Paul Ryan needs to understand bigotry is not wonkySean Patrick Maloney, a New Dem from New York's Lower Hudson Valley (parts of Orange, Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties) has two functions in Congress: to slavishly serve the interests of the Wall Street banksters and to push LGBT equality; he's a gay conservative.
Isn't it time to end the anti-democratic practice of gerrymandering? No, it's actually past time-- way past time. In 2012, for example, 59,645,531 Americans (48.8%) voted for Democrats running for Congress and 58,228,253 (47.6%) voted for Republicans. In a mathematically perfect world, the Democrats would have 213 seats and the Republicans would have 207 seats. That would have been a reflection of the popular will.
Wednesday, the White House finally released the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership dealand, as many of us expected, it's what we feared-- another crappy corporate trade deal like NAFTA. The first Member of Congress I heard from after the text came out was Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, whose been fighting to make this monstrosity better for working families and better for the environment. "I remember," she wrote yesterday, "what happens when we don’t think of the American worker first.
The video above, by the head of the Old Skool fringe group the John Birch Society, is the kind of thing right-wing voters are hearing more and more about lately. Very few people listen to this nut. But they do listen to Donald Trump, who is ready to exploit legitimate concerns as well as confusion and turmoil around the TPP for his own purposes. Fine.Once word started leaking out yesterday that the secret negotiations on the TPP were basically done, the first congressional reaction I saw was from Alan Grayson, an implacable foe of trade agreements that ship American jobs overseas.
Scott Walker- never quite ready for prime timeWhat ever happened to Scott Walker? I know that you already know. His dull campaign never caught fire, and he dropped out and went back to Iowa with his tail between his legs. Walker assumed he had it in the bag because he was the beloved of the Koch brothers.
Wisconsin Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan pointed out last week that dealing with the Republicans in Congress is like dealing with a pack of unruly kindergarten children. A good many of them are willing to tank their own leadership in their frustration (with democracy) and mania (for suicidal endeavors) to shut down the government.
Yesterday, on the 80th anniversary of the enactment of the Social Security Act-- which had been vilified as "socialism" by conservatives-- we took a look at the NY-24 congressional campaign of Social Security Works co-founder Eric Kingson. Kingston, of course, is only one of many progressive Democrats who are militant about preserving and expanding Social Security.
When Mark Pocan (D-WI): said "Politicians too often say one thing but actually do another," he was explaining how magic tricks are like what politicians do in Washington. Few people know that Mark is actually a magician himself and used to do magic shows to put himself through college. Yesterday, though, in the other chamber, Texas' right-wing extremist Ted Cruz went crazy on the floor, accusing his own caucus leader, Mitch McConnell, of lying.A politician lying?
The video above is from a hearing of the Michigan state legislature not the U.S. Congress. And the hearing is about abuse of forfeiture laws, not about medical marijuana itself.
The year 1970 saw marijuana's exit from my life-- or so I thought. (A little background here.) But because of the pain and side effects from 6 months of chemotherapy, I've started a program of medical marijuana every night before bed.
