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Jewish community centers across the United States are operating in a climate of fear after a fifth waveof bomb threatsaimed at Jews on Monday that targeted at least 13 community centers and eight schools in a dozen states.

A top Trump surrogate hedge funder Anthony Scaramucci, who fundraised for theTrump campaign, joined his transition team, and was in the runningfor a senior role in the White House took to Twitter on Tuesday to imply that these threats could be coming from Democrats, rather than from a radical far-right wing that has been emboldened by Trumps rhetoric and staff choices.

In his first tweet, he referred to a report about Democratic Party-aligned activists who staged raucous protests at Trump events a far cry from calling in bomb threats against a religious minority.

Scaramuccis tweetsare only the latest sign that the Trump administration, those close to the president, and the wider Republican Party are fundamentally unwillingto either acknowledge or challenge the wave of far-right hate crimesin the United States that has in recent monthstargeteda wide set of religious and racial minority groups.

Part of their strategy has been to deny any links between Trumps rhetoric, far-right ideology, and the recent hate crimes.

Trump ally and former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum appeared on CNN last week to imply, without evidence, that the wave of antisemitic hate crimes is largely coming from Muslim-Americans. Following a neo-Nazi march in Montana, Republican lawmakers there are advancing legislation to crack down on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that seeks to hold Israel accountable for human rights abuses an implication that the Arab American-led movement is responsible for anti-Semitism.

The Trump administration reacted callously last week following a hate crime in Kansas that gained global attention, where a man shot and killed a man of Indian origin and wounded two others, believing them to be Iranian.

When asked whether there was any link between the shooters beliefs and Trumps harsh rhetoric against Muslims, the White House declined to even consider the possibility.Any loss of life is tragic, Press Secretary Sean Spicer replied, but Im not going to get into, like, that kind of to suggest that theres any correlation [to Trumpsrhetoric] I think is a bit absurd.

Spicer was also asked last week if Trump condemns Islamophobia in general, and he offered no comment, instead making an awkward and telling pivot to the administrations agenda against radical Islam.

If you come here or want to express views that seek to do our country or people harm, hes going to fight it aggressively, he replied to a question about Islamaphobia. So theres a big difference between preventing attacks and making sure that we keep this country safe, so that there is no loss of life.

Top photo: Scaramucci at Trump Tower on Jan. 4, 2017, in New York City.

Read more:
Trump Surrogate Suggests Democrats Could Be Behind Bomb Threats Against Jews - The Intercept

The Democratic Party, with Thomas Perez as its new chair, vows to seek unity, transparency, Trump resistance, grassroots participation, and most importantly, make sure we talk about our positive message of inclusion and opportunity... to that big tent of the Democratic Party.

But this message is shrouded with myths that must be challenged if we are to take back the country from financial and corporate elites... and from Trump.

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost. For the sake of unity, the Sanders rebels should moderate their relentless attacks on the super-rich and runaway inequality so that the party can concentrate its fire on Trump.

The goal must be to win back the moderate suburban Trump voters who may soon suffer from buyers remorse. Now is not the time to scare voters with anti-corporate rhetoric and broad social democratic programs like free higher education and Medicare for all. Uniting against Trump is all that matters.

The energy of the Democratic party comes precisely from those who cherish the hard-hitting vision that Sanders put forth. There is a reason why the Sanders rallies were ten times the size of Hillarys campaign events. Sanders and his followers want to take on the corporate elites both inside and outside the Democratic Party. It would be a disaster to bury that battle under the milquetoast mantra of party unity.

Myth #2: The moderate middle is the key to victory

The party establishment is still clinging to the triangulation model perfected by Bill Clinton as he cuddled up to the Wall Street. Ever since, the Democratic Party has tried to tailor its program to independent suburban voters and wealthy donors.

That model no longer works.

The Tea Party turned the Republican Party to the right by totally obliterating moderate Republicans. The 2016 election further shows that the battle for the center is history. Instead elections are won by reaching those who reject the established order that has left them behind. Sanders expressed that revolt from the left and Trump rode that revolt from the right to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Myth #3: Economic empowerment

The mantra of the corporate Democrats is economic empowerment making sure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. Their position is based on the following assumptions, all of which are wrong:

Myth #4: The Sanders Program is too radical for America

Sanders-style socialism will not be accepted in America. It will be red-baited to death, leading to the defeat of any politician who supports such programs. So the Democratic Party should not promote the Sanders agenda.

