Tag: Blue Dogs

As David Swanson noted on Wednesday:

You may have heard that our center-right nation got enthusiastic, formed a grassroots movement called a tea party, and overwhelmingly voted in a more rightwing party, sending hordes of nasty socialists packing as a result of their overly progressive performance, meaning gridlock between the righteous Congress and the infidel president for the next two years. There are some problems with this story, beginning with the fact that it’s completely false.

[snip]

As Karen Dolan blogged about immediately after Tuesday’s elections, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — over 80 members — lost only 3 seats. The Cut-Spending-Except-For-Killing Blue Dogs had 54 members and lost 26 of them, and those 26 were their true believers. Congress members, including one or two real progressives, didn’t lose by being progressive but by being Democrats. Alan Grayson was defeated by the largest investment of corporate money in any House race, but the obedient corporatist Democrat in the next district over lost too. And this was despite the Democratic Party funding and supporting the Blue Dogs, leaving the progressives to raise their own money.

Tea Party candidates, in contrast to progressives, did not have a successful day on Tuesday. Their nominees’ craziness cost the Republican Party control of the Senate. Yet the whole corporate-funded smoke-and-mirrors “movement” of the Tea Party pushed the Republican Party as a whole to the right, in a way that no well-funded institution has pushed the Democrats to the left or even tried to. And this is the key lesson: pushing the Democrats to the left would save them from themselves.

On Thursday Amy Goodman at Democracy Now spoke with CPC Co-Chair Raul Grijalva about the CPC not only holding it’s own with a loss of only 4 seats in the mid terms, but coming out of the elections holding the relative largest plurality of all groups in Congress.

The Democrats lost the majority in the US House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections, but what is the makeup of the new Democratic House caucus? The conservative Blue Dogs lost half their members, while the Progressive Caucus remains near eighty. We speak to its co-chair, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who appears to have retained his seat in a close election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District. Over the past year, Grijalva has received numerous threats, including having a suspicious package covered in swastikas sent to his office and having a bullet shot through his district office in Yuma, Arizona.

Democracy Now – November 04, 2010

about 10 minutes

..transcript follows..

I really don’t have the time to write this up, but I wanted to draw your attention to this series on HuffPo.  In is quite an indepth, inside look and well worth the whole read.  Despite the cheerleading, there are pissed-off liberals.  We are not alone.  Enjoy.

Power Struggle: Inside The Battle For The Soul Of The Democratic Party

Doug Kahn, a big Democratic donor and heir to the Annenberg fortune, is not giving any money to candidates running for office this year even though he has donated more than $200,000 to candidates in past election cycles.

“The people who are really liberal, like me, are disgusted. And the ones I’ve talked to are just saying, forget this. They’re throwing their hands up. They’re not going to give money,” says Kahn.

In 2008, says Kahn, he asked the DCCC to list candidates who had an outside shot of beating a Republican and weren’t currently getting much party backing. He jumped in and gave the maximum contributions, donating to several of the 34 Democrats who voted against health care reform. In 2010, he says, he’ll spend his money in a different way. “Anger is a real motivator,” says Kahn.

The Florida donor plans to spend $100,000 between two districts currently held by Blue Dogs. He’ll come in during the last few weeks and spend money educating Democratic voters about the Blue Dogs’ record. “I’m convinced that if they know what the voting records of some of these people are — that is, Blue Dogs — a significant percentage, a percentage that could beat the Blue Dog, will simply not vote. I might be wrong about that, but I’m going to try it out,” says Kahn.

Kahn says he doesn’t yet know which districts he’ll attack and has no interest working to defeat a Blue Dog who is already going to lose. He wants Blue Dogs on the edge and he wants to push them off. The purpose, he says, is not to teach those particular dogs a lesson, but “to move the Blue Dogs who are in the House to have some fear of Democratic voters.”

Pelosi worked to muzzle progressives who said they could never vote for the watered-down Senate version. “I told the members, the members who said, ‘I’m never voting the Senate bill,’ I said, ‘Fine. Let me take care of that, but to the extent that you go out and say that, you are empowering the insurance industry and those who are trying to say just do a small bill,” she said. “That empowered them: ‘See, she’s never going to be able to pass the bill, so why don’t we just go for this thing, which happens to be what the insurance company is advocating.’ So we’re saying, ‘No, you have to have the courage to go for it, and what is it that we can put over the finish line that is strong and tough as possible, giving the president his opportunity to strive for bipartisanship?”

