Barrow

John Barrow-- anti-immigrant Blue Dog (GA)Politically, the battle over immigration reform in pretty black and white, right? The Democrats want to reform the system. The Republicans don't. If only it could break down that neatly! The genesis of the immigration problem is tied up in wealthy corporate interests-- primarily backers of the GOP-- who want cheap labor and lots of immigration to drive the cost of labor down and dilute the power of unions.

Yesterday we talked about how cowardly New Dem freshmen Patrick Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema, who Boehner and Cantor know they can count on to almost always betray progressive Democratic ideals and vote with the GOP in a way that allows them to claim their toxic agenda is "bipartisan," h

Proud SouthernerOver the weekend, Molly Ball, writing in The Atlantic made the case for Democrats winning back the Deep South. When I was just becoming aware of politics as a kid, everything that made me hate the Democratic Party stemmed from the fact that it owned the Deep South-- and was owned by the Deep South.

The Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010 really marked the end of the any claim to power or influence for the treacherous conservatives inside the Democratic Party known as Blue Dogs. They lost dozens of Members as Democrat base votes just stayed away from the polls in droves and let them go down to ignominious defeats in district after district.

Few are as blatant and tone deaf as John Barrow (New Dem/Blue Dog-GA), but there are Democrats firmly allied with the NRA in both the House and Senate. In fact, four of them in the Senate-- Mark Pryor (AR), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mark Begich (AK), and Max Baucus (MT)-- just got unpleasant wakeup calls on the issue from Michael Bloomberg.

I was invited to the White House yesterday for a briefing. I passed on the hassle and the opportunity. I suppose I would have heard President Obama reiterating his strong support for commonsense reform legislation to fix our broken immigration system, and the economic and national security benefits that reform will deliver. Tom Donohue of the US Chamber of Commerce, always pumping for cheap labor, was there-- as were labor leaders Mary Kay Henry and Richard Trumka. The President also invited two DREAMers, Gabriela Pacheco and Tolu Olubunmi.

The overall bill was for appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security and that passed 245-182, 25 Democrats joining all but 10 Republicans in favor.