The Cold War is over. Young voters could care less about the socialist label. The Sanders campaign out-polled Hillary among every shade and color of under-30 voters. Free higher education sounds pretty good to those loaded with student debt.

Similarly, the time has passed for merely defending Obamacare and its dependence on private insurance companies. Medicare for All is a much sounder and cheaper program. Does anyone care about their private insurance company? Only those who work for them.

Even the Clinton wing understands the attraction of the Sanders agenda. But they waddle up to it with so many qualifications that the appeal is lost.

Myth #5 Americans really dont care about income inequality

Americans cherish the idea of getting rich, admire those who become so, and therefore dont want to upset the income ladder.

Its certainly true that most people hold conflicting opinions about wealth in America. However, it is also true that most Americans just dont have access to information about how extreme inequality really is.

For example, surveys show that the typical American thinks the CEO/average worker wage gap is about 45 to 1. That means if the average worker could afford one home and one car, a CEO could afford 45 cars and 45 homes. Not bad.

Well, the 45 to 1 ratio is true....for 1970. Today the ratio is an incomprehensible 844 to 1 (844 homes to your one!).

Once Americans understand the depth of the runaway inequality problem, they want to reverse these obscene gaps. (If you want to help spread the word see here.)

Myth #6: The Party needs donations from the wealthy

To compete with the well-heeled Republicans it is imperative that the Democrats curry favor with wealthy donors. They have no choice.

The Sanders campaign raised more money than the Clinton machine by relying on an enthusiastic army of small donors. To do so again would require having the party and its candidates take on runaway inequality rather than wishing it away.

Myth #7: Write-off the white working class

The path to victory no longer depends on white working class voters and their declining unions. While white working people wont be ignored entirely, U.S. demographics are trending to people of color. Besides, theres an inherent nationalistic/racist streak that runs through white working people that makes them prone to Trumpism.

Arguably, this is the most pernicious myth. The white working class is far from monolithic. To use the term as a blanket phrase (as liberal columnist Paul Krugman does regularly. see here) is just plain wrong.

While some white working people are indeed anti-immigrant and prone to racism, most are not. In fact millions of these voters supported Obama twice, voted for Bernie in the primaries and then voted for Trump out of sheer frustration. Those Obama-to-Sanders-to-Trump voters are why Hillary lost so much of the Rust Belt (see here.)

These voters can be reached but only if the Democrats break away from their corporate backers and adopt a Sanders-like program. Rather than writing them off, the Party should develop a vast educational effort to engage these disaffected voters in discussion. TV ads and vacuous platform proposals wont work. We need live discussions in educational settings to open up a real dialogue. (If youd like to join in such efforts, see here.)

Will Tom Perez and the Democrats break through these debilitating myths? The jury is out.

Les Leopold, the director of the Labor Institute, is currently working with unions and community organizations to build the educational infrastructure of a new anti-Wall Street movement. His new book Runaway Inequality: An Activist Guide to Economic Justice serves as a text for this campaign. All proceeds go to support these educational efforts.

Read more:
7 Myths That Plague The Democrats - Huffington Post

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Its time for Democrats to admit without equivocation that they lost the 2016 national election. Donald Trump, a man they find utterly contemptible, is Americas 45thpresident. Barring catastrophe, he likely will occupy the White House for the next four years.

Democrats also need to abandon their self-defeating campaign to polarize the American electorate and to block progress on legislation in the new GOP-dominated Congress.

A recent Harris poll has found that nearly three-quarters of the American public wants the Democrats to work with Trumps fledgling administration not to resist it. Thats actually a sobering message for both parties and for Trump.

It means the public wants the politicians to stop the finger-pointing and to begin working together in a bipartisan fashion to get Americas business done.

For Democrats, the risks associated with continued obstructionism are high.GOP dominance of American politics now extends to every level and branch of government from state legislatures and governors mansions (32, one short of the number needed to call for a Constitutional Convention) to the White House and soon, very likely, the US Supreme Court.

And the Democrats short-term prospects are bleak:In the 2018 mid-term elections, the Party faces the prospective loss of 10 or more Senate seats in states that Trump won five of them by double-digits.

