In a letter sent today, six Democratic senators have demanded Trump account for financial ties between the Trump Organization and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The letter notes that the Trump Organization “for decades has maintained business relationships with the government of Saudi Arabia and with members of the Saudi royal family.” The letter notes some specific incidents, such as a yacht that Donald Trump sold to a Saudi prince, an entire floor of Trump Tower leased the Saudi government, and a whopping $325 million to buy the failing Plaza Hotel.  The letter demands “all documents pertaining to investments, payments or other financial transfers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including members of the Saudi royal family and other Saudi nationals” to the Trump Organization over the last ten years. It also asks for information about discussions Trump may have had about investments in Saudi Arabia, potential Saudi investments in Trump properties, and any “gifts” that Trump or others in the organizations may have received from Saudi nationals. Finally, it asks that Trump suspend any business dealings with Saudi Arabia until the results of a Magnitsky Investigation invoked by a bipartisan group of senators is complete. Signers of the letter are Tom Udall, Dick Durbin, Corey Booker, Patrick Leahy, Elizabeth Warren, and Martin Heinrich. As with most such letters, Trump is likely to send it directly to the circular file. He’s still trying to pass along the myth of a giant arms deal complete with some random number of jobs rather than admit that closing his eyes to Saudi actions is all about protecting his own pocketbook. xNEW: Senators call for «full accounting of any financial ties between the Trump Organization and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia» amid fallout from Khashoggi disappearance. https://t.co/lQ6xZPbRcu pic.twitter.com/U5HvQ9C2Uk— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) October 17, 2018

Among all of the lying Republican liars running for re-election on the basis of their love for the Affordable Care Act's protections, none is more humungous than Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Here's what he said in Tuesday night's debate against his Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O'Rourke: «We can protect pre-existing conditions, and you need to understand, everyone agrees we're going to protect pre-existing conditions.» Here's what he said back in June about his state's lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act, and specifically the Trump administration's decision to argue that the protections for coverage for people with pre-existing conditions is unconstitutional: «I think that is a reasonable position for the Justice Department to take.» He's arguing, against most legal experts from the right and the left who call the administration's position «absurd» and «ludicrous,» that Congress' decision to leave all parts of the ACA intact (except the individual mandate when it repealed that provision in the tax law) is meaningless. Cruz is so committed to the idea that these protections don't actually need to exist that he offered a proposal to allow insurance companies to sell policies that don't comply with the law, provided they also offer policies that do. Guess which policies the insurance companies would make affordable, and which ridiculously expensive. And here's what Cruz said when he was running for president in 2016: he was going to «repeal every word of Obamacare.» That's actually one thing Cruz said that's not a lie. That's precisely what he's wanted to do for as long as he's been in office. Remember his first big splash in the Senate, when he tried to filibuster with a reading of Green Eggs and Ham to defund Obamacare, and then conned the House maniacs into voting to shut down the government over it? Yeah, he's not lying about how much it wants to make the ACA go away. What he IS lying about is that he gives a damn about the people who will lose coverage if that happens. GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you,​ and RSVP to attend. And help to take back the Senate. Please give $1 to our Senate candidates, including Beto O'Rourke.

“Trump goes in front of crowds multiple times a week to attack me. Both of my opponents have made the same attack”

Salon reviewed two years of Gavin McInnes “comedy” clips to capture how the Proud Boys leader talks about race

“The Daily Show” host opens up about the luxury of rage, how democracy erodes and working through epic news cycles

Rep. Chris Collins wasn’t supposed to be a vulnerable Republican — until he was indicted for insider trading

Trump’s former campaign chairman wanted to wear a professional suit to court but was denied by Judge T. S. Ellis

Mitch McConnell is either certain that Russian interference will save Republicans' bacon on November 6, or he is in a total panic about getting the rabid Republican base out to vote. He's promising that if they just win enough seats this election, Affordable Care Act repeal will be back on the menu. The failure to do it last year, he says, is «the one disappointment of this Congress from a Republican point of view.» He promises more efforts to repeal with law if there are enough Republican Senate seats. «If we had the votes to completely start over, we’d do it. But that depends on what happens in a couple weeks. ... We’re not satisfied with the way Obamacare is working.» Between this and Tuesday's threats to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, McConnell is really on a roll to get all those voters Republicans need out in November—those who respond slavishly to the word «repeal» and those who have the same knee-jerk reaction to the word «deficit.» And either aren't smart enough to see the threat posed by these promises, or are privileged enough to be insulated from it. That McConnell is resorting to the «repeal» card is further evidence that the Kavanaugh bounce Republicans got after Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination has been short-lived, and is already falling. It's also evidence that he believes the House is gone already, since every vulnerable House Republican is desperately running away from their Obamacare votes. He's trying to hold on to the Senate. Period. But hey, thanks Mitch! What more motivation do voters need to vote for Democrats in this election when their health care is their primary concern!? Volunteer to Get Out the Vote: Just click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you,​ and RSVP to attend. It's not too late for your contribution to make a difference. Please give $1 to our Senate and House candidates and make Republicans pay for being, well, Republicans.

