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As the election results rolled in, David Duhalde watched on his computer as Americas youth rushed into the arms of socialism.

You could literally track the states Trump was winning by our online sign-ups, said Duhalde, deputy director of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Its a whole timeline of people saying, Oh no, its all over; Im gonna join DSA.

Founded in 1982, DSA is a national organization that promotes democratic socialism, which Duhalde defines as democracy that extends beyond the polls into workplaces and homes. In practical terms, the group lives on the left edge of the Democratic Party, promoting single-payer health care, strong labor unions and rights for oppressed groups.

Duhalde said the organization now has 17,000 dues-paying members, up from 6,500 in May 2016 and 14,000 on Inauguration Day. The explosive growth shows no signs of abating, he added. The national website lists 105 chapters in 36 states, including 10 in Texas.

DSA campaigned hard for Bernie Sanders during the battle for the Democratic nomination. While some far-left organizations rejected the Bern, claiming the candidate was not a true socialist, DSA embraced Sanders as essentially one of their own. That put the group in a position to reap the harvest of politicized young people no longer afraid of the s-word.

Bernie helped to inoculate against the perception that socialism is un-American or foreign, said Jim Tourtelott, a retired lawyer and founding member of the Austin DSA chapter. Now after the election, people want more than to just say, Fuck Trump; they want a full critique of how we got here.

Since the election, four new chapters have cropped up in Texas, including groups in San Antonio and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The 3-year-old Austin group is by far the largest, with around 500 members.

On a warm February evening, about half that number packed into Scholz Garten, a dimly lit beer garden near the University of Texas campus that has been a progressive watering hole for decades. Many sat on the ground or stood along the fence as waiters squeezed through the overwhelmingly young crowd with trays of burgers and beers.

Were moving away from being a group of older, white men, said Chau Ngo, co-chair of the Austin DSA. Were seeing a lot of women, and our queer coalition is exploding. Its still mostly white, but were seeing more members of color.

The meeting was a bit disjointed, perhaps because the groups growth is outpacing its organizational structure. The crowd heard from a series of speakers on topics ranging from independent voters to stresses on Austins water supply. They also heard from subcommittees, including the queer coalition.

Nikki Reese, the coalitions 31-year-old co-chair, told the Observer she ran away from her Dallas-area home at 16 when her parents rejected her sexuality a common story for LGBT youth. She joined DSA right after the election.

This is what were all doing to keep breathing, Reese said, gesturing toward the crowd. This is the start of our revolution; people are waking up more and more as Trump does these awful things. Seeing this crowd, I feel more hope now than ever in my adult life.

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Red Dawn: Socialist Group Sees Explosive Growth Ignited by Sanders, Trump - The Texas Observer

As things are going right now, it looks like sincere conservatives who accepted the lesser-of-evils excuse to vote for Donald Trump will soon be choking down its consequences when it comes to policy. President Trump is praising the bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, offered by the GOPs House Leadership. But a slew of conservative groups has let out a howl of dismay, including cries of betrayal. They are demanding that Obamas socialist government takeover of the health system be peremptorily dismissed to be followed by legislation that promotes a health system based on free-enterprise principles.

What they demand is exactly what will benefit the nation. But their cries of betrayal are patently unfair. Throughout his presidential campaign, it was clear that Donald Trump never abandoned his commitment to socialist goals and principles for health care in the United States. He insisted on universal coverage, subsidized as needed by federal government largesse. He told conservatives they would just have to get used to it. Now he is working comfortably with the GOPs elitist faction leadership (whom he pretended so heartily to despise) to produce a result consistent with those promises. Trumpcare will have a lot in common with Obamacare, especially in its embrace of the socialist premise that shifts responsibility for universal health care to the national government.

I am tempted to say that Mr. Trump is reverting to type. But in this case that wouldnt be true. President Trump isnt reverting to socialism, because candidate Trump never professed to support anything else. Well soon see whether he reverts to his erstwhile identity as a socialist Democrat, with self-serving exceptions, in areas where he did make promises that plainly reject Obamas lifelong identity as an anti-American socialist ideologue. But Obamacare was never one of them. When Trump said repeal and replace Obamacare, it was clearly a matter of making socialism work, not discarding its goals or government concentric methods.

