Blue Dogs Still Whining About Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Blue Dogs say they can work with this in a bipartisan way

It's silly to called Blue Dogs, the right-wing fringe of the Democratic Party (AKA, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) "moderate." They're not moderate; they're conservative-- and more than anything else, they're corrupt, When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said "I don't think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health care legislation," they short circuited and have been attacking her ever since. If the Blue Dogs were once motivated by right-of-center ideology, today they are just as motivated by the right-of-center gravy train, just as Republicans are. Ocasio-Cortez also said, "I don't think people who are taking money from Oil and Gas companies should be drafting climate legislation.

There are 17 Blue Dogs returning to the House in January-- not counting the 7 right-leaning freshmen they recruited. This list is the 17 incumbents with how much each has accepted in bribes, first from PhRMA and second from Oil and Gas. This kind of bribery ins't illegal-- since Congress gets to define its own criminal behavior as legal.

• Sanford Bishop (GA)- Appropriations Committee, next chair of the Subcommittee dealing with the Food and Drug Administration, $67,500, $82,930
• Jim Cooper (TN)- Oversight Committee's Subcommittee on Health Care, $134,400, $102,375
• Lou Correa (CA)- Veteran's Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Health, $69,998, $53,500
• Jim Costa (CA)- Natural Resources Committee's subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources $35,500, $517,974
• Charlie Crist (FL)- Financial Services Committee, $101,250, $79,905
• Henry Cuellar (TX)- Appropriations Committee, $75,350, $708,127
• Vicente Gonzalez (TX)- Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Insurance $4,750, $47,250
• Josh Gottheimer (NJ)- Financial Services Committee, $103,990, $57,841
• Dan Lipinski (IL)- Science Committee's Subcommittee on Energy; Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Pipelines, $17,000, $35,000
• Stephanie Murphy (FL)- Small Buisiness Committee's next chair of Subcommittee on Regulations, $62,081, $3,300
• Tom O'Halleran (AZ)- Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Energy $25,935, $475
• Collin Peterson (MN)- next chair of the Agriculture Committee- $44,000, $150,926
• Brad Schneider (IL)- Small Business Committee- next chair of Subcommittee on Energy and Trade, $268,491, $22,552
• Mike Thompson (CA)- Ways and Means-- next chair of Subcommittee on Health, $502,228, $90,260
• Filemon Vela (TX)- Agriculture Committee, $29,100, $98,300

As for calling the Blue Dogs, "centrists," they are certainly not anywhere near the center of the Democratic Party, although they are in the center of Congress, something right in between actual Democrats and Republicans (basically now a neo-fascist party). The Blue Dogs and New Dems are pretty much what's left of Eisenhower Republicans. In fact, severakof their members are "ex"-Republicans, like Charlie Crist, and Tom O'Halleran.

Over the weekend Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, in a pull piece for the Blue Dogs, referred to the then as both moderates and centrists and never once mentioned their corruption. His headline is their p.r. message-- what a coincidence-- going into 2019, Blue Dog Democrats are poised to play a crucial role in the next Congress. He starts by reminding his readers that "The Democratic Party [the DCCC] spent enormous amounts of time and money recruiting and supporting moderate, centrist candidates as part of its strategy to take control of the House in last month’s midterm elections-- and it worked." Yes, it worked; there was a massive anti-red wave they swept even even wretched candidates like Jeff Van Drew, Max Rose and Abigail Spanberger into Congress. Rogin's next sentence is the message that the Blue Dems have repeated-- and have had their pet media hacks repeat-- year after year after year, no matter how many times it's proven to be completely incorrect: "Now, these very lawmakers are organizing to assert their influence. If they succeed, they might just keep their jobs and save the Democratic majority in the process."

Meet Rep. Van Drew, Josh Rogin's idea of the "moderate," "centrist" candidate-- it's not easy to get an A+ from the NRA, but Van Drew pulled it off... so moderate in suburban New Jersey!

The Blue Dog Coalition began in 1995 after Democrats lost power in the most stunning electoral defeat of that era. Originally made up of mostly older, white, Southern men, their name was inspired by the iconic yellow-eyed blue dog painted by artist George Rodrigue... The forming principle of the group was that fiscally conservative, national-security-minded Democrats needed to stick together-- and occasionally stick it to their own party’s leadership-- to survive and get stuff done. But the Blue Dog Coalition will look a lot different in 2019 than it did in 1995: It now includes Northerners, young people and veterans. It is led by an Asian American woman who served in the Pentagon and just won her first reelection in a purple Florida district that supports both gun control and gay rights.

