James E. Clyburn
@repjamesclyburn.bsky.social
“I hope everyone takes a good hard look at this picture. Trump’s under-construction ballroom is now bigger than the rest of the White House. Much bigger. The contrast says everything you need to know about this President and his priorities.” – James E. Clyburn
MAGA did this. Never forget.
Despite a massive, historic, I would even say miraculous win over MAGA last Tuesday all across America, the beltway and corporate media, (some say the “legacy” media), seem intent upon reviving their tried and true “Democrats in disarray!” narrative. They haven’t quite got there yet and we shouldn’t help them.
We should be cognizant that public intra-party infighting helps the media turn away from the shellacking that happened to MAGA on Tuesday. It’s off the topic of how the American people rejected MAGA anti-democratic policies when we take their bait and argue amongst ourselves on social media (where they troll for stories). We need to stop letting the media rob us of this time of celebration just because they want to stir up non-troversies.
I’m talking about the beltway press can be seen shoving microphones in the faces of every Democrat in congress new and old, and asking if they support Jakeem Jeffries for speaker (who is running unopposed!). Why no reporters holding up microphones to MAGA members of congress who lost and asking them what they are going to do for a job next year?
Or how do they feel about losing so badly?
Are they lawyering up?
Are they worried about serving jail time?
Do they have any regrets?
What did they learn from the voters?
Will they be issuing an apology to America for everything they’ve done including the insurrection on the capitol?
If they are not sorry, why should we forgive them?
If they are sorry and apologize, how do they plan to make amends?
Because Liz Cheney told us they all knew about it, all the house members knew and even invited constituents to come to DC to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Republicans picked Jim (Gym) Jordan to be their new leader. That’s how serious Republicans are about owning up to their wrong doing. Jim Jordan, everyone. I’m not seeing reporters following Republicans around inquiring about their support for Jim Jordan.
I did see one reporter put a microphone in Mike Johnson’s face and ask a question about the Republican loss to which Johnson replied, “I’m disappointed the voters got it wrong.” That’s MAGA for you.
We can have internal discussions about the direction of the Democratic party, leadership, etc., but we shouldn’t automatically fall for the media bait and just hand them negative story lines. It has only been since Trump that all of a sudden the grassroots think it is our job to weigh in on who the House and Senate members elect to be their leader. Micro-managing congress about who they support for leader didn’t used to be much of a thing until lately. It would have been called in modern vernacular, “not staying in our lane,” before Trump and MAGA drove us all mad. Now we’re all traumatized and over-reacting to everything.
That said, it seems like our side needs to have more information on the topic of the electing of leaders process in congress. AOC, using a white board, does a great job of explaining how things work in the House of Representatives, even if she has to write backwards because she hasn’t done a livestream for awhile.
If you watch, you will hear her say a few times to viewers, “Don’t get mad, I’m just telling you how things work.” AOC starts off by saying the leader’s job is three-fold – legislative, political, organizing a whip operation, and fund raising. The leader’s job is to know how every member in the Democratic caucus is going to vote on any given bill, so they know if they have the votes before bringing it to the floor (something Nancy Pelosi excelled at). Getting votes when the caucus doesn’t yet have them for a bill that Democrats want to pass is another part of the whip operation.
The leader’s job is also to protect the majority for re-election, with input from the members on strategy, because Ds are a broad coalition of progressives Democrats, conservative Democrats, center Democrats. She points out progressives have fewer members, so there’s that.
A big part of protecting the majority is fundraising. AOC impressed upon viewers that even though she herself is a successful fundraiser, there is no comparison as far as how much money the leaders of the party have to raise and how much money Schumer and Jeffries were able to raise. Until we change the system, big piles of cash are required to win elections.
Who would even want to do this job? As it turns out, no one. About this time she points out that in fact nobody wants the speaker job. Saying it without saying it, I understood her to mean: It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
We worked hard to defeat MAGA. As of this writing Scott Colom is about to give his victory speech. He will be the first Black senator from Mississippi in 140 years. That is something to celebrate.
The election may be over, but we didn’t come this far to only come this far. Check out some actions going on this week.
From our inbox from Iowa CCI:
November 12: Statewide Data Center zoom call
Join us from 6:30-7:45pm Thursday, November 12 on Zoom for our next Data Center Organizing call!
