Can Unions Make Right-Wing Democrats Who Voted With The GOP Against The Working Class Pay A Penalty?

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:

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)

Last Thursday, the Communications Workers of America sent a letter to DCCC chair Cheri Bustos urging the committee to end campaign support for the 7 incumbents who voted with the Republicans and against unions.

The union says that these Democratic members voted against strengthening workers’ rights, a fundamental principle of the Democratic Party, and therefore should not receive campaign support from the DCCC moving forward.

The seven Democratic House Members who voted against the PRO Act are: Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Rep. Joe Cunningham (SC-01), Rep. Kendra Horn (OK-05), Rep. Ben McAdams (UT-04), Rep. Lucy McBath (GA-06), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (FL-07), and Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR-05). The letter comes after CWA members last week protested outside the offices of Reps. Cuellar, Murphy, and McBath to hold the Members accountable for voting against the PRO Act.

“I urge you to deny DCCC services to the seven Members of the House of Representatives who caucus with House Democrats and betrayed working people and America’s Labor Movement by voting against the final passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act,” wrote CWA President Chris Shelton in a letter to DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos.

The U.S. House of Representatives last week voted in support of the PRO Act, a historic piece of legislation that would make it easier for workers to join a union, protect strikes and other bargaining activities, and weaken “right-to-work” laws. The legislation passed after tireless work of CWA members and a broad coalition of labor, civil rights, environmental, religious immigrant rights, and women's groups, who fought to ensure that the voices of working people would finally be heard.

“The PRO Act is a continuation of the long history of the Democratic Party’s policies to strengthen workers’ voices in the U.S. economy and create a level playing field and an engine for millions of workers to reach the middle class and, therefore, a stable and comfortable life,'' added Shelton. “Those who voted against the PRO Act have betrayed this fundamental principle of the Democratic Party. And due to those votes, it is impossible for CWA to urge our members to support any of these seven candidates. They must be denied the support of the Democratic Party for refusing to stand with working Americans.”

The letter outlines how the Democratic Party has long recognized that the ability for workers to organize, join a union, and bargain for their fair share has been critical to building a strong and vibrant middle class. However, corporate special interests are trying to exert their influence and push their anti-worker agenda in the Democratic Party-- with the latest example being the Democratic members who voted against the PRO Act. CWA has vowed to defend against these efforts, and hold Democratic members accountable for putting the interests of corporations ahead of the interests of working people.

Bustos is reported to have crumpled up the letter from the 700,000 member union and thrown it in the trash can, cursing and spitting. The DCCC is heavily supporting Kendra Horn, Joe Cunningham, Henry Cuellar, Ben McAdams and Lucy McBath and has said they will step in if Kurt Schrader or Stephanie Murphy look like they win up in jeopardy.

Our old friend, Tom Guild, an Oklahoma City progressive so busy trying to get Bernie over the hump that he hasn't even had time to officially announce his own campaign for the seat held by anti-union Blue Dog Kendra Horn, one of the conservative fake-Democrats who voted against the PRO-Act. When I asked him why he had decided to run again, he told me that Horn's vote against the PRO-Act was one of the top reasons. "I’m very disappointed that Ms. Horn voted against the PRO-Act. Her vote is an unpardonable sin and damages the rights of working people. To achieve a healthy economy and further economic justice, workers must be able to effectively organize, join unions, and bargain for their fair share of the fruits of their labor and hard won economic gains. That will build and sustain a strong and vibrant middle class. It is tragic when conservatives cripple workers’ rights, and much worse when members of the Democratic Party collaborate with powerful corporate interests and strengthen their anti-worker agenda. Americans should hold members, especially Democratic members of Congress, accountable at the polls for crippling the interests of working people. The DCCC should not support these anti-worker congresspersons by giving them aid and comfort and funding their campaigns. Enough is enough. A key question in 2020 is whose side are you on. The Democratic Party should stand unapologetically in solidarity with working people to lighten their load, and make it easier for workers to join unions, engage in strikes and pursue other essential bargaining activities. To do otherwise betrays the better part of a century of standing beside and supporting America’s beleaguered workers."

