Largely because congressional Democrats are completely united against it, House Republicans had to cancel a vote today on the hateful "screw the poor" bill that they are for some reason determined to get through Congress. According to the NYT, the House leadership, unable to budge a single Democrat, and with moderates in their own party unwilling to play ball, didn’t have the votes and didn’t want to see the bill fail on the floor. Wow – are the DC Dems actually behaving like a party? This is kinda cool!
Progressive Vote Fragmented in Cambridge
Nov 10, ’05
1:42 PM
The Harvard Crimson and Cambridge Chronicle report that eight of nine incumbent Cambridge City Councillors were re-elected Tuesday. Transfer votes from DFA Cambridge endorsee Jesse Gordon helped put newcomer Craig Kelley over the top, and shut out fellow DFA candidate Sam Seidel. So much for Party discipline. None of the challengers endorsed by DFA were elected and the two incumbents endorsed by the group finished seventh and last respectively. "Thanks to Cambridge’s idiosyncratic proportional representation (PR) system, Kelley owes his unexpected victory partly to the failed campaigns of his closest political competition. A trio of progressive challengers — including Gordon, Kelley, and Seidel — scored well with Cambridge’s progressive voters. When Seidel and Gordon were eventually eliminated in last night’s tally, a substantial number of their votes transferred down to Kelley, boosting him over incumbent David Maher and onto the council," the Crimson said. Gordon’s 615 votes went primarily to Kelley and Seidel after he was eliminated, the Crimson said. Defeated incumbent David Maher’s votes put incumbent Ken Reeves and Kelley over the top, and eliminated Seidel, the newspaper added. "Kelley, an environmental consultant, also ran in 2003, placing 12th.Former council candidate Matthew S. DeBergalis said Kelley’s pastsupport gave him [...]
Well, this is odd
Nov 10, ’05
12:59 PM
The news item is something like "Bush nominates billionaire Roland Arnall to be Ambassador to the Netherlands. Arnall, the head of Ameriquest Capital Corp., co-chaired the second Bush inaugural, and Arnall’s wife donated $5 million to an ‘independent’ political committee that ran anti-Kerry attack ads during the 2004 campaign. Ameriquest is under investigation in 30 states for its mortgage loan practices – the company’s business focuses on ‘sub-prime’ mortgages, and it has long been accused of predatory loan practices that take advantage of low-income borrowers. Deval Patrick, the head of civil rights enforcement under President Clinton, forced it to pay $4 million to the Justice Department to settle charges of discriminatory lending." "Ah," you say. "Another bazillionaire Republican hack who made his fortune taking advantage of poor people is now picking up the classic hack job – an ambassadorship. Sounds like business as usual at the Bush White House. I assume that the Dems will squawk about it, but not too loudly because really, who cares about the Ambassador to the Netherlands, and he’ll get through." And you’d probably be right, though the nomination is stalled because of the 30-state investigation. The DNC says the nomination is evidence of more [...]
