Third Way's multimillion-dollar offensive threatens Medicare for All, labor rights, climate action, and the progressive movement driving the party's energy…
The problem with the Democratic Party is not Democratic voters. It is the DNC leadership that is the problem For example, they ejected young David Hogg for suggesting the party force retirements among do-nothing Democrat geezers, then about 6 weeks later, the DNC starts enabling Hogg's suggestion to primary geezer Dems into not running again. They cannot seem to let go of Israel right-or-wrong, and insist on clinging to AIPAC money and sustaining Middle East chaos. For crying out loud, Harris likely lost because she said she would continue to support the apparent genocide America was enabling, and still is enabling. Voters are fed up with pointless undeclared wars and paying twice as much for everything. The Party leadership could care less as long as it has millions of AIPAC campaign cash.
I speak out against AIPAC, and I am a Jew. I don't like what is going on in Israel or Lebanon. Netanyahu is a criminal, along with Trump and Putin, and Hegseth can go with them as well. Round them all up and give them to the Hague to deal with. As much as I love my people, all the genocide has to stop. I am not at all happy with any of it.
If the DSA were not to accept AIPAC's Money, what would AIPAC do, contribute it to Trump? Incidentally, the Gaza situation is not genocide; it is a relatively small population (of Middle East Arabs) held at ransom to preserve political power. Real genocide is like what we did to our native Americans.
The DSA will not accept AIPAC money. Some of the Democrats do accept AIPAC money; to each his own. You may not see the genocide, but plenty of us do. Thousands have been killed, mostly women and children. Then there is the matter of all of the Palestinians being held in Israeli jails with no charges for years. And many of them are being tortured. You can read about that here:
Drop Site News<dropsitenews@substack.com> Israel's Brutal Retaliation Against Imprisoned Palestinian Doctors Seeking Legal Appeals
I don't know where you get your news, but I only read independent journalists; the mass media are not always telling the truth. But you need to try Thom Hartmann and Heather Delaney Reese; these two are very good.
Am I the only anti-Trump fly in the Progressive ointment who believes that Hamas, having been the instigator of the Oct 7 massacre, and despite the IDF's overwhelming response (which Hamas was counting upon to whoop up worldwide opinion) should be held responsible for the deaths in Gaza? They could have surrendered unconditionally, like the Germans and Japanese in WW II, to save their people, but they are more concerned with retaining their power... and by golly, it's working!
I think that suggestion is a bit naive. Had Hamas surrendered without any agreement to stop harassing, bullying, and robbing the Gazans, all they would have achieved was firing squads and life in prison, pretty much what Bibi did to all those captured in battles. Circumstances suggest that Bibi seized the pending invasion (massacre?) as an excuse to exterminate Israel's Arab problem. By leveling Gaza, he not only killed or drove out the Palestinian Arabs, but he apparently had a Kushner deal to Riviera the rubble-strewn beache$$$. Having succeeded, Bibi is now trying to annex Lebanon.
PS, both Germany and Japan surrendered because they were defeated in battle. Neither country was trying to merely get concessions from their foreign occupation country.
Thanks for the enlightenment; I guess I always thought of Netanyahu as the hero of Entebbe, and that he could do no wrong for the State of Israel, but the connection with the Kushners (which you pointed out - and I should have known) and the fact that he allowed (or apparently, didn't do much to stop) the October 7 Massacre, does not now leave much doubt as to his intentions. I can no longer support Bibi's position.
For reasons I do not understand, the only time it was mentioned that Mossad, Egypt, CIA, and a couple other nations gave Netanyahu a warning about the pending attack by Hamas was the day after the attack. I never heard it mentioned again. Thus, Biden knew Bibi knew, yet sent the entire 6th Fleet to the rescue. I would not have done that if I were POTUS.
Yes, and thank you for a re-cap of what happened and who is behind it, including the "Republican-lite" brigade in the Democratic hierarchy, principally the Clintons, Obama, Biden, et. al. and their supporting consultants -- Carville at the top.
But, as I have been asking everyone asking me for money, daily, over the last two years:
"What's the !@?& plan?!"
Having worked in business for 40 years, a lot in sales and marketing, Progressives need a message and a strategy to frame that message. And there needs to be a product that can sell.
God, how we could use FDR right now. He knew how to sell....
I think you, Don, feel like I do from reading Thom's post .... Well I'm sorry this is so depressing .....now Democrats have to 'fight' Republicans, Oligarchs with their billions, and now these Democrats titled 'Third Way's, who again are all 'moneyed' folks.....a multimillion-dollar offensive! It's overwhelming and I have to say I'm getting tired of the many politicians asking for donations as well as paying subscriptions and my Food Banks locally need money. I've never experienced anything like this before..... every entity 'on the brink' and needing our money....and then a (criminal) President turning everything solid in the White House into 'Gold'!....I'd better stop now.
