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Two more candidates have filed paperwork to compete for the Democratic nomination to challenge Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) next year.

Alison Kiehl Friedman, an expert in combating human trafficking, and Deep Sran, founder of the Loudoun School for the Gifted, join an already crowded field.

Democrats think they have a chance to flip the Northern Virginia seat, which has been in GOP hands since 1980, after the area backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Comstock supporters say the congresswomans ability to outperform GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump by 16 points to win a second term cemented her dominance in the district.

The district includes Loudoun County and parts of Fairfax and Prince William counties, as well as Clarke and Frederick counties to the west. As the closest thing to a battleground district in the region, it attracts more than its share of activists and donors.

[Why a programmer from Maryland wants Northern Virginia to Dump Comstock]

A native of Takoma Park, Md., Friedman, 38, grew up in an activist household. While pregnant with Friedman, her mother founded Voters for Choice with Gloria Steinem and her father worked for a nonprofit organization that helped build assets for the poor.

Friedman earned a bachelors degree at Stanford University and worked at People for the American Way before joining the staff of then-Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). She served as executive director of the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking and in 2009, went to work for the State Departments anti-trafficking office.

Friedman said she was inspired to run by her daughter. The girl had written to Trump urging him to love instead of hate in the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but feared he would discover her letter and bring guns to our house, Friedman said.

If my daughter is brave enough to write a note like that, she said, I do have the ability to do more, and what Ive always loved doing is working on protecting the worlds most vulnerable.

She disputed Comstocks claim that she leads on human trafficking because she supported legislation that President Barack Obama signed. Friedman opposes Trump on a host of issues, including, she said, his disregard for institutions vital to our democracy and his scapegoating of people of color and immigrants.

Friedman, who is pursuing an MBA through Oxford University, left the State Department in 2015, and moved from the District to McLean, in April of this year.

The newest candidate, Deep Sran, 45, grew up in Silver Spring, attended Montgomery County public schools, and earned a bachelors degree from the University of Maryland and a law degree from Georgetown. He worked for firms in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington for three years, but always felt like education was the way to make lasting social change.

Returning to the University of Maryland, he earned a doctorate in educational psychology and went on to teach and serve as curriculum director at the Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School. He moved to Ashburn, in the district where he is seeking office, in 2004, and still lives there with his wife and two daughters.

Tried of the long commute, he started a small private school, the Loudoun School for the Gifted, about a decade ago as a laboratory for education ideas that could work in public school, he said.

Its purely Field of Dreams if you build it they will come, he said. I love education. It is in my mind the way to build a better world.

Sran, whose parents are from India, said that with his background and experience, he can relate to the districts robust South Asian community.

I understand why small-business people dont tend to vote for Democrats, he said. On the other hand, my whole life has been about social justice.

At least seven Democrats, including Friedman and Sran, are running or say they plan to run for the party nomination to challenge Comstock.

State Sen. Jennifer Wexton, a former prosecutor from Loudoun County; Lindsey Davis Stover, who worked in Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration; and Dan Helmer, a Rhodes Scholar and Army veteran, announced their campaigns early, followed by David B. Hanson, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Clifton.

Kimberly Adams, past president of the Fairfax teachers union, said she will begin her campaign next month.

Democratic leaders in the congressional district will decide early next year whether to nominate a candidate through a state-run primary open to all voters or a party-run process.

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Field of Democrats competing to challenge Rep. Comstock grows by two - Washington Post

In a piece in the Washington Post today, EJ Dionne allegedly lays out the three big lies about health care. It nicely encapsulates many of the Democrats political arguments against repeal (though unlike many of his allies, Dionne was kind enough to refrain from accusing Republicans of manslaughter in this column.) One of them, however, isnt a lie at all. The other is a debatable policy question, and the third is an absolute strawman.

Lie One:Democrats and progressives are unwilling to work with Republicans and conservatives on this issue.Dionne actually writes the following sentence: In fact, Democrats, including President Barack Obama when he was in office, have said repeatedly that they would like to work with Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act.