In the South Texas district where progressive Jessica Cisneros is battling DCCC Blue Dog Henry Cuellar, likely to be the next Jeff Van Drew, the labor movement has backed Cisneros and the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers have backed Cuellar. The Kochs are funneling money to his campaign their their front groups and PACs. Their outright endorsement of Cuellar marks the first time they’ve ever openly backed a Democrat in a federal race. They've now launched a massive sewer money campaign on TV to destroy Cisneros, largely to repay Cuellar for his anti-union vote. So we have the Koch Brothers and Cheri Bustos' DCCC marching hand in hand into hell. "Congressman Cuellar siding with his big corporate donors over working people in our district once again shows why he’s Trump’s favorite Democrat," said Cisneros. "Workers deserve the right to negotiate for proper pay, good working conditions, and benefits they deserve. I’m proud to have the support of workers in our district and local unions, who have our back because they know we have theirs."

Mark Gamba, the progressive mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon is taking on one of the most virulently anti-union Democrats in Congress, Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. "You have to ask yourself," said Mark, "what the DCCC stands for? What's important to them? Is it the lives, and livelihood of working class people? Obviously not. Is it a healthy economy (which can only come from a strong middle class)? Obviously not. Is it holding bad employers responsible for their actions? Obviously not. This bill only begins to claw back some of the rights workers used to have. Rights that have been slowly worn away by the republicans and the corporatist, millionaire, Democrats-in-name-only that support the Republicans. If someone like Schrader doesn't support the working people, and therefore the middle class, what is he doing in the Democratic Party?  People in our district call him "traitor Schrader" because he votes with Republicans on so many critical issues. He talks about representing a purple district and reaching across the aisle. But this bill doesn't benefit working people on the Republican side either. It only benefits the giant corporations that line his pockets and in turn those of the DCCC. Which then answers my original question. The DCCC doesn't stand for anything. But it will bend over for a fat corporate check. Just like traitor Schrader will.  I would have voted for the PRO-Act. I would have co-sponsored the PRO-Act. I would have used political capital and twisted arms for the PRO-Act because I believe in protecting the rights of workers and in making the middle class. and therefor our economy, the strongest it can be."

If you'd like to help Mark and Jessica replace their anti-union/anti-worker opponents... that's what the thermometer is for. Just click and contribute what you can to their campaigns. (Tom will take a few minutes out of campaigning for Bernie to file his candidate papers with the FEC... soon. We'll let you know when he has his ActBlue page up and ready for contributions.)

Cheri Bustos, Koch brothers ally against working families

Lee Carter Demolishes The Democratic Party Establishment's Convention Wisdom About How To Win Elections-- Just As Jessica Cisneros Declares Her Candidacy Against Blue Dog Henry Cuellar In Texas

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%. The outspoken Berniecrat-- a union electrician and Marine veteran-- was first elected in 2017 by winning the red Manassas House district-- with ZERO help from the Democratic Party of course-- against Jackson Miller, the powerful Republican majority whip. It was a feat that had been considered impossible since "everyone knows" the only way to beat a Republican in a red district is to run as a lesser-of-two evils Republican-lite candidate. Just ask Rahm Emanuel or Steve Israel or Steny Hoyer or Joe Crowley or Ben Ray Lujan or Cheri Bustos or Chuck Schumer... Miller's campaign was one long screech: "Socialist!" It must have been magic but Carter beat him-- in the biggest turnout election anyone in the district can remember-- 11,366 (54.42%) to 9,518 (45.58%). The Democrats were no more celebratory of Carter's win than the GOP was.

This cycle, the establishment media was, predictably, virulently opposed to Carter again. "Carter," wrote InsideNOVA, "has proven to be interested only in pushing a far-left socialist agenda rather than listening to and addressing real issues and concerns of his district and constituents. Nothing could be a better example of this than his ill-fated attempt to repeal Virginia’s right-to-work law, which has been in place for more than 70 years and is an oft-cited reason for the state’s economic success... We’re glad Carter already has drawn significant Republican opposition in this fall’s election." Guess who won't be buying their bullshit. That's right, the voters.

This tweet, below, from Carter yesterday was classic. And every Democrat running for office-- from Blue Dogs and New Dems on the right fringe of the party to actual Democratic Socialists on the left-- is going to have to figure out how best to respond to these kinds of mindless attacks. The Republicans haven't been served well in the past by this strategy-- to put it mildly-- but that isn't stopping them from trying it again, from the presidential campaigns right down to state and local offices. As a party they have nothing positive to offer so they settled for this as their message.

