Two More Slimy Self-Serving Conservatives Headed From Congress To K Street

Earlier in the week many of his were chuckling in resignation when it was announced that Indiana corporate shill and reflexive reactionary Evan Bayh-- also well as paid Fox contributor-- is going to work for a long-time fascist organization as a lobbyist.

Not long after announcing his plans to retire in 2010, then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) offered this bit of commentary on why he'd opted to leave Congress after two terms in office: "I want to be engaged in an honorable line of work." It was taken as a biting critique of the increasingly polarized and dysfunctional Senate, and a hint that Bayh's post-Senate plans might include a quiet career in academia, away from politics.

Now Bayh is eating his words. As iWatch News' Peter Stone reports, Bayh has signed on with one of the most corporate-friendly, anti-environment shops in all of Washington, DC: the US Chamber of Commerce. According to an internal memo penned by Chamber president Tom Donohue, Bayh, along with former Bush White House chief of staff Andy Card, are now part of the Chamber's anti-regulation messaging team, doing "speeches, events, and media appearances at local venues."

The Chamber's hiring of Bayh, a big name in Washington circles, will only help its efforts to delay or kill new regulatory legislation in Congress. Indeed, Donohue's memo touts how the Chamber has filed legal briefs to challenge the validity of President Obama's health care reform bill; successfully delayed a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule on giving shareholders a say on corporate directors; unveiled plans to undermine the clout of the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and delayed a rule forcing companies to disclose when they use conflict minerals from the Congo in their products. Bayh and Card, the memo says, will help the Chamber push this pro-corporate agenda in Washington and beyond.

But just as we were hoping Bayh's revolving door would hit him in the butt on the way out, news broke that an even worse example of a right-wing Democrat would soon be scurrying from Capitol Hill to K Street. This year-- as almost every year-- spoiled child of privilege and scummy dishonorable Blue Dog Dan Boren was the Democrat who voted most frequently with the Republicans on key substantive issues before the House. His ProgressivePunch Crucial Votes score for the current session is a dismal 17.43, not just the worst for any Democrat, but worse than 16 Republicans. Boehner and Cantor have been able to count on his support as much as George Bush always did. The Democratic caucus will be infinitely better off without him, even if fellow Blue Dog Brad Carson, the district's former congressman, wins the seat.

With Boren gone the once-mighty Blue Dog caucus of rightists and racists will have been cut down from 54 to 23. That's 23 too many. As Politico reported, former Tennessee Rep. John Tanner, a leading conservative Democrat who helped found the coalition in 1995, acknowledged that the Blue Dog wing is, for the time being at least, struggling for survival.

“It ought to concern us from the standpoint that we need to put aside strongly held philosophies,” said Tanner, who retired last year.

Former North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a Blue Dog who lost his seat last November, put it more directly: “I think you could say this was the most disastrous House election that Democrats ever had, and those who paid the highest price were those in swing districts and those who were Blue Dogs.”

While Boren didn’t announce his plans, many in the growing ranks of former Blue Dogs have beaten a path to the lucrative environs of K Street, where they aren’t regularly berated by progressives who resent their departures from party orthodoxy or Republicans insisting they are tools of a liberal national party. In just the past few months alone, former South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, former Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon, Pomeroy and Tanner are among those who have taken the lobbying path.

I was on the phone with a senior progressive Democrat when the news of Boren's retirement hit the transom. I asked her if she had heard the news about Boren. And she shot back, "Did he finally make if official and switch parties?" I told her he was retiring and she asked me if I knew he was related to Paul Ryan by marriage. Boren, who's on the Board of Directors of the NRA, didn't endorse Obama in 2008 and voted against healthcare reform and was always strictly anti-Choice.

Last November Blue America helped defeat the only Democrat with a worse voting record than Boren: Bobby Bright, an Alabama Blue Dog. This year our ActBlue page, Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand is assisting progressives who fighting for nominations against Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats. We have three on our list so far and if you'd like to help them in their struggle we'd be most appreciative.

