Check out our slate of Daily Kos-endorsed candidates

All politics are local and that is true of Trumpism just like any other form of the oldest profession. Enter Mary Lou Bruner, District 9 candidate for the Texas State Board of Education, who fits right in with the crazy, know-nothing and proud-of-it wing of Donald Trump’s modern conservative party. Ms. Bruner thinks teaching evolution causes school shootings and that the Democratic Party had JFK assassinated. And that’s not even scratching the surface:

Bruner’s most frequently reported-on belief – that Obama “hasn’t come out of the closet about his own homosexual/bisexual background”. She stated that “Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years spent as a male prostitute in his twenties.”

However, this might not even be Bruner’s most outrageous conviction. Bruner, who says she has a masters of education and spent 36 years teaching before retiring in 2009, has written several Facebook posts that seem at odds with the idea of education.

Per usual this is a conservative candidate running to be on the public school board who despises the very concept of public schools. And in that district, she’ll probably win, too. What could possibly go wrong?

• John Holdren and Charles Bolden writing at Wired applaud the President’s NASA budget, which includes funding for the ISS through at least 2024, as vital to continued progress in space exploration:

When humans finally travel to Mars—in an undertaking even more ambitious and complex than construction and operation of the ISS—it seems only sensible that it will be done in international partnership. Furthermore, when that great joint venture happens, it will succeed only because of the practice in international partnership that the International Space Station has provided.

• What we’re searching for here are aliens that are searching here for us.

• Here’s what happened when one pregnant antivaxxer went online to solicit advice about how to keep her unborn child from being vaccinated.

Dan Balz:

It’s highly questionable whether anyone emerged as the winner in Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Detroit, though the candidates’ spinmeisters would all quibble with that. There was one clear loser: the Grand Old Party.

The 11th debate of the Republican campaign tested the patience and the limits of viewers and voters. Insults and interruptions overwhelmed sober discussion. The raucous audience, now a staple of the GOP debates, only added to the sense of game-show politics.

Can anyone credibly suggest that the Republicans put their collective best face forward on Thursday night? At a time when the party is in crisis over the possibility that Donald Trump will become the nominee, the debate did next-to-nothing to make Trump or his three remaining candidates look or sound presidential.

Bruce Bartlett:

I voted for Trump to destroy the GOP

Flush with such "victories," extremists of all shapes and sizes were attracted to the Tea Party ranks—Christian religious fanatics, gun nuts, anti-gay bigots, nativists opposed to all nonwhite immigrants, secessionists, conspiracy theorists and, of course, racists.

What binds them together is hatred. Hatred of government, yes, but also hatred of liberals, minorities, homosexuals, non-fundamentalist Christians, environmentalists, feminists, and many other groups.

Donald Trump, to his credit, figured this out instinctively and pandered to it brilliantly. He channeled the anger and hatred of many whites on the fringes of the economy and society who blame "others" for stagnant wages and other real problems that Republican gridlock in Washington has prevented legislative action on.

Trump understood that these people didn't so much want solutions to these problems as someone in power to acknowledge their existence and give voice to their frustrations.

Andrea Germanos at Common Dreams writes—Prosperity Not Austerity: New Progressive Budget 'Prioritizes Well-Being of People and Planet':

The Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled on Thursday what it calls "a down payment on a brighter future for all Americans"—a progressive budget for 2017 that offers a blueprint for tacking systemic injustices while creating over 3.5 million jobs.

The Caucus, headed by co-chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), entitled the document The People’s Budget: Prosperity Not Austerity; Invest in America.

It "reverses harmful austerity cuts and fixes a system that for far too long has only benefited those at the top," stated First-Vice Chair Rep. Pocan (D-Wis.). It's also, according to Rep. Grijalva, a "true expression of progressive values."

A summary of the budget states that it:

• Includes $1 trillion in infrastructure upgrades
• Provides a plan to reduce poverty by half in ten years
• Funds public financing of campaigns to curb the influence of special interests in politics
• Enacts a Financial Transaction Tax on Wall Street’s high-stakes trading
• Provides greater investments in K-12 education
• Allows states to transition to single-payer health care systems
• Introduces a carbon tax
• Increases funding for diplomacy and strategic humanitarian aid

The progressive budget also responds to the legislative attack on reproductive rights, stating:

The CPC Budget takes critical steps to strengthen women’s social and economic standing, including allowing women to make decisions about their own healthcare. The People’s Budget does not include the restrictive Hyde Amendment and it increases Title X funding so that at - risk women and children have comprehensive access to services. An investment in women and children is an investment in America’s future.

