DL Open Thread: Thursday, June 26, 2025

Bernie Nails It.  So obvious, yet corporadems are so addicted to corporate cash:

Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn’t just him. What he understood and understands — campaign’s not over — is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign. So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people and you go out and you knock on doors. And if somebody like a Kamala Harris had not listened to her consultants and done that, she would be president of the United States today.

So number one, he ran a strong grassroots campaign around the progressive agenda. They go together. You cannot run a grassroots campaign unless you excite people. You cannot excite people unless you have something to say. And he had a lot to say. He said that he wants to make New York City livable, affordable for ordinary people, that the wealthiest people in New York City are going to start to have to pay their fair share in taxes so that you can stabilize the outrageously high costs of housing in New York, which, by the way, is a crisis all over this country. That you could deal with transportation in a sensible way, deal with child care, deal with health care, deal with the needs of ordinary working-class people. So you come up with an agenda that makes sense to people. They get motivated in the campaign. They are prepared to knock on doors. That’s how you win elections.

The entire interview is like that.  Which brings me to–Why Dems Suck: Number Nonillion And Ten:

Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, New Yorkers who lead Senate and House Democrats, congratulated Mr. Mamdani on Wednesday and said they planned to meet with him, but stopped short of an endorsement. Former President Bill Clinton, who backed Mr. Cuomo in the final days of his primary campaign, adopted a similar stance.

But moderate House Democrats who represent suburban swing districts voiced alarm about Mr. Mamdani’s ascension and the repercussions it could have for the national Democratic Party.

Two of them, Representatives Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi, both of Long Island, were quick to distance themselves from Mr. Mamdani on Wednesday.

Mr. Suozzi, whose district covers a sliver of Queens and who endorsed Mr. Cuomo during the primary, said he still had “serious concerns” about Mr. Mamdani, while Ms. Gillen — citing defund the police rhetoric he has since disavowed and his unflinching critiques of Israel — called him “the absolute wrong choice” for New York City.

Is this mic on?  Moderate Democrats are corporacrats.

Oh, the candidate himself?:

“My thinking throughout this primary has been for each and every day to earn the support of another New Yorker with every call I make, every text I send, every conversation that I have,” he said.

“Ultimately, that’s how we got to this point, where we won this race. I’m excited to continue to grow that coalition as the Democratic nominee for this city’s mayoralty, and to show that this is the coalition that will deliver on the most pressing crisis in this city, which is that of affordability.”

Rethugs Go Full Racist While D ‘Moderates’ Dither:

However, it’s not Mamdani’s lack of lawsuits surrounding sexual assault or COVID-19 death cover-ups that have the likes of Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk shaking behind a keyboard. Rather, the two are turning to the tried-and-true Islamophic approaches they know well to attack the 33-year-old making waves across the Big Apple.

For self-proclaimed Islamophobe Loomer, Trump’s shadow tweeted Tuesday that Mamdani “hasn’t even been a US citizen for 10 years. He is literally supported by terrorists.”

Adding to the insanity, she said, “NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0.”

Loomer wrote in response to a separate tweet, “Muslims destroyed NYC on 9/11 and now a Muslim Communist is about to destroy the entire city for eternity.”

There’s more, but you get the drift.  Don’t think it’s gonna work.  In fact, it’ll work about as well as this did:

“Barack Hussein Obama”.

The VA And ‘Munchable’ Contracts.  DOGE, of course, stonewalls:

Senators this week called for a federal investigation into the Trump administration’s killing of hundreds of contracts for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Angus King, a Maine independent, wrote to the agency’s inspector general on Monday asking for an investigation into the administration’s cancellation of the contracts and the consequences for veterans.

The senators highlighted “damning reporting from ProPublica” on the cancellations, including how the Department of Government Efficiency used an artificial intelligence tool that marked contracts as “MUNCHABLE.”

The senators wrote that DOGE’s use of AI to scrutinize contracts “adds an entire new level of unease connected to the decision-making, security, governance, and quality control of the entire process.”

VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts after DOGE’s review but have declined requests by lawmakers and ProPublica for details.

Yep, Special Election In RD 20 Will Be An Inside Job.  Way too many ‘not available for comments’ in this story:

Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer is arguing that party insiders shouldn’t pick the nominee to replace former state Rep. Stell Parker Selby. But Democratic party leaders say the wheels are already in motion, in accordance with state law, to choose a candidate. Legislation changing the law is languishing in committee.

WHYY News tried to contact current Democratic State Party Chair Evelyn Brady, but was told she was unavailable to comment for this story. The Sussex County Democratic Committee will hold a candidate forum July 3. The committee will then choose a candidate, Committee Chair Jeff Balk said. (Meaning, that not even the 20th RD Committee will recommend the candidate, but the entire Suxco Democratic Committee?) Attempts to reach Sussex County Republican Committee Chair Daniel Willis were unsuccessful.

Legislation creating a special primary election process was introduced in May by state Rep. Mara Gorman, D-Newark, and has stalled in a House committee. Apparently a hot potato since the controversy has erupted over Parker Selby’s prolonged absence, Gorman declined to talk to WHYY News about her bill. A House spokeswoman initially said Gorman would answer questions about her bill, but then did not respond to subsequent questions, such as when WHYY would get the answers.

House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown did not respond to a question about whether she supported the bill. Balk declined to comment on it.

A recipe for defeat by exclusion if ever there was one.

What do you want to talk about?