Up top you can hear Carter pushing back against an MSNBC talking head dullard who knows her always-wrong-talking-points inside and out. He still has to beat a Republican in November and if you like what you heard him say, please consider clicking on the thermometer above and contributing what you can to his campaign. And that brings us to... the newest candidate who has tossed her hat into the ring-- Jessica Cisneros, a 26 year old Latina attorney from Laredo. As of Thursday, she's been running for the safe blue South Texas congressional seat, TX-28, currently occupied by one of the 3 or 4 worst Blue Dogs in Congress, Henry Cuellar. Sarah Jones, writing for The Cut, also noted that Cuellar "is one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. He has co-sponsored anti-abortion legislation, fund-raised for a Republican congressman who went on to defeat a Democratic challenger, and supported legislation that would withhold public funding from sanctuary cities."

Cisneros is a strong candidate. A native of south Texas and the daughter of immigrants from Mexico, she’s running on a thoroughly left-wing platform that includes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and abortion rights. On her campaign website, she writes that “every day in her work as a lawyer,” she “is reminded of what she learned as a child: The rules of the game are not fair for most Americans.” Her race will pit the appeal of her progressive platform against the power of a well-funded incumbent, and her campaign will challenge a prevailing theory: The Democratic Party supports conservative members like Cuellar in order to safeguard conservative and moderate districts.

Cisneros isn’t the only candidate to bet against that strategy. In Illinois, Marie Newman is challenging Dan Lipinski, another anti-abortion Democrat, from the left. Her first run against Lipinski, in 2018, nearly succeeded, which undercuts his central justification for holding conservative views-- that they mirror those of his constituents. But the same logic that insists it’s an unacceptable risk to pressure Lipinski and Cuellar from the left presumes that charismatic candidates can’t persuade voters with progressive rhetoric and that abortion rights are secure enough to tolerate anti-abortion representatives.

American voters are broadly in favor of access to legal abortion. But even if we accept that abortion is a fraught issue in some districts, there isn’t much reason to think that Lipinski and Cuellar represent voters who would accept only conservative Democrats. Lipinski’s district favored Hillary Clinton heavily in 2016, and he only barely defeated Newman. Cuellar told press in January that polling proves his district has a moderate tilt, but Clinton won the same district handily in 2016 and, as Roll Call reported in January, Cuellar himself won reelection with 84 percent of the vote. Republicans didn’t even mount a challenge. In fact, the district has elected only Democrats to Congress since its creation in 1993, as the Laredo Morning Times notes. If his district is really so moderate, Cuellar should at least be facing legitimate threats from the GOP. Instead, it’s the left, not the right, that senses his vulnerability.

Koch Influence On Blue Dogs by Nancy Ohanian

Even so, Cuellar will be a difficult target. He’s an eight-term incumbent, and there are two schools named for the representative in his district; two other members of the Cuellar family occupy local elected office. Cisneros will face resistance from the Democratic Party, too: Its congressional-campaign arm blacklists vendors that work with candidates who primary incumbent Democrats, a policy that cost Newman some consultants in the early days of her campaign. But that rule might not be enough to fatally damage the Cisneros campaign. In a press release, the campaign says it raised “over $80,000 from over 3,000 contributions, with an average contribution of $24,” on the day of its launch. That’s an impressive sum, and its origins contrast sharply with Cuellar’s fund-raising strategy. The Cisneros campaign says that only one percent of Cuellar’s donations in 2017 and 2018 came from small donors, while Sludge, a news site that tracks campaign finance, reported in May that Cuellar has routinely taken money from KochPAC, which is connected to Koch Industries.

Fake Journalists-- Whether At Politico Or The Texas Monthly, Don't Know What A Primary Is

The headline is idiotic. The Texas Monthly asked, trying to be provocative, I suppose: Can Out-of-State Liberals Oust a Texas Democrat? The answer, of course, is NO. Only a solid home-grown progressive Democrat from Webb or Bexar County is going to oust Henry Cuellar. Good candidates aren't found on top shelves in an old WalMart and they don't get invented. No one wins a race who isn't positively driven by inner demons, especially not a primary.