Thank you for writing. I am OK with contributing, but I need to know to whom I am sending money. I never heard of most of these "Progressive/Democratic" organizations asking for money.
When asked by someone I do know, like AOC or Bernie, I respond via the email address they used to reach me imploring them to get organized, work to i/d who is reliable, and tell us what is the plan.
I never hear back. I imagine a lot of those email addresses are "one-way" channels only, with no one reading responses... That in itself is a mistake.
We are driving, as a society, 90 miles an hour down a dead end street, and the street is getting very short.
Yes, Democrats need a neo-FDR, a unifying figure, who follows radical policies because circumstances demand them, not because they have an underlying radical ideology.
reading through this I am so thoroughly confused of who is who and what is what its all about. Maybe this is not for the average democrates, that just want normal coverage health care and not like now where we have useless insurance companies taking high premiums and high deductables and covering nothing. Its insane that CEO`s are making huge bonuses and regular people are dying from not getting the treatment they need to survive, and that is excatly why a CEO got murdered and so many people thought the guy that did the shooting was a hero and it shows we are sick and tired of these insurance companies are being able to conduct business that way. So how can we get information that is understandable and give a clear advise on what to do and how to go about it. This is just the tip of the problems in america, that we regular democrates are unhappy with. One huge thing Ive heard from many others, is why didnt anyone on the higher rang of democrates do something when both Trump and Elon Musk admitted they used Elon`|s technology to change the outcome of votes in 2 swing states. If they cheated why wasnt it investigated, like trump went through in the previous election and we paid so much for numereous counting of votes like in AZ, and there was no cheating. Why isnt something being done about this world wide scandal of a criminal running our country, stealing our tax dollars for his elaborate lifestyle. This is probably not the place to discuss this,I just dont know where to address this huge problem.
I think the Republicon Brahmins ought to remember something said by our Irish Brahmin president, that is, JFK. He said it about Latin America but it seems all too applicable to us today:
"Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Hey GOP, like the idea of your heads being held up with the ancient roar, 'Behold the head of a traitor!'?
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory is as epic as Zorhan Mamdani’s. The Repugnicans, the Third Way types, the feckless establishment corporate Democrats, perhaps united in their desire for power over the populace, are offering up increasingly transparent, hysterical, self-serving rhetoric in response (“commies!”). Repugnican incompetence and corruption, met by chronic Democratic acquiescence, are making the case for fundamental reform - and discrediting the notion of moderate, centrist, counterproductive “bi-partisanship”, the disingenuous call of those dedicated to safeguarding the status quo. The recent victories of DSA and DSA-leaning candidates reveal a growing hunger for a national rebirth. Every utterance by every nay-sayer of either party must be heard for the reactionary lie it is. Mega donors, most notably AIPAC, dark money from multiple sources, Repugnicans, DINOs, are losing to a grass roots movement that won’t be stopped. We’re on the right course.
Wow, Thom. This piece landed especially hard for me because at this very moment I’m listening to your book--Who Killed the American Dream? and can't put it down. There, and here, you connect the historical dots in a way that makes our present moment so much easier to understand.
I grew up in the America you’re describing. My father was a union worker. My parents were able to buy a home, raise a family, send their children to college, and believe that if we worked hard, our lives could be better than theirs. That wasn’t socialism. That was the American Dream—and public policy and organized labor helped make it possible for millions of ordinary families like mine.
What troubles me most about the Third Way offensive you describe is the idea that the Democratic Party should respond to this moment by moving closer to the very corporate interests that helped create the economic inequality Americans are rebelling against. I spend my days with college students. I don't see them rejecting democracy; I see them asking why it so often seems incapable of delivering for them and for ordinary people. They’re asking why health care can bankrupt a family, why college means decades of debt for them, why housing is increasingly beyond their reach, and why billionaires and corporations have so much more influence over their government than they do.
Your book and your articles here and on the Commonwealth Report have helped me understand something that connects so much of what I care about and have been writing about: we cannot repair our democracy without confronting the enormous concentration of economic and political power that has hollowed it out.
The awareness you're raising gives me something increasingly precious in this dark moment: Hope. Understanding how we got here reminds us that none of this was inevitable. These were choices, policies and decisions made over decades—and different choices can be made over the next ones.
Your work is an important reminder that if enough Americans understand how we allowed corporate and billionaire power to overwhelm the power of ordinary citizens—and refuse to accept this emerging oligarchy as irreversible—we can reclaim not only the American Dream, but the democracy that made it possible.
Donald Trump has launched a new federal review. This review threatens the future of how California’s coastline is managed. Trump is proposing to expand offshore oil drilling and restart offshore oil pipeline infrastructure. To comment on this insane proposal please communicate with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There are two ways to do this.
