Why I left the Democratic Party

The world isn’t as black and white as you seem to think.

Look at that, you’re learning something!!

The right to own some particular ammo and gun combination able to tear a huge hole in the body of your victims? Is that's a right worth sacrificing children's safety over? Are their lives less important than their health?

To each his priorities I guess.

Progressive Dems might flip WV in the wake of the teachers debacle.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/07/west-virginia-teacher-strike-midterm-elections/

No one exemplifies that surge more than state Sen. Richard Ojeda. A staunch progressive, Ojeda is a retired Army major from Logan County, in the heart of West Virginia “coal country.” He supports decriminalizing and taxing marijuana to fund public works, has called for sustainable energy, and supports a path to citizenship for “Dreamers.” Ojeda talks fast, sports a military-style crew cut, and is a powerhouse orator.

Last Tuesday night, he took to the capitol steps with a megaphone in hand. Just then, a barge pushing coal down the nearby Kanawha River blasted its horn in support of the mass of striking teachers. The crowd erupted; Ojeda pumped his first toward the setting sun.

“You deserve better, and you matter to the people that are standing right here,” Ojeda shouted while flanked by Democratic lawmakers. “The eyes of the nation are upon us, and what they’re seeing is how the leadership of this state treats its working-class citizens. It’s unacceptable.”

“I’m going to tell you,” Ojeda told the cheering throngs, “if you remember in November, we will have a blue wave in West Virginia that will make Virginia look like a ripple in the frickin’ water!”

Ojeda is on to something. In interviews with The Intercept, registered West Virginia Republicans and independents described the local GOP as out of step with their values and disdainful of their needs.

“After the strike, I’ll definitely be voting differently,” said James Pickron, 39, who teaches diesel technology in Elanor, West Virginia. An 18-year veteran of the Marine Corps with conservative views, Pickron voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race. On Tuesday, Pickron stood in the rotunda of the capitol in Charleston, protesting the state GOP. In his hands was a homemade sign demanding health care funding for a dozen West Virginia public worker groups, from teachers to the Division of Forestry to the DMV.

“Most of the time, I voted a straight Republican ticket,” he said. Now, he said, he will support local Democrats that vote to fully fund the state’s Public Employee Insurance Agency, or PEIA. “This time I will dig down, look at the yeas and nays, and make a more conscious decision.”

The notion that politicians in Republican-dominated West Virginia had transgressed the state’s people was shared by Buford, the technician from Belle. “State politicians gave away coal. They gave away natural gas,” Buford asserted late last Tuesday night. “Now they’re giving up on working people. Working people in West Virginia have always been at the bottom of the barrel.”

A canary in a coal mine: can a new-styled progressive flip West Virginia?

Get a load of this guy.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/magazine/amp/story/2018/03/02/richard-ojeda-west-virginia-blue-army-one-217217

He’s JFK With Tattoos and a Bench Press’
Paratrooper Richard Ojeda is redefining what it means to be a Democrat in a deeply red state.

Sounds like you are describing standard hunting rifles.



This right does not endanger children in any way.

This is the kind of democratic politician that you have been pissing and moaning over for the last year+.

Progressive Democrats .... who voted for Donald Trump in 2016?

I know if I said what I am about to post around too many people where I live, I would create an uncomfortable argument around people I generally like. Which is why I particularly enjoy an anonymous blog such as this to express my opinions. If it gets to contentious (or boringly repetitious) I just back away. Anyway..

I honestly think the second amendment needs to be amended for modern times. I mean think when it was written, the context it was in. None of those things apply to any issue of this day and the second amendment is just too ambiguous in my opinion for clarification on the gun debate. I know the courts have decided on gun issues and we use that for legal purpose, but I think they more or less just have to use their own judgement rather than the amendment itself.

Ran across this piece this morning which reminded me of what I have thought for a long time in this debate.

The Constitution Gives Gun Owners Greater Rights Than Women

Self defense applies very much today.



There is nothing even remotely ambiguous about it. You are not allowed to prevent people from carrying guns that are suitable for self defense. You are not allowed to pass gun laws that have no justification.



No. What they use is the legal history of the right, which makes it very clear exactly what it means.