Six of the nine counties that make up Texas' 28th district are deep blue. Tiny Atascosa, Wilson and even tinier McMullen Counties are the exceptions. Trump won Atascosa with 63.2%, Wilson with 72.7% and McMullen with 91.3%. It didn't make any difference. The massive majorities Hillary ran up in the more populated counties-- Webb (74.4%), Bexar (54.5%) and Hidalgo (68.6%)-- gave her a districtwide 58.3% to 38.5% win over Trump.

Last year the Republicans didn't even bother running an opponent against Cuellar, not just because he votes with them more than any other Democrat in Congress, but because the district is too blue for them to win (PVI is D+9). Republicans in TX-28 are lucky if they can get a third of the vote. In Congress, Cuellar's Trump adhesion score is 55.9%, the highest of any Democrat... by far.

Maria Recio wrote, so simplistically as to be almost misleading, that "Now the same group of young activists from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign who boosted Ocasio-Cortez are looking to replace other moderate and conservative Democrats across the country with leftist candidates. Their first target? U.S. representative Henry Cuellar, of Texas’s Twenty-eighth Congressional District. 'His votes and his rhetoric are not upholding Democratic values,' says Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the political action committee Justice Democrats, which launched its 'Primary Cuellar' campaign in January. In arguing why the eight-term congressman must go, Rojas points to the frequency with which Cuellar votes with President Donald Trump-- about 60 percent of the time, more than almost any other House Democrat-- despite representing a district that favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by nearly 20 percent in the 2016 election. The Justice Democrats say they believe, contrary to the results of recent elections, that the values of Texans aren’t significantly different from those of New Yorkers-- and, furthermore, that those values are progressive. 'In poll after poll, Americans everywhere want change in immigration, health care, climate change, and income inequality,' Rojas says."

Justice Democrats didn't invent Ocasio-Cortez. Their support for her was very important in her victory. But it was her victory, based primarily on how smart and effective she was as a campaigner and how charismatic she is. The way to do this is to start with a candidate, not with an enemy. "Their effort," wrote Recio, "is something of a proxy war for a larger conflict that has erupted within the Democratic party about the right way to mobilize voters and take the White House back from Trump in the 2020 election. Did Clinton lose the presidency because she failed to excite progressives by not tacking far enough to the left or because she didn’t hew close enough to the center to attract moderates? And is the answer to that question the same in all parts of the country?" Jesus, what a bunch of amateur and idiotic question-- well-meaning, terribly put.

The writer is so inept than she tries to say TX-28 Democrats should be discouraged because Beto didn't win Texas, seeming to have forgotten that he did win TX-28-- and massively so. Beto took Webb County 71.2% to 28.0%, Bexar 59.5% to 39.6%, Hidalgo 68.8% to 30.6% and so on. Of course, she's absolutely correct in pointing out that "Cuellar’s slice of South Texas and AOC’s corner of the Bronx and Queens are culturally worlds apart" and maybe even that "the Justice Democrats may be deluding themselves into thinking that they can replicate in Texas’s Twenty-eighth District the success they achieved in New York’s Fourteenth." There's no replication in politics. The Justice Democrats-- and the rest of use hoping to replace Cuellar with an actual Democrat-- need to find a good solid Texas candidate and then support her or him with all our might.

Recio veers off course though when she implies that the Justice Dems, in "their desire to shift the party sharply to the left could undermine the Democrats’ renewed attempts to turn the state blue." What does "blue" mean to Rechio; she doesn't say in her piece. Cuellar-like? Is that the blue she means. I can't speak for the Justice Democrats, but I sincerely doubt they would consider that electing more Henry Cuellars-- something Cheri Bustos' DCCC has made clear that that's exactly what they want to do-- would equate to turning anything blue at all. Nor is there a need for that. There are dozens and dozens of districts that are less blue than Cuellar's with more progressive congress members than he is. Take a guy like John Yarmuth. Not only is Kentucky (R+15) much redder than Texas (R+8), Yarmuth is, across-the-board, far more progressive than Cuellar despite representing a less blue district. TX-28 has a PVI of D+9 while Yarmuth is far more vulnerable in a D+6 district. Instead of Cuellar's strong Trump adhesion score (55.9%), Yarmuth's is more like a normal Democrat (16.5%). Babbling imbeciles like Recio, shrieking about leftists and mixing up facts-- citing Filemon Vela, for example as a liberal, when Vela is also a right-of-center Blue Dog with a solid "F" ProgressivePunch score in an even bluer district than Cuellar's-- spit out pseudo analyses that just confuse her readers. Vela supports Cuellar, she reports. Wow! Amazing, two right-wing corrupt Blue Dogs support each other. Unheard of!