And it addresses the water crisis afflicting Flint, Michigan, allocating $765 million for the city to upgrade its water infrastructure.

The budget's climate proposals received accolades from environmental organization Friends of the Earth.

"This is the only budget in Washington that truly accepts the urgency of the climate crisis," stated Lukas Ross, energy campaigner with the group. "From reining in Big Oil to investing in clean renewable energy, this is the policy vision we need to ensure a just and speedy end to the era of fossil fuels." 

But it's not just "numbers and charts," Grijalva said; instead, "our budget is a path forward for the American people who've had their wages flat line and savings erode."

"It alleviates our overcrowded classrooms where kids struggle to learn, and makes higher education a reality for any student committed to earning a college degree. It ensures profit motives and systemic inequalities have no place in our criminal justice system or our immigration policies. The investments we detail will create jobs, protect the environment and promote growth by requiring the wealthiest among us, corporations and Wall Street to contribute their fair share to our society.

"While Republicans continue fighting over how much more seniors should sacrifice, The People’s Budget shows that their harmful cuts are a false prophecy for American economic success," he continued.

Ross agreed, adding, "In the face of record inequality and looming climate disruption, debating between different shades of austerity is simply unacceptable. Budgets are about priorities, and the budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus prioritizes the well-being of people and the planet."

House Republicans, meanwhile, continue to wrangle over their own budget proposal. Roll Call reports:

A fiscal 2017 spending plan that can pass the House would be one that strikes a compromise between leadership and members who believe the budget needs to adhere to spending levels agreed to in last year’s budget deal, $1.07 trillion, and those who want to stick to the sequestration spending level, $1.04 trillion — a difference of $30 billion in discretionary spending.

President Obama, for his part, offered his final budget proposal to Congress last month, which Republicans promptly declined to hear.

His proposal, Jasmine Tucker and Lindsay Koshgarian wrote at National Priorities Project,

calls for increased investment in education, the fight against climate change, and family-friendly tax policies, all of which enjoy broad popular support. However, it also calls for continued windfalls for the Pentagon that will benefit for-profit contractors without adding to our security.

• • •

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At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Why the Republicans' talking-to-idiots tone really works for them: 

On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up another out-of-hand Gop debate, and more on Trump & authoritarianism. Cleveland’s new riot toys. Travis Rosen’s first-hand account of the CO caucuses that just might inspire you to become the Dem you’ve always wanted to be!

Find us on iTunes | Find us on Stitcher | RSS |Support the show via Patreon or PayPal 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing for civil rights protections for sexual orientation, arguing that sexual orientation comes under the umbrella of sex discrimination. The EEOC has filed lawsuits against employers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland, the latter of which clearly shows how sexual orientation is linked to gender:

The employee, Yolanda Boone, whose sexual orientation was known to her co-workers, said her supervisor made numerous comments regarding her orientation and appearance, including "I want to turn you back into a woman" and "You would look good in a dress," according to the lawsuit.

The supervisor blew a kiss at her and stuck out his tongue in a suggestive manner, the EEOC alleges in the lawsuit.

That’s all about enforcing traditional femininity on a woman who’s seen to step outside it, and that’s sex discrimination. Boone says she was fired after complaining about the harassment. Both Boone’s employer, IFCO Systems North America, and Scott Medical Health Center in Pittsburgh, where a gay man complained of harassment by a manager, wouldn’t settle with the EEOC, leading to these lawsuits.

This kind of case shows us how much elections matter. President Obama’s EEOC is pushing to expand civil rights protections. Under a President Trump or Cruz, there’s no way we wouldn’t go backward. And the Supreme Court might could end up with the final say over what workers are fair game for harassment, so that’s one more way every Senate election this November will matter to workers.

Let's fight for a Supreme Court that will protect workers. Please give $3 to help turn the Senate blue.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid disparaged Marco Rubio in an interview Wednesday as an "opportunist" who had no guiding principles. By contrast, Reid said he had "some degree of respect" for Ted Cruz because he "believes in something." Caitlin MacNeal reports:

"He has a set of values," Reid said of Cruz on Sirius XM's "The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt," according to a preview clip of the interview published on Wednesday.