Dan Boren-- Leading Democrats Astray For Boehner

Last year Alabama Blue Dog Bobby Bright had the worst voting record of any Democrat in the House-- voting far more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats on issues with partisan divisions. Blue America reminded his Democratic constituents of some of his votes against their interests and his margin in the blue areas of his district fell down and he was defeated. His replacement as the worst Democrat in the House is someone never far from that appellation anyway, Oklahoma corporate whore, Dan Boren.

According to ProgressivePunch's algorithm, Boren was worse than just the worst Democrat. His abysmal 15.87 score-- meaning he's voted with the GOP over 84% of the time-- is worse than two dozen Republicans! Boehner and Cantor have been able to count on Boren for nearly every important vote in the House. He's more reliable for them than extremist teabaggers Tom McClintock (R-CA) and Justin Amash (R-MI) and worse than rubber stamp corporate shills like Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), John Campbell (R-CA), Tom Petri (R-WI), Connie Mack (R-FL) and Steven LaTourette (R-OH). He has the exact same voting score as Dean Heller (R-NV), the newly appointed Republican Senator from Nevada. That's how much the GOP approves of Boren's voting score!

And, of course, he goes beyond just the voting when it comes to showing fealty to all the extremist positions embraced by the GOP. He's far to the right-- across the board-- of any other Blue Dog. In fact Boren, a poster boy for the NRA wrote one of the worst of the gun-loon bills of the year. Is was so extreme that there were even a couple of Republicans who couldn't vote for it!

Boren's amendment passed the House 277-149, with the support of a disgraceful 41 Democrats, mostly Blue Dogs but also some cowardly types from "gun states." Boren's bill-- which was eventually killed in behind the scenes congressional negotiations (a clue that even the GOP leadership though Boren's extremist was too dangerous and deranged-- had nothing to due with "gun states" though. His intention was to prevent the ATF from regulating the deadly, if not catastrophic, firearm sales along the Mexico border. Specifically, what Boren was proposing was to stop ATF from tracking bulk sales of assault weapons headed to Mexico.

But sometime before the final deal was announced on Friday night, lawmakers stripped the rider from the bill. The move came after concerned lawmakers and even Mexico's Ambassador to the United States lobbied congressional leadership and the White House to strip the language from the bill.

"ATF is already chronically underfunded and has been without a confirmed director since 2006 as a result of inaction by past sessions of Congress," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a co-chair of the coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said in a statement. "We welcome this sign that leaders in Washington may be ready to step up and help law enforcement save lives."

Instead of railing against the regular cast of characters who can always be counted on to support these kinds of lunatic pieces of legislation-- and did-- like slimy Blue Dogs John Barrow (GA), Heath Shuler (NC), Mike Ross (AR), Jim Cooper (TN), Mike McIntyre (NC), Joe Donnelly (IN) and Jim Matheson (UT), let's look at some House Democrats being pushed forward towards higher office who also joined Boren in his efforts-- Shelley Berkley, the Democratic nominee for the Nevada Senate seat and Martin Heinrich, the favorite to get the Democratic nomination for the open Senate seat in New Mexico. When the DSCC approaches you for support for these two, be sure you understand what you're voting for-- not just people willing to stand up for Second Amendment gun ownership rights-- important to their constituents-- but people without the moral backbone to oppose the bloody drug war along the Mexican border. or do you think voters in New Mexico and Nevada would be outraged if Mexican drug lords couldn't be arsenals of assault weapons here?

Like Fathers... Like Sons-- Or Worse

John Sarbanes, a progressive 40-year-old, nose-to-the-grindstone Maryland Democratic congressman, is kind of the odd man out when it comes to congressional offspring. John represents a district, the 3rd, once represented by his father, Senator Paul Sarbanes. John an alum of Princeton and Harvard, is widely considered a serious, thoughtful, hardworking Rep., very different from most of the sons of a congressional parent. Yesterday a far more typically incompetent son of an already grotesquely incompetent former congressional dad-- Ben Quayle/Brock Landers-- gave his maiden speech on the House floor, before hitching a ride on Air Force 1 and accompanying the gracious man he called, in a distinctly reptilian manner, "the worst president in history" just a few months ago. Already tied for the 354th worst member of Congress, Quayle/Landers can boast a perfect zero score in every single category surveyed by Progressive Punch since he took the oath of office. There's no reason to believe he will ever go beyond the zero mark.