She did stumble upon a fact worth noting though. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic party, disagrees with the DCCC policy protecting worthless incumbents like Cuellar from primary challenges. Hinojosa doesn’t believe the Justice Democrats’ efforts pose any threat to the party’s plans because the TX-28 itself is already 'deep blue' and is likely to remain so, regardless of the nominee who emerges from the primary. Exactly what establishment hacks rarely seem capable of grasping.

Politico found someone as hackish and ignorant as Recio, Steven Perlberg, to write a posy for them yesterday, How The Intercept Is Fueling The Democratic Civil War. Because, you know, primaries between progressives and the Republican wing iff the Democratic Party are always terrible civil wars. "For a broad swath of Democrats," wrote Perlberg, a [Mark] Kelly campaign is precisely what the party needs." Really? A Republican suddenly pretending to be a Democrat is just what the party needs? Perlberg described him as "a patriotic, mediagenic, center-friendly liberal who has a rare chance to turn the longtime Republican stronghold of Arizona into a state with two Democratic U.S. senators." He's wrong about "liberal" and very correct about "center-friendly," not as in center of the Democratic Party, but center of the political spectrum... so the place where the GOP meets the Democratic Party, home to shitheads like the aforementioned Henry Cuellar, as well as other corrupted right-wing corporatists who usually join the Blue Dogs and New Dems in the House and vote with Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Tom Carper (DE) in the Senate. You know who was defeated in the midst of the big anti-red wave last year? While Democrats were capturing dozens of Republican-held House seats across the country, "center-friendly" faux-Dems like Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL) and Claire McCaskill (MO) all lost their seats, failing to win their gamble that Republicans would vote for them and that the Democratic base would go with a lesser-of-two-evils strategy. Meanwhile, Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Sherrod Brown (WI), similarly targeted by the GOP, stuck to progressive platforms and won solid reelection battles in states Trump won.

Perlberg is angry that an Intercept reporter reported that Kelly, who pretends to be free of building a political career based on fealty to corporate special interests-- which Democratic and independent voters are demanding nationwide-- "made at least 19 paid corporate speeches in front of audiences including Goldman Sachs" and was enjoying the inherent corruption of having slimy lobbyists raise money for his campaign from DC fat-cats. Perlberg is freaking out because suddenly the less vigilant Arizona Republic and CNN picked up on the story and because the embarrassment caused Kelly to return the $55,000 the Emeratis had given him as a legalistic bribe for services they expect will be rendered. "For The Intercept, wrote the foolish Perlberg who probably never imagined the Republicans would use this kind of thing against Kelly when it would be too late for Democrats to find a better candidate, "it was another notch on an increasingly crowded belt-- mostly decorated with attacks on Democrats."

The Politico hit job on The Intercept is funny. I wonder if The Intercept is encouraging it. Politico, like The Hill and other Beltway trade publications exist to puff up the establishments of both parties. That's very, very different from the actual reporting The Intercept does. Real journalists don't write for Politico and Politico isn't able to grok what writers like Ryan Grim, Lee Fang, Kate Aronoff, David Dayen, Akela Lacy and Mehdi Hasan do. Politico is a press release-based operation. The Intercept isn't part of their sad little world.

If Henry Cuellar Is The Worst Democrat In The House, Why Shouldn't He Be Primaried Before Schumer Picks Him To Run For The Senate?

Would you call this a safe blue district? Obama beat McCain here 58-41% and then eviscerated Romney 60.3-38.7%. In 2016 even Hillary scored big-- 58.3% to 38.5%. TX-28 is just 15.9% white and just around 25% rural. The PVI is D+9 and most of the voters are in Webb County (Laredo) and in the Rio Grande Valley, although the district twists and turns up into eastern Bexar County and grabs a few San Antonio neighborhoods around where the 410 intersects with the 10 and up around Windcrest and Live Oak. It also includes some neighborhoods west of McAllen, including Mission, Palmview and Palmhurst. There's a lot of oil and a lot of drug smuggling.