Have you been in any Militia's lately? California could use the second amendment against Sessions for threatening them over their immigration laws if we took the above literally.

However, there really are enough threads concerning gun control, this is Edgar's thread and we (all) have derailed it.

People have the right to have self defense weapons even if they are not in a militia.



The militia is supposed to carry out the orders of the President.

I don’t know this guy’s every position, but I like the turn from Republicans. This guy sounds more like a progressive, but he might be like me—so-called mixed views about various topics.

Generally, I’d love both parties to move left, and I think this is a good sign. WV Republicans may be forced to adapt or die—sort of like establishment Democrats...

I agree with you that it needs rewriting, in that the "well-regulated militia" doesn't seem to gell with the rest. Legal texts are often negotiated between several parties/people, and sometimes they come out of that negotiation all mangled. The 2nd ammendment looks like that.

It is however important to raise this issue in real life, because no progress can be made without a real debate among citizens about the issue. Changing the minds of people is hard; it takes a lot of arguing and stuff, but NOTHING will change until the discourse, the minds, the culture start to change.

You should feel okay to discuss this in public among neighbours. What's the worse that could happen? They gona look down on you? So what?

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/07/laura-moser-race/

LAURA MOSER, DESPITE an attack from her own party, made it through the first round of a Texas primary on Tuesday, winning a place in a runoff against Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, an EMILY’s List-backed candidate.

Moser, in the May runoff in the state’s 7th Congressional District, will have the support of organized labor, which stridently opposes Fletcher, a partner in a law firm that represents employers and has played a significant role in targeting unions in the state. During the primary, the state AFL-CIO voted to anti-endorse Fletcher, meaning members were urged to vote for anyone but her. With just one candidate now running against Fletcher, Moser’s endorsement is all but assured. “The Texas AFL will have to formally endorse her, but it is a given,” said one high-ranking union official.

“Lizzie Fletcher’s law firm, and Lizzie herself as a partner, profited from the pain and loss of immigrant women janitors,” Joe Dinkin, a spokesperson for the Working Families Party, told The Intercept after the results were called. “That’s not right. If Democrats are going to win in November, we need candidates who fight for working families, not fight against them.”

Dinkin said the WFP would be spending money against Fletcher in the runoff, as it did already.

Fletcher finished first, with 31 percent of the vote, with Moser edging out progressive cancer researcher Jason Westin with 22 percent to his 20 percent. Had the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent money to boost Westin’s campaign instead of going negative against Moser, Westin may have moved forward into the runoff. Indeed, had the DCCC done nothing at all, Westin may have survived — The Intercept noted on the morning of the party committee’s intervention that he was surging in the final weeks of the campaign, as his progressive platform, impressive medical credentials, and endorsement by the Houston Chronicle combined to give him a last-minute boost.

Voter-turnout expert Ben Tribbett argued that the DCCC pushed Moser over the top.

Alex Triantaphyllis, who told voters he was recruited by the DCCC and raised twice as much money as Westin, ran a centrist campaign and finished fourth, with 16 percent. Ivan Sanchez, Josh Butler, and James Cargas rounded out the pack.

Fletcher earned the un-endorsement for her work as a partner at AZA Law, a firm that largely represents employers and won a major case against local janitorial workers represented by the SEIU, who were predominantly immigrants. AZA Law boasted, in its effort to attract future business from employers, that it won the case in part by studying the social media feeds of the jury pool to make sure the jury was stacked with Donald Trump supporters.

Also thanks for the article. An equal rights amendment would seem useful indeed.

That is because they are two separate things. The first half is a requirement that the government always have a militia to protect itself. The second half is a protection of our right to keep and bear arms.



No mangling. They just did multiple things in the same amendment. You should see how many things the First Amendment does.

Fine, but when this guy doesn’t vote for the universal healthcare or a $15 minimum wage because he’s a moderate democrat, I don’t want to hear you bitching.

Don’t be ridiculous. We all NEED to bitch when we’re dissatisfied with our elected elite class.

You’ll probably insist he be voted out of office and let a republican win again when he doesn’t vote for what he has never committed to voting for.