Day: July 11, 2019

It’s okay for Nancy Pelosi to scold progressives in public but not okay for progressives to scold so-called ‘centrists’ in public

benfell

Pacific Gas & Electric

Katherine Blunt, “Judge Orders PG&E to Respond to Journal Article,” Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-orders-pg-e-to-respond-to-journal-article-11562799414

Katherine Blunt and Russell Gold, “PG&E Knew for Years Its Lines Could Spark Wildfires, and Didn’t Fix Them,” Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-knew-for-years-its-lines-could-spark-wildfires-and-didnt-fix-them-11562768885

Brexit

Just about the entire British political class lined up in support of the British ambassador to the U.S., whose private cables critical of Donald Trump were leaked, except for one: The prime minister-apparent.[1]

Peter Walker et al., “Johnson has thrown US ambassador under the bus, say top Tories,” Guardian, July 10, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/10/kim-darroch-resigns-as-uk-ambassador-to-us-after-leaked-trump-comment

Nancy Pelosi

I have agreed with Nancy Pelosi on impeachment[2] and suspected she was the right person to take on Donald Trump on migration.[3]

But the simple fact is that neoliberal party leadership fucked up[4] on the bill funding concentration camps.[5] They have themselves, not progressives, but themselves, to blame for this.

So what’s Nancy Pelosi doing? First, she criticizes progressives in public and now she tells progressives not to criticize so-called ‘centrists’ in public.[6]

This is blatant hypocrisy. But hey, this is the neoliberal party we’re talking about. Hypocrisy is what they’re all about. And frankly, it recalls the Obama Administration’s “hippie punching” dumping on progressives that exposed the reality of the neoliberal party’s expectation that progressives should support neoconservative and neoliberal policies,[7] because defeating the evil Republicans is the only thing that matters. What’s pathetic is that even after all this, progressives still fall for it.

Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis, “‘Outright disrespectful’: Four House women struggle as Pelosi isolates them,” Washington Post, July 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/outright-disrespectful-four-house-women-struggle-as-pelosi-isolates-them/2019/07/10/a33c63a8-a33f-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html

Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris, “‘Do not tweet’: Pelosi scolds progressives in closed-door meeting,” Politico, July 10, 2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/10/pelosi-progressives-twitter-1405763

Iran

Richard Spencer and Lucy Fisher, “Royal Navy sees off Iranian attempt to intercept British tanker,” Times, July 11, 2019, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/iranian-boats-attempt-to-seize-british-tanker-in-the-gulf-9v5pq7kzl?region=global

Census

Matt Zapotosky, “Second federal judge blocks Justice Dept. bid to replace census attorneys,” Washington Post, July 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/second-federal-judge-blocks-justice-dept-bid-to-replace-census-attorneys/2019/07/10/4a82fb80-a35a-11e9-b732-41a79c2551bf_story.html

Seung Min Kim, Tara Bahrampour, and John Wagner, “Trump retreats on adding citizenship question to 2020 Census,” Washington Post, July 11, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-to-hold-news-conference-on-census-as-he-mulls-executive-action-to-add-a-citizenship-question/2019/07/11/c0eb7cb6-a3c8-11e9-b8c8-75dae2607e60_story.html

  1. [1]Peter Walker et al., “Johnson has thrown US ambassador under the bus, say top Tories,” Guardian, July 10, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/10/kim-darroch-resigns-as-uk-ambassador-to-us-after-leaked-trump-comment↩
  2. [2]David Benfell, “Why Nancy Pelosi is right about impeachment,” Not Housebroken, May 22, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/05/22/why-nancy-pelosi-is-right-about-impeachment/; David Benfell, “Calls for impeachment are the latest displays of the naturalistic fallacy and system justification,” Not Housebroken, May 23, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/05/23/calls-for-impeachment-are-the-latest-displays-of-the-naturalistic-fallacy-and-system-justification/↩
  3. [3]David Benfell, “It might actually be a good thing that Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House right now,” Not Housebroken, January 12, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/01/12/it-might-actually-be-a-good-thing-that-nancy-pelosi-is-speaker-of-the-house-right-now/↩
  4. [4]Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade, “‘A betrayal’: Inside the bitter rift between Pelosi and Schumer over border bill,” Washington Post, June 28, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-betrayal-inside-the-bitter-rift-between-pelosi-and-schumer-over-border-bill/2019/06/28/26fbb3b8-99bf-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html↩
  5. [5]Lauren Fox et al., “House passes border funding bill after Pelosi reversal outrages progressives,” CNN, June 27, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/politics/border-funding-migrant-crisis-nancy-pelosi-house-senate-bills/index.html↩
  6. [6]Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis, “‘Outright disrespectful’: Four House women struggle as Pelosi isolates them,” Washington Post, July 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/outright-disrespectful-four-house-women-struggle-as-pelosi-isolates-them/2019/07/10/a33c63a8-a33f-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html; Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris, “‘Do not tweet’: Pelosi scolds progressives in closed-door meeting,” Politico, July 10, 2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/10/pelosi-progressives-twitter-1405763; Amber Phillips, “Nancy Pelosi’s clumsy rebuke of the liberals in her party,” Washington Post, July 8, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/08/nancy-pelosis-clumsy-rebuke-liberals-her-party/↩
  7. [7]The Obama administration established a record for ‘hippie-punching’ early on, only appealing to the left-wing when it sought their votes. Blue Texan [pseud.], “Ed Rendell Tells Democratic Base to “Get Over It” on Rachel Maddow,” Firedoglake, September 23, 2010, http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/23/early-morning-swim-ed-rendell-tells-democratic-base-to-get-over-it-on-rachel-maddow/; Blue Texan [pseud.], “Stop Whining, Liberals!” Firedoglake, September 27, 2010, http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/27/late-night-stop-whining-liberals/; Michael Falcone, “Opposite Day On The Campaign Trail?” ABC News, September 21, 2010, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/09/election-2010-opposite-day-on-the-campaign-trail/; Glenn Greenwald, “Obama’s view of liberal criticisms,” Salon, September 17, 2010, http://www.salon.com/2010/09/17/obama_139/; David Neiwert, “President Obama lashes out at his liberal critics: Choice is to ‘get things done’ or feel ‘sanctimonious’,” Crooks and Liars, December 7, 2010, http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/president-obama-lashes-out-his-liber; Heather Digby Parton, “‘It’s always the hippies’ fault’: Why the left treats its idealists all wrong,” Salon, February 5, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/02/05/its_always_the_hippies_fault_why_the_left_treats_its_idealists_all_wrong/; Greg Sargent, “Liberal blogger directly confronts David Axelrod, accuses White House of ‘hippie punching’,” Washington Post, September 23, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/09/liberal_blogger_directly_confr.html; Stephen Stromberg, “Joe Biden scolds progressives — and he’s right,” Washington Post, September 16, 2010, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/joe_biden_scolds_progressives.html; Sam Youngman, “White House unloads anger over criticism from ‘professional left’,” Hill, August 10, 2010, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left↩