When Party Leaders Abandon Democrats, Democrats Abandon Them Back

Sellus Wilder is the progressive Democrat-- Democratic wing of the Democratic Party-- running for the Kentucky Senate seat currently occupied by Rand Paul. The Democratic Establishment has their own candidate in the primary, Jim Gray, all ready to do all the same old GOP-lite things Democrats do in Kentucky to lose elections. When Wilder spoke at the Bernie Sanders rally in Pikeville this week (video up top) he talked about Democratic voters who are "ready for candidates who aren't afraid to be honest about where they stand, who aren't afraid to be Democrats... It's important for us to be free and independent thinkers... I'll let you in on a little secret-- Bernie is going to win Kentucky [May 17]. But even if he doesn't win the nomination-- but I think he can-- this revolution is real and it's strong and thousands of Kentuckians will continue to stand up and insist that the United States of America is not a nation dedicated to corporations and the pursuit of power and profit at the expense of our neighbors but is rather a nation of the people, by the people and for the people. You can contribute to Sellus Wilder's campaign here on the page with the congressional candidates who have endorsed Bernie and are running on his issues.

Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) and Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ) aren't-- and never will be-- on that page. They have their very own page: the page of traitors who should have been tossed out of the Democratic Party long ago. Yesterday, the 5 of these anti-family rightists skipped across the aisle-- as always-- and voted with most of the Republicans to raise the cost of prescription drug prices.

Mr. Doggett moves to recommit the bill (H.R. 2745) to the Committee on the Judiciary, with instructions to report the bill back to the House forthwith with the following amendment:

At the end of the bill, add the following:

SEC. 5. PROTECTING CONSUMERS AGAINST HIGH PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS.

(a) This Act and the amendments made by this Act shall not apply to mergers that would unreasonably increase the costs of pharmaceutical drugs.
(b) The Clayton Act (15 U.S.C.12 et seq.) and Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45 et seq.) as in effect immediately before the date of the enactment of this Act shall apply to mergers that would unreasonably increase the costs of pharmaceutical drugs.

When Thomas Frank talks about the Democratic Party changing from a Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Party dedicated to working families to a loose union of careerists and corporate shills serving a top 10% professional class, Ashford, Bera, Peters, Peterson and Sinema should pop right to mind. Up in the Sacramento area, anti-working family New Dem, Ami Bera has pushed working men and women so far with his Republican agenda that two unions, the Carpenters and the Teamsters, have just endorsed his Republican opponent. If the Democrats lose this swing district it will be their own fault for being so violently opposed to holding bad Democrats like Bera accountable through primaries.



Wednesday 12 members of the North Carolina state legislature joined the GOP in passing the ugliest anti-LGBT legislation that's come down the pike in years. 5 of the bigoted legislators-- Charles and George Graham, Howard Hunter, Garland Pierce and Billy Richards-- are on Hillary Clinton's North Carolina Leadership Team. I was surprised to learn that all 12 aren't. After all, until it became pretty safe politically and very expedient electorally, she was mouthing anti-gay talking points on the Senate floor.

A new poll released by Bloomberg yesterday has Bernie slightly ahead of Hillary among Democrats nationally-- and doing scary-better in terms of November electability.

By a more than 2-to-1 ratio, Democratic primary voters say Sanders would fight harder than Clinton for the middle class and do the most to rein in the power of Wall Street. Nearly six in 10 say the Vermont senator cares the most about people like them, and 64 percent see him as the most honest and trustworthy candidate. Just a quarter of voters said that of Clinton.

“It comes down to this: Bernie Sanders is the one Democrats see as looking out for them-- meaning he will build a stronger middle class at the expense of Wall Street,” said J. Ann Selzer, whose firm conducted the poll. “They trust him to do it. In the end, Hillary Clinton has a trust problem.”

Matthew Slater, a 26-year old retail manager from Gulfport, Mississippi, said he doesn’t view Clinton “as believable and authentic.”

“Seeing the issues that Hillary Clinton has flip-flopped on, has once supported and is now against or the other way around, I don’t believe in her,” Slater said. “I don’t really trust her.”

The survey also signaled some trouble for Clinton in holding on to Sanders supporters in November. In general-election match-ups, Sanders holds a 24-point edge over Donald Trump, a 12-point lead over Ted Cruz, and a 4-point advantage over John Kasich among likely general-election voters. Clinton, by contrast, trails Kasich by 4 percentage points. She would carry a sizable lead into a contest against Cruz, where she holds a 9-point advantage, and Trump, whom she beats by 18 points.

At some point, the DCCC, DSCC, DNC and the Beltway Democratic Party in general will have been so abusive to it's members that they will figure out they're being scammed by a bunch of values-free hustlers out for themselves. At that point it won't just be the Sacramento area carpenters and teamsters abandoning the party. The seeds for a new party based on the values of the Roosevelt wing that made us interested in the Democrats to begin with: