Dems to Pro-Lifers: You Are Unwanted

Bernie Sanders and new DNC Chair Tom Perez have been taking their “unity tour” on the road lately, and only underscoring the fact that the mindset of progressive activists these days allows Democrats to unify their party only by driving out dissenters. You might think Sanders – who is so far left he still only tenuously embraces the Democratic Party label – is, of all people, immune from criticism to his left, but he violated one of the Left's most sacred cows by campaigning in Nebraska for Heath Mello, a candidate for Mayor of Omaha who has voted for a number of modest abortion restrictions as a state legislator. How modest? Mello earned a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood in 2015, but Daily Kos withdrew its endorsement of Mello for this heresy: Prior to Wednesday, Daily Kos was unaware that Heath Mello, a Democrat who is running against the incumbent Republican mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, had supported legislation in the Nebraska state Senate eight years ago that would require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound…However, as soon as we learned this information, we withdrew our endorsement, because this legislation clearly runs contrary to Daily Kos' deepest values, including our support for women's reproductive rights and our staunch opposition to laws that in any way impede women's access to reproductive health care…according to a contemporaneous Associated Press report from 2009, the bill Mello co-sponsored “requires the physician performing the abortion to tell a woman an ultrasound is available, but it doesn't require the ultrasound to be performed.” If a woman does elect to undergo an ultrasound, the images from the ultrasound must be displayed simultaneously. Mello called the measure a “positive first step to reducing the number of abortions in Nebraska.”