Every time there’s a suggestion that the United States might step back from 100 percent support for Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump has a standard response—the Saudis are buying $110 billion in US weapons, and we wouldn’t want them taking their murder bomb business somewhere else. It’s a message Trump has deployed previously in defending the Saudi blockage of Qatar, and in cheering on the “fighting corruption” that’s included beheading more than 100 people. The bigger the Saudi crime of the moment, the louder Trump talks about the arms deal. See if you can detect these subtle differences. Here’s Donald Trump talking about the arms deal on March 20. Trump: What it does is it really means many, many jobs.  We’re talking about over 40,000 jobs in the United States. And here’s Donald Trump on Fox News Tuesday evening. Trump: It’s 500,000 jobs. It’s be $110 billion. It’s the biggest order in the history of our country from an outside military. Apparently Trump believes that murdering just one journalist generates 460,000 jobs. Or he doesn’t, and he’s just pulling out one bullshit number after another.  As NPR reported on Monday, the actual value of the arms deal is not $110 billion. It’s not even a fraction of that amount. In fact, it may be exactly zero of that amount. … during the Obama administration, the Saudis bought about $112-billion-worth of U.S. weapons. So they - that was in the - that ballpark. But those contracts are mostly completed by now.  Since Trump took office, the Saudi have signed onto $4 billion in arms sales. Arms that have already been delivered. The actual amount of outstanding arms that Donald Trump has sold to the Saudis is nothing. The number of jobs being generated by those sales is zero.

In December 2017, the Republican-led Senate took a 2 AM vote to pass one of the largest tax cuts in history, cuts that would grossly benefit corporations and the wealthiest Americans, leaving nothing but crumbs for most Americans. Like thieves in the night, they made off with billions of tax revenue. Here’s how Rolling Stone described on the day of the vote: Long after midnight, following a chaotic scramble that saw tax legislation being re-written on the fly, with handwritten edits in the margins and full pages crossed out, Senate Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – a bill that would ultimately hike taxes on millions of middle-class Americans, swell the ranks of the uninsured by 13 million and explode deficits by $1.4 trillion in the first decade alone. The winners in this bill are the Republican donor class: Corporations that would see their tax bills slashed by more than 40 percent – and get to bring home trillions in offshored profits at shamefully discounted tax rates as low as 7.5 percent; executives at companies with “pass through” earnings, who would get to deduct nearly a quarter of that income; heirs who would get richer from a doubling of the estate tax exemption, to $22 million for couples; and even private jet owners, who would get to deduct aircraft maintenance from their taxes. Everything predicted about this greed-drive tax cut has come true. The U.S. deficit has exploded, adding an expected 17 percent increase in 2018 alone and no end in sight. With the deficit headed toward $1 trillion, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and their greedy congressional pals are setting their sites on three of the most successful and important social programs in America: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  You see, the ballooning deficit is a feature of their tax cut, not a bug. This is what Sam Brownback did in Kansas. Cut taxes and then scream there isn’t enough money to pay the bills—all they can do now is slash education, health care, and other essential services. This has always been the Republican plan. They have wanted to destroy these programs since the day they were launched. And with a president free of any morals or values, they see their opportunity.  Listen to Mitch McConnell in his own words pivot from promising the tax cuts would not only be “deficit neutral” to less than a year later saying we cannot balance the budget without cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. This would cause an economic apocalypse for millions of Americans.  Can you donate $3 today to help Democrats stop Mitch McConnell and protect Social Security?