Include “Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program” in the subject line. Written and email comments received by 11:59 p.m. PT on August 22, 2026, will be accepted.
All comments must be received by 8/22/26
My comment
Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program
NOAA Office For Coastal Management,
I am very concerned about the Trump Administration’s plan to renew drilling and exploration for oil and gas off the coast of California. The administration wants to give lease sales to oil corporations that would allow them to drill and use seismic exploration across huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean.
This will expose whales, dolphins, fish, seabirds and fragile marine habitats to risks from oil spills and seismic exploration. If finalized, these lease sales could allow oil companies to drill across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean—putting marine wildlife, coastal communities at risk. It would very likely accelerate the worse effects of climate change
The results of oil drilling and exploring for oil off the California coast have already been disastrous. In 1969, a blowout of a Union Oil drilling rig platform off the coast of Santa Barbara resulted in a spill of 4.2 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean and onto nearby shores.
In 1971, 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel spilled in San Francisco Bay. In Huntington Beach in 1990, the American Trader oil tanker spilled more than 416,000 gallons of crude oil, killing an estimated 3,400 birds. On May 19, 2015 a crude oil pipeline spilled 100,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. On October 1, 2021, a pipeline from an Amplify Energy oil platform off the Orange County coast leaked oil into the ocean and onto beaches.
California’s economy is very dependent on tourism and fishing. In Fort Bragg, California the fishing industry has already declined severely because of low numbers of fish that can be found off the coast. Fisherman have to sail farther and farther away from land to find fish.
President Trump’s proposed increase of oil exploration and extraction would result in more spills and pollution. That would make the California coastline less appealing and lower significantly the number of tourists that come here to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
More use of fossil fuels for energy is the wrong direction. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Domestic oil production is at 90 percent of America’s all-time, pre-pandemic high, and the U.S. is producing more than twice as many barrels of oil per day as it produced in 2008.
Our country must switch to renewable energy sources consisting of: solar, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, biomass energy and conservation to address the effects of climate change (global warming). Big new oil projects are not fast, safe or long-term solutions.
Climate change’s higher temperatures are already devastating many states in the U.S. They have caused numerous wildfires in the U.S, Canada, Spain, France and Greece. They have caused the most severe water crisis in U.S. recorded history. This is due to megadrought and a record low snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
The Colorado River supplies water to approximately 40 million people in seven states. It is 20 percent lower than when the Colorado River water was first divided up. California, Arizona and Nevada will be forced to lower their water use between 16 and 20 percent through 2028. All This will cause less food to be grown in the U.S.
Increasing leasing and permitting rates even beyond their current historically high levels will lock the United States into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come. The U.S. must invest in clean, renewable energy sources to lower energy prices and address climate change.
If only we had an educated audience. I am afraid that many many find all the info they need on their American Dildo. What’s climate change? Oh, that can’t bother me!!! Duh duh duh 🙄
Thank you for highlighting this “third way” group. I hadn’t heard about it but it suddenly makes sense of the weak DNC and establishment democrats in congress. The dots are starting to connect up! We must not only fight off Trumps evil crime syndicate but the corporate democrats as well. Government for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, not the oligarchs!
Like Cory Booker who I basically like. But he is from New Jersey and takes huge money from pharmaceutical PACS in NJ who he is beholden to. That’s how it works.
The Greens and Working Families Party should not be scapegoated here for causing corporate Democrats to lose to evangelical/corporate Republicans. Those minority parties were the vanguard of a resurgent Left that is now poised to take over the Democratic party and restore its populist progressive identity. That causes the corporate accommodationists to panic and throw money at the "problem" of the people standing up for themselves.
Bill Clinton, a Republican in Democratic clothing, his wife was /is no different. if she had beat Trump, I am sure that would have been the end of progressivism in the Democratic Party, as is her loss kept progressivism alive and growing. This is the first election in which progressive candidates are beating "moderates" and so call "moderates" are lining up with Republicans to blast progressives with filthy negative adds.
With friends like that you don't need enemies. Looking at you Gretchen Whitmer, Debbi Stabinow
The morbidly rich and corporate billionaires have long been hedging their bets by supporting both party candidates. It’s always good to have a friend in politics and it’s always good for a few favors in a tight vote in Congress. Now, they are just being blatant with their “contributions” but it’s still not always evident who owes who and what “favors” will be granted.
The DNC and the billionaires are now seeing how a lot of people are on to them, and are supporting candidates who do not take PAC money, and do not owe “favors” to the big corporations who control them.
It’s important that people understand that politicians who take corporate PAC money, no matter what the explanation of need is, owes something to the corporate donor—not the people. Regardless of Citizens United, corporations are not persons, and their interests do not coincide with the best interest of the general public, but rather to quarterly profits, laws that allow them to pollute, and continued profitable management of health insurance, and prison for profit.