Of course Quayle/Landers and Sarbanes are hardly the only fortunate sons to have followed their father's footsteps into Congress. Rand Paul (R-KY) already disgraced his family name by pointing out that-- qualified after self-certifying himself as an eye doctor-- that right-wing terrorist Jared Loughner is a paranoid schizophrenic, although his rambling "philosophy" sounds shockingly like the philosophy of the Paul Family. And, like the Pauls, he's even a fan of the lunatic fringe author Rand was named for, Ayn Rand.

Yesterday's L.A. Times pointed out that experts tend to agree "that several oft-repeated phrases and concepts-- his fixation on grammar conspiracies, currency and the "second United States Constitution"-- seem derived from concepts explored with regularity among elements of the far right. 'What you can see across the board in his writings is the idea that you can't trust the government-- that the government engages in mind control against its citizens,' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has long monitored the radical right. Loughner's assertion that he would not 'pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver' is a running theme among right-wing opponents of the Federal Reserve system," and is the ultimate in the Paultardism shared by father and son.

Funny enough, it was a piece in the NY Times last week about how badly Andrew Cuomo is going wrong, that got me thinking about how political kids should not generally be encouraged to go into the family business. Mario Cuomo was never in Congress but he was an exceptional governor of New York. His son promises to be among the worst in the state's history, for working families and for the Democratic Party. And there's an endless list of godawful Democratic sons far worse than accomplished fathers-- Dan Boren (OK) and Mark Pryor (AR) especially stand out-- as well as some who are competing with already mediocre or awful parents, like Dan Lipinski (IL) and Kendrick Meek (FL), the first child to follow a congressional mother into the House. In his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell points to the headstarts in the family business-- what he calls the "10,000 hour rule"-- that give offspring a headstart on mastering their parent's jobs.

In 1929 Paul John Kvale followed former Minnesota Congressman Ole Juulson Kvale into the House, a mention of which I stumbled across in a story I found in an old issue of Time Magazine, that was actually urging Minnesotans to elect another son of a Congressman, pro-Nazi fly-boy Charles Lindbergh. The story starts off on the right foot-- "primogeniture and hereditary public office have no place in U. S. tradition"-- and then almost immediately veers off into an ominous direction.

This fact, however, did not last week deter the voters of the 7th Minnesota District from electing by a two-to-one majority Paul John Kvale (pronounced "Ka-volley") of Benson to the Congressional seat for six years occupied by his father, the Rev. Ole John Kvale, whose charred body was last month found in his burned summer cottage (TIME, Sept. 23). Like his father whom he, the eldest of six sons, served as secretary in Washington, Son Kvale was chosen as a Farmer-Laborite and will be the sole representative of that party in the House. The new Congressman is an engaging young man, thoroughly Nordic in appearance, thoroughly accommodating in manner.

The Congressional District adjoining Son Kvale's in Minnesota might offer a spectacular opportunity for the perpetuation of another father & son tradition in U. S. politics. From that district came the late Congressman Charles Augustus Lindbergh, father of official No. 1 U. S. Hero. The late Congressman Lindbergh left his seat in 1917. Son Lindbergh then lacked ten years of the constitutional age (25) for House membership. Many have been the suggestions that Hero Lindbergh should now attempt to succeed to his father's old seat in Congress. Against these suggestions arise three mighty obstacles: 1) Col. Lindbergh lacks a Minnesota residence. 2) Short, smiling Harold Knutson who took the Lindbergh seat a dozen years ago is firmly entrenched in the Republican organization of the House where he serves Speaker Longworth as whip (chief aide-de-camp) and from which he has no desire to be dislodged even by Hero No. 1 of the U. S. 3) Lindbergh Sr. made his political reputation as a radical. Col. Lindbergh has comfortable, conservative political views, if any. Many another son has followed his father into high office. Only one President's son has become President (John Adams-- John Quincy Adams); only one President's grandson has become President (William Henry Harrison-- Benjamin Harrison). But two Senators' sons now sit in the Senate: Frederick Hale of Maine whose sire was the late great Eugene Hale (1836-1918) and Robert Marion La Follette of Wisconsin, the Peter Pannish offspring of sturdy "Battle Bob" (1855-1925). In the House today is found a rare grandfather-father-son tradition of service in the ancient and honorable family of Tucker from Virginia. Henry St. George Tucker (1780-1848) served in the 14th and 15th Congress. His chief distinction: a tirade and a vain vote in 1816 against increased pay for Congressmen which he refused to take himself. John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897) served from the 44th to the 50th Congress. Henry St. George Tucker, 76, is now serving his ninth noncontinuous Congressional term since 1889. His chief distinction: a tirade and a vote in 1927 against increased pay for Congressmen which, according to family tradition, he refuses to take himself.