20 days remain until the last ballots are cast in the 2018 midterm elections Today’s comic by Matt Bors is House of Sawed: • Automakers boast of electric vehicle future but crank up production of SUVs and trucks: In 2017, GM announced its plans to be building 20 new electric vehicle models by 2023. But it has retooled by cutting back on the number of cars it produces and boosted manufacture of pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles, both with higher emissions. These two categories now make up 75 percent of GM’s passenger-vehicle sales. Five years ago it was 60 percent. And there are no plans seen so far to turn any of those best sellers into an electric vehicle. Ford and Fiat Chrysler have also shifted toward vehicles that consume more fuel per mile. According to the EPA’s latest fuel economy trends report, they place last for both efficiency and low emissions of all 13 automakers selling in the U.S. market. • Study shows most states and localities tax low- and middle-income households at much higher rates than more affluent taxpayers: In the 6th edition of Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found average tax rates across income groups are 11.4 percent for the poorest 20 percent; 9.9 percent for the middle 20 percent; and 7.4 percent for the richest 1 percent. Low-income households pay an average of 50 percent more of their incomes in taxes than the very rich. The survey included personal and corporate income taxes, property taxes, sales and other excise taxes, and estate and inheritance taxes. Said Meg Wiehe, deputy director of ITEP and an author of the study: “Inequitable state tax systems don’t have to be a foregone conclusion. State and local lawmakers can and should take steps to ensure that their highest income earners pay their fair share. Tax policy should be used as a tool to help mitigate income disparities rather than to drive a wider divide.” The worst states are what ITEP labels the Terrible 10. Washington state comes out worst of all, with an effective tax rate for the poorest 20 percent of taxpayers at 17.8 percent vs. the 3 percent rate paid by the top 1 percent. Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are the other nine worst. • Sigh. South Dakota School of Mines researchers think fracking could enhance geothermal power.  MIDDAY TWEET xThe Original Big Bird Puppeteer Is Retiring After Almost 50 Years on Sesame Street https://t.co/gtvkFqclyn— People (@people) October 17, 2018 • Study says 4,200 people have been murdered since 2005 as a result of Florida’s “stand your ground” law. The Center for American Progress Action Fund found that the overall gun death rate increased 20 percent from 1999 to 2016 at the same time the non-gun murder rate fell by 45 percent: Not only has Florida’s stand your ground law increased the state’s gun-related murders, but it has also been proven to have a racially disparate impact as applied. Researchers analyzed stand your ground defenses used in Florida from 2005 through 2013 and found these defenses were far more likely to be successful if the victim was black, Hispanic, or another race or ethnicity other than white. Specifically, the researchers found that defendants in Florida using the stand your ground defense were two times more likely to be convicted if the victim was white, concluding that “SYG legislation in Florida has a quantifiable racial bias that reveals a leniency in convictions if the victim is non-[w]hite, which provides evidence towards unequal treatment under the law.” • The last real president of the USA doesn’t have time for these seven excuses not to vote.  • Hurricane Michael’s damage estimates far lower than for Florence, Harvey, and Irma: For those who took a direct hit from Michael, the cost estimates of damage from the hurricane are irrelevant, but for insurers they matter a good deal. Risk modeler AIR Worldwide estimates that the insurance industry losses from Michael will range from $6 to $10 billion. But that doesn’t include losses to public infrastructure and uninsured losses. Other estimates, which include lost economic activity among other things, run as high as $30 billion. Damage from Hurricane Florence, which struck in September, was estimated at $38 billion to $50 billion. Moody’s estimated that Hurricane Harvey’s damage hit $133.5 billion, Maria’s cost $120 billion, and damage from Irma hit $84.2 billion.  • A look at Colorado’s system of mailing ballots to every voter in the state and what it means for the U.S. Postal Service: Something as minor as a misprinted barcode could spell chaos for the finely tuned dance that is ballot distribution. If ballots are the wrong size, the machines that sort them at a rate of 40,000 pieces an hour could be held up. “We’ve been prepping all year long for it. (It’s) not just the contents, but what does the outside of a ballot look like?” said David Rupert, a USPS spokesman. “What if you had a bad barcode with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ballots?” On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin & Joan McCarter round up the day’s news. The Khashoggi story gets worse every minute. Young voters may show up this year! With electoral accountability now looming, it's time for Republicans start lying and crying about health care. x Embedded Content RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!) LINK TO DAILY KOS STORE