This contrasts with what would be the goal of a truly conservative administration to make free enterprise the norm, based on individual initiative; informed individual choice; and individual, family and corporate responsibility for doing right, as God gives us to see what is right. As with other matters that are inherently of consequence to our common good, governments role would be to facilitate and encourage such free enterprise; while good political leaders seek to assure respect for God-endowed right making it their aim to bring together a sufficient majority of the people to safeguard it. One thing is clear, however: Using government coercion to enforced uniformity, as socialism envisages, is utterly unacceptable.

Just as the government plays has a limited role in assuring that, as singular and corporate individuals, we can trust each other to have the training and information we need to act responsibly in the conduct of our vehicles on our roads, so it has a role in assuring our confidence and mutual trust when it comes to maintaining our bodily health. Our national security and material well-being self-evidently depend on it. But the health of our body politic requires that health care be focused on the initiative of individuals and the free associations they form voluntarily, not on coercively enforced government control. As a free people, the health of our body politic declines as the sphere of liberty is constricted. (Liberty being the free choice to do what accords with our obligation to respect what is essentially right for our humanity.)

In light of this understanding of the right role of government, socialism has to be rejected in principle. Neither Donald Trump nor the GOPs presently prevailing congressional leadership have any intention of doing so. They never did. This is why Mr. Trump and other elitist faction GOP leaders have long professed to admire socialist health-care schemes in Canada and Great Britain. Like the Canadian political parties, the leaders of both the Democrat and Republican parties are committed to a socialist path.

The Reagan era represented a tentative hiatus in this bipartisan abandonment of American principles. But the whole point of Donald Trumps bid for leadership in the GOP was to cast aside the last semblance of that truly conservative understanding, fulfilling the elitist medias headlines at the outset of the Obama era, proclaiming that We are all socialists now.

Socialism is utterly inconsistent with the founding premises of our identity as a free people (i.e., a people whose character and institutions permit their self-government). That identity is predicated on our common embrace of responsibility for preserving the integrity of human nature. It does not consist in some purely self-centered, routinely nationalistic obsession with our own material power and ambition. So, the triumph of socialism requires that we leave our identity behind. Donald Trumps boisterous assertion of nationalism, narrowly conceived, is meant to distract from this dereliction.

Americas understanding of human right is rooted in the obligation to respect and preserve human nature. This understanding ought to be a key influence on our deliberations about the proper approach to health care. All human beings have a common interest in what preserves and enhances human bodily health. Almost since the birth of medicine as a systematic discipline, the key premise of the medical profession has been to respect and serve that common good. To serve this good, in preference to any and all selfish individual aims, was the main profession of faithfulness undertaken by medical professionals.

This may seem directly in conflict with the understanding of free enterprise that see the individual selfishness, stylized as the profit motive, as the motivating rubric of economic choice. But not once we remember that the real root of economics is the household the family concentric association of individuals raised up in light of the mutual and voluntary commitment of parents to care for their children; and of all family members to care for one another.

On account of this commitment, profit is not defined in terms of radically selfish individualism. The rubric of each family members identity involves their participation and inclusion in the familys life. It involves their responsibility to and for others in their community. True free-enterprise approaches take account of this responsibility. They may use government as an instrument to assure that it is taken seriously, but they do not substitute the coercive power of government for choices informed by the decent character of the people, and their natural and voluntary associations. Are there still true conservatives in the GOP willing to battle for this responsible, free-enterprise approach? Is there any chance that President Trump will abandon his evident commitment to making socialism work in order, instead, to work with them?

Media wishing to interview Alan Keyes, please contact media@wnd.com.