Time had a different paragraph policy back then. I'm shocked they didn't mention any Frelinghuysens. Today Rodney P. Frelinghuysen represents New Jersey's wealthiest district (the 11th)-- second most affluent congressional district in the U.S.-- but starting in 1793, four Frelinghuysens represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate and Rodney's father, Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen, Jr., was elected to Congress in 1952 and served until his retirement in 1974. In 2000 Michael Moore tried to get a potted plant (a ficus) on the ballot as Frelinghuysen's opponent.

Recently Illinois voters were smart enough to reject the uber corrupt son of uber-corrupt former Congressman (and House Speaker) Denny Hastert. It looks like the fix is already in though to make Harry Reid's son a Member of Congress from Nevada's new aborning congressional district (in return for making Joe Heck's swing district more Republican-friendly). Probably the worst case of a son taking a House seat on his father's name is Dan Boren, a slow-witted and craven Blue Dog who represents eastern Oklahoma. His father, David Boren, was a popular governor and U.S. Senator (and closet case) and his grandfather, Lyle Boren, a far right anti-union kook, also represented the area. Presumably because the two of them were Democrats, the ultra-conservative Dan, has maintained pro-forma ties to that party, although he votes more frequently with the GOP and was George Bush's favorite Democrat.

House Republicans Eager To Waste Time On A Symbolic Vote To Take Health Coverage Away From Millions Of Americans-- Guess Which Democrats Are Onboard

When the House finally passed a watered-down, corporate-friendly (some would say "sellout") version of the healthcare bill in early November 2009, 39 Democrats voted against it-- along with 176 Republicans, all of them except Ahn Cao (R-LA). Most of the Democratic NO votes were a gaggle of mangy, corrupt Blue Dogs pigging out at the same Medical-Industrial Complex trough as the Republicans. Justice was served a year later when all but 13 of these anti-family conservatives were defeated as Democratic voters stayed away from the polls and let them strangle on their own abysmal records. Hopefully we'll never hear from cowardly conservatives like John Adler (NJ), Allen Boyd (FL), Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Artur Davis (AL), Lincoln Davis (TN), Parker Griffith (AL), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Frank Kratovil (MD), Jim Marshall (GA), Walt Minnick (ID), Glenn Nye (VA), Gene Taylor (MS) and the rest of them again.

The Republicans, of course, are counting on rounding up the 13 renegades to join them next week in passing a symbolic bill to repeal healthcare. No one quite understands why-- other than his family name-- Dan Boren (OK) is still officially a quasi-Democrat, but predictably he was the first of the 13 to run to Fox and reassure reactionaries that he would vote for repeal. The new Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, Fred Upton (R-MI), predicted that a "significant number of Democrats" would vote with the Republicans. So far, though, it's only Boren. Conservatives Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) and Daniel Lipinski (IL) voted against it but have both publicly stated they won't vote to repeal. That still leaves freaks like Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY), Larry Kissell (NC), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR) and a couple of others who tend to vote more frequently with the Republicans than with their own party, especially on substantive, high-visibility legislation.

For all the House Republicans' crying last year that they couldn't be bipartisan because big bad Nancy Pelosi wasn't allowing them to tack a billion frivolous amendments onto legislation, now-Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced in his first press conference in his new capacity that no Democratic amendments would be allowed to be voted on with the repeal bill. Oh, I'm so surprised!


