All our work to get a majority for our Democrats...and the other side seems to hold more power.

madfloridian

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Sun Aug-16-09 01:41 PM
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All our work to get a majority for our Democrats...and the other side seems to hold more power.

The outcries from the right wing screamers over the recess scared them apparently into backing away from the government run public option which would bring real reform.

Nothing we on the left say or do matters. What matters is the reaction from the far right. "They who must not be offended" is a good way to describe the ones who oppose everything Democrats should embody.

And it appears they are winning the battle again. From the words of the administration spokespersons today...there will be no public option. Seems it will be insurance reform and not true health care reform.

It was the same during the lead-up to the Iraq war. Do you remember the way we wrote, called, emailed, marched in DC, rallied locally? I do. Maybe we did not scream loudly enough then.

We had a chance with our majority to fix stuff sooner in Iraq, to fix the horrible way that immigrants are being treated by ICE and other agencies.

Yet, the Democrat who told our candidates in 2006 and 2008 to "go right on immigration" and not to speak about Iraq on the campaign trail is the White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel Says Immigration Reform Bill Lacks Votes to Pass

Just hours before President Obama hosted lawmakers for a discussion on immigration at the White House, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel conceded that Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill do not have the votes to pass a comprehensive reform bill.

"If the votes were there, you wouldn't need to have the meeting. You could go to a roll call," Emanuel told reporters during an hour-long breakfast.

Why is that?

The candidates that were picked to run by the DCCC were very controlled about how to handle the issues. They were subjected to Rahm's view of the immigration issue, that the Democrats could not win unless they turned to the right.

From 2008

Two weeks ago he sent a DCCC-connected candidate training a video of himself haranguing congressional candidates to �move right� on immigration or risk defeat at the hands of Republicans. This is similar to the terrible advice he shoved down candidates� throats last year, although then he was demanding they move to the right on Iraq, dooming the candidacies of Lois Murphy, Francine Busby, Ken Lucas, Tammy Duckworth, Diane Farrell and several others who went along with his demands.

Another issue we will probably lose because of the fear of the right is the issue of women's choice.

In fact, Mr. Bright is one of a dozen anti-abortion Democratic challengers the party has recruited to run for the House this year and has aggressively supported with millions of dollars and other resources in culturally conservative districts long unfriendly to the party.

That is the highest number of anti-abortion candidates the party has fielded in recent memory to run either for open seats or against Republican challengers, according to party strategists and a leading anti-abortion organization.

And we wonder why change is slow to happen.

With a Democratic majority we caved on FISA and warrantless wiretapping. It did not matter how many letters, emails, phone calls, rallies we had. The other side was more powerful even though we had a majority. Remember that a coalition of 27 groups opposed the bill.

It was a terrible bill that passed anyway in spite of our having a majority.

The bill would authorize massive warrantless surveillance.

The bill would require no individualized warrant even when an American�s communications clearly are of interest to the government.

The bill would curtail effective judicial review of surveillance.

The bill would grant retroactive immunity for wrongdoing.

The bill would not provide a reasonable sunset.

Steny Hoyer said they passed so the Blue Dogs would not support a harsher bill. We had a majority but we had to pass a bill preferred by the minority.

Remember the bankruptcy bill in 2005? We did not have a majority then in Congress, but it was our Blue Dogs and New Democrats who pushed for it.

There was no provision for people who had to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, yet it passed anyway.

This magazine and multiple other opinion outlets on the center-left have written at length about how the bill in question is a truly contemptible piece of legislation. Worse, there is no plausible political rationale for supporting it other than to appease credit card companies. As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the bill makes no exceptions for families wiped out by medical expenses (which make up more than half of all bankruptcies) or for bankruptcy cases involving active-duty soldiers, yet it leaves any number of loopholes in place for large corporations. The political imagery here so obviously benefits anyone who'd oppose the bill you're left to conclude that the only way a congressman could possibly support it is through a craven and reflexive willingness to do the bidding of big business.

But, even worse than that, support for the bill by Democratic moderates betrays a striking obliviousness to the most important debate underway within the Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats have been under assault from grassroots liberals lately for selling out Democratic values in their rush to appease conservative interests. I normally think this criticism is highly misplaced, and that moderates have exactly the right instincts when it comes to social issues and foreign policy, even most economic issues. But in this case the moderates proved the liberals' point for them, which could set back the cause of moderates within the party for months, if not years. It really is a colossal, inexcusable mistake.

Right now we are learning that Newt Gingrich is becoming an important voice in the push to reform education. That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. Our new Secretary of Education is actually using Gingrich's philosophies of education.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich and civil rights leader/onetime Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton will hit the road together next month in the name of education reform. The tour starts Sept. 29 in Philadelphia, heads to New Orleans on Nov. 3 and then to Baltimore on Nov. 13 -- cities selected for what they can teach others about school reform. The Department of Education plans to add other stops, including a rural venue.

More on Newt's education policies at the link. We are pandering to the right wing on their corporate education agenda.

We don't have to cave on the public option that will begin the process of real health care reform. We don't have to include Newt in our education reform. We don't have to have Max Baucus, the man who received about 3 million from insurance companies, leading our efforts for reform.

We are not using our majority. For the first time in our lives we donated much money to politics, to candidates. We worked locally and statewide. We were so enthusiastic. Now we are stopping donations until we see Democrats acting like Democrats.

It will have a great impact on our party if this rightward moving continues.