Last week, the Supreme Court delivered a major defeat for Native American voting rights in North Dakota when it allowed the implementation of a Republican-backed voter ID law. In order to vote, the law requires documentation of a residential address. Native Americans living on reservations often don't have residential addresses because the postal service doesn't deliver mail to them. Instead, they use P.O. boxes. But now, IDs with a P.O. box aren't valid for voting. Fortunately, tribal identification is accepted at the polls. So Daily Kos has teamed up with North Dakota Native Vote, an organization working with local tribes to provide free, updated identification cards or address verification documents to tribal citizens. With only a handful of days left to contact everyone and hundreds of acres of land to cover, it's an ambitious and expensive undertaking but an important one. We can't allow the GOP to succeed in their efforts to silence American Indian voices. Not when we can do something about it. Our goal is to raise $100,000 to fund their efforts to reach every eligible Native American voter in North Dakota. Community members who receive our emails have already chipped in more than $35,000. But we're still short of our goal. If you can, please contribute $3 today to North Dakota Native Vote. If you can't donate, please share the donation page link with your network and make a personal ask to donate. Sharing why you think this is an important and worthy cause could inspire them to contribute.

Oh, yes, surely we will still be hearing liberally from Trump voters whose only regret is their hero's failure thus far to actually drop someone on 5th Avenue. But even Washington journalists seem to have tired of them a bit. And just in time for the midterms, we are starting to meet a new crop of voters journalists just can't get enough of: suburban women.  They are of interest, of course, not only because the election outcome might turn on them, but also because they appear to be moving as a bloc toward Democrats. The question is whether their midterm votes will represent a one-time shift or an actual evolution. As noted in a lengthy Buzzfeed article interviewing suburban women in Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania: The question isn’t so much if these voters will leave Republicans this year, but whether the shift is permanent — whether Republicans have, in the space of a few years, lost a demographic that they once relied on. Journalist Ronald Brownstein wondered in The Atlantic whether the new Democratic converts might serve as the long-term antidote to the white working-class men who abandoned Democrats for Trump in 2016.  «In that way,» he wrote, «2018 could complete the geographic realignment that began in 2010, cementing Democratic control inside the major metropolitan areas and reaffirming Republican dominance beyond them.» What is interesting and perhaps not so obvious is the variety of voters in this relatively small niche. Some were simply passive Democratic voters who got really activated and started organizing and even running. Others were Democratic leaners or Republican leaners who often purposely split their tickets to vote for divided government. Still others were flat-out GOP voters who say they won't go near Republicans this cycle. “Now I’m Democratic. I’ve never been before,” said Bobbie, a retired woman spending a morning browsing the shops of Birmingham, Michigan, an idyllic suburb of Detroit. “But I care about our Constitution.” She’s split tickets between Republicans and Democrats before, she said, but now? “Absolutely not. I don’t see myself voting for any of them.” GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats. Just click here, enter your zip, and you’re off to the races! But don't stop there! How about chipping in $3 right now to help put the House safely back in Democratic control.

In-person early voting began in Georgia on Monday and, by the numbers, it’s off to an incredible start. On the first day alone, 69,049 people voted—a massive increase compared to the 20,898 people who participated in the first day of in-person early voting during the last midterm election in 2014. Though more people voting is always a good thing, it has not been without problems. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, “some early voters in Cobb County had to wait in lines for more than two hours, and others in Fulton County encountered delays because of technical difficulties.” Unfortunately, today doesn’t look any better, as lines reached a 3 hour estimated wait in Cobb County.  xThere’s an estimated wait of 3 hours to vote early for the midterms in Cobb, one of Georgia’s largest counties. Janine Eveler, head of Cobb elections, said some people lined up at 7 a.m. — the polls open at 8 a.m. @CobbNewsNow @ajc @PoliticallyGa pic.twitter.com/oN7ACRY2sJ— Ben Brasch (@ben_brasch) October 17, 2018 Want to help get out the vote for Democrats? Just click here to enter your zip code and choose a local event.  Double your impact: Chip in $3 to help Stacey Abrams overcome voter suppression dirty tricks in Georgia.