We’ll be joined by Harry Cope, a member of Missouri Rural Crisis Center, who decided to run for office when his home county wasn’t listening to residents about data centers. We’ll talk with him about why having the right folks in elected offices is critical to our data center fight.
RSVP to join us here! (Or watch it on the big TV at the CCI Office and help us assemble a mailing! Email us if you want to join us.)
November 16: Adair County Data Center community meeting
Adair County’s current data center moratorium has no end date so long as they are working towards an ordinance. But, we’ve heard that landowners are being approached by developers offering millions of dollars – if they sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) regarding potential “projects” we know nothing about.
Join us in Greenfield on Monday November 16 at 6:30pm to learn more about why we need to keep the moratorium in place until we have a strong ordinance in place. More info and RSVP here.
November 17: Public School Strong Legislative Strategy meeting
We will have a new legislature and Governor and that’s why we need to be “public school strong” going into 2027. At this meeting we’ll analyze the election results and what they mean for our public schools and accountability for private school vouchers. RSVP to join us here!
Iowa’s water crisis crashed the midterms [Sentient Media]
You want regulation? Ok. [Life with Machines]
Texas, Iowa, Georgia brace for new education fights under Democratic governors [The Hill]
November 8, 2026 [Letters from an American]
Enough with the “public option” already [Jacobin]
(What we’re watching) A maverick candidate reflects on Iowa’s water woes and his bid for Secretary of Agriculture [The New Lede]
Veterans for Peace
Forwarded from our friend Ed Flaherty, veteran and peace activist
It is a new day in America. Time to get back to an issue that once had a robust movement and needs revived: media reform.
Today I’m posting a video talk by Robert McChesney, co-founder of Free Press and co-author with John Nichols of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America, and most recently authored Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy. McChesney passed away last March, 2025. Click here for more information about Robert McChesney.
I’ve posted on his work here previously but I stumbled upon this talk he gave in 2020, on the history of newspapers in America and why the post office is in the constitution, shared by Media and Democracy Project. Still relevant today, more than ever. Here is a brief excerpt for followers that like to read. This seems really important and not widely known.
“You cannot be a free society without an independent press.
All the freedoms in the constitution were predicated on having a free press. But a free press meant a citizen has a right to have access to all sorts of information to make their own opinion and to consume that information and take advantage of it… it wasn’t just for rich people to make money.
If you study the founding of the country from Jefferson and Madison to Thomas Payne to Franklin, across the spectrum – that is arguably the single most important issue they dwell on. They said, if we’re going to have a free society where we actually let people vote and be in control of society we have to have an independent press…and so realizing it wasn’t going to happen on its own, they instituted a subsidy to make it easy to start newspapers. That was the postal subsidy.
Ironically, with all the attacks on the post office today, the post office was created primarily to speed up the development of a free press. Over 90% of the traffic of the post office was newspapers. Virtually every newspaper in America was delivered by the post office for the first hundred years in American history.
Mostly delivering newspapers, that’s what the post office did. The post office is in the constitution for this reason. One of the great issues is what to charge newspapers to be mailed. And they elected to basically subsidize it at an enormous amount to make it virtually free to distribute newspapers in the country because they, as Madison put it, any charge for postage would be a censorship because it would make it harder for some to publish. And to his credit, as he noted, the first papers to go under would be the dissident papers, the marginal papers. Those were exactly the papers you need to have in a free society in a democracy.
So this is something as Americans we should be proud of. This is part of our tradition. Because of the postal subsidies we had a newspaper system in the 19th century that was the envy of the world. Every great social movement was built around the ability to have newspapers that were sent virtually free through the mail. The abolitionist movement, the suffragette movement, the labor movement, every immigrant group. They depended upon those subsidies for their news media and all political organizing in the 19th century was done by newspapers and periodicals. That’s how you built a base and how you kept it. It was central to it.
The great heroes, Frederick Douglas, editor. Susan B. Anthony, editor. The political organizer was basically doing newspapers, reaching out to people. That’s what you were.
The subsidy of newspapers made it possible for ten times more newspapers to exist than would have been the case otherwise. The genius of the subsidy was, everyone got it, didn’t matter what the content was. The government didn’t pick winners and losers, everyone got it.
What happened by the end of the 19th century…” – Robert McChesney
McChesney gave a lecture in Iowa City in 2014. He talked about why we need public funding for journalism. I attended and wrote a post about it. Ironically, there was no local newspaper coverage. McChesney was also an organizer of the National Conferences on Media Reform that were sponsored primarily by Freepress.net and used to happen every other year up until 2013. We need a renewed media reform movement in America.
