A few weeks ago, we looked at the vote in the House for the PRO Act-- Protecting the Right To Organze (H.R. 2474)-- which passed 224-194. There were seven anti-union Democrats who voted against the bill:
Sane people don't think of the Green New Deal as "Fools Gold"As you may recall, Mike Siegel fought a tireless grassroots battle in the gerrymandered 10th Texas congressional district, which goes from northern Austin through the city's northern suburbs, across Bastrop, Lee, Fayette, Colorado, Washington, Austin and Waller counties all the way into the exurbs (Tomball, Bridgeland and Cypress) northwest of Houston.
Today is Presidents' Day... but we'll forgo taking about that until we have a legitimate president in the White House again and, instead, say a few words about the legislative branch of government that was created with the power to check a possible tyrant in the White House.
On Thursday night, the House passed Bobby Scott's PRO Act-- Protecting the Right To Organze (H.R. 2474). There were only 5 Republicans-- all in swing districts-- who voted with the Democrats to pass this. There were, however, 7 anti-working class Democrats who crossed the aisle in the other direction, Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. (It passed 224-194.) These were the so-called Democrats who opposed it:
The Republican wing of the Democratic PartyA reminder: As soon as Blue Dog/New Dem Cheri Bustos grabbed the DCCC chair for herself, she instituted an aggressive new policy aimed at progressives challenging Blue Dogs and New Dems (like herself). She officially declared that any campaign consultants, vendors, polling firms, strategists or operatives who worked for a campaign running against an incumbent would be blacklisted by the DCCC.
Yesterday, The Hill ran one of it's never-ending condemnations of Democratic Party "purity" politics. Purity politics...
When Blue Dogs and Republicans Get Together, Only Bad Can Come Of ItAmericans love bipartisanship. When Long Island Republican Peter King signed on as the first Republican cosponsor of the bill to ban the sale of assault weapons, he may have been the only Republican to do so-- but he was joining Tom Suozzi, a Democrat in the Long Island district just north of his.
Although there are rumors that South Jersey machine boss George Norcross is toying wit the idea of replacing Jeff Van Drew with Patrick Kennedy as the Democratic nominee for the second district seat, so far Van Drew has no primary opponent, just a 3 Republicans trying to get to the right of him, no easy task.
In a primary cycle that ended this week, the Democratic establishment in Virginia got the results of their efforts to run an "ex"-Republican legislator and all around piece of dog crap, Mark Wolfe, against an incumbent of their own party-- free-thinking, Democratic Socialist Delegate Lee Carter. Carter never appeared all that concerned when I spoke with him and he easily turned back the challenge, winning the primary last Tuesday 57.72% to 42.28%.
