More Democrats Ain't Worth Squat-- ONLY Better Democrats Matter

Now if he would just VOTE like a Democrat...

Yesterday Rachel Maddow was talking about energy policy and she mentioned that when the Democrats are right about something and have the facts to prove it and when they control a majority in Congress, it just makes no sense at all to give in to Republican's demands for bad policy. But the Democrats did it again today-- not on energy (which was yesterday and was a decent, if imperfect, bill) but on gun control. This morning HR 6842, the National Capital Security and Safety Act, passed 266 to 152. Like funding for the war in Iraq and like Bush's unconstitutional FISA bill, a healthy majority of Democrats opposed this legislation. But there were enough Chris Carneys, Bill Fosters and Dan Borens crossing the aisle to vote with almost the entire Republican caucus to pass it.

So what's "it?" I noticed that the bill was introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton, the strongly progressive and principled Democratic delegate from DC-- Washington still has no voting members of Congress, even though it has a population of 588,292, about 60,000 more than Wyoming, which has two senators and a representative, and roughly the same population as Alaska, North Dakota and Vermont, each of which has two senators and a representative. It was co-sponsored by Henry Waxman, another trustworthy figure when it comes to sane public policy. Is it possible these two were trying to pass a bill that would make DC into a shooting zone? I then noticed Waxman voted against the bill of which he is the only co-sponsor. OK, I had to see what the right-wing Republican kooks were up to.

The right wing Republican kooks-- specifically Travis Childers, a nominal Democrat from Mississippi who votes more frequently with Republicans than with Democrats on key contested issues-- wanted to make sure Washington DC residents could hunt and shoot anything they wanted inside the city limited and hornsnaggled the Democratic majority by offering an amendment he worked out with the NRA. With heavy NRA pressure, the amendment passed 260-160 in a big defeat by right-wing Democrats and their Republican allies over the Democratic leadership.

Even though Childers' reactionary and extremist amendment, which repeals the ban on semiautomatic weapons inside the city limits, passed the bill is DOA because it's not going anywhere in the Senate. And for my friends who supported reactionaries like Childers and Cazayoux and Foster... here's what you get. It's not just about hunters in Montana and rural Pennsylvania having the right to shoot animals, it's also about inner cities being armed to the teeth with machine guns. And it's about undermining a progressive agenda for America.

Now some of the nominal Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, like Childers, are just trying to make points with their reactionary constituents by sucking up to their worst instincts on social issues. Others are just all about the cash-- like Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel voted against the NRA bill today. There's no pay-off in that one for him. And, as David Sirota warned us yesterday, Emanuel's got bigger fish to fry-- and he needs to do it before more of his right-wing Republican allies are defeated in November. "I thought," writes Sirota, "the House Democratic Caucus Chairman was a position whose mission is to help elect more Democrats, so that Democrats can do more things Democrats promise to do. According to Inside U.S. Trade, I'm wrong."

Among the House Democratic leadership, Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [free trade agreements] this year for a number of reasons, sources said. They said that one of the reasons Emanuel cites is that there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now.

If that isn't clear, let's have Sirota explain what the arch-villain of NAFTA is up to now. Basically, Emanuel is trying to pass NAFTA-like trade legislation for corporate cronies who donate big money to the Democrats-- through him and some of his sleazy allies.

To really fathom how incredible this is, understand that Emanuel - the Democratic leader - is effectively acting as the House Republican whip. He's saying that he wants these bills up for a vote because there are enough Republican votes right now in the House to pass it over current Democratic objections - and there won't be enough GOP votes in the next Congress.

How many polls have to come out showing that the vast majority of Americans do not want their jobs and wages crushed by hacks like Emanuel? And how come Democrats are led by con artists who spent their White House career shilling for Wall Street, then cashed in as an investment banker, then bought a congressional race, only to go back to Washington to continue his corporate crusade over the dead body of his own caucus?

That's why you don't see Blue America advocating for reactionary Democratic hacks like Cazayoux, Foster, Childers and the rest. Half the DCCC's Red to Blue list is a nightmare of corporate shills and anti-choice maniacs. At Blue America we left the "More Democrats" theme behind and we're only about BETTER Democrats. If you want less Travis Childers and Rahm Emanuels and more like Donna Edwards and Russ Feingold, please mosey over to our ActBlue page and get to know the folks there.

As bizarre as it appears, there is a chance that John McCain or that Palin thing will wind up in the White House. Take a look at this clip of ABC-TV demonstrating to America what a worthless, cynical, untrustworthy hack McCain is. If he gets into the White House we'll need real Democrats like Darcy Burner, Alan Grayson, Dennis Shulman, Andrew Rice and Jeff Merkley, not shills-- from either party-- looking for "a convergence of convenience."