The Republicans love the Blue Dog Democrat who represents the area, Henry Cuellar. They often don't even bother fielding a candidate against him, a though when they do, they don't even get a third of the votes. In November, Cuellar's only opponent was a Libertarian, Arthur Thomas, who took 15.6% of the votes. Like I said, Republicans in the tea are just fine with Cuellar. Historically, it's one of the lowest turn-out districts in the country.

Cuellar, who used to be known as "George W Bush's favorite Democrat," is also Congress' worst Democrat now that Kyrsten Sinema has moved on to the Senate. Here's the place at ProgressivePunch where the voting records of the half dozen worst Democraps-- all Blue Dogs, of course, meet the Republican Party. I hope you're not surprised to see which Dem is the worst of the worst.

Click on the image to see just how horrible Cuellar's record is

Do you know what a 38.65% lifetime crucial vote score means? It means he voted over 61% of the time with the GOP on any measure that could remotely be viewed as progressive. So what about his Trump adhesion score, you may be wondering? His 68.8% was the Trump-friendliest of any Democrat in the House.

All that said, the Justice Democrats are trying to find a progressive to take Cuellar on in a 2020 primary. Remember, although all the Democrats squawking about Alexandria Ocasio in that Politico hit piece last week were upset she might help challengers primary corrupt conservatives, do you think that any of them cared that Cuellar helped finance right-wing GOP loon John Carter in his race against the official Democratic candidate, M.J. Hegar or that he himself won election in 2004 by primarying Ciro Rodriguez, a normal Democrat who leaned more liberally than Cuellar. It's common knowledge that Cuellar, whose entire family is in politics-- stole the election, supposedly winning by a few dozen votes after a shady recount.

In 2000, Cuellar endorsed George Bush over Al Gore. He represented much of Webb County in the state House between 1987 and 2001. He was so far to the right that in 2001 Governor Rick Perry appointed him Texas Secretary of State! As far as I remember, he was the only Democrat ever endorsed by right-wing extremist Club for Growth. He is a member of the Wall Street-owned New Dems, one of the only Democrats to vote against Wall Street reform, voted to repeal Obamacare, voted to permit domestic spying on American citizens, was the only House Democrat to vote for a Republican bill to make it easier to deport unaccompanied minors to Central America, and is now a senior member of the far right Blue Dogs. He claims his best friend in Congress is anti-immigrant fanatic Michael McCaul and he sure didn't do anything in 2018 to help Mike Siegel in his razor-thing race against McCaul.

Those Democrats who criticized Ocasio in the Politico story were almost a pathetic self-parody-- yammering about her having to choose about whether to be an effecting member of Congress, when most of them have been anything but. Virtually all of the ones quoted in the Politico story wouldn’t be able to name a single thing that they’ve accomplished... so who are they to talk about AOC being an effective Member of Congress? Cuellar sure never did anything worthwhile in his decade-plus of seat warming in the House.

Pelosi And The DCCC Prepare To Lose Again-- Their Specialty And Only Competence

Will Pelosi and Lujan tell the DCCC to pay for ads like this?

Pelosi and her failed and incompetent DCCC chairman Ben Ray Lujan have become incredibly divisive forces in the Democratic Party just as the drive starts to win back the House. The DCCC is now openly admitting the recruit and finance Blue Dogs, "ex"-Republicans, New Dems, anti-Choice fanatics and other from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Criticize them and prepare to be screeched at by a noisy contingent of ignorant, history-free idiots yammering about "purity" tests. Throwing Choice under the bus seems easy for people. What if Lujan said Democrats need to recruit open racists and homophobes in certain parts of the South to make sure Democrats are running candidates who represent their districts? Yesterday I heard some jackass braying-- uncorrected-- on NPR about how Democrats have to stop telling anti-Choice voters they can't vote for Democratic candidates. I think the jackass' name was Kristen Day or something like that, a paid anti-Choice nut on the fringes of the Democratic Party. Like anyone ever said that anywhere anytime. Progressive Democrats are happy to have votes from anyone and the argument is about having Republican-lite candidates recruited as elected officials and party leaders, not about voters.

Pelosi may be senile but not so senile that she still can't intentionally muddy the water when she wants to. She went whining to the Washington Post that she "grew up Nancy D’Alesandro, in Baltimore, Maryland, in Little Italy, in a very devout Catholic family, fiercely patriotic, proud of our town and heritage, and staunchly Democratic. Most of those people-- my family, extended family-- are not pro-choice. You think I’m kicking them out of the Democratic Party?" No one suggested that want her to kick them out of the Democratic Party-- just not to kick progressives to the curb while spending millions of dollars promoting them as candidates. There's a difference, a big one.