Why are status quo Democrats fighting progressives/socialist. Beyond Stupid. Working together to bomb the Republicans in midterms would a far more worthy endeavor. Not playing well together could very well give midterms to Project2025. After all, not playing well together was a factor in bring Trump II to us in 2024. Grow up, all of you.
As much for my own benefit as for anyone else’s, let me see if I can give a synopsis of what "The Third Way" was and is about. By the late 1990's, a majority of Americans had been brainwashed into supporting Reagan’s explanation for America’s problems. According to him, the lazy were feeding at the welfare trough, and big government was obliterating personal freedom and free enterprise, and what was needed was to unleash the power of free enterprise by cutting regulations and controls on corporations and letting the engine of industry regenerate America. The problem with this, of course, is that Unfettered Capitalism is not set up to satisfy human need. It is set up to maximize profits.
Nevertheless, moderates like Clinton saw the writing on the wall and made peace with Reaganomics as far as privatization and de-regulation. They claimed they would still advocate for the weakest among us. Only the second part of this equation never happened. Unfettered Capitalism was unleashed, but Republicans blocked any Democratic support for social welfare programs and went ahead and gutted support for the poor.
But a lot of this can be seen, not as a miscalculation by the Democrats, but as a compromise that “The Third Way” Democrats made in order to find a substitute for the financial support of Labor that they had lost with the decline of labor unions. Democrats turned to business to fund their campaigns, and ”The Third Way” represented their need to compromise their values to get corporate money.
But then Bernie Sanders came along and demonstrated another way. He proved that taking corporate contributions was not only a bad idea, but he demonstrated that it was not necessary because the American people would fund campaigns directly themselves. But these "Third Way" democrats, who are still hanging on to the hypocrisy that corporate funding is necessary, are pretty threatened by candidates who, because they are not taking money from corporate donors, do not need to compromise their values or the true needs of the American working class. So, these contemporary Third Way-ers are lining up with Trump and Maga by yelling and screaming about a Commy takeover.
There is no Commy takeover. There isn't even a Democratic Socialist takeover. Only a few of the recent winning Democratic candidates are even members of Democratic Socialists USA. Bernie Sanders isn't. AOC was but is not now. El-Sayad isn't. I wish the whole Democratic Socialist label would just go away, and people would just run on the policies they support--which puts the emphasis where it actually belongs. I find the whole DSA thing to just be detracting. The fact is that people are not voting for socialism; they are voting for programs to help them.
Well, up to this point, probably most of anyone reading this is with me. But here is where I will drive many of you crazy. I suspect that the recent surge in affiliation with DSA has actually been supported by the right wing. Let me explain. A number of years back, I noticed a surge in activity around a formerly unknown far Left party called the Democratic Socialists of America. I am familiar with far Left politics and wondered what was up so I attended a few meetings. The meetings struck me as heavily orchestrated by the chair who referred to everyone as “comrad” and engaged in what I saw as pretty heavy handed techniques for getting the attendees to do his bidding—attendees whom I saw as politically novice young people who wanted to be seen as the avaunt guard.
So, I asked around and was told that the leader of the group had just recently come to town to take a job with some firm. No one knew where he had come from, anything about his background, or what exactly he did for this firm. I don’t have any conclusive evidence, but I have been around long enough to know that the far Right engages in covert interference in Left activities when it benefits them. Jane Meyer, in her seminal book Dark Money found evidence that the Koch Brothers were funding such activities.
Why would they think they would benefit from helping the DSA to flourish? You can’t place blame unless you have an enemy. Our corporate overlords are well aware of the threat posed by popular opposition to their continued looting and pillaging of working class wealth, and they have no intention of sitting by and letting that threat realize. Clearly, I have no direct evidence of my suspicions. But the go-to technique for fighting progressivism has always been to create red scares. To do that, they need to point to a Commy threat. The growth of the Democratic Socialists of America provides that, and they are taking full advantage of it. Shea Foote @ Substack.com
I felt the wrath of Reagan's attack on organized labor. What Reagan did was to create a scab labor force to replace us. In my trade it was called double breasting. Where the new workers were paid half of what the older worker received. We ended up being on strike for 2 1/2 years. We took a beating and lost most everything we had. It was a bad time for the average America citizens. Going to school and healthcare became unaffordable. Wages didn't make it to the end of the month. Home affordability became harder and harder to achieve. We desperately need to get big money out of politics.
The problem with the Democratic Party is not Democratic voters. It is the DNC leadership that is the problem For example, they ejected young David Hogg for suggesting the party force retirements among do-nothing Democrat geezers, then about 6 weeks later, the DNC starts enabling Hogg's suggestion to primary geezer Dems into not running again. They cannot seem to let go of Israel right-or-wrong, and insist on clinging to AIPAC money and sustaining Middle East chaos. For crying out loud, Harris likely lost because she said she would continue to support the apparent genocide America was enabling, and still is enabling. Voters are fed up with pointless undeclared wars and paying twice as much for everything. The Party leadership could care less as long as it has millions of AIPAC campaign cash.
Yes, and if you dare speak out against AIPAC you are labeled an antisemite.
I speak out against AIPAC, and I am a Jew. I don't like what is going on in Israel or Lebanon. Netanyahu is a criminal, along with Trump and Putin, and Hegseth can go with them as well. Round them all up and give them to the Hague to deal with. As much as I love my people, all the genocide has to stop. I am not at all happy with any of it.
Yes. We have to get back to basic human principles, and stop the categorizing.
If the DSA were not to accept AIPAC's Money, what would AIPAC do, contribute it to Trump? Incidentally, the Gaza situation is not genocide; it is a relatively small population (of Middle East Arabs) held at ransom to preserve political power. Real genocide is like what we did to our native Americans.
The DSA will not accept AIPAC money. Some of the Democrats do accept AIPAC money; to each his own. You may not see the genocide, but plenty of us do. Thousands have been killed, mostly women and children. Then there is the matter of all of the Palestinians being held in Israeli jails with no charges for years. And many of them are being tortured. You can read about that here:
Drop Site News<dropsitenews@substack.com> Israel's Brutal Retaliation Against Imprisoned Palestinian Doctors Seeking Legal Appeals
I don't know where you get your news, but I only read independent journalists; the mass media are not always telling the truth. But you need to try Thom Hartmann and Heather Delaney Reese; these two are very good.
Am I the only anti-Trump fly in the Progressive ointment who believes that Hamas, having been the instigator of the Oct 7 massacre, and despite the IDF's overwhelming response (which Hamas was counting upon to whoop up worldwide opinion) should be held responsible for the deaths in Gaza? They could have surrendered unconditionally, like the Germans and Japanese in WW II, to save their people, but they are more concerned with retaining their power... and by golly, it's working!
I think that suggestion is a bit naive. Had Hamas surrendered without any agreement to stop harassing, bullying, and robbing the Gazans, all they would have achieved was firing squads and life in prison, pretty much what Bibi did to all those captured in battles. Circumstances suggest that Bibi seized the pending invasion (massacre?) as an excuse to exterminate Israel's Arab problem. By leveling Gaza, he not only killed or drove out the Palestinian Arabs, but he apparently had a Kushner deal to Riviera the rubble-strewn beache$$$. Having succeeded, Bibi is now trying to annex Lebanon.
PS, both Germany and Japan surrendered because they were defeated in battle. Neither country was trying to merely get concessions from their foreign occupation country.
Thanks for the enlightenment; I guess I always thought of Netanyahu as the hero of Entebbe, and that he could do no wrong for the State of Israel, but the connection with the Kushners (which you pointed out - and I should have known) and the fact that he allowed (or apparently, didn't do much to stop) the October 7 Massacre, does not now leave much doubt as to his intentions. I can no longer support Bibi's position.
For reasons I do not understand, the only time it was mentioned that Mossad, Egypt, CIA, and a couple other nations gave Netanyahu a warning about the pending attack by Hamas was the day after the attack. I never heard it mentioned again. Thus, Biden knew Bibi knew, yet sent the entire 6th Fleet to the rescue. I would not have done that if I were POTUS.
These people are highly destructive and I am deeply concerned about the damage they might do.
Yes, and thank you for a re-cap of what happened and who is behind it, including the "Republican-lite" brigade in the Democratic hierarchy, principally the Clintons, Obama, Biden, et. al. and their supporting consultants -- Carville at the top.
But, as I have been asking everyone asking me for money, daily, over the last two years:
"What's the !@?& plan?!"
Having worked in business for 40 years, a lot in sales and marketing, Progressives need a message and a strategy to frame that message. And there needs to be a product that can sell.
God, how we could use FDR right now. He knew how to sell....
D. Laghezza
I think you, Don, feel like I do from reading Thom's post .... Well I'm sorry this is so depressing .....now Democrats have to 'fight' Republicans, Oligarchs with their billions, and now these Democrats titled 'Third Way's, who again are all 'moneyed' folks.....a multimillion-dollar offensive! It's overwhelming and I have to say I'm getting tired of the many politicians asking for donations as well as paying subscriptions and my Food Banks locally need money. I've never experienced anything like this before..... every entity 'on the brink' and needing our money....and then a (criminal) President turning everything solid in the White House into 'Gold'!....I'd better stop now.
Dear Coelle,
Thank you for writing. I am OK with contributing, but I need to know to whom I am sending money. I never heard of most of these "Progressive/Democratic" organizations asking for money.
