evil. You’ll blind yourself to the other possibilities.

OTOH, in fairness, Arizona Democrats pretty much did assume Sinema is evil and they seem to have triumphed, so what do I know? Either way, it’s now Gallego vs. Lake.

FLASHBACK If you missed it, here’s my not-quite-oldie-but-goodie from last year, about Lake attending the National Prayer Breakfast.

Colin Allred Will Take on Ted Cruz

Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) won more than half the votes in yesterday’s Democratic Senate primary. That means he won’t face a runoff in May and can now kick off his general-election campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is somehow still in office despite still being Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Allred, a former NFL player, first went to Congress in 2018, after taking down a Republican incumbent. And not just any incumbent, it was longtime GOP powerhouse Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who D4FRFP Donald Trump and the GOP went all in to save. But failed. 

Allred is campaigning on his usual policy go-to: health care — like, actual Obamacare! — and reproductive rights. Like, the kind there aren’t in Texas.

CNN reports that Allred’s campaign ended 2023 with $10.1 million, compared to Cruz’s $6.2 million. And Allred raised more in the last quarter of 2023. That said, money ≠ votes.  

That Guy Who Beat Biden in American Samoa

Pres. Joe Biden’s only loss in the Super Tuesday presidential nominating contests came in American Samoa. Biden lost to Jason Palmer, a guy.

Palmer, who has made his career as a guy in Baltimore, made American Samoa the focus of his campaign, which he funded with $500,000 of the money he made as a guy. 

According to CNN, Palmer said voters want “someone who is more of the 21st century than Joe Biden,” which was true yesterday only in American Samoa.

As a reward for his efforts, Palmer will split American Samoa’s six delegates with Biden, meaning Palmer will have a voice at this summer’s Democratic National Convention. A teeny tiny voice, to be sure, but a voice for the little guy.

Four Quickies

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and five other progressives are pushing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to revive the Truman Commission, which policed war profiteering during World War II. Sanders, Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Peter Welch (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) want the revived committee to start scrutinizing the billions and billions of dollars the U.S. is now funneling to military contractors to supply Israel and Ukraine with weapons and supply military contractor shareholders with dividends.

• Committees in Alabama’s state Senate and House yesterday advanced identical bills to block lawsuits or prosecution related to IVF, which they effectively criminalized earlier this year when they bestowed personhood on embryos, even the frozen embryos created during IVF and best known by their commercial name, Dippin’ Dots™. The bills are expected to pass the legislature today…and open up the state to all kinds of lawsuits in the future.

• D4FRFP Donald Trump met on Sunday with Tesla CEO and Twitter RIP Elon Musk and a bunch of other people so rich that people assume they’re smart, the New York Times reports. Trump reportedly is seeking big infusions of campaign cash from Musk, who is said to see the defeat of Pres. Joe Biden as essential. To his ego.

• A Republican National Committee resolution to block campaign cash from going to pay D4FRFP Donald Trump’s legal bills, which have grown so large they’re now visible from space, failed yesterday.

TCB

Welcome to all the Newsfuckers who may have found me thanks to my Mayorkas impeachment reporting, or last night’s story about the Freethought Caucus leaders standing up for Politico’s Heidi Przybyla against the Christian right, or the shoutout TFN got from CNN yesterday (I’ll share it when I can find the link!)

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Go get ‘em, kids…!

1. D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.