Henry Cuellar used to lick Bush's ass. Now he vote's for Trump's agenda

As for petty purity tests, chew on this one. Ultra conservative Texas Blue Dog Henry Cuellar-- long one of Congress' worst-- represents a bright blue in the heart of southTexas' drug smuggling territory. TX-28 stretches from the suburbs east of San Antonio, down to Hidalgo and Laredo on the Rio Grande and east to the outskirts of McAllen and Edinburg. Over 78% of the residents are Hispanic. In 2012 Obama beat Romney 101,843 (60.3%) to 65,372 (38.7%), a landslide. And even Hillary walloped Trump in the district, winning 58.3% to 38.5%. Republicans never run candidates against Cuellar. His "F" and career-long Progressive Punch crucial vote score (38.87) are a testament to his affinity to the Republican agenda. This session he's even worse-- 27.78. He's one of Trump's most consistent backers among Democrats (with a 538 Trump cohesion score of 65.9%, even Trumpier than the other Trump-Democrats: Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Collin Peterson (MN), Stephanie Murphy (FL), Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Charlie Crist (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Dan Lipinski, (IL) Jim Costa (CA), Kurt Schrader (OR) and Jacky Rosen (NV).

Drooling morons may have a hard time sticking with their purity test whining if they ever actually read Cuellar's horrifying record-- an across-the-board Republican record. Even on unions. Friday Nick Ballasy reported that Cuellar, once widely-- and happily-- known as "Bush's favorite Democrat," "joined Republican lawmakers in support of a bill that would reverse a decision made by the National Labor Relations Board during the Obama administration." Cuellar was busy doing the GOP's work opposing the right of collective bargaining and unions in general.

“For more than three decades, the Joint Employer Standard was the cornerstone of labor law; it protected businesses from undue liability involving employees over which they did not have the actual or the direct control. We know what happened in August of 2015 that decision that came out-- that decision ignored years of legal precedent and created an environment of uncertainty that will put pressure on primary companies to assert more authority over their contracted small businesses and franchises to limit new potential liability under this federal law,” Cuellar said during a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday.

“I'm an attorney and I’ve been a small-business owner, so I know what it is to be a small-business owner, so I know what it is to work with employees, and I don't think this is a Democratic or Republican issue-- it's something that we’ve got to do because it's the right thing to do for the small-business owners,” he added.

In August 2015, the NLRB concluded that “two or more entities are joint employers of a single workforce if (1) they are both employers within the meaning of the common law; and (2) they share or codetermine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment.”

Cuellar, a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, said the NLRB’s ruling remains “a major threat to the life of the franchise industry and to the dreams of business ownership for millions of Americans.”

“I've heard this message loud and clear from my businesses in my district, from San Antonio all the way to my hometown in Laredo to Mission, Texas. Franchise businesses in my state, in Texas, provide over 635,000 jobs contributing over $31 billion to the economy, including nearly 12,000 of those jobs in my district alone that adds about a half a billion dollars to our economy,” he said. “I talked to them, I have spent time with them, I've been at the restaurants, I've been with them, we've sat down and this is real. This is not one of those hypothetical situations, it's something that's real and this is why this bipartisan legislation will be important to those small businesses.”

Cuellar suggested that the federal government should adopt the approach of “do no harm” to small businesses.

“Small businesses should at least get something from the federal government and that is do no harm, do no harm to those job creators because, after all, those small businesses create two-thirds of all the jobs that we have,” he said.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, called the NLRB’s decision a “very bad ruling” that must be reversed right away.

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) said the NLRB’s decision created confusion for franchise employees.

“Now, look at it from the standpoint of the employee: You thought that the person who signed your paycheck, that you report to every day and tells you what to do, you thought that was your employer and then you find out that in addition to who you thought your employer was, there's somebody or some company that you've had no contact with and now somebody's saying that also is your employer,” he said. “That's pretty confusing to the employee, but to the businesses-- we have a lot of different types of business up here today. It actually interferes with their ability to start their businesses in some circumstances and to grow their businesses, and these are almost always small businesses where most of the people in America are employed.”