“The makeup of our coalition has changed,” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) told me. “It’s not your Southern Democratic Blue Dog Coalition anymore.”

Murphy and her co-chairs, Rep. J. Luis Correa (CA) and Rep. Tom O’Halleran (AZ), are growing their coalition by recruiting from the incoming freshman class.

[Note: Correa was known as the worst Democrat in the California legislature, corrupt beyond belief and voting more frequently with the Republicans than any other Democrat. There was general rejoicing when he left Sacramento. Tom O'Halleran also served in his state's legislature... as a Republican, which is still basically is, except with a "D" next to his name.]

It is no accident they’ve signed up Afghanistan war veteran Max Rose (NY), former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger (VA) and former Salt Lake County, Utah, mayor Ben McAdams. Their theory of the case is that competence, pragmatism and experience in public service are attributes voters crave in the age of President Trump.

Republicans have ceded huge territory in the center, Murphy said, by abandoning fiscal responsibility on debt and deficits while following Trump as he takes the GOP toward a nationalist trade and foreign policy.

“We have a unique opportunity,” she said. “It is a moment when the Blue Dogs have an opportunity to be a strong, reasonable voice. . .  In contrast to some of the reckless policies we are seeing.”

This is how the rules of the conservative game read: when Democrats are in power, no money is allowed to be spent except on the military. Money spent on making the country more equitable and more livable for working families is verboten. First priority must always be reducing the deficit that the conservatives ran up with their tax cuts for the rich and wasteful militarism. Then when voters get sick of the Scrooge-like posture, Republicans get back into power and the spigots open for further enriching the very rich-- and stealing from the public purse, another hallmark of conservative governance. When in comes to fiscal and economic policy, Blue Dogs are Republicans. And when it comes to attacking progressives, the Blue Dogs are better at it than Republicans. Rogan continued, sympathetically: "They know the progressive far-left Democrats entering Congress are getting the lion’s share of media attention. For example, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) has a district just miles from Rose’s but gets drastically more coverage, in part because of her willingness to oppose party leadership and advocate economic and foreign policy ideas that are outside the mainstream."

Laughable. It was Rose who threatened to not vote for Pelosi and who demanded she agree to rules that would enable the Republican minority. Ocasio-Cortez said she would vote for Pelosi. So where does the lie come from? The Blue Dog p.r. person or from the dishonest or really dumb-as-a-brick "journalist?" Why shouldn't Ocasio-Cortez get media coverage? She's already been setting the policy discussion while Rose sits around with one finger up his ass and the other in the wind trying to figure out what's the least dangerous things for him to say.

Sixty-four percent of the 42 seats Democrats flipped in the 2018 midterms will be held by members of the Blue Dogs or the moderate New Democratic Coalition; only 27 percent of those seats will be held by members of the Progressive Caucus. Of the 20 congressional districts now held by Democrats but that favored Trump in 2016, 11 are Blue Dog or New Dem members; only three are in the Progressive Caucus.

With a little sleight of hand, the Blue Dog p.r. team leaves out progressive freshmen like Ocasio-Cortez (NYC), Ilhan Omar (Minneapolis), Ayassa Pressley (Boston) and Rashida Tlaib (Detroit) since they represented seats that were already held by Democrats, while including a brainless conservative backbencher, the wealthy Vegas socialite and Mob-connected Susie Lee who was also elected in a district held by a Democrat, as were Steven Horsford, Jahanna Hayes and Chris Pappas. So is the use of "honesty" in the calculations too much to ask for?

Lets start with how many freshmen joined each caucus, keeping in mind that the most conservative freshmen joined both the Blue Dogs and the New Dems and that the actual centrists-- rather than the right wing Democrats-- joined the New Dems and the CPC (Congressional Progressive Caucus.) A brief tangent here. Many of the centrist Dems feel they need the political cover of being able to tell their constituents they are progressives, so they pay the $5,000 annual membership fee and and the CPC gives them that cover. They think they can avoid primaries from the left that way. That's fucked up!