When asked by someone I do know, like AOC or Bernie, I respond via the email address they used to reach me imploring them to get organized, work to i/d who is reliable, and tell us what is the plan.
I never hear back. I imagine a lot of those email addresses are "one-way" channels only, with no one reading responses... That in itself is a mistake.
We are driving, as a society, 90 miles an hour down a dead end street, and the street is getting very short.
D.
Yes, Democrats need a neo-FDR, a unifying figure, who follows radical policies because circumstances demand them, not because they have an underlying radical ideology.
Yes the rebirth of the New Deal is what this nation needs, Plus a few twists, like insider trading, womens' rights, and candidate qualifications.
reading through this I am so thoroughly confused of who is who and what is what its all about. Maybe this is not for the average democrates, that just want normal coverage health care and not like now where we have useless insurance companies taking high premiums and high deductables and covering nothing. Its insane that CEO`s are making huge bonuses and regular people are dying from not getting the treatment they need to survive, and that is excatly why a CEO got murdered and so many people thought the guy that did the shooting was a hero and it shows we are sick and tired of these insurance companies are being able to conduct business that way. So how can we get information that is understandable and give a clear advise on what to do and how to go about it. This is just the tip of the problems in america, that we regular democrates are unhappy with. One huge thing Ive heard from many others, is why didnt anyone on the higher rang of democrates do something when both Trump and Elon Musk admitted they used Elon`|s technology to change the outcome of votes in 2 swing states. If they cheated why wasnt it investigated, like trump went through in the previous election and we paid so much for numereous counting of votes like in AZ, and there was no cheating. Why isnt something being done about this world wide scandal of a criminal running our country, stealing our tax dollars for his elaborate lifestyle. This is probably not the place to discuss this,I just dont know where to address this huge problem.
I think the Republicon Brahmins ought to remember something said by our Irish Brahmin president, that is, JFK. He said it about Latin America but it seems all too applicable to us today:
"Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Hey GOP, like the idea of your heads being held up with the ancient roar, 'Behold the head of a traitor!'?
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory is as epic as Zorhan Mamdani’s. The Repugnicans, the Third Way types, the feckless establishment corporate Democrats, perhaps united in their desire for power over the populace, are offering up increasingly transparent, hysterical, self-serving rhetoric in response (“commies!”). Repugnican incompetence and corruption, met by chronic Democratic acquiescence, are making the case for fundamental reform - and discrediting the notion of moderate, centrist, counterproductive “bi-partisanship”, the disingenuous call of those dedicated to safeguarding the status quo. The recent victories of DSA and DSA-leaning candidates reveal a growing hunger for a national rebirth. Every utterance by every nay-sayer of either party must be heard for the reactionary lie it is. Mega donors, most notably AIPAC, dark money from multiple sources, Repugnicans, DINOs, are losing to a grass roots movement that won’t be stopped. We’re on the right course.
Wow, Thom. This piece landed especially hard for me because at this very moment I’m listening to your book--Who Killed the American Dream? and can't put it down. There, and here, you connect the historical dots in a way that makes our present moment so much easier to understand.
I grew up in the America you’re describing. My father was a union worker. My parents were able to buy a home, raise a family, send their children to college, and believe that if we worked hard, our lives could be better than theirs. That wasn’t socialism. That was the American Dream—and public policy and organized labor helped make it possible for millions of ordinary families like mine.
What troubles me most about the Third Way offensive you describe is the idea that the Democratic Party should respond to this moment by moving closer to the very corporate interests that helped create the economic inequality Americans are rebelling against. I spend my days with college students. I don't see them rejecting democracy; I see them asking why it so often seems incapable of delivering for them and for ordinary people. They’re asking why health care can bankrupt a family, why college means decades of debt for them, why housing is increasingly beyond their reach, and why billionaires and corporations have so much more influence over their government than they do.
Your book and your articles here and on the Commonwealth Report have helped me understand something that connects so much of what I care about and have been writing about: we cannot repair our democracy without confronting the enormous concentration of economic and political power that has hollowed it out.
The awareness you're raising gives me something increasingly precious in this dark moment: Hope. Understanding how we got here reminds us that none of this was inevitable. These were choices, policies and decisions made over decades—and different choices can be made over the next ones.
Your work is an important reminder that if enough Americans understand how we allowed corporate and billionaire power to overwhelm the power of ordinary citizens—and refuse to accept this emerging oligarchy as irreversible—we can reclaim not only the American Dream, but the democracy that made it possible.
Donald Trump has launched a new federal review. This review threatens the future of how California’s coastline is managed. Trump is proposing to expand offshore oil drilling and restart offshore oil pipeline infrastructure. To comment on this insane proposal please communicate with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There are two ways to do this.