But Democrats could actually get back in the game if they decided to work with Trump.Despite his conservative rhetoric, his governing agenda is not in lockstep with the GOPs and they know it.

Trump ran as a Republican, and naturally owes strong allegiance to the GOP. But hes no die-hard Republican and never has been. Why drive him into the arms of the GOP by refusing to work with him in areas where mutual compromise is clearly possible?

Of course, on hot button issues like abortion and immigration, Democratic base groups, including feminists and Latinos, see Trump as anathema. The very thought of cooperation of normalizing Trump is repugnant

But it shouldnt be.

Take foreign policy. For all his bombast and apparent Russophilia, Trumps instincts are decidedly non-interventionist. Like Obama, and unlike Bush, he clearly eschews the use of U.S. invasion forces to topple oppressive regimes. Like Obama, he is fond of US special operations forces and clandestine intelligence operators to do Americas military bidding when necessary.

Shorn of its hyper-nationalist sloganeering, America First looks a lot like Smart War, in fact.

On entitlements, Trump, unlike the GOP, is no big fan of reform. He largely supports the current Social Security system. In fact, thats one of the reasons he ran away with the over-55 vote last November.

And unlike most Republicans, Trump has said repeatedly that he supports womens reproductive health just not federal monies for abortion. Planned Parenthood, to its credit, is trying to figure out how to hold Trump to his promise.

On immigration, Trumps agenda even the wall shows more continuity with past bipartisan proposals than Democrats care to admit. Trump rightly cites the 1996 Jordan Commission on Immigration Reform instituted by Bill Clinton as well as 2006 legislation supported by the likes of Obama and Hillary Clinton for inspiration.

Democrats should strike a deal:Agree to a complete overhaul of the visa system plus expanded border and especially workplace enforcement the latter, long a missing pillar. But insist that Trump give the Dreamers the children of illegal immigrants who arrived in the US as children through no fault of their own a chance to stay.

Trump has already decided not to rescind Obamas executive order. Its an opening, Take it, and try to expand the groups including the 20-year long-stayers, illegals with deep roots in American society to which it might also apply.

And what of the wall?As Trump well knows, there are sections of the border that will not permit construction of a physical barrier, not even a fence.But through a combination of measures, and by drawing Mexico into expanded joint enforcement, outstanding gaps in the current border security system can be filled.

Labor rights is another area for potential cooperation.The GOP insists on a sweeping right-to-work agenda, but Trump is already on record supporting an increase in the minimum wage. He seems ready to give Americas building trades and other unions a huge role in the repair of Americas crumbling infrastructure a big-ticket funding item that will yield gains for both parties.

Trump and the Democrats do have areas of disagreement, most obviously Obamacare, but only in principle. Trump has already come out in opposition to eliminating the laws most popular features. Thats one reason the White House and the GOP have punted on further action on repeal for now.

Democrats need to get out of denial: The country has tilted sharply conservative and wants to give Trump a chance to govern. Working with Trump to fashion the semblance of a policy consensus on key issues might help Democrats become part of an expanded political center. Over time, it might even help drive a wedge between Trump and much of the GOP.

Displays of defiance and militancy are certainly cathartic for Democrats.They expected to win last November and theyre still grieving.But continuing to live in a political fantasy world the same besetting evil of which they accuse Trump promises only more disarray.

Read the rest here:
Democrats: Work With Trump Or Risk Further Disarray - Daily Caller

Maryland Democrats enlisted retired Rep. Barney Frank, one of the architects of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, to bring some national party support to their latest proposal to hold the Trump administration to account.

Democrats in the General Assembly are proposing to create a commission to look out for moves in Washington to undo Dodd-Frank and other financial rules put into place as a response to the economy-wrecking housing crisis of 2008. President Donald J. Trump has said he thinks the regulations stop banks from being able to make as many loans, hurting businesses.

Del. Bill Frick, the House Majority leader and sponsor of the legislation, introduced Frank and an Obama-era Treasury official to a committee hearing as financial protection "luminaries."

Frank, who represented a district in Massachusetts for three decades before retiring in 2013, told Maryland lawmakers he appreciated their efforts. Frank has spoken out repeatedly in defense of the law he championed in recent weeks, but said it's the first time he's come to a state capitol to testify on a piece of legislation connected to it.