OK, these are the new members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus: 25 members so far:

Only 7 freshmen were willing to admit to being Blue Dogs, all proven conservatives. Not one, for example, has signed onto the #GreenNewDeal:

• Jeff Van Drew (NJ)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)
• Xochitl Small (NM)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)

As for the New Dems, 30 joined... although 6 are also Blue Dogs and 5 are also members of the CPC. This in the whole list:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)
• Greg Stanton (AZ)
• Josh Harder (CA)
• Katie Hill (CA)
• Harley Rouda (CA)
• Jason Crow (CO)
• Debbie Powell (FL)
• Sean Casten (IL)
• Sharice Davids (KS)
• Elissa Slotkin (MI)
• Haley Stevens (MI)
• Angie Craig (MN)
• Sean Phillips (MN)
• Susie Lee (NV)
• Chris Pappas (NH)
• Tom Malinowski (NJ)
• Mikie Sherrill (NJ)
• Xochitl Small (NM)
• Max Rose (NY)
• Anthony Brindisi (NY)
• Chrissy Houlahan (PA)
• Susan Wild (PA)
• Lizzie Fletcher (TX)
• Veronica Escobar (TX)
• Colin Allred (TX)
• Ben McAdams (UT)
• Elaine Luria (VA)
• Abigail Spanberger (VA)
• Jennifer Wexton (VA)
• Kim Schrier (WA)

OK, now the excuse the conservative Democrats use for voting with the Republicans so frequently. Rogin points out that "Ocasio-Cortez won with 78 percent of the vote. Rose won with less than 53 percent. If Pelosi still wants to be speaker after two years, Democrats must convince constituents in districts such as Rose’s that their party represents them." Perhaps if Rose ran on the issues Ocasio-Cortez ran on-- Medicare-for-All, free state colleges, the GreenNewDeal-- he would have had 78% as well. Only 4 Democrats had worse voting records.

The Blue Dogs disagree, of course. Rogin asked the "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran (who has an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch and who has voted about 60% of the time on crucial roll calls since he was elected with the Republicans.

“Our districts have a different look to them and a different face to them, and we have to recognize that and the caucus has to recognize that,” O’Halleran told me. I might ad that though he had a very week opponent, who spent half what he did, the DCCC threw $1,002,928 into the race and Pelosi's SuperPAC kicked in another $481,564. (Neither the NRCC nor Ryan's SuperPAC targeted the race; they spent zero.) And now to the main point they want to get to: if Democrats deliver on the progressive ideas that powered

The risk for Democrats is that the squeaky wheels will wind up getting the grease-- and the loudest voices will become the voice of the party.

“Pragmatism never has been and never will be a sexy message, but these members were elected in part because of their pragmatism,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, a partner at ROKK Solutions, a Washington consultancy. “The priority is maintaining and expanding the majority. As a bloc, there’s a lot of strength in the Blue Dog Coalition.”

What bullshit! The 7 of them were elected because they were on the ballot in an anti-red year. Jeff Van Drew, for example, nearly lost his race, in a blue district and despite running against a vanity candidate with no support. Had he run as a progressive, he would have done much better. Any Democrat with the kind funding Sherrill had was going to win that seat. Same with Rose.



"The Blue Dogs’ challenge is not just about marketing. They are preaching moderation," he asserts, instead of calling it what it is: conservatism and a defense of the status quo. He extols "compromise and bipartisanship in an environment characterized by divided government, intense partisanship, the prospect of two years of investigations into the administration and potential impeachment proceedings." Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy reached out with that same message to the Blue Doggie freshmen last week, ironically on the exact same day that he refused to allow a vote on ending the U.S. participation in the tragic genocide in Yemen. That was a compromise bill passed with a bipartisan majority in the Senate. It would have passed by a bipartisan majority in the House as well, but McCarthy and Ryan refused to allow a vote. That's who Rogin and the Blue Dogs want to work with on compromise and bipartisanship? (You bet it is!)

And Rogin ends with another canard that the Blue Dogs, New Dems and Republicans love repeating endlessly when Democrats take over Congress: "Even if the Democratic leadership gives its centrist and moderate members the opportunities and cover they need to be independent and focus on their districts, greater forces may continue to push both parties to their extremes. Democrats must decide whether they want to assuage their angriest elements or govern from the middle and keep their power." Majorities of Americans-- not just Democrats, but also independent voters and in some cases Republican voters say they support the progressive platform. Almost no one supports the Blue Dog platform except Republicans, who don't vote for Blue Dogs anyway.