Sherrod Brown

Ryan held a conference call with his members yesterday to assure them that he has no intention of shutting down the government despite what the White House appears to be angling for. He promised not to let his failed TrumpCare bill get in the way. Some Republicans in Congress are worried they'll be blamed by next year's midterm voters if there's a government shutdown. Those worries are not part of Steve Bannon's calculus.

You may have come to expect cowardly conservative careerists in the Senate like Joe Manchin (D-WV), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to cross the aisle and rubber-stamp virtually all of Trump's horrendous nominees for high public office.

Over the last week Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was one of several Democratic senators angered by the shipping out of the Buy America provisions from the Water Infrastructure bill.

The above is an e-mail I got yesterday from Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. I agree with every word of it. Shred is usually right about domestic policy. He's been a dependable leader on fair trade for as long as I can remember him in Congress. And he's one of the best in Congress on reining in Wall Street's predatory excesses.

Al Franken, a reliable Monsanto Senator (source)by Gaius PubliusLet's look at this story from a couple of angles. First, here's what happened recently in Vermont, as told by Thom Hartmann (my emphasis everywhere):

How Wall Street Screws AmericaWhat do these 13 Democrats have in common?

A first-time voter and Sanders supporter tells Thom Hartmann what it will take to keep him in the Democratic Partyby Gaius PubliusI know for sure that a Republican in the White House would be a disaster of monumental proportions.

Strictly a coincidence, but Tuesday afternoon we happened to mention that when Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio progressive, was in the House, he was serving alongside Republican Rob Portman and conservaDem Ted Strickland.

Would you trust an organization asking you for contributions if you knew they had endorsed Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln? Council for a Livable World has been around for a long time and they've done some very good work, but they've also asked their followers to contribute to those two and to reactionaries like John Sparkman of Alabama, a racist and a signatory to the Southern Manifesto in opposition to the 1954 U.S.

Brown has been fighting against the job-killing corporate trade agenda since long before he was ever elected to the Senate. He was the primary champion of the battle against these unfair trade bills in the House-- just as Grayson is today. Last week, Brown did an OpEd for the Jackson County Times-Journal about the dangers of fast-tracking the TPP.