Water is wet, cats meow, and Iowa Congress member Steve King is a white supremacist. We know this because of his own deplorable statements and actions, including his toast to the deportation of a Dreamer, his statement comparing immigrants to selecting a dog, the confederate flag he kept on his desk despite Iowa being a Union state during the Civil War, and now his enthusiastic endorsement of a Canadian mayoral candidate who last year got herself fired from a right-wing blog after she appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast: xFaith Goldy, an excellent candidate for Toronto mayor, pro Rule of Law, pro Make Canada Safe Again, pro balanced budget, &...BEST of all, Pro Western Civilization and a fighter for our values. @FaithGoldy will not be silenced. https://t.co/uqkeaUjm7i— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) October 17, 2018 Right-wing site Rebel Media ended Goldy’s contract following her 2017 interview with neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. Kedron Bardwell, chair of the political science department at Simpson College in Indianola, told the Des Moines Register that Goldy also “explicitly recited white supremacist slogan The 14 Words (‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for WHITE children’)” on a show that same year. Goldy has also stated that "Canada is undergoing a 'white genocide,’” the Register continues. But “an excellent candidate,” according to King. Goldy is a fringe candidate who has basically no chance of winning, which means that Steve King, a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives, made the decision to endorse an international candidate with ties to neo-Nazis while having no time to publicly meet with his own constituents back in Iowa, where he’s been primary author of one sole bill—renaming a post office—in his 15 years in Congress. Apparently, the only way to get King’s undivided attention is to be a white supremacist on Twitter. Meanwhile, “Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, didn't immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment in response to King's support for Goldy.” But as usual, Republican leaders, specifically House Speaker Paul Ryan, will throw up their hands and pretend there’s nothing they can do. But with Donald Trump as the grand wizard of the Republican Party, this is who they are. So believe them. Boiling with anger at Republicans? Get revenge by volunteering to get out the vote for Democrats. Click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you,​ and RSVP to attend.

The president said that he won’t be blameworthy if the GOP loses in 2018… but that he’d beat Biden in 2020

You are on a train. There has been a murder on the train. There are seven suspects. One is an heiress, another a known crook. There’s a former circus strongman, a mystery woman who won’t leave her room, and a retired admiral of the French navy. One of them, you are fairly certain, is Meryl Streep preparing to play some role that requires a hefty accent. The other suspect is, of course, you. The train is heading northeast at 62 miles per hour as it winds its way through the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains with the Arges River flowing rapidly alongside. One mile ahead of you, the bridge is out. Who committed the murder? Who cares. Because if you don’t all get on the brakes right now, everyone—the innocent along with the guilty—are going to be dead in less than one minute. The missing bridge is climate change. The murder is … anything else. It has been frustratingly difficult to convince the public, even the progressive public, of the threat represented by climate change. Maybe this will help. It’s Tuesday’s editorial from the Charleston  Gazette-Mail of West Virginia, right in the heart of Trump Digs Coal country. When today’s kindergartners are in their 20s, they may find a devastated world wracked by horrible hurricanes, droughts, floods, wildfires, tornadoes and other tragedies made worse by global warming. Coastal cities may be abandoned, sunken wrecks. Poverty and misery may result. If the idea that the lives of your children are going to be extra-brutish and extra-short doesn’t hit the nerve, how about this piece from the New York Times. A small international team of scientists considered what the effect of climate change would be for this crop in the next 80 years, and they are raising an alarm they hope will pierce the din of political posturing. They are predicting a beer shortage.

Turkish officials are providing details of the alleged murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and none of the details makes what happened seem any less than monstrous. While Trump continues to cover for the Saudis, the news about their actions is literally sickening enough that it comes with this warning: If you’re not ready for gruesome details, stop reading now. As reported by the New York Times, the interrogation of Khashoggi was not a lengthy affair. In fact, it wasn’t really an interrogation at all. Not unless this represents questioning. A team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was waiting for Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate the moment he arrived, at about 1:15 p.m. on Oct. 2. After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said. They cut off his fingers. Then beheaded him and dismembered his body. And “it was all over in a few minutes.” The details of what happened to Khashoggi were released by Turkish officials as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is visiting Turkey.  Trump continues to insist that he’s unwilling to take any action against Saudi Arabia. In an interview on Tuesday with the Associated Press, Trump insisted that the Saudis were innocent until proven guilty, comparing them to Brett Kavanaugh. On Fox News, Trump repeatedly declared that America “needs” Saudi Arabia, before tumbling into a loop about the evils of Iran, and making outlandish claims about the number of jobs dependent on Saudi arms deals. Trump then tries to reframe the “rogue killers” idea to suggest that even if some Saudi guys did happen to fly to Istanbul, wander into the consulate, and slice up a journalist with a bone saw they just happened to have on hand, it’s all good if crown prince Mohammed bin Salman can claim ignorance. Trump: I hope that the king and the crown prince didn’t know about it, that’s a big factor in my eyes, and I hope they haven’t uh Mike uh Pompeo just left, as you know went to Turkey, and he’s coming back. We’ll find out. But as the Times also reports, even by that miserable standard, there’s a problem. Wednesday, Oct 17, 2018 · 4:41:07 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner With these details breaking in the news, Trump has suddenly decided he wants to see the evidence. While not admitting there is any evidence. xBREAKING: Trump says US has requested audio and video from Turkey relating to missing journalist, `if it exists'— The Associated Press (@AP) October 17, 2018

