It was a shocking blow to the Democratic establishment Tuesday when 10-term US Rep. Joe Crowley (NY-14) was defeated in the primaries by 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley is not only a long-time member of the US House, he is the chair of the House Democratic Caucus and is speculated to have been next in line for Nancy Pelosi's position.
Needless to say, there hasn't been a primary defeat this big since former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
I spoke with Jennifer Bullock, the Founder of Independent Pennsylvanians and the Director of the Philadelphia Social Therapy Group. Jennifer talked about what it is like organizing independent voters while the political parties seem hell bent on driving people crazy. Please send me your thoughts and comments to jopdycke@openprimaries.org. Enjoy this episode of The Pickle!
“Liquid Democracy” has entered the public discourse in the past couple of years, as a possible replacement for the system of government that we have come to know. Because it is based on Blockchain, it has gained intellectual traction among some proponents of “structural change” within our society.
In a 5-0 vote, California’s Senate Judiciary Committee passed a data privacy compromise bill, AB 375, which for the first time passes greater control of personal data and privacy to consumers. It's expected to be signed into law later this week.
The president’s policy of separating immigrant families from their children at the border is an appalling reaction to an immigration problem that both parties helped create. It goes against every value for which this country – as a beacon of freedom, human rights and hope – has long stood, and brought worldwide scorn, deservedly so.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has for the first time Monday, approved a marijuana based pharmaceutical drug, Epidiolex, for treatment of two extremely severe and treatment-resistant forms of epilepsy (Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome), that tragically affect infants and young children.
Family separations at our southwest border reveal the pain when children are forcibly seized by state or federal government agencies. We see the fear and anger, and expect frustration, loss of trust, helplessness and likely lifelong trauma for children, parents and other relatives.
Maxine Waters has lost the plot. She has enjoyed the life of the privileged political class for twenty-eight years and has just been caught out. However illuminating her call for harassment may be, Maxine Waters's chances of ever getting voted out of office even if she were to do worse is scant at best. Unfortunately, she has matured in her Congressional seat at a time when politicians use rudeness as a moral corrective, and they are off the mark. It’s not a corrective; it’s just rude. And this time Waters has entered the realm of inciting disrespect, possible violence and worse.
One of the biggest obstacles for any independent or third party candidate is being ignored by the polls. The media, debating commissions, and voters all look at polls to assess any race, and candidates who don’t appear in them struggle to seem relevant.
When a candidate does not appear in the polls, they can expect to be excluded from almost everything.
My purpose in writing this essay is to evaluate the immigration policy that is commonly supported by conservatives today, especially in the years leading up to and including the Obama-Trump era in U.S. politics, and to show you how this immigration policy is not conservative in any way, how its underlying arguments and mindset are entirely foreign to the American conservative tradition, and how it in fact has far more in common with the ideas and mindset of radical leftist ideologies like those of Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin.