A follow-up to Friday's item, as House Democrats continue to take shots at each other after a contentious caucus meeting. More members on the left-of-center end of the spectrum decided to voice their displeasure at Alexandria Ocasio Cortez over the weekend, accusing her of compiling a "Nixonian" list of ideological traitors. It's getting a little ugly out there, folks:
“Being unified means ensuring that Democrats aren’t primary-ing other sitting Democrats,” Gottheimer said. “Since when is it okay to put you on a Nixonian list? We need to have a big tent in our party or we won’t keep the House or win the White House.”…The eruption followed weeks of growing tension between wings of the party. Freshmen who were elected on platforms of cleaning up big-money politics and fixing the heath-care system have found themselves voting on, and answering for, a different set of issues, and some are feeling the heat from their constituents. “A lot of people are complaining and expressing concerns about the Democratic Party being portrayed as socialist, or certain voices being louder than others,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who unseated a GOP incumbent in a suburban Minneapolis district.
To which "louder voices" might he be referring? What a mystery. AOC is firing back that she wasn't explicitly talking about a primary challenge list per se, but if that's not what she's threatening, what is the point of compiling rosters of unacceptable 'wrong think' heresies? Remember, this all erupted over 26 Democrats voting for a GOP 'motion to recommit,' effectively amending a gun control bill to include a provision requiring that ICE be notified when an illegal immigrant tries to buy a firearm. As the leader of the 'defund ICE' brigade, AOC says it's outrageous that any Democrat would empower that agency. After all, she says, they drug children! Not so, says a knowledgeable immigration attorney:
Once again AOC demonstrates how negligently fact-challenged she is.
— Friendly Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) March 3, 2019
The lawsuit over the injections reflects that they occurred at an Office of Refugee Resettlement facility. ORR, of course, is run by the Department of Health and Human Services—not ICE or DHS. https://t.co/H2yQRzJQm5
Well, I'm sure she thinks she's morally correct, or whatever. But pesky details aside, am I understanding properly that all but two dozen or so House Democrats believe that the agency responsible for deportation should not get looped in when unlawful US residents attempt to make unlawful gun purchases? That's an odd choice from the "gun safety" crowd. A cynic might suggest that they prize quasi-open borders, and the prospective voters attached to large-scale amnesty proposals, over other legislative priorities (quote: "the anti-gun party is also the open-borders party and there’s no doubt which of those two priorities takes precedence over the other"). Meanwhile, AOC is making other new friends, including the co-founder of Greenpeace, who doesn't exactly sound thrilled by her Green New Deal bravado:
Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating. You would bring about mass death.
— Patrick Moore (@EcoSenseNow) February 23, 2019
...And then there's this Democratic pollster, who's getting the feeling that her idea of intra-party tolerance is a one-way street:
My main gripe about AOC is that while I respect her voice in the party, I don't think she respects mine or anyone else's who differs with her on policy or comes from a different political electoral reality. https://t.co/zzpvrNKKUe
— John Anzalone (@JohnAnzo) March 2, 2019
I'll leave you with lefty bete noir Howard Schultz (speaking of whom, read this), warning against socialism and enemies lists:
Shouting down political opponents, inflexible dogma, and the making of lists of the politically impure, unfavored classes, and offending businesses, has always been integral to socialism. History is utterly clear on this point. The list is always acted on.
— Howard Schultz (@HowardSchultz) March 2, 2019