dagblog - Comments for "Why were Omaha Democrat Heath Mello and Bernie Sanders thrown under the Bus"

Thanks for sharing this info.

artappraiser — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 00:08:57 +0000

Thanks for sharing this info. that Mello is a flip flopper with votes basically being wampum for sale or trade. I don't know anymore if that's good or bad, hah! These days are so confusing, One thing I am sure of, I don't like the ideological rigidity of a group like the House Freedom Caucus, because I think our system is set up to operate best making sausage. All that said, abortion is a plenty unusual thing to flip flop on, so all the more reason that knowing about this is interesting and it does suggest it might have been strategic.

PP - This is not a good

HSG — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 22:21:45 +0000

In reply to Mello threw himself under the

PP - This is not a good record and you are right to point it out. There is a caveat to the most recent bill on the list LB 521 however, it does provide that women seeking or obtaining abortions cannot be prosecuted for having one without the presence of a physician. What's interesting is what the Nation notes happened after 2011:

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In 2012, Mello voted with Planned Parenthood on two out of three bills tracked by the group—and was excused from voting on the third. After that, Mello, who had become the influential chair of the state legislature’s budget committee, voted with Planned Parenthood 100 percent of the time. By 2015, the group was celebrating a “fourth straight year…without enacting any new abortion restrictions in Nebraska, thanks largely to committed women’s health advocates engaged in the legislative process.”

Hunt, who spent much of the past week lobbying the legislature, is one such activist. Another is her friend Sofia Jawed-Wessel, who teaches sexual health at the University of Nebraska. Long before The Wall Street Journal made it an issue, Mello had asked Jawed-Wessel to speak at Thursday’s rally. “You know the slogan ‘Women’s rights are human rights’? Well, women’s rights are economic rights, too,” said Jawed-Wessel, to cheers from the crowd.

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Politico is reporting that "Planned Parenthood . . . declined to take aim at the DNC for aligning with Mello, even as it appeared to warn Democrats against embracing restrictions on women's health care."

So it certainly appears that Mello got religion - metaphorically speaking - and is now perceived as a pro-choice ally by abortion rights activists in Nebraska. Even the Nation's Joan Walsh, hardly, a Sanders supporter, acknowledges Mello's "feisty economic populism." Thus, Bernie's support for Mello seems eminently reasonable. That said, as I conceded in a previous thread in response to a comment by RMRD, I think Bernie was wrong to dither when asked whether he supported Jon Ossoff.

Yes, a rhetorical royal we,

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:33:58 +0000

In reply to Who is "we"? Just a

Yes, a rhetorical royal we, my schizophrenic "me, myself, and i" as that 80's song went (Tom Tom Club?)

Who is "we"? Just a

artappraiser — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:29:48 +0000

In reply to Why the hell are we building

Who is "we"? Just a rhetorical.

Yuck. Pretend I'm not a women

artappraiser — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:25:34 +0000

In reply to Mello threw himself under the

Yuck. Pretend I'm not a women and a feminist who cares about protecting access to abortion. Pretend I'm a guy who doesn't care so much about those things. STILL, anyone who votes for bills like that, I don't trust him/her with ability to continue on to all kinds of other nanny state regulations. He wants to run people's lives, limit the choices they have. Plenty of liberal dem pols in the past who were also devout Catholics had no problem with separating ~~church~~ morals and state and getting re-elected.( I have no bones with people who think abortion is wrong, but until science figures out when the "quickening" of consciousness is, that's just another fucking opinion, or opinion about the responsibility for fucking, and everyone has one.)

The tour is the creation of

rmrd0000 — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 18:56:32 +0000

In reply to Why the hell are we building

The tour is the creation of the DNC and Sanders, This is their outreach. Nothing focused on minority communities yet. I think the outreach in this format will fail because the DNC and Sanders have different goals, but this is the.creation we have in front of us.

Edit to add:

It looks like women are the tip of the spear of a New Democratic Party wave

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-partner-with-political...

Mello threw himself under the

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 16:18:23 +0000

In reply to Why were Omaha Democrat Heath Mello and Bernie Sanders thrown under the Bus

Mello threw himself under the bus. Obviously many people, women especially, view their abortion choice seriously and don't appreciate ritual humiliation and expensive add-ons tacked on to that right.

Why the hell are we building

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 14:50:00 +0000

In reply to The unity tour is an attempt

Why the hell are we building this around individuals rather than say the Indivisible manifesto?

Build it *all* from the bottom up. Let the national level provide support & access, but this jockeying for pole position is counterproductive - most of us don't give a shit about any of these people, and presumably many of the most active were against the party's ages-old endorsement system of politics (remember "Superdelegates", folks? what is this but a glorified super-super-delegate dog-and-pony show?) Plus it's assured some of them will be faded from memory in 5 years, so work with something that matters.

The unity tour is an attempt

rmrd0000 — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 14:31:53 +0000

In reply to Why were Omaha Democrat Heath Mello and Bernie Sanders thrown under the Bus

The unity tour is an attempt to find common ground between the DNC and Sanders. Sanders openly states that he is not a Democrat. Perez gets booed by Sanders supporters. Heath Mello is attacked by Perez. Sanders attacks Ossoff. Welcome to how the sausage of unity is made. Joan Walsh gives an assessment of the messy tour.