the CIA gains control of the pindo house of reps

Mid-term vote: Demagogs win control of House of Representatives
Patrick Martin, WSWS, Nov 7 2018

The Demagog Party won control of the House of Reps in the mid-term elections on Nov 6, gaining more than the 23 seats required for a majority. With many House races too close to call or with large numbers of votes still uncounted, particularly in states like California and Washington which provide for voting by mail, the five television networks projected a Demagog victory with a gain of 30 seats or more. The Thugs retained control of the Senate, gaining several seats in states where Pres Trump campaigned heavily against Demagog incumbents. It is noteworthy that Demagog senators who capitulated most cravenly to Trump’s vicious persecution of immigrants, such as Joe Donnelly in Indiana and Claire McCaskill in Missouri, lost their races by wide margins. Thugs captured Senate seats in North Dakota and Florida, with seats in Montana, Nevada and Arizona undecided as of this writing. Demagogs made some gains in state governorships, where Thugs held 26 of the 36 statehouses. Demagogs won Thug-held governorships in Illinois, Maine and Michigan and defeated Kris Kobach, the most right-wing anti-immigrant Thug in Kansas, usually a Thug state, as well as Scott Walker, the two-term governor of Wisconsin notorious for his assault on workers’ rights. But Thugs won Ohio and Florida, the two most hotly contested races in large states. The Georgia race could end up sufficiently close to go to a run-off. Among the biggest states, Demagogs retained control of New York, Pennsylvania and California, and Thugs held Texas.

Winning control of the House in no way means a shift to left on the part of the Demagog Party. On the contrary, prominent Demagogs have been at pains to declare their desire for bipartisan collaboration with the Trump administration and the Thug-controlled Senate. A victory celebration saw the geriatric leadership of the House Demagogs take their bows, with some difficulty, before the television cameras: 78-year-old Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, likely to become the next speaker of the House; 79-year-old Steny Hoyer, the House minority whip, in line to become the next majority leader; and 78-year-old James Clyburn, the deputy minority whip, in line to become the next majority whip. Pelosi made a series of vague promises beginning with “restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration” and “stopping the assault on Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act” and on people with pre-existing medical conditions. She listed a series of issues on which back-channel discussions have already begun with the Trump White House, including prescription drug prices and infrastructure. She concluded her remarks with a paean to bipartisan cooperation, declaring, “We’ve all had enough of division,” and claiming that “unity for our country” would be the main goal of the new Demagog-controlled House. She said not a word about the racist campaign against immigrants and refugees that was Trump’s focus in the closing days of the election campaign, or the nationalistic and militaristic character of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. On the latter point, she pledged the Demagogs to “honoring the men and women of our military who guarantee our freedom.” Trump reportedly called Pelosi shortly after her victory statement to congratulate her and discuss future relations between the White House and the Demagog-controlled House.

There are two additional factors, besides the public assurances of the leadership, that underlie the further shift to the right by the Democratic Party. The vast majority of the Republican-held seats captured by the Democrats were in suburban districts with higher incomes and higher education levels than the average. Only a handful were seats in predominantly working class or low-income areas. Equally significant is the background of many of the Demagog candidates who won Thug seats. A large number are drawn from the military intelligence apparatus. We have described them as “CIA Demagogs.” As of this writing, at least nine such candidates were winning seats, including two former CIA operatives, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan; former military officers Max Rose in New York, Mikie Sherill in New Jersey, Chrissy Houlahan and Connor Lamb in Pennsylvania, Elaine Luria in Virginia, and Jason Crow in Colorado; and former State Dept official Tom Malinowski in New Jersey, with several other races still to be decided. These candidates will bring into the Demagog caucus in the House the direct influence of the military intelligence apparatus, ensuring that one of the main areas of activity in the next Congress will be Demagog Party pressure for an even more aggressive foreign policy towards Russia, Syria, Iran and other targets of Pindo imperialism.

The election results set the stage for a further shift to the right in the whole structure of official politics, regardless of the broader shift to the left among working people and young people. The Demagog Party ran on a right-wing pro-capitalist program, offering no significant improvements in jobs, living standards or social benefits for the working class, and it began seeking an accommodation with Trump even before its victory in the House was projected. The Thug Party will move even further to the right, bound even more tightly to Trump, who seeks to lay the basis for a personalist, authoritarian movement of a fascistic character. His domination of the party will only increase. There is massive popular opposition to the right-wing policies of the Trump administration, particularly its attacks on democratic rights and its racist vilification of immigrants and refugees, but within the framework of two equally right-wing corporate-controlled parties, with the Demagog Party demanding a more aggressive foreign policy and massive internet censorship, this opposition could find only extremely limited expression in the heavier election turnout, particularly among young people and, in some states, among minority voters. Perhaps the only unalloyed expression of these popular sentiments came in the Florida referendum on a state constitutional amendment to abolish Florida’s policy of imposing lifetime disenfranchisement on anyone with a felony conviction, which deprives 1.4 million Florida residents of the right to vote, nearly half of them Black. This constitutional amendment passed by a margin of 64% to 36%, clearing the 60% mark required for passage.