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Why making socialism 'work' is utterly unacceptable - WND.com - WND.com

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By Brian Nichols

March 9th marks the official start to the NFL Free Agency period. For those of you unaware as to what free agency is, here is a basic summary:

-NFL teams have the choice to either a) let their currently players with expiring contracts test the open market as a free agent, thus allowing them to sign with any team or b) players are cut by their respective teams based on their age, injury history, off-the-field issues, inflated contract salaries, etc and then are allowed to test the open market as a free agent (again, free to sign with any team).

While this is an extremely basic introduction to NFL Free Agency, it is useful background for those of you reading this article with no prior football background.

While teams were preparing for this years free agent market, I began to think about the realities of the NFL marketplace, where players and draft picks are being bought, sold, and traded and how the NFL, with its self imposed salary cap for each team, proves that socialism doesnt work.

For some background, it is important to note that each team is granted a league-determined salary cap. This salary cap is a dollar amount imposed by the league each year that restricts teams from spending boatloads of cash for players. The idea of the salary cap was to create a more fair system in which all teams were placed on a level playing field in terms of how much money they can spend on players. While teams like the Dallas Cowboys have billions of dollars at their disposal, smaller-market teams like the Cleveland Browns have no such resources. This years salary cap per team is a whopping $167 million per club. This means that each club has up to $167 million in funds that they can allocate to player salaries.

To put this in perspective, lets consider a hypothetical football team: The Libertarian Ninjas. The Ninjas, like all 32 other NFL teams, will be allowed to spend up to $167 million in player salaries this year. They can determine how it is they want to spend that $167 million, but they cannot spend more than that fixed amount of salary. Some teams are able to finagle their salaries to fall well below the league imposed cap, while still signing some good players (while other teams not so much).

This background into free agency and the salary cap bring me to my main point: The NFL is proving, without a doubt, that their socialized salary cap does not work.

Take for instance, the typical NFL quarterback. Quarterbacks are arguably the most important players on any team. Teams that have good quarterbacks to what they can to keep them, while teams without good quarterbacks search tirelessly to find one.

The average salary for a quarterback in the NFL ranges between $15-$20 million per year, but this number is, without a doubt, smaller than it should be.

Consider the following: Yes, NFL quarterbacks are statistically the highest paid players on their respective teams. But are they getting a true market value for their services?

The answer is both yes and no, and heres why.

Yes, while the quarterback market is dictated based upon the value of a good quarterback, the scarcity of good quarterbacks, and the value teams place in good quarterbacks, their actual market value is substantially deflated thanks to the NFLs salary cap. With only $167 million allocated for each team to spend on player salaries, teams must be weary in terms of how they allocate those funds. So while a quarterback position might be receiving one of the highest average salaries in the NFL, it is only relative to the salary cap that has been imposed by the league.

To better contrast this, consider if there was no NFL salary cap-

Currently, Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts is the highest paid quarterback (based on his average annual salary) at $24.6 million per year. That means at his current annual salary, Luck takes up 15% of the Colts salary cap space. To put this in perspective, Luck is valued at the price of 2 Richard Shermans (Cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, whose annual salary comes in around $14 million).

Now, for you football fans out there, I ask you this: Would you rather have 1 Andrew Luck, or 2 Richard Shermans? Yes, Sherman is a great player, but if you were able to have a strong quarterback like Luck on your roster versus 2 strong corners, wouldnt you want the quarterback? And if so, how much would you be willing to pay for him?

One could argue that in a world without the NFL salary cap, great players such as Luck or any other stellar quarterback, would make tens of millions of dollars more than they currently are now, as teams would be willing to pay as much for their services.

See, even though the NFL imposed the NFL salary cap with the goal of implementing fairness in the league, they ended up hurting their own employees: the players.

Instead of players being justly compensated for their skills, teams are forced to pay lesser salaries relative to the salary cap. Instead of an amazing quarterback like Tom Brady making $50 million per year (as many could argue he deserves), the NFL salary cap keeps his annual salary around $20.5 million.

This also doesnt take into consideration the fact that the NFL, which wouldnt exist without its players, is projected to bring in $13 billion in revenue next year.