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said the NLRB decision should be overturned because it undermines the independence of small businesses.

“It threatens to upend small business, undermine their independence and put jobs and livelihoods at risk. I heard these concerns, expressed in many ways from many people, from many sectors, from small businesses and franchisees as I traveled my district, as we held hearings in Congress and talked with folks who were impacted in their lives and their experience,” he said.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said passing the proposed bill would create some certainty for small businesses in America.

“They don't need the certainty from one-year appropriations bill to the next, they need the certainty of a permanent change in law that, for all intents and purposes, if we ask any person on the street who an employer is they wouldn't come up with the NLRB definition. They would come up with the definition in this bill, that's what Americans expect from their government, that's what they expect from Congress. So the sooner we get this done the better and, again, restore the small-business economy to large parts of each and every one of our districts,” he said.

Ed Bradley, a Burger King franchisee from Baltimore, predicted that the franchise system “won’t exist” if the legislation is not signed into law.

“Small businesses like mine need that certainty to expand because the larger franchisees, franchisors now see me as a risk. They don't want me to go any further because they think that because I'm a small franchisee I don't have the resources to be able to fight off anything, any threats that they have,” said Bradley, who appeared at the press conference on behalf of the National Franchise Association. “So now they're turning to larger franchise, franchisees, super franchisees within the corporation because they have their human resources and their attorney to fight off any suits. I am an endangered species, but within the franchise system the franchise system won't exist unless we get this certainty.”

And, yes, of course... Cuellar is vehemently anti-Choice as well. How do you think real Democrats feel about money they contribute to the DCCC going towards recruiting and electing more Cuellars? Here are some in Connecticut telling you exactly how they feel about it.

"The Democratic Party should stand with women and should be uncompromising on this issue," said Dan Drew, the mayor of Middletown and a Democratic candidate for governor. "There should be absolutely no quarter given and no support given to candidates who don’t support women’s reproductive choices. In the name of winning, surrendering your principles is a massive error.”

Drew and other activists from the party’s progressive wing gathered on the north steps of the state Capitol Friday morning to call on the DCCC and the Connecticut Democratic party to denounce Luján’s approach. The group included NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut, Planned Parenthood Votes! Connecticut and several state legislators.

Jillian Gilchrest, a co-organizer of the Women's March Connecticut, said Democratic leaders have tried to harness the power of the newly energized liberal activists who have sprung up since President Donald Trump’s election.

"But I don’t think they read our unity principles and they certainly didn’t learn from our approach," Gilchrest said. "The women’s march believes in pro-choice values and we believe that when you bring people in you don’t do it at the expense of others. We need the DCCC and all Democratic leaders to treat abortion as a personal decision and not a political one."

Leigh Appleby, a spokesman for the Connecticut Democratic Party, declined to criticize Luján’s remarks.

"The Connecticut Democratic Party has a long track record of supporting candidates and elected officials who not only support a woman’s right to choose, but work tirelessly to ensure resources are available for all women to access critical reproductive health care," Appleby said. "On the other hand, the Connecticut legislators who put forward dozens and dozens of anti-choice bills in 2017 alone have one thing in common: They’re not members of our party."

...Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, which strongly opposes legalized abortion, said he salutes the DCCC for its willingness to open the door to anti-abortion candidates.

The liberal abortion-rights activists who take a hard line against candidates that do not back their view wouldn’t support former Connecticut congresswoman and governor Ella Grasso, Wolfgang said. "She was a feminist icon, the first woman in the country to be elected governor in her own right and she was a pro-life Democrat," he said. "If this standard were applied in the ’70s and ’80s in Connecticut, Ella Grasso would not be welcomed in her own party."

State Rep. Matthew Lesser, a Middletown Democrat who is exploring a run for secretary of the state and served on the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee in 2012, rejected the idea that the Democratic Party forces its candidates to march in lockstep.

"Of course there’s a big tent. You see that right now in this building as we have different ideas of how to move the state forward and how to balance the budget," Lesser said.

"But there are core issues that unite us as Democrats" and legalized abortion is one of them, he added.

Funny-- not-- how it's almost always the anti-Choice Democrats who are also anti-LGBT, anti-healthcare, anti-union, a tad racist, anti-immigrant, but: BIG TENT!