There’s a whole lot more.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    The Republican wing of the Democratic party. The Blue Dogs. The ConservaDems. These assholes licked Bush’s fingers for a taste of his dinner and now they are biting Obama’s hand every time he reaches out to them. WHAT THE FUCK!!!!

    So here is the deal. I already despise the Corporatist sell out Blue Cross/ Blue Shield dogs. They undermine Democratic ideas and damage our brand, and if they stay quiet and out of the way I can suffer them, but mark my words . . . .

    If BlueDogs sink HCR I will put my foot so far up their a$$es they’ll be flossing with my shoelaces

    This will be a short diary, as what I have to say is fairly simple. Any politician who votes NO on this bill is officially my mortal enemy. They are rooting for my illness and poverty at best, and my death at worse. Why? Because they do not represent people, but instead they represent the greedy, bloodthirsty insurers, and the profit motive for a politician who does the insurers bidding is the bribe of campaign donations, all so the insurers can keep making their blood money profits. FUCK THAT AND FUCK THEM.

   With that being said, I can safely say that PeanutButterPAC will do it’s best to kick the ass of every NO vote on this Health Care Bill so hard their asses will be up near their armpits, and if you want to join up and help us, the more the better.

Rant continued below the fold . . .

An allegory in four parts

Part I: The Warning of the Dirty Fucking Hippies

The power of the Enemy is growing.  The corporations will use their puppets, the Republicans, the media, and the Blue Dog corporatists and centrists, to enslave the people of America.  Fascism has been unleashed.  The eye of the corporations now turn to the last free people of America.  Their war on this country will come swiftly.  They sense the ring is close.  The strength of the Democrats is failing.  In their hearts, progressives being to understand, the quest will claim their freedom — all their freedom.  It was the risk we all took.

In the gathering dark the will of the Ring grows strong.  It works hard now to find its way back into the hands of Congressmen.  Congressmen who are so easily seduced by its power.  The young Captain of America has now but to extend his hand, take the Ring for his own, and the world will fall.

It is close, now, so close to achieving its goal.  For the corporations will have dominion over all life in America, even unto the ending of the world.

Do we leave America to its fate?  Do we let them stand alone?

UPDATED: (and not surprisingly!)

Sept 23, 2009

    Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami emailed us late last night to assert that no final decisions have been made on the shape of the public option: “It is inaccurate for anyone to assert that the Speaker or the Leadership has determined the form of the public option. How we move forward on the public option will continue to be discussed by the Leadership and the Caucus, which will meet on Thursday.”

Didn’t Take very long for this bullshit to happen. Shoulda seen it coming.

Sept 22, 2009     Speaker Pelosi is nixing a deal she cut with centrists to advance health reform, said a source familiar with negotiations.

    Pelosi’s decision to abandon the agreement that was made with a group of Blue Dogs to get the bill out of committee would steer the healthcare legislation back to the left as she prepares for a floor vote.

    Pelosi is planning to include a governmentrun public option in the House version of the healthcare bill. She wants to model it on Medicare,- with providers getting reimbursed on a scale pegged to Medicare rates.-

    -“The speaker is full-steam-ahead,” said a senior Democratic aide.-

thehill.com

     It was a VERY good day for Progressives in DC and working class Americans today. Pelosi has shot down her deal with the Blue Dogsthe MAYO Clinic is going to support a Public Option and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IO) has said that he is now VERY confident that a Public Option will make it to the President’s desk in Health Care Reform.

   Hell, even Harry Reid grew some temporary spine and said that a 51 majority vote will be used to pass health care reform if all else fails.

   Let’s see who long Harry’s new found vertebrae lasts.

   So, all in all it is a good day for Progressives politically, and working class Americans everywhere as we push harder for a Progressive agenda that benefits working class Americans FIRST.

   Let’s hope more good news is coming soon. I could get used to writing happy diaries like this am getting f#$king sick and tired of this BULLSHIT

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!