Arlen Better Get His Weight Up

Looks like Joe Sestak is coming for the crown.



And uhmm CNN next time give TPM the respect they are due, assholes.

Specter Switches Parties

Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. I wrote a diary on dailykos awhile back saying that Democratic leadership should have been trying to get him to cross the aisle after the stimulus vote. Per a statement read on MSNBC Senator Spector claims that he won't be an automatic 60th vote for cloture and that his vote on EFCA won't change. Well I am calling bullshit on that. He had to give up something for the Democratic leadership to allow him to cross the aisle instead of getting trounced in a Republican primary by uber wingnut Pat Toomey. We could have picked up the seat next year easily so there is no reason to allow him out of that blood bath unless some kind of compromise was made. I can tell you this much, if there ISN'T a compromise in place then Harry Reid should have his ass kicked. What's the use of allowing him to caucus with the Dems if he will still vote Republican? I will be optomistic for now, but if Specter is true to his word Harry Reid has GOT to go.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Comes Clean

Greg Sargent reports:

It isn’t every day that folks on the left hail the pro-business Wall Street Journal editorial page for its honesty. But today labor officials are circulating a Journal editorial that could put a crimp in efforts by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act to claim that the measure kills the “secret ballot” option to join unions.

The key bit: The editorial correctly notes that Employee Free Choice doesn’t do that at all:

The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter. The bill allows a union to automatically organize a worksite if more than 50% of workers simply sign an authorization card…

Now according to Sargent in the comments section the SEIU is thinking about moving on from the conversation now instead of flogging the admission. I hope they change their minds about that. One editorial page admission where they still tried to demonize EFCA legislation to me is not enough to think the "secret ballot" cannard is going away. The problem is that the meme has been pushed so hard for so long and by so many different people especially on the WSJ op-ed pages that it has to be beaten back before people will pay attention to any new information. When you have a gift like this delivered to you then you have to exploit it and use it to win the messaging war. "If the Wall Street Journal has been lying about the secret ballot this long what else are they lying about when it comes to EFCA?" Thats the question you want average citizens to be asking. So if any SEIU members are reading this I suggest that you saturate the media with this story and continue to push back on the "secret ballot" canard.

Awesome Sauce!

Republican Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, decided he wanted to send a little jokey joke along about unions. It would seem his office emailed this youtube vid to media outlets trying to poke fun in anticipation of the EFCA. This ain't quite at the level of Barack The Magic Negro but it's pretty close. Its like the Republicans WANT to lose all their support.


Warning, very vulgar words on the video.



(h/t DougJ)