Bernie Sanders (I-VT)-- like Ken and I, a graduate of James Madison High School-- has been trying to explain that “Yesterday, the Republicans were using the Affordable Care Act as the reason why they had to shut down the government and not pay our bills. Today, it’s ‘reforming’ Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
I've had a lot of feedback-- most of it great-- after Michelangelo Signorile's post last week in HuffPo about how propounding disappointing LGBT freshmen Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ) and Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY) have been. I've been blogging about these two clowns here at DWT all year. No one in New York seems to have noticed that Maloney has the single worst (i.e., most Republican) voting record of any Democratic freshman.
Don't assume from this picture of Sean Patrick Maloney's lovely family that he isn't a conservativeFriday Michaelangelo Signorile picked up on the theme we've been discussing here at DWT about the disappointments inherent in identity politics.
Last year Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ) tried appealing to out-of-district progressives while claiming to be a centrist in AZ-09. Obama beat McCain and Romney in the district; it's not a red district. This week Sinema, one of the Democrats who votes most frequently with the Republican on crucial roll calls, has been claiming that both parties are at fault over the government shut down. "Arizonans are angry and I don't blame them," she said Tuesday.
Let's take a look at the 3 bills Boehner and Cantor put together as part of their strategy of just funding the parts of government they agree with (while cutting off the governmental functions-- like Social Security and Medicare-- they hate). Tuesday they offered 3 with no hearings or debate and they needed 2/3 to pass. All three failed.
Reactionary Arizona New Dem, Kyrsten Sinema is one of the half dozen most conservative Democrats in Congress. Her voting record on crucial roll calls is worse than even Blue Dogs Mike McIntyre's and Jim Matheson's, who both represent deep red districts (unlike her own). She votes more frequently with the GOP than even fellow Arizona ConservaDems Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber. Unquestionably, she deserves to lose her seat next year.
For much of the year we've been talking about the corruption that, to a great extent, defines the New Dems in Congress and pointing specifically to the bad apples among them that managed to get onto the House Financial Services Committee, one of the principal conduits of bribery cash from the Wall Street banksters to Congress.
Yesterday we noted the endorsement of Rush Holt, who is white, by African-American civil rights leader Edith Savage-Jennings.
Wall St. shills Crowley & Himes, leading freshmen to slaughterEarly this morning we saw how California voters drove the obstructionist Republicans away from the levers of power and made it impossible for them to obstruct government. And the result was a $60 billion deficit turned into a $4 billion surplus.