ABC’s “Roseanne” spin-off without its star, “The Conners,” made an uncertain but promising debut Tuesday

The impeachment of Margaret Workman was ruled unconstitutional; there is no judge willing to preside over her trial

It’s an old story: Republicans give money to the rich, act surprised about the deficit and vow to slash spending

President Trump thinks the Saudi royal family is being victimized by a rush to judgment in the Jamal Khashoggi case

Some North Dakota women have said they did not grant permission to Heitkamp to use their names in her campaign spot

The Center for American Progress Act Fund has done the huge job of finding all the Republican Congress members in the 73 House races Cook Political report has declared competitive who voted at least once to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for people with pre-existing conditions. You won't be surprised to find that out of 73 legislators, 67 took at least one vote to do so and 57 voted more than once against their constituents—31 of them more than six times, and 24 of them voted nine times to overturn the protections without replacing them with comparable legislation. Nor will you be surprised that they are pretty much all lying about having taken those votes, because the issue has become one of the most critical—if not most important—of the cycle to voters. Here's a compilation of some of those lying ads in which Republicans lie and lie and lie about their votes. After year upon year of Obamacare lies that somehow worked with enough of the public to help secure Republican majorities, it's different this time. «Somehow the repeal and replace vote allowed this one concept to really break through to people, which is that 'I buy health insurance in case I get sick, so I don't want it to treat me badly when I get sick,'» said Karen Pollitz, a Senior Fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). You probably also won't be surprised that every Democratic candidate we've endorsed for Congress is running against one of these Republicans—every one except one, that is. New Mexico's 2nd Congressional district, where we've endorsed Xochitl Torres Small, is an open seat—the incumbent Republican is vacating it to run for governor. No matter how they try to spin it, these Republicans with all those anti-Obamacare votes don't really care whether people have affordable coverage or not. But they sure are willing to lie about it. Volunteer to Get Out the Vote: Just click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you,​ and RSVP to attend. It's not too late for your contribution to make a difference. Please give $1 to our Senate and House candidates and make Republicans pay for being, well, Republicans.

More than 80 days past a federal judge’s reunification order, the children are still not with their parents. Wednesday, Oct. 17, marks 83 days since Judge Dana Sabraw ordered Trump administration officials to reunite the thousands of migrant children who were kidnapped from the arms of parents at the southern border, yet 66 kids continue to remain separated from their parents and under U.S. custody, according to numbers released this week by the administration. One of these 66 children is aged 5 or under. Of the 66 kids, the parents of 50 have already been deported. Trump officials have struggled to reunite children with deported parents because of their own cruelty, after having torn apart families with no plan set in place on how to reunite them. Now, as 66 kids remain separated, Donald Trump is floating officially reviving family separation, both as an election strategy to rile up his base, and because White House aide and white supremacist Stephen Miller likes it. But even kids who are being moved for reunification have been subjected to additional trauma. In one instance this month, officials returned a 4-year-old to her home country without first informing her parents. “When Karla, a pseudonym HuffPost is using to protect the child’s identity, arrived in Guatemala, no one came to pick her up at a reunification center near the airport.” Karla ended up spending yet another unnecessary night “in a government-run shelter.” So who has paid a price for this cruelty? For scheming up this family separation policy, and then lying about it? For shelling out tens of millions of federal dollars to so-called “nonprofits” that have hired child molesters and abusers to run their “child shelters”? For using detained children as bait to deport immigrant relatives? For violating a federal judge’s order, a criminal action that would earn most Regular Joes a visit to the slammer? Not one high-level Trump official.  GET OUT THE VOTE for Democrats to hold officials accountable. Just click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you,​ and RSVP to attend. Don't let up the pressure. Can you give $1 to Beto O’Rourke and other Daily Kos-endorsed candidates for Senate and House?