In last year’s front page Washington Post story on Ellen Tauscher, Iraq took center stage:

[Tauscher] then raced to catch the last minutes of an Armed Services Committee hearing, just in time to question Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As five women from the antiwar group Code Pink stood in protest, Tauscher asked two quick questions: Why didn’t Bush’s budget increase production of the C-17, a plane based at Travis? And how much would the president’s troop increase cost?

[…]

But Code Pink activist Zanne Joi, whose shirt read “Stop Funding, Start Impeaching,” was not impressed. She said she was horrified that Tauscher hadn’t challenged Gates about Iraq, that she had treated the increase as a done deal. “We need her to stand up and end this war,” said Joi.

Interestingly, at the Petraeus hearing last week, it was Tauscher with the most interesting line of questioning. And two weeks ago, at what was billed as a “major address” before the Contra Costa Council, Ellen Tauscher went hard against Iraq:

A former stockbroker rated as a political moderate by the National Journal, Tauscher is well-liked at the Contra Costa Council, a group largely made up of dues-paying business leaders.

But her ardent Iraq war views engendered limited vocal enthusiasm among the more conservative crowd.

That did not slow Tauscher, who devoted at least half of her speech to Iraq.

Back to the Washington Post story, remember this?

But Kos points to Harman as a perfect example of how the Net roots can keep Democrats in line. He said Harman used to be a constant irritant, a go-to quote for reporters looking for a Democrat to tweak liberals — until she had to fight off a primary challenge from the left in 2006. “She’s been great ever since,” he said. Now Harman even writes on the liberal Huffington Post blog.

Kos can imagine a day when Tauscher still holds her seat but is no longer distasteful to the left. “That’s what victory would look like — a more responsive representative,” he said. So when Tauscher praises Pelosi as “perfect on substance, perfect on optics,” it’s hard to know if that’s a result of personal evolution, political trends, or blogospheric pressure, but it’s music to Kos’s ears. It’s helpful to Democratic leaders, too.

Said Rosenthal, the Working for Us founder: “We want them to understand what we’re doing helps and enhances the majority.”

Indeed.

Lately there have been lots of stories in the press and the blogs about the California Nurse’s Association (CNA). The stories tell about how this “militant,” nurse-only union has been breaking up other union’s organizing efforts and marching into unionized hospitals in Houston, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas to convince the nurses that they should decertify and join with CNA instead.

It’s a sad and confusing story. One union fighting over another union’s members? But it’s also a critical story to understand so that we can put an end to it and start building the kind of worker-friendly union movement that we all really need in America right now.

In an effort to move beyond the rhetoric that is flying around the blogosphere, I wanted to pass along this testimonial written by Susan Horne, RN. Susan is a nurse at Mt. Airy Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio who was on the ER ward when CNA organizers stormed the place with anti-union, anti-SEIU flyers days before the entire hospital staff was scheduled to vote to join with SEIU and establish the first-ever union there. This Ohio CNA incident–also well documented in the news–happened about a month ago. Here is Susan Horne’s account.

CNA Doesn’t Speak for Us; Stay Out of Our Hospitals

After more than three years of struggle to stand up for ourselves and have a chance to form a union at Mercy Mt. Airy hospital in Cincinnati, my colleagues and I were robbed. Days before a vote for union representation with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a group of aggressive out-of-state organizers with the California Nurses Association (CNA) swarmed our ER hallways making the environment so toxic that we had to call the vote off.

In the meantime, my conscience will not allow me to remain on the sidelines while I stand witness to injustice. And that’s why I’m speaking out. I speak for my closest colleagues when I say to CNA and their team of bullies, shame on you. Shame on you for pretending to speak for us and pretending to represent our needs. And shame on you for tarnishing our honest hard work with your petty political games.

                       – Susan Horne, RN

For more information on CNA’s actions, you can check out www.ShameonCNA.com. I also hope to post another account later today from an Ohio nurse who has been in California trying to speak with CNA Excecutive Offers and staff about what their union did to her and her colleagues in Ohio. Since coming to California and having first hand experience of similar CNA tactics in LA County hospitals, Sue is demoralized and wants to share her thoughts. Stay tuned.

 – Ali Jost, SEIU Staff

(It’s happening today at 3:30. Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, Rick Gonzales will not be able to join us. We hope to have him on soon. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

We’ve been doing the podcasts for a while now, and I think we’re going to try to establish some consistency in when we do these things live.  Our goal is to stick with the 3:30 on Monday time slot.  You can even call in to the show to talk to David Dayen and myself when we do these things. Our Call-in # is (718) 664-9561. Here’s our channel where you can listen to our archive and get show information for all of our shows.  You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

This Monday, we’ll be having an episode discussing the 80th AD race, a district stretching from Palm Springs down to the border in Riverside and Imperial Counties.  We’ll be talking to a couple of candidates, Manuel Perez and, hopefully, Rick Gonzales. We’ve not yet heard from Greg Pettis, but we’d be happy to get him on the show too. So, check it out live on Monday, or at any time via the podcast.

UPDATE: It looks like we’re going to be having a full candidate forum on the Calitics podcast. All three candidates for the 80th AD have now agreed to appear on Monday’s podcast.  It’s going to be Grade A listening. Make sure you check it out.