NYT/AP: New Coalition Aims to Keep Democrats in Check

[DeepModem Mom]

New Coalition Aims to Keep Dems in Check
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic lawmakers who stray too far from the party line could find themselves facing primary opponents financed by unions, trial lawyers and political activists eager to put the new congressional majority to the test.

After two weeks of near perfect unity, congressional Democrats now move into more divisive territory that will test party discipline on such issues as the war in Iraq, worker rights and health care.

Anti-war activists led by groups such as MoveOn.org and Win Without War have already mobilized, pressuring Democrats and Republicans to denounce President Bush's troop boosting plan for Iraq. But they also want tougher action, arguing that the elections that put Democrats in power were a referendum on the war.

This week, an influential group of organizers from labor and the liberal movement are banding together to hold Democrats in line on populist issues such as expanded health care, trade restrictions and worker protections....

The coalition has organized two entities -- a lobbying wing called They Work For Us and a campaign arm called Working for Us PAC -- that will target lawmakers who don't support their agenda of raising wages, increasing jobs, providing more affordable health care and preventing job losses to foreign countries....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Democrats-Discipline.html

[leesa]

1. What are "trial lawyers" anyway? Funny, the way right-wingers encapsulate

things.

[Nihil]

6. Ones that are free for the first three months? (n/t)

:shrug:

[More Than A Feeling]

2. This group isn't going to target conservative Dems in conservative districts

Just Dems who act too conservatively in safely Democratic districts.

[dooner]

3. What about Lieberman?

Weird that Lieberman sn't on their list? i could add a few more.. like Feinstein.

"The Working for Us PAC Web site lists Reps. Ellen Tauscher of California, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Al Wynn of Maryland as three ''top offenders.'' The three are members of the party's moderate to conservative wing who have broken with the party leadership on some key votes in the past."

[madfloridian]

4. Well, he's not officially a Dem, but maybe target the seat later?

Not sure, just a thought.

[LiberalFighter]

7. He's not up for re-election for another 6 years (2012)

[annabanana]

5. Hope springs eternal. . . . . n/t

[Peace Patriot]

8. This is excellent. However, it should be combined with ELECTION REFORM,

cuz the 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" that rightwing Bushite electronic voting corporations can put on virtually any race in the country, without detection--in our currently completely non-transparent, Bushite-controlled election system--is as responsible for these unrepresentative Congress members as anything else, probably much more so. It's not the people and the voters being unheard so much as it is WHO these Bushites, warmongers and corporatists are beholden to for the power: starts with 'filthy lucre', ends with Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret," proprietary programming code. MoveOn.org is liberal but not very bright. They, like some others--Michael Moore and Al Franken come to mind--drank the Terry McAuliffe Kool-Aid about the 2004 election and the fascist coup of Bushite-controlled electronic voting, and greatly retarded the efforts of the election fraud/election reform movement, and they are dimwitted now not to recognize that "They Work For Us" cannot ever become a 100% reality without 100% transparent elections. If I had to judge our elections right now, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 as most transparent and representative, I'd give us a 2. 2004 was a 0 (totally out of whack). My award of a 2 is based on, a) closer citizen monitoring of elections, and more awareness, resulting, for instance, in Christine Jennings' challenge of the obviously fiddled FL-13 election (in 2004, such obvious frauds were ignored), and b) voters outvoting the machines (we, the people, won a lot more in '06 that the vote totals showed) (--also, voters in many places were voting by Absentee Ballot, in record numbers, indicating citizen awareness and individual voters' attempts to get around the rigged electronics).

If Holt's HR 550 succeeds in this Category 2 Congress, we might reach Category 3 by 2008. (Holt's bill leaves the rightwing Bushite corporations in charge of our election system, but will require a paper ballot backup and slightly better auditing--a 2% automatic recount, instead of 0% to 1%, currently. Note: Venezuela handcounts FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the votes, as a check against machine fraud.) Category 10 would be 100% transparency (which I think, at this point, must include a 100% audit/automatic recount) and public financing of campaigns (and other measures such as free air time on our public airwaves for political debate). 100% transparency in the vote counting will get us up to 9. A Category 10 election (the peoples' hurricane) will require more steps to remove the Corporate Ruler/military-industrial complex influence on our elections.

And if you don't think Diebold/ES&S are such a big deal, here they are:

DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture--Windows-based), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; until recently, they were run by two brothers, Bob and Tod Urosevich. (One of them got outa Dodge last year--can't recall which one.)

These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.

ES&S recently refused to disclose its "trade secret," proprietary programming code in the challenge to the FL-13 election, in which 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress were 'disappeared' in an election that was decided by a few hundred votes. (The matter is now in Congress.)

Diebold has secretaries of state (Georgia) and heads of major election regions (Los Angeles) doing sales brochures for them. That's how cozy things have gotten. This corruption of our election officials and legislators--brought about by the $3.9 federal electronic voting boondoggle (Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay, Bob Ney, abetted by corporatists Christopher Dodd and Terry McAuliff)--is a major reason that Bush is still in the White House and that Congress is still not fully representative of the American people. (So, when you hear Christopher Dodd blustering against the Iraq War now, be aware that he, more than any other Democrat, kept Bush in office.)

It's fine to lobby, to pressure, to raise money (an unfortunate necessity), to make the people's voice heard--which MoveOn.org and others do extremely well. But we're working with a heavily handicapped horse here--the American people, a potentially great progressive force--whose handicap, in all fairness, needs to be removed.

[TexasLawyer]

9. kick n/t