Oh, is that what Obama said?

First off, lets talk about the absurdity of this framing, which drives a lot of coverage. It is odd, to say the least, that even after years of wide-ranging historic winsmany of them driven by an explicit promise to repeal ObamacareRepublicans are still the ones asked to work with Democrats to improve the Affordable Care Act. That isnt the issue. The question is: why dont Democrats have to work with Republicans to find the best way dismantle Obamacare? This is the topic democracy has laid on the table. Because as Obama might say, they won. And won. And won.

Second off, the passing of Obamacareeven more than the policy consequences of the billnot only decimated the Democratic Party but frayed our contemporary political order. The chances of any truly bipartisan major reform in the foreseeable future is nonexistent. Democrats were willing to push through major national restructuring of a massive chunk of the American economy without any buy-in from half the country. They created a new norm. So while no one is expecting liberals to help unravel Obamas signature legislation, the idea that Republicans should be expected to save it is weak.

It is true that Obamacare would likely die without Republican help. But those circumstances, claims Dionne, have been created by the GOP itself. A completely different coalition is available, but Republicans dont want to activate it because they are hellbent on repealing Obamacare. Why?

Democrats, who ignored the Constitution when it came to subsidy payments and ignored basic economics when it came to state exchanges, have only themselves to blame for writing a bad bill. Long before Donald Trump ever became president, insurance companies were fleeing state exchanges. Long before Donald Trump was president, premiums were increasing and choices were constricting.

Perhaps the ACA debate was a reflection of a coming national split, or perhaps it was partly the cause. Whatever the case, it is revisionism to claim that Democrats were interested in conservative ideas (and please spare me the individual mandate myth). The supposed liberal concessions were based on pretend hearings and meaningless feel-good letters. In truth, the only compromises that went on in earnest were between liberals who were worried about capturing the votes needed to pass any bill, and moderate Democrats who were worried that their careers would be destroyed. Both of these things would come to fruition.

Lie Two: This bill is primarily about improving health care for American families. No, this effort is primarily about cutting taxes. Now, its plausible that EJ Dionne can bore into the souls of everyone involved in the bill, but whatever you make of the Senates initial (moderate) proposal, and many conservatives hate it, its about a lot morethan tax cuts. When Democrats lean heavily on their go-to platitude about tax cuts for the rich, it undermines the notion that theyre serious about negotiating on anything.

Moreover, there is nothing in Obamacare that improves health care for American families (its like reading ad copy.) ACA was mostly about expanding coverage, not improving carethough Obamacares expectations and purpose have been dramatically reimagined since 2010 to create imaginary success. If we evaluate ACA using the parameters Democrats themselves laid out when campaigning and passing, it has failed on everything other than the massive expansion of welfare. Even then, it offers access by threatening and forcing people to buy insurance. This is tantamount to celebrating an increase in military recruitment after passing a draft.

Lie Three:The Senate bill is a compromise. Dionne doesnt offer a single example of any Republicans saying that their bill is compromise with Democrats, nor could I find one such example. So perhaps it exists, but certainly isnt a predominant talking point. It is a compromise in the same way that Obamacare was: between wings of the same party. The only difference is that the 2017 GOP is bothering to pretend otherwise.

In Dionnes defense, he does provide one big obvious fiction when admonishing moderate Republican senators not to vote for the GOP bill:

Do they really want to say someday that one of their most important votes in the Senate involved taking health care away from millions of Americans? I would like to believe they are too decent for that. I hope Im not lying to myself.

I think you are. Whatever you make of the Republican efforts to un-knot Obamacares state-driven control of healthcare insurance markets, none of their plans take health care away from a single American. What AHCA might get rid of is the individual mandate, which will end the unprecedented policy of forcing American consumer to buy things they dont want. And they maycolor me skepticalfollow through on rolling back future spending on Obamacares Medicaid expansion. Dont worry, though: despite what you may hear about the end of Medicaid, it will still be, by far, one of the biggest items in the U.S. budget.