"I would hope it would be done widely because people tend to take certain things for granted," he told members of the House Economic Matters Committee.

State Democrats have been seeking ways to use the new president as a foil. Trump was deeply unpopular in Maryland in the November election and remains so, according to a poll released last week. With deep differences between many Democrats and the administration in Washington over policies including on immigration, the environment and health care state Democrats want to motivate supporters as they plot to unseat popular Republican Gov. Larry Hogan next year.

Ahead of Trump making an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, more than 100 people rallied on Lawyers Mall by the State House in Annapolis, waving signs showing, variously, support for Planned Parenthood, backing of the Affordable Care Act and opposition to fracking.

The House of Delegates and the state Senate moved quickly this month to pass a resolution empowering Attorney General Brian E. Frosh to sue the federal government and have pressed the governor to take public positions on national issues. Democrats also back a suite of legislative measures to blunt the impacts of policy changes made by Trump, including a bill that would prohibit law enforcement agencies in Maryland from aiding deportation efforts.

The financial regulation commission idea is one modest part of that package. It would create a small body of lawmakers and members of the public to scrutinize moves in Washington to deregulate banks and other financial institutions and require it to report back to the General Assembly with ideas on how to blunt those changes. The commission itself would not have any regulatory powers.

Sen. Jim Rosapepe, the bill's sponsor in the upper chamber, said at a news conference that undoing the protections in the Dodd-Frank law would "unleash the wolves of Wall Street again."

"Delegate Frick and I have introduced this legislation to set up a watchdog to protect Marylanders from President Trump's plan to deregulate Wall Street and endanger Marylanders as we were endangered 10 years ago," he said.

Senate Minority Leader J.B. Jennings, a Republican who represents Baltimore and Harford counties, called the effort "wasted time." Trump, he said, can't repeal Dodd-Frank without Congress.

"Checks and balances are keeping everything in line. The travel ban, guess what? The courts interceded and it stopped. People need to take a deep breath, and, again, let our ... members of Congress, let them do their job. Legislators in Annapolis, let them stay focused on issues in the state of Maryland."

Mileah Kromer, a political scientist who runs the Goucher Poll, said Democrats need to be careful to strike the right balance between taking positions on national issues while shaping policies that address the concerns of Maryland residents.

Polling results Kromer released Monday showed that about a quarter of respondents think Democrats in Maryland are spending too much time talking about Trump's early executive actions, with about a third saying they have the balance right and a further quarter saying they're doing too little. The risk, Kromer said, is nudging people from the second category into the first.

"They'll have to pick and choose their battles," she said.

Republican lawmakers and the governor's office have said that they're focused on Maryland and have urged their Democratic colleagues to follow suit.

Financial regulation also might be a poor vehicle for exciting voters. While banking policies have important economic consequences and have become a staple issue on the left, they're harder to grapple with than job creation programs or policies to revitalize manufacturing.

Frank, though, said there is a role states can play in keeping an eye on banks and setting rules for them to play by. Before the financial crisis, the federal government had taken much power away from the states, Frank said, but the Dodd-Frank bill handed a great deal of it back.

"We restored to the states significant power," Frank said.

Baltimore Sun reporter Erin Cox contributed to this article.

iduncan@baltsun.com

twitter.com/iduncan

Continued here:
Barney Frank joins Maryland Democrats pushing bill to scrutinize Trump on banks - Baltimore Sun

Seeking a path back to power in Congress, Democrats first want to hold on to the governorship in Virginia this year. Then theyre setting their sights in 2018 on crucial governors contests in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

The targeted races are part of a strategy by a new Democratic coalition led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that aims to undo what he denounces as the rigged political process that has favored Republicans since congressional and state legislative districts were redrawn after the 2010 Census.

To win in Washington, Democrats have come to believe that they must first gain ground locally through elections for governors and state legislators, court cases or ballot initiatives. Most governors elected in 2017 and 2018 will still be in office when the next round of redistricting occurs after the 2020 Census, wielding a potential veto pen over maps drawn by legislatures.