Email: Send written comments to NOAA's Office for Coastal Management, at czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov
regular mail at:
NOAA Office for Coastal Management
2234 South Hobson Ave
Charleston, SC 29405-2413
Include “Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program” in the subject line. Written and email comments received by 11:59 p.m. PT on August 22, 2026, will be accepted.
All comments must be received by 8/22/26
My comment
Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program
NOAA Office For Coastal Management,
I am very concerned about the Trump Administration’s plan to renew drilling and exploration for oil and gas off the coast of California. The administration wants to give lease sales to oil corporations that would allow them to drill and use seismic exploration across huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean.
This will expose whales, dolphins, fish, seabirds and fragile marine habitats to risks from oil spills and seismic exploration. If finalized, these lease sales could allow oil companies to drill across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean—putting marine wildlife, coastal communities at risk. It would very likely accelerate the worse effects of climate change
The results of oil drilling and exploring for oil off the California coast have already been disastrous. In 1969, a blowout of a Union Oil drilling rig platform off the coast of Santa Barbara resulted in a spill of 4.2 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean and onto nearby shores.
In 1971, 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel spilled in San Francisco Bay. In Huntington Beach in 1990, the American Trader oil tanker spilled more than 416,000 gallons of crude oil, killing an estimated 3,400 birds. On May 19, 2015 a crude oil pipeline spilled 100,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. On October 1, 2021, a pipeline from an Amplify Energy oil platform off the Orange County coast leaked oil into the ocean and onto beaches.
California’s economy is very dependent on tourism and fishing. In Fort Bragg, California the fishing industry has already declined severely because of low numbers of fish that can be found off the coast. Fisherman have to sail farther and farther away from land to find fish.
President Trump’s proposed increase of oil exploration and extraction would result in more spills and pollution. That would make the California coastline less appealing and lower significantly the number of tourists that come here to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
More use of fossil fuels for energy is the wrong direction. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Domestic oil production is at 90 percent of America’s all-time, pre-pandemic high, and the U.S. is producing more than twice as many barrels of oil per day as it produced in 2008.
Our country must switch to renewable energy sources consisting of: solar, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, biomass energy and conservation to address the effects of climate change (global warming). Big new oil projects are not fast, safe or long-term solutions.
Climate change’s higher temperatures are already devastating many states in the U.S. They have caused numerous wildfires in the U.S, Canada, Spain, France and Greece. They have caused the most severe water crisis in U.S. recorded history. This is due to megadrought and a record low snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
The Colorado River supplies water to approximately 40 million people in seven states. It is 20 percent lower than when the Colorado River water was first divided up. California, Arizona and Nevada will be forced to lower their water use between 16 and 20 percent through 2028. All This will cause less food to be grown in the U.S.
Increasing leasing and permitting rates even beyond their current historically high levels will lock the United States into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come. The U.S. must invest in clean, renewable energy sources to lower energy prices and address climate change.
Ed Oberweiser
If only we had an educated audience. I am afraid that many many find all the info they need on their American Dildo. What’s climate change? Oh, that can’t bother me!!! Duh duh duh 🙄
Thank you for highlighting this “third way” group. I hadn’t heard about it but it suddenly makes sense of the weak DNC and establishment democrats in congress. The dots are starting to connect up! We must not only fight off Trumps evil crime syndicate but the corporate democrats as well. Government for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, not the oligarchs!
Like Cory Booker who I basically like. But he is from New Jersey and takes huge money from pharmaceutical PACS in NJ who he is beholden to. That’s how it works.
The Greens and Working Families Party should not be scapegoated here for causing corporate Democrats to lose to evangelical/corporate Republicans. Those minority parties were the vanguard of a resurgent Left that is now poised to take over the Democratic party and restore its populist progressive identity. That causes the corporate accommodationists to panic and throw money at the "problem" of the people standing up for themselves.
Bill Clinton, a Republican in Democratic clothing, his wife was /is no different. if she had beat Trump, I am sure that would have been the end of progressivism in the Democratic Party, as is her loss kept progressivism alive and growing. This is the first election in which progressive candidates are beating "moderates" and so call "moderates" are lining up with Republicans to blast progressives with filthy negative adds.
With friends like that you don't need enemies. Looking at you Gretchen Whitmer, Debbi Stabinow
The morbidly rich and corporate billionaires have long been hedging their bets by supporting both party candidates. It’s always good to have a friend in politics and it’s always good for a few favors in a tight vote in Congress. Now, they are just being blatant with their “contributions” but it’s still not always evident who owes who and what “favors” will be granted.
The DNC and the billionaires are now seeing how a lot of people are on to them, and are supporting candidates who do not take PAC money, and do not owe “favors” to the big corporations who control them.