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The Democrats' Three Big Political Lies About Health Care - The Federalist

The eyes of the nation were on the special election in Georgias 6th Congressional District Tuesday. And, once the dust settled, Democratic leaders tried to spin it as a mix of good news and bad news.

The good news, according to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-NM, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is that Jon Ossoff came so close. Despite the loss, we have a lot to be proud of, Lujan said. Which is kind of like the proverbial Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

The fact is: Georgia 6 has been in Republican hands since 1979. In 2012, Mitt Romney won the district by more than 23 points. Tom Price, who abandoned the seat to become Donald Trumps HHS secretary, never got less than 60 percent. Even though Trump only carried the district last November by 1.5 points, its still a red district in a red state. So it is impressive that any Democrat proved so competitive, losing by only four points.

But: So what? Politics isnt beanbag. In politics, close doesnt mean anything. Theres only winning and losing. And winning is the only thing that counts. Jon Ossoff lost, even though he raised $23 million, more than any other congressional candidate in history, and outspent his Republican opponent Karen Handel. Jon Ossoff lost, even though this was billed as the race that would catapult Democrats back into control of Congress in 2018.

Yes, the bad news is that Jon Ossoff lost. And Democrats have to stop spinning about how well he did, all things considered, and start dealing with the reality of not only why he lost but why, in the four special elections held so far in 2017, Democrats have a record of 0-4.

Why did Democrats lose in Georgia 6? Two factors, above all others: Wrong candidate and wrong message. Jon Ossoff, former congressional staffer and documentary filmmaker, may be a bright young man, but he bombed as a candidate: too stiff, too cold, too reserved. Hes hardly the kind of guy youd want to go out and have a beer with. Hes more like the nerd youd do anything to avoid. He has all the charisma of a banana slug.

But Ossoff also had the wrong message. Not necessarily a bad message. He didnt say anything offensive. Just the wrong message. He didnt say anything particularly inspiring, either. He didnt focus on Donald Trump. He didnt adopt the progressive platform of Bernie Sanders. He just cast himself as the policy wonk who would do good things for his district when the public clearly wanted more.

According to leading political strategist Stanley Greenberg, Ossoff and his team made one other fatal mistake. They were so determined to keep the race based on local issues that they failed to respond when Republicans raised the stakes by painting Ossoff as an acolyte of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her liberal San Francisco values. Its a tired, old, phony line of attack, but it still works in some parts of the country, especially if you dont respond.

Once Republicans had so nationalized the race, Greenberg told me, Ossoff had no alternative but to also talk about the national importance of Georgia 6. He could have done so by focusing on the Republican health care bill, which would take health protection away from 23 million Americans and be the first vote cast by whoever won the Georgia special. But he chose not to. He stayed local, instead, and lost.

The Democrats loss in Georgia 6 is all the more ironic when compared to what happened in South Carolina 5. In Georgia, Jon Ossoff received $6 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and a ton of national publicity. In South Carolina, Democrat Archie Parnell received only $275,000 from the DCCC and zero national publicity.

Yet, when the votes were counted, Parnell scored better than Ossoff. He lost by only 2,836 votes, which says something about where the national Democratic Party is today. The more establishment party leaders love you, the worse voters like you and the less likely they are to vote for you.

It doesnt mean Democrats have less chance of taking back control of the House. According to strategist Charlie Cook, there are 71 districts now held by Republicans that are more favorable to Democrats than Georgia 6. But it does underscore where Democrats have to start in order to win back the House in 2018: find and field better candidates starting with a candidate who lives in the district, which Jon Ossoff did not.

Bill Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show. He can be reached by email at bill@billpress.com.