Democratic-backed legal challenges to the current districts in some states also could set new precedents for how redistricting must occur nationally. And in some states, Democratic-aligned groups are considering state ballot initiatives that could diminish the power of legislatures to draw districts, instead entrusting the process to bipartisan or independent commissions.

Republicans won a 241-194 majority over Democrats in last years U.S. House elections, claiming more than 55 percent of the seats even though they edged Democrats by just 1 percentage point in the nationwide popular vote. Holder contends that disproportionate ratio is partly the result of partisan gerrymandering engineered by Republicans, who now control about two-thirds of all state legislatures.

The will of the people, I think, has ultimately been frustrated both at the state level and at the federal level, Holder said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Because of the way districts are drawn, Holder says it will be difficult for Democrats to regain control of Congress in the 2018 elections during the middle of Republican President Donald Trumps term. But hes hopeful of laying a foundation for future success.

Holder, who was attorney general under former President Barack Obama, is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new alliance of Democratic leaders, unions and progressive groups trying to bolster Democratic prospects ahead of the next round of redistricting.

The mission is simple: Better maps in 2021 than we got coming out of the census in 2010, Holder told a group of reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

He views the effort as a continuation of his work as attorney general protecting voting rights against Republican initiatives such as photo identification requirements, although the new committee will leave it to others to challenge such laws.

Obama also will be involved in the redistricting effort and already has helped with fundraising, Holder said. He declined to say how much money has been raised so far.

The Democratic initiative is modeled after the Republicans successful Redistricting Majority Project, which contributed to a wave of state legislative and gubernatorial victories in 2010. Those new Republican majorities then were able to control the 2011 redistricting, helping to lock in favorable political maps for years to come.

Since then, Republicans have seized even more states, now controlling the governorship and full legislature in 25 states while total Democratic control has diminished to about a half-dozen states. Republicans contend their dominance is due primarily to superior candidates and issues, not manipulated maps.

Right now, the Democrats are in their nightmare scenario, and theyre responding with talented strategists and fundraisers, said Matt Walter, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee.

But he said if Democrats take a top-down approach to targeting local races, well continue to win.

Many Democrats say the party failed to focus enough on local candidates during Obamas tenure. Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez is pledging to rebuild the party at all levels, from the school board to the Senate.

Holders redistricting initiative is dividing states into four tiers, focusing foremost on those with the largest gaps between the partisan popular votes and seats won, and where Democrats can have the greatest impact by winning a key election or court battle. At the bottom are states with few members of Congress, unlikely to flip to Democrats or where there is little ability to influence the redistricting process.

Among their top targets is Virginia, where Democratic congressional candidates received about 16,000 more votes than Republicans last November yet won just four of the states 11 U.S. House seats. Even that marked a gain: Democrats flipped one Republican seat after a federal appeals court ordered new district boundaries because too many black voters had been packed into a single district under the Republican-drawn maps.

Democrats want to retain the governors office, now held by term-limited Gov. Terry McAuliffe, to provide leverage during the 2021 redistricting against a state legislature currently led by Republicans.

A similar scenario exists in Michigan, where Republican congressional candidates edged Democrats by a single percentage point in last years statewide vote yet won 9 of the 14 districts, which were drawn under a GOP legislature and governor. Democrats are taking a three-pronged approach: considering filing suit against the current districts; backing a ballot initiative to change the future redistricting process; and trying to win the governors office being vacated by term-limited Republican Rick Snyder.

There are a lot of big governors races in states where maps are particularly egregious, said Kelly Ward, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Where Republicans control the state legislature, those governors are essential to get a Democrat at the table in the redistricting process, she added.

Governors races also will be the top targets for Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two places with Republican state legislatures where GOP congressional candidates received a mid-50s percent share of the statewide vote yet won around 75 percent of their U.S. House seats.

Florida is another high-stakes state, with a term-limited Republican governor in 2018, a GOP-led state legislature and a 16-11 Republican advantage in U.S. House seats.

Republicans will be mounting similar offensives in Illinois and Maryland, hoping to hold on to GOP governorships as a redistricting buffer against Democratic-dominated state legislatures that drew congressional maps in their favor after the 2010 Census.

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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

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Follow David A. Lieb at: http://twitter.com/DavidALieb

Excerpt from:
Democratic effort led by ex-AG Holder targets swing states - The Seattle Times