If anything, the NFL has shown that despite their claims to be promoting fairness, they are in fact promoting unfairness, especially when it comes to their players.

capitalismcapitalism v socialismeconomicsmarket valueNational Football LeagueNFLSocialism

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NFL Free Agency: How the NFL Salary Cap Proves that Socialism Doesn't Work - The Libertarian Republic

Over the course of the last decade, the Tea Party successfully created an infrastructure in Washington engineered specifically to combat Obamacare.

That infrastructure includes both elected muscle a wave of Republicans such as Rep. Dave Brat and Sen. Ted Cruz elected to Congress with the help of the grassroots and activist muscle in the form of nonprofits like FreedomWorks, which were boosted to greater prominence by the movement's influence.

This structure functioned more like a wall during the Obama administration, effectively halting attempts to accelerate the growth of government.

In recent years, the Tea Party's momentum has waned, prompting many to declare it dead. But now, as the Republican presidential administration and the Republican Congress finally have an opportunity to dismantle the very legislation that drew so many people to the movement more than half a decade ago, it's finally the Tea Party's moment to get to work.

No, massive rallies from coast-to-coast aren't springing up to demand action from Washington as they did years ago. But the organizational infrastructure those rallies helped build is exerting its clout to apply pressure to Republican leaders.

After the House released its repeal and replace plan earlier this week, conservative movement groups and elected officials such as the Tea Party Patriots and Rand Paul voiced vehement opposition to the legislation. The threat of heightened backlash from Tea Party players triggered the administration to respond by inviting them to share that opposition with the president and the vice president at the White House.

Whether these Tea Party-backed Republicans will be able to lobby successfully for healthcare legislation that meets their standards is yet to be determined. But those people the movement imported to Washington during the long winter of Obama's presidency have not forgotten what brought them there. Expect them to continue fighting back.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

Also from the Washington Examiner

President Trump said it's his "personal belief" that peace is possible.

03/10/17 9:18 PM

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The Tea Party infrastructure is working - Washington Examiner

Senate

IN-Sen: A few Republicans are talking about challenging Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly next year, but Rep. Luke Messer seems to be the most likely to go for it. Messer tells Howey Politics that "we're probably a couple of months away from making a final decision," but he took plenty of shots at his would-be opponent.

Fellow Rep. Todd Rokita has also expressed interest in a bid, while freshman Rep. Jim Banks didn't rule it out last year. Howey also mentions ex-Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke as possible candidates, though there's no word that they're considering. Trump carried Indiana 56-37, and Donnelly can expect a tough race no matter whom the GOP ends up fielding.

UT-Sen: During his successful 1976 campaign against Democratic Sen. Frank Moss, Orrin Hatch asked voters, "What do you call a senator who's served in office for 18 years? You call him home." But the GOP senator has been flirting with seeking years 43 through 48 in office for a while, and he told CNN on Thursday that he's "planning on" running again. Hatch added that seeking an eighth term next year are "what my current plans are" and, to his credit, CNN's Manu Raju noted that the senator could still change his mind. But Hatch says that none other than Donald Trump asked him to stay in the Senate.

Despite Utah's revulsion to Trump, this is still a dark red state that hasn't elected a Democrat statewide in a long, long time, and the GOP nominee should have little trouble in a general election. Some Republicans have made noises about challenging Hatch in the primary, but Trump may have removed one of his most prominent potential opponents from the board. While ex-Gov. Jon Huntsman refused to rule out facing Hatch this week even as he was standing right in front of the senator, he's reportedly accepted Trump's offer to become U.S. ambassador to Russia. However, none other than Mitt Romney didn't rule out running for Utah's Senate seat last month, though he didn't say anything about taking on the incumbent. We'll see if, now that Hatch has made his plans a bit more clear, if other Republicans will talk about running now that they know they'll likely need to get past the senator.