"I don’t agree with his values, but he speaks what he believes is the right thing for the country. And I appreciate someone that does that," Reid continued about Cruz. "I think he’s really hurt the country with being the person who closed the federal government for 17 days. But at least he set out doing what he said he would do."

But Reid said that Rubio "is a totally different character."

"He doesn’t stand for anything, nothing. He’s an opportunist first class," the minority leader said.

A first class opportunist. Sing it, Reid!

There’s no catchy name like “Super Tuesday” for the various primary-season contests that will happen this weekend, but there are still a number of delegates up for grabs. On the Democratic side, there are three caucuses (Kansas, Maine, and Nebraska), and one primary (Louisiana); between all four of them, they have 134 pledged delegates available, which collectively, is the size of one big state. (For comparison, Michigan, which will be on Tuesday the 8th, has 130 delegates.)

There’s even more happening on the Republican side: in addition to Kansas, Louisiana, and Maine (but no Nebraska; they'll vote there on May 10), there is also a caucus in Kentucky and a primary in Puerto Rico, for a total of 178 delegates. That’s an even bigger deal than it looks, because the GOP has a lot fewer delegates overall (2,369) than do the Democrats (4,051). That means that this weekend will award 7.5 percent of the GOP’s total, but only 3 percent of the Democrats’.

We won’t be liveblogging these races this weekend at Daily Kos Elections, given the long and unpredictable timeframes associated with them. But we will be putting up open threads on Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Sunday afternoon, which we’ll occasionally update as information becomes available, and we encourage you to join us there.

The Koch brothers are not going to be using their money this cycle to save the Republicans from Donald Trump, says a spokesman.

"We have no plans to get involved in the primary," said James Davis, spokesman for Freedom Partners, the Koch brothers’ political umbrella group. He would not elaborate on what the brothers' strategy would be for the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

Three sources close to the Kochs said the brothers made the decision because they were concerned that spending millions of dollars attacking Trump would be money wasted, since they had not yet seen any attack on Trump stick.

The Kochs have also been in this game long enough to know that there are levers of power that are more important for their end game than the White House. After all, what good is having the White House if the Senate goes back to Democrats? And they can look ahead to 2020 and redistricting, so they know shoring up and increasing their state level wins is critical. Jane Mayer, who really did write the book on the Kochs, explained the strategy a few weeks ago:

Where the influence of money goes so much further, and what people who are interested in this need to take a look at, is the lower levels: the state and even local elections. There's Koch money that's been going into school board races, questions about funding mass transit in Tennessee, or funding a zoo in Ohio. They're fighting the expansion of Medicaid in South Dakota and all over the country. Their organizations are flooding money into universities and colleges in order to try and recruit young people to their point of view and then train them as cadres to go into their political groups. It's a comprehensive system to change America. So presidential politics certainly is the splashiest arena, but it's not actually the place where they have the most influence.

Here's where we need to be like the Kochs. The smart money right now isn't in the presidential primaries. It's in fighting the Kochs on all our own home turfs.

Please donate $3 today to help turn the Senate blue. The future of the Supreme Court depends on it.

Texas Republicans' drive to find the stupidest people in the state and elect them to office seems, if anything, to be picking up steam.

[Republican Mary Lou Bruner] received 48 percent of the vote in a three-person GOP primary for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education this Tuesday, falling just short of the 50 percent needed to claim victory. She will compete in a May runoff election against Keven Ellis, a chiropractor and city school board president who earned 31 percent of the vote.

Some things that Mary Lou Bruner has stated she believes: Obama used to be a gay prostitute. Climate change is a hoax promoted by the communists and, specifically, by Karl Marx himself. Slavery is not the reason for the American Civil War, but we have been led to think that through a conspiracy by historians who "waited until all of the people who were alive during the Civil War and the Restoration died of old age." School shootings started only after “the schools started teaching evolution.” That there may have been dinosaurs on Noah’s ark, and the reason there are no dinosaurs now is that Noah only brought baby dinosaurs that starved to death when he let them loose back on land.

Presuming that Texas Republicans do not find their long-lost sense of shame between now and this May—and evidence that they will is sparse—she is likely to become one of the most powerful people in America when it comes to content of the textbooks Texas children, and therefore children in quite a few other states besides, find on their desks in coming years.

An openly raving Damn Lunatic. It may be time to consider walling the state of Texas off. I am not ruling out an airlift to rescue the remaining sane people.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late Night Snark: Down in the Drumpfs

“It was a critical Super Tuesday for the Republican Party. Donald Trump won seven states. Of course, the seven states that Donald Trump won were shock, denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, and Alabama.”

---James Corden

“Analysts say Hillary Clinton's plan to defeat Donald Trump involves painting Trump as ‘dangerous and bigoted.’ She plans on doing this by quoting Trump accurately.”

---Conan O'Brien

-

Clip of Mitt Romney: "Whatever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there's Trump magazine, and Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage. A business genius he is not."

Stephen Colbert: "True. Trump has put his name on some terrible investments. For example, four years ago he endorsed Mitt Romney for president."

---The Late Show

-

“Donald Trump can seem appealing until you take a closer look, much like the lunch buffet at a strip club, or the NFL, or having a pet chimpanzee. Sure, it seems fun, but someday Koko's gonna tear your fucking limbs off."

---John Oliver

"This has been quite a month for black people at the top of their professions. Chris Rock got a sweet gig handing out statues to white people. Political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry was emancipated from her job at MSNBC. And the first black president got told he can’t name a successor to the guy who gutted the Voting Rights Act and said that black students might be better off attending less-advanced schools. On the plus side, global warming has made February a lot less white."

---Samantha Bee on Black History Month

Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

It flew a bit under the radar given the avalanche of political headlines in advance of Super Tuesday, but at an election eve rally in Valdosta, Georgia, Donald Trump got a mighty intriguing celebrity validation.

At that rally, in the heart of the Deep South, Trump was endorsed by NASCAR royalty. On the stage with him stood a stock car racing legend (Bill Elliott), as well as trio of current NASCAR drivers (Elliott’s son Chase, as well as Georgia native David Ragan and veteran Ryan Newman).

Perhaps more importantly, Trump was also endorsed by the CEO of the stock car racing franchise, Brian France. This was no minor endorsement by a nondescript businessman. The France family has been synonymous with NASCAR since its inception—indeed, it was Brian France’s grandfather, “Big Bill” France, who co-founded the organization in 1948.

Of course, befitting its Southern roots at a time when partisan realignment was the rule south of the Mason-Dixon, NASCAR has been tied with Republicanism for most of its history. Usually this has simply manifested itself in endorsements and donor cash, although the sport’s winningest driver, “The King” Richard Petty, did manage a quixotic and unsuccessful bid to be North Carolina’s secretary of state in 1996, losing to Democrat Elaine Marshall. 

In recent years, however, the image-conscious franchise has made some changes. Mindful of their reputation as a bastion of Southern White Males, they began Drive for Diversity, a recruiting program for female drivers and male racers of color. It has met with mixed success, most notably in aiding in the development of top driving talent like Kyle Larson (one of the sport's hottest young drivers whose maternal grandparents were Japanese-Americans interned at Tule Lake, California).

On a more explicitly political note, last spring the organization publicly denounced the ill-conceived Indiana “religious freedom” statute. Perhaps more intriguing: In what is now a deeply ironic gesture, NASCAR pulled two awards banquets from a Trump-owned resort in the wake of his conflation of immigration with criminal behavior, a decision that Trump ripped with predictable Trumpian bombast.

Costco is well known as a high-road employer, in stark contrast to companies like Walmart and McDonald’s. And now, Costco is raising wages:

The second-largest U.S. retailer will start paying at least $13-to-$13.50 an hour, up from $11.50-to-$12 an hour, the company said Thursday in a conference call with analysts. The increase will cut its earnings per share in the next three months by 1 cent, and by 2 cents in the following three quarters, the Issaquah, Washington-based company said. [...]

Costco’s highest hourly pay is about $22.50, and the company plans to give those workers about a 2.5 percent raise this year, Galanti said. It takes a full-time Costco employee about four years to reach the top of the pay scale, he said.

Meanwhile, Walmart is looking for credit for boosting pay to $10 an hour.