Mike Stark spoke to Steve Cohen about taking the Pledge. Cohen said he believed in all the principles, but that you never knew what was coming down the road. In other words, we should trust him.
But Cohen was one of those who, in 2007, signed a letter saying he would vote for no war funding that did not have troop withdrawal provisions. And he did vote against the supplemental the first time it passed the House. Over and over again, when people called to ask how he would vote, Steve was "leaning no." He told Howie Klein he was "leaning no."
Steve Cohen voted for the supplemental.
Jeremy Scahill called Steve out at the time, saying: "for those who campaign as anti-war and signed pledges not to continue funding war and then vote for billions more for wars they claim to oppose, Tuesday should be remembered as a day of shame and cowardice."
Cohen also took a bad vote on the ACES big coal bail-out. Is he casting every vote in fear that the White House will back Dr. Willie Herenton for his seat? Should we just assume that he’ll abandon his principles and line up every time Rahm wants some shitty neoliberal bill passed?
If you’re one of our readers who gave money to Cohen, or if you believed him when he came here and talked about defunding the war as a way to end it, call him and tell him that good intentions are not enough — he needs to take the pledge.
Phone: DC (202) 225-3265, (901) 544-4131 Memphis
And remember to support good behavior — Please give $8 for 8 to Health Care Heroes.
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BTW, health care heroes is almost up to $5000 —
http://www.actblue.com/page/healthcareheroes
Would be great to put it over the top!
Wow! that’s wonderful.
It’s great that these 8 will know that we stick with those who do the right thing and that we have their backs. It’s a good feeling.
The funny thing is that Herenton really isn’t much of a threat, to judge from the flakiness he seems to have displayed. Or does Cohen scare easily?
It appears that he does — look, we know that primary threats work, for good and for bad. In this case it’s the latter.
Don’t folks like Cohen understand that we want to believe him and the others when they claim they will vote for a public option but can’t because of the many times they lied before?
Rep Cohen, you have to re-earn that trust. Saying one thing and doing another is not the way to do that.
My $.02
Cohen is very careful. Don’t get me wrong, I like him and see him as a congressional newbie still learning the ropes and making the necessary alliances to be around for a long time. But, he is a career politician who has come up through the ranks and has nothing else to parachute to. he isn’t going to take risks.