FL-Gov: On Thursday, Democratic Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn announced that he is "not planning to be a candidate for governor in 2018," which isn't exactly a no. Florida is an extremely expensive state to run for office in and the Democratic primary field is already taking shape, so it's unlikely that Buckhorn is just playing games and giving himself more time to consider. But there's nothing stopping him from putting out a much stronger declaration (it's not hard at all to just say, "I'm not going to run for governor" and let that be it), and it's possible he's waiting to see if he'll have an opening to make a late bid. Buckhorn is termed-out of office in 2019 and he said in his announcement that, "Absent extenuating circumstances, I intend to finish the job I was hired to do," which also gives him some wiggle room.

NH-Gov: Because New Hampshire elects its governors to two-year terms, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who pulled off a tight 49-47 win against Democratic Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern last year, will face the voters again soon. Aside from Republican Craig Benson's narrow 2004 defeat, New Hampshire voters haven't fired a first-term governor since 1926. However, Democrats are hoping that Sununu and his allies' conservative agenda, as well a Trump backlash, will give them the chance to retake the governor's office.

It's unclear who is interested in challenging Sununu. A few weeks after his defeat, Van Ostern dodged questions about his 2018 plans, though he doesn't seem to have said anything about the race since then. WMUR's John DiStaso also says there's speculation that state Attorney General Joseph Foster, a former state Senate majority leader who leaves office at the end of the month, could run, though Foster hasn't said anything. In New Hampshire, attorneys general are appointed by the governor to a four-year term and approved by the Executive Council rather than elected statewide, but a few have been elected to higher office. Most recently, Republican Kelly Ayotte resigned as state attorney general in 2009 to launch a successful Senate bid.

WI-Gov: Democrats may have their first candidate for next year's race soon but they can do a lot better than ex-state Sen. Tim Cullen. Cullen, who retired in 2014, says he's planning to announce at the end of April, and says he doesn't know of any reason he'd decide not to run.

Cullen represented a solidly blue seat in the southern part of Wisconsin, but he was far from a progressive hero. During the 2011 protests against GOP Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union legislation, Cullen did leave the state along with the rest of the Democratic Senate caucus in order to deny the GOP a quorum, but he soon said he wouldn't do it again because it "does great damage to the institution." During that confrontational period, Walker took a call from a prankster the governor thought was billionaire David Koch, and Walker told "Koch" that Cullen was "about the only reasonable one" of the Senate Democrats. When the imposter offered to call Cullen, Walker told him not to because "[h]e's pretty reasonable, but he's not one of us. . . . He's not there for political reasons. He's just trying to get something done. . . . He's not a conservative. He's just a pragmatist."

Cullen was fine with the 2012 attempt to recall Walker, and initially planned to run himself. However, Cullen ended up backing down, arguing that better-known candidates would raise far more than him. Cullen had only raised $157 over the previous six months (not a typo), so he probably wasn't wrong. A few months later, after Democrats temporarily won a one-seat majority, Cullen left the caucus, seemingly angry that he didn't get a committee chairmanship he wanted. Cullen still allowed himself to be counted as a Democrat for the purpose of organizing the chamber and he backed down a few days later, but the whole unpleasant incident did not endear him to us.

The good news is that Democrats are likely to have other options next year. Rep. Ron Kind isn't ruling out a bid; while he has a moderate reputation, he's nowhere near as obnoxious as Cullen. State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (who did run in that 2012 primary and performed poorly) also is considering, while Dane County Executive Joe Parisi hasn't ruled it out. 2014 Attorney General nominee Susan Happ, the district attorney for Jefferson County, has also set up social media accounts ahead of an unnamed statewide bid. Walker hasn't announced he'll seek a third term yet, but he sounds very likely to.

CA-34: Former Obama White House staffer Alejandra Campoverdi is the second Democrat to advertise on TV ahead of the crowded April 4 jungle primary for this safely blue downtown Los Angeles seat. Campoverdi's spot starts with her telling the camera that she helped to pass Obamacare to save lives, but she "never imagined one of those lives might be my own." Campoverdi then says how breast cancer killed her grandmother and almost took her mother's life, and how she is likely to develop it herself.