Sign up for this virtual event by Media and Democracy Project. A Celebration and a Path Forward
Robert Garcia says “Lawyer Up!” 1.5 minutes:
Just a short message on this. Democrats were elected to put our systems of laws back in order among other things. It will be extremely important that they make astrong showing that we are once again a nation of laws and if you do the crime you WILL be held accountable, no matter who you are! Period.
So, Congress member Garcia, Please Proceed!
A Trump voter sees the light: (4 minutes):
The Democratic Party has elected Governors named Keisha, Gina, Deb and Rob. We have senators named Josh, Abdul and Juliana. Said another way we have women at the highest powers in their states, including black women, white women and Latina women. We have people of almost every background, religion and sexual orientation elected to office. In short the Democratic Party looks like the America it represents. Just could not be prouder.
Among those elected are many with backgrounds that would not indicate they would ever reach such heights. Iowa’s own Christina Bohannon and Josh Turek are two such notable success stories. So let’s see if this fish-mash of mutts can mold itself into a group that will work for the average American and Iowan. Methinks that if they are not focused on grifting like Republicans are, then YES yjry can get some work done for us. Ahhhh! The Audacity of Hope rears its ugly head again.
My only complaint is that I won’t get that $5,000 check from Trump! {this is sarcasm folks}
A) To bring us back to earth, what somber holiday do we celebrate Wednesday?
B) One race that few expected Democrats would have any chance of winning is still not called in what former confederate stronghold?
C) Surprises galore across the country including here in Iowa where Brenna Bird was ousted as AG by what attorney who promised to work for Iowa’s common person?
D) Vote Early was the message and many did. This strategy was illustrated vividly in Texas where what senatorial candidate had more votes in the tank than his opponent got in total?
E) How many of us greeted our spouses on waking Wednesday morning with a cheery “Merry Christmas”?
F) Among problems Democrats must deal with will be measles which topped what case number this week?
G) Former candidate Haley Stevens in Michigan stole the spotlight the Sunday before the election by endorsing who for the Michigan senate seat?
H) Remember the big push by Trump to gerrymander many state congressional districts to make them safe Republican districts in this election? How did that work out?
I) In a somewhat humbling story, Voyager 1 will achieve what milestone in 10 days?
J) Five black governors were elected in this election. Can you remember who was the first elected black governor and when?
K) Similarly who was the first elected female black governor and when?
L) The DOJ is trying to stop what star witness from being deposed during discovery in Trump’s $10B lawsuit against what news organization?
M) What common place appliances in stores are being targeted by computer hackers around the world?
N) Going – Going – Gone? Tesla announced it would stop production of what much maligned vehicle in the middle of next year?
O) Two senate races are yet to be called as of this writing. Do you know where?
P) Eric Armstrong of Iowa did something very unusual in the midterm elections. Do you know what he did?
Q) Measles deaths were recorded in what 3 states last week?
R) A native American woman was elected as governor of what state in the midterms?
S) A native American woman was elected to the US senate from what state?
T) ‘I voted’ stickers were placed at shrines that honored what two Ameican citizens who were assassinated by ICE units last winter?
Trump got regime change in Texas before Iran – Jose Aguiar
A Mexican taking Greg Abbott’s job is absolutely PEAK – Chicano Post
tip of the hat to all-hat-no-cattle.com
tip of the hat to all-hat-no-cattle.com
1 minute:
An old friend gave me a call the other day. It was right after the election. He had a question and didn’t know who to ask, so he thought he’d give me a try. After the election he was wondering how the US ever got to the point where we are one of few countries in the world – and the only wealthy one – to not have Universal health Care? Why doesn’t the US have universal health care?
“Geez” I said, “that’s and easy one. First it is because of racism. The old lie that we’d be given something to someone who doesn’t deserve it {wink, wink}. That is the big reason plus some longstanding lies about health habits and morality among minorities. Reason number two is the huge amount of wealth that is extracted through the insurance system. You think those folks are going to give up a cash cow where they get extremely wealthy just by denying use of the health care system to average folks. What a great system they got. And all they have to do is buy – I mean ‘donate’ to political candidates.”
“I knew you’d have a different answer.” he said. “Why did you say race?”