It’s important that people understand that politicians who take corporate PAC money, no matter what the explanation of need is, owes something to the corporate donor—not the people. Regardless of Citizens United, corporations are not persons, and their interests do not coincide with the best interest of the general public, but rather to quarterly profits, laws that allow them to pollute, and continued profitable management of health insurance, and prison for profit.
Why are status quo Democrats fighting progressives/socialist. Beyond Stupid. Working together to bomb the Republicans in midterms would a far more worthy endeavor. Not playing well together could very well give midterms to Project2025. After all, not playing well together was a factor in bring Trump II to us in 2024. Grow up, all of you.
The third way sounds to the right of Eisenhower Republicans.
As much for my own benefit as for anyone else’s, let me see if I can give a synopsis of what "The Third Way" was and is about. By the late 1990's, a majority of Americans had been brainwashed into supporting Reagan’s explanation for America’s problems. According to him, the lazy were feeding at the welfare trough, and big government was obliterating personal freedom and free enterprise, and what was needed was to unleash the power of free enterprise by cutting regulations and controls on corporations and letting the engine of industry regenerate America. The problem with this, of course, is that Unfettered Capitalism is not set up to satisfy human need. It is set up to maximize profits.
Nevertheless, moderates like Clinton saw the writing on the wall and made peace with Reaganomics as far as privatization and de-regulation. They claimed they would still advocate for the weakest among us. Only the second part of this equation never happened. Unfettered Capitalism was unleashed, but Republicans blocked any Democratic support for social welfare programs and went ahead and gutted support for the poor.
But a lot of this can be seen, not as a miscalculation by the Democrats, but as a compromise that “The Third Way” Democrats made in order to find a substitute for the financial support of Labor that they had lost with the decline of labor unions. Democrats turned to business to fund their campaigns, and ”The Third Way” represented their need to compromise their values to get corporate money.
But then Bernie Sanders came along and demonstrated another way. He proved that taking corporate contributions was not only a bad idea, but he demonstrated that it was not necessary because the American people would fund campaigns directly themselves. But these "Third Way" democrats, who are still hanging on to the hypocrisy that corporate funding is necessary, are pretty threatened by candidates who, because they are not taking money from corporate donors, do not need to compromise their values or the true needs of the American working class. So, these contemporary Third Way-ers are lining up with Trump and Maga by yelling and screaming about a Commy takeover.
There is no Commy takeover. There isn't even a Democratic Socialist takeover. Only a few of the recent winning Democratic candidates are even members of Democratic Socialists USA. Bernie Sanders isn't. AOC was but is not now. El-Sayad isn't. I wish the whole Democratic Socialist label would just go away, and people would just run on the policies they support--which puts the emphasis where it actually belongs. I find the whole DSA thing to just be detracting. The fact is that people are not voting for socialism; they are voting for programs to help them.
Well, up to this point, probably most of anyone reading this is with me. But here is where I will drive many of you crazy. I suspect that the recent surge in affiliation with DSA has actually been supported by the right wing. Let me explain. A number of years back, I noticed a surge in activity around a formerly unknown far Left party called the Democratic Socialists of America. I am familiar with far Left politics and wondered what was up so I attended a few meetings. The meetings struck me as heavily orchestrated by the chair who referred to everyone as “comrad” and engaged in what I saw as pretty heavy handed techniques for getting the attendees to do his bidding—attendees whom I saw as politically novice young people who wanted to be seen as the avaunt guard.
So, I asked around and was told that the leader of the group had just recently come to town to take a job with some firm. No one knew where he had come from, anything about his background, or what exactly he did for this firm. I don’t have any conclusive evidence, but I have been around long enough to know that the far Right engages in covert interference in Left activities when it benefits them. Jane Meyer, in her seminal book Dark Money found evidence that the Koch Brothers were funding such activities.
Why would they think they would benefit from helping the DSA to flourish? You can’t place blame unless you have an enemy. Our corporate overlords are well aware of the threat posed by popular opposition to their continued looting and pillaging of working class wealth, and they have no intention of sitting by and letting that threat realize. Clearly, I have no direct evidence of my suspicions. But the go-to technique for fighting progressivism has always been to create red scares. To do that, they need to point to a Commy threat. The growth of the Democratic Socialists of America provides that, and they are taking full advantage of it. Shea Foote @ Substack.com
I fear you are right, Shea. But I also hope that what we have done in Michigan will call the dark money donor's bluff.
I felt the wrath of Reagan's attack on organized labor. What Reagan did was to create a scab labor force to replace us. In my trade it was called double breasting. Where the new workers were paid half of what the older worker received. We ended up being on strike for 2 1/2 years. We took a beating and lost most everything we had. It was a bad time for the average America citizens. Going to school and healthcare became unaffordable. Wages didn't make it to the end of the month. Home affordability became harder and harder to achieve. We desperately need to get big money out of politics.