Campoverdi is then shown comforting her mother as the candidate says the debate is personal for millions of Americans, declaring that "if Donald Trump wants to have a conversation about women's bodies, let's start with mine." There is no word on the size of the buy: At the end of 2016, Campoverdi had $102,000 in the bank.

IA-02: Rep. Dave Loebsack is the only Democrat left in Iowa's congressional delegation, and while he's never had much trouble winning re-election in presidential years, he came close to defeat in 2010 and 2014. The GOP is likely to target his eastern Iowa seat, which swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump, but no one has publicly expressed interest yet. State Rep. Bobby Kaufmann has already been mentioned as a possible candidate, and over at Iowa Starting Line, Pat Rynard puts on his Great Mentioner cap and gives us some other names.

Rynard mentions Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann, a former state representative who is Bobby Kaufmann's father. The elder Kaufmann is well regarded in political circles, which could actually hold him back, since plenty of Republicans would prefer him to stay on as chair. There's also Michael Bousselot, who serves as chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad. Branstad has been nominated to serve as Trump's ambassador to China, so Bousselot will likely need a new gig soon. Rynard also name-drops state Sens. Roby Smith, who co-owns a local minor-league baseball team, and Mark Lofgren. As a state representative, Lofgren ran for this seat in 2014 but was not an impressive fundraiser, and he lost the primary 49-38.

NH-01: State Sen. Andy Sanborn has been mentioned as a possible GOP opponent for Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in this swingy seat, and while he hasn't said anything about his plans, he seems to have demonstrated his interest in another way. According to WMUR's John DiStaso, Sanborn recently met with officials at the NRCC about a possible bid. Back in 2013 Sanborn also went to D.C. and talked to the RGA about a possible run for governor but ended up staying out, so this certainly doesn't mean he's decided on anything.

TX-03: Longtime GOP Rep. Sam Johnson announced two months ago that he wouldn't seek re-election to this conservative suburban Dallas seat, but there hasn't exactly been a rush of candidates to succeed him. State Sen. Van Taylor, a wealthy Iraq War veteran who represents almost all of the 3rd in the legislature, said he would decide after the session ends in late May, though he's reportedly planning to run. But that doesn't seem to be deterring Collin County Judge Keith Self, who is the only other Republican we've heard express interest. This week, Self announced that he had formed an exploratory committee, though he said he could take several months to decide. If Self runs, he'd need to resign his post.

Self is the elected head of the Collin County Commissioners Court, the equivalent of a county board of supervisors. Self has long been a major conservative power in Collin County, which takes up the entire 3rd District. However, Self's chosen candidate lost a high-profile 2013 race for mayor of Plano and his appointed county commissioner lost a 2014 contest to stay in office, so his influence may be waning. Trump carried this seat 55-41, and there's no sign that Democrats are preparing to target it.

Charlotte, NC Mayor: Most of the action in this year's mayoral race has been in the Democratic primary, where Mayor Jennifer Roberts is facing challenges from state Sen. Joel Ford and Mayor Pro Tem Vi Lyles. But this week, GOP City Councilor Kenny Smith announced that he would run. Charlotte is a Democratic-leaning city, and Team Blue has run city hall since 2009. However, moderate Republican Edwin Peacock came relatively close to winning in 2013 and he lost to Roberts just 52-48 in 2015.

Still, as we've noted before, Smith is far from a moderate. Smith notably denounced Charlotte's 2016 non-discrimination ordinance as "social engineering" on the part of liberals. However, Roberts has had a tough tenure so far. After Roberts and the council passed their non-discrimination ordinance, the GOP-led North Carolina state legislature responded by passing a piece of anti-LGBT legislation known as HB2, which earned the state national scorn and multiple boycotts by high-profile businesses. There was also unrest in the city after Keith Scott, a 43-year-old black man, was killed by police in September. It's possible that even a conservative like Smith may be able to convince voters that a new direction is needed, especially if there's a nasty Democratic primary that leaves the eventual nominee weakened.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.

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Morning Digest: 2014 tea party favorite Chris McDaniel mulls a primary against Roger Wicker - Daily Kos