I am a little bit older than he is. So I said “I grew up in a different era than you. The racism was very blatant in those days. ’They don’t deserve it’ and such stuff was heard many times daily. BTW do you know when universal health care was first proposed in the US?” I asked feeling pretty sure he had no idea. And he did have no idea.
So I told him it was back when Teddy Roosevelt was president. “Teddy Roosevelt?!” he said. “Holy smokes!” And I said “think of the racial climate back then. Many folks haven’t moved on from there.”
He simply said that what I said made sense and he would need to think hard about it.
Then I hit him with one more. “Did you know that Mexico will begin universal health care for its citizens in January 2027? You know Trump thinks of Mexico as one of his ’shithole’ countries. I think the universal healthcare is one sign that a country is pretty high up on the civilization chart. So that should be a real embarrassment for the US vis-a-vis Mexico.”
“I’ve never heard that” he said. ‘Yeah” I replied, “I can bet there is a lot of things you have never heard. I can bet when Mexico transistions that if we hear anything about their new system it will be portrayed as bad by our news media.” I said. “After all they are like the insurance companies where thay are making a bundle on the current system where they lie to you.”
He then started listing his outrageous insurance bills, and co-pays and deductibles. He has a diabetic daughter so his insurance and co-pays etc are a huge burden. “Well” I said, ”join me in fighting for universal health care. You got nothing to lose.”
Iowa – you are probably very lucky you passed on this guy. Maybe I am overly sensitive to the Republican dog whistles that they seem to sneak into every speech, but when Lahn mentions “defend our culture” my hackles went up immediately. Remember he is a product of the Koch brothers and as such probably in reality has little care or regard for Iowa except for what he can extract from us. 3 minutes:
Lahn is just an example of the poor quality of candidate that Republicans drew across the state and the nation at all levels. You only have to move one square from Zach Lahn to get to Derek Wulf as a major illustration of the candidate quality that the Republicans put up and apparently are satisfied with. A carpetbagger and a guy one step ahead of the law
Starting at the top is the worst president ever. This is a man convicted of 34 felonies. This is also a man who is using the presidency to enrich himself much as tyrants of old. One thing Trump demands is unquestioning loyalty and he got it in spades from candidates such as Ashley Hinson, Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn and Brenna Bird.
As Trump’s behavior and utterances became more and more extreme candidates such as mentioned above had to compromise any semblance of integrity because loyalty to their leader was much more important than their morality. Candidates who are thus compromised will eventually be outed.
Iowa also had an incumbent for Attorney General (Brenna Bird) whose mission seemed to be based on MAGA demands with little thought of the effects on Iowans. Iowans paid close attention when the Democrat ( Nate Willems) said that he would use the office to help the common Iowan. Bird must’ve thought that to be a very novel concept.
At the US congress level, Republican candidates couldn’t cozy close enough to Trump until suddenly this summer they couldn’t remember Trump’s name. When one and all tried to trumpet their legislative accomplishments it was like Mother Hubbard – the cabinet was empty. The only thing Republicans did in two years was to give huge tax cuts to the rich paid for with punishing policies for the average Iowan. That’s a pile of poo that was really hard to sell.
Of course Iowa’s story was a story that was repeated over and over throughout the country. Republicans had more than one candidate that was just a step ahead of the law. Most of their candidates were so out of touch with their constituents that they seemed to think taking food and health care from children – FROM CHILDREN! – was what the people wanted.
So you combine really lousy, out of touch leadership with really lousy candidates, some of whom are a step ahead of the law and add in terrible policies that include tariffs based on whims, foreign policies that favor right wing oligarchs and domestic policies that punish citizens while greatly favoring the wealthy and add in a large dose of racially biased legal and immigration system and you have a stench of a brew to sell the public. Thank goodness the public ain’t buying.
What they were buying were candidates who stand for the rule of law, that stood for decency and respect for all Americans and stood for returning our economy to a level playing field.
Now we have lots of problems to fix as the opposition will continue to use their money and power and their ownership of the media to do all they can to obstruct a country that they have wrecked and molded into a country that greatly favors the 1%. Expect a tough fight and expect the media to be very biased toward the wealthy.
A great start will be to root out the most corrupt government ever.
But we can and must win. Be prepared to get involved as we prepare for 2028. The race is on already. Dems must win in 2028 to finish what they start in 2027.
We’ve Only Just Begun (3 minutes):