Billionaires, corporate money swing toward Demagogs
WSWS, Nov 7 2018

The 2018 mid-terms have been the most expensive congressional elections in Pindo history, with an estimated $5.2b raised and spent by Election Day, according to data collected and reported by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The total not only rose 35% over the previous mid-term record in 2014, it exceeds the money spent on congressional races during the 2016 presidential election year. Significantly, the Demagog Party and affiliated political action committees raked in the lion’s share of the record fundraising. Of the $4.7b spent by the latest reporting period, Demagogs accounted for $2.5b, compared to $2.2b for Thug candidates and committees. Thugs have traditionally enjoyed a massive fundraising edge. Demagogs enjoyed a huge fundraising advantage in the contests for 435 seats in the House, raising $951m compared to $637m for the Thugs, who held the majority of seats, 242 to 193. The Demagog advantage was particularly notable in the 29 seats considered “toss-ups,” where Demagog candidates raised an average of $5.5m apiece, nearly twice the $3m average for the Thugs. Demagogs also held the fundraising advantage in the Senate, $513m to $361m, but that was a smaller edge than in the House and actually represents a significant gain for the Thugs, since the Demagogs had the advantage of incumbency in 26 of the 35 Senate seats that were at stake. Overall, spending by the Demagog Party and associated groups was projected by the CRP to rise 44% over 2014, while the Thug Party and associated groups boosted their spending by only 21%.

Despite the claims that small-dollar donors were the driving force in the Demagog fundraising advantage, on the model of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2016, donations of under $200 accounted for only 16% of the funds raised by House candidates and 27%t of the money raised by Senate candidates, with the latter figure swelled mainly by the small-donor fundraising for Texas Demagog Beto O’Rourke, who raised a colossal $70m for his campaign, more than double the cost of a typical presidential campaign 30 years ago. Among the most significant changes in big-money fundraising is the shift by Wall Street, with the securities and investment sector raising its spending by $100m compared to 2014 and favoring Demagog congressional candidates over Thugs by 52% to 46%. This is the first time Wall Street has favored congressional Demagogs since 2006, the last time the Demagog Party won control of the House. Finance also backed the Demagog Party in 2008, by a margin of 58% to 42%, but the bulk of that funding went to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In 2010, Wall Street swung its funding back to the Thugs, who raked in 69% of the funds from stockbrokers and hedge fund bosses. According to the CRP report:

Sixteen of the top 20 recipients of investment group affiliates are now Democrats, with Sen Claire McCaskill taking the top spot at nearly $2m.

Other industries shifting towards the Demagogs include hospitals and nursing homes, health professionals (doctors) and retail, while software services firms and law firms, already pro-Demagog, increased their contributions as well. The top individual financial supporter of the Republicans was casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who spent $113m in 2018, more than the $93m he spent in support of Thugs in 2012. The second-ranking Thug moneyman was Richard Uihlein, who gave $39m to Thug candidates. These Thug billionaires were matched nearly dollar for dollar by two Demagog billionaires, hedge fund boss Tom Steyer, who spent $51m, and media mogul Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, who pledged $100m and had delivered $38m by the time of the latest filings with the FEC. Self-funding candidates were led by Demagog House candidate David Trone in Maryland, who effectively bought a safe Demagog seat vacated by retirement, spending $16m of his liquor fortune, and Thug Senate candidates Rick Scott in Florida (an estimated $50m) and Bob Hugin in New Jersey ($27m). The amounts of money spent on individual races underscores the oligarchic character of Pindo politics. What passes for democracy in Pindostan is actually the monopoly of the super-rich. For example, Senate contests in Florida and Texas have cost more than $100m, those in Nevada, Arizona, Missouri and Indiana more than $30m.

A Short Take On The Midterm Elections
Moon of Alabama, Nov 7 2018

The mid-term elections in Pindostan had mixed results. Both sides will claim victory. There was no landslide in either direction. The Thugs extended their majority in the Senate while the Demagogs took the House of Representatives. My hunch that the Thugs would keep a majority in the House was wrong. I underestimated the turn-out for the Demagogs. Some 114 million people voted yesterday compared to 88 million in the 2014 midterms. The Demagogs won at least 26 additional seats in the House. They needed 23 seats to gain a majority. Thugs increased their majority of 51 seats in the Senate to at least 54 seats. The Demagogs will chair all House committees and will run dozens of investigations against Pres Trump and his administration. They will subpoena his tax records, launch more ‘Russian collusion’ investigations and will question the ethics of Trump administration members. It will be a lot of political theater with little value. With a solid Thug majority in the Senate there is no chance that Trump will be impeached. Trump’s domestic agenda will be hindered by the new House majority. He may well compensate for that with a more aggressive foreign policy. With more than $5b spent on mid-term election campaigns, the elected people are more indebted to their rich donors than ever before. Florida passed an amendment that will restore the voting rights of some 1.4 million people with past felony convictions. This will change the political landscape. Most of the felons are people of color, often convicted for very minor crimes. In 2016 Trump carried the state by 100,000 votes. Brothel owner Dennis Hof, who died on Oct 16, defeated Demagog Lesia Romanov and wins a seat with the Thugs in the Nevada state assembly. The campaign for the 2020 election has begun.