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Press column: Coming close in Georgia no win for Democrats - Portage Daily Register

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite

Democrats to offer platform on economy in attempt to end losing streak

Democrats have been losing elections by not offering voters a bold economic agenda, and the party plans to change that by releasing a platform within a month that won't be "baby steps," Senate Minority Leader Leader Charles E. Schumer said Sunday.

Congressional Democrats will try to pass the plan legislatively over the next year a remote possibility given Republican control of Congress and will campaign on it during the 2018 midterm elections, Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC's "This Week."

"Democrats need a strong, bold, sharp-edged and common-sense economic agenda," Schumer said. "Policy, platform, message that appeal to the middle class, that resonate with the middle class."

With Republicans controlling the White House and Congress, and Democrats unable to score a win in recent special elections for open congressional seats, the party's trying to find an effective approach beyond simply opposing President Donald Trump and Republican policies.

Some Democrats have questioned whether House Minority Leader Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should be replaced to give the party new leadership heading into the 2018 elections.

Schumer didn't offer details about the g economic plan but said the top lesson for Democrats after losing to Trump in 2016, and more recently a hard-fought and costly special election in Georgia on June 20, is that it's not enough for the party to simply oppose Trump and that an economic message is missing.

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Democrats to offer platform on economy in attempt to end losing streak - Albany Times Union

Immigration groups are increasingly doubtful President Trump will end President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after the Department of Homeland Security announced last week that recipients of the Obama-era program were safe for the unforeseen future.

Four national organizations representing a variety of immigration stances told the Washington Examiner the White House has been silent on the issue, and has not told even the groups that support Trump how it plans to go forward. That silence, according to two groups who supported Trump's immigration positions as a candidate, indicates the idea of DACA reform is not stalled, but dead.

"If the president had decided to end DACA, it would have happened. I don't know what they are waiting for. He promised to end DACA," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA. "Once you say something is illegal and unconstitutional, you can't just keep doing it."

New data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' second fiscal quarter shows 107,524 DACA renewals and 17,275 new applications were approved from January to March, approximately 70 percent of which happened under the Trump administration.

While campaigning last year, Trump promised to "immediately terminate" the 2012 policy that permitted illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors to receive a two-year period of deferred action and work permit. Recipients' approval would last two years and could be renewed if the individual remained in good legal standing.

As a candidate, Trump blasted the "amnesty" program that former President Barack Obama's second term Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson imposed by memo because Congress could not pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump appeared to be wavering in his commitment to rescinding DACA. He told one news outlet that recipients "shouldn't be worried" because "we're going to take care of everybody."

Then in April, Trump reiterated that compassionate view when he said "we need special heart" to "understand the other side of that equation" as it relates to DACA recipients.

But last Thursday, DHS Secretary John Kelly said DACA would remain in place while its 2014 sister program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, would end before it had even begun. The Trump administration revoked the parental program, though it was never implemented, because there was "no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy" due to its current entanglement in the courts.

Last week, a White House official told the New York Times "there has been no final determination made about the DACA program, which the president has stressed needs to be handled with compassion and with heart."

When asked about a timeline for Trump's deciding the fate of DACA, the White House referred the Washington Examiner to a two-month-old interview it conducted with Trump in which he said "we need special heart."

Trump has some choices he could make related to the program. He could direct DHS to immediately stop issuing renewals and new permits, or announce the program will be discontinued at a future date, giving people time to come up with a plan for how to respond.

But Kelly has said the issue should be taken up by Capitol Hill lawmakers because "Congress is the only entity that can provide a long-term solution to this issue."

Other groups agree with Kelly.

"Though I was initially skeptical, it might even make sense to try to trade a real, lawful amnesty for the DACAs in exchange for important immigration changes only Congress can pass specifically, universal E-Verify and cuts in legal immigration. In that case, announcing that renewals would continue until, say, the end of the year could be a powerful motivator for congressional Democrats," writes Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports conservative-aligned immigration reforms.

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Immigration groups: Trump's silence on DACA means it's here to stay - Washington Examiner