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!