UPDATE: The First Vote Of The 112th Congress

Every Republican voted for John Boehner to take the Speaker's gavel. Nineteen arch-conservatives, mostly scumbags from the shriveled up Blue Dog caucus that was overwhelmingly repudiated at the polls by Democrats and Republicans in November, voted against Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party choice. Eleven voted for the Blue Dog choice, Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)-- besiders himself Jason Alrmire (Blue Dog-PA), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN), Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA), Larry Kissell (NC), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Mike Michaud (Blue Dog-ME), and Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR). Blue Dogs John Barrow (GA) and Gabby Giffords (AZ) each voted for John Lewis, Barrow so he can tell brag to African American primary voters in 2012 while going to whites in the general and ranting about how he opposed Pelosi. Giffords is an imbecile and it's pointless in trying to figure out what's going on in her fevered imagination.

After voters wised up to their sleazy and corrupt politics mixed with right-wing policies and the drubbing that ensued left only 26 mangy, pathetic Blue Dogs in the House. Blue Dogs voting for Pelosi today included Joe Baca (CA), Leonard Boswell (IA), Ben Chandler (KY), Henry Cuellar (TX), Jane Harman (CA), Collin Peterson (MN), Loretta Sanchez (CA), Adam Schiff (CA), David Scott (GA), and Mike Thompson (CA). Here's the roll call for posterity.

Heath Shuler Was One Of The Blue Dogs To Hang On So He Thinks He Should Run The Democratic Caucus Now

The crap Rahm left behind when he scurried off to Chicago

Although over half the Blue Dogs were wiped off the face of the political map on Tuesday-- a silver lining to an otherwise grim day-- almost half the Blue Dogs are still in office... and as eager as ever to serve their corporate masters and pull the Democratic Party further and further away from the principles and values that have made the party the party of ordinary working families.

One of the worst of the Blue Dogs not swept away Tuesday-- an inveterate homophobe, immigrant-basher, anti-Choice C Street fanatic and all around reactionary shill is failed football player Heath Shuler, Rahm Emanuel's "greatest hit." Shuler was one of the 40 Democrats in the last session who voted more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats when it came to the contentious, substantive issues that the House took up. His Progressive Punch score was an atrocious 36.13 and only 3 Democrats with lower scores, Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA- 34.96), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC- 33.61) and Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK- 26.50), survived the national repudiation of Blue Dogism on Tuesday.

But even with so many of his right-wing colleagues gone, Shuler is still clamoring for a leadership post within the now far less conservative Democratic House caucus. In fact, yesterday, he threatened to run against Nancy Pelosi if she decides to remain as party leader. He also vowed to recruit conservative candidates like himself to run in 2012 in the seats where conservative candidates like himself were defeated earlier this week. He, like many of the corporate crooks he pals around with in Congress, has demonized Pelosi and tried to paint her as a "polarizing figure" because she insisted on standing up for ordinary working families while Shuler and his cronies worked behind the scenes for the Wall Street bankers and Big Business. As we saw Wednesday, almost every single Democrat who ran as an anti-Pelosi candidate was defeated.

Some in Washington feel Shuler, who is incredibly ambitious for someone with so little to offer intellectually and who only managed to hang onto his own seat by 54%, is just trying to make Steny Hoyer, always the Blue Dogs' and corporate America's cat's paw inside the party, seem less unacceptable to the caucus. At the same time, another extremely right-wing Blue Dog (and Hoyer buddy), Utah reactionary Jim Matheson, who barely survived the general election (51%) after being seriously primaried earlier in the year, is stamping his feet and demanding Pelosi resign. Matheson, who feeds at the same corporate trough as the Republicans, is widely considered one of the more corrupt, self-serving Democrats in Congress and, like Shuler, he never could understand why Pelosi was always pushing all that ethics stuff on the caucus. You might want to make your way over to Daily Kos today and sign the petition telling Nancy Pelosi you want her to stay on as Democratic House Leader.



Another Boehner Boy Blue Dog Snarls Impotently In Pelosi's Direction

After Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS) and Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS) were flushed down the toilet Tuesday, one piece of crap that the voters missed was Oklahoma's anti-family reactionary, Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK). Today, as expected, Boren, who famously voted against Obama when he ran for president, said he wouldn't vote for Pelosi to be House Democratic Leader. “I cannot in good conscience support Nancy Pelosi as Leader,” Boren said. “I intend to support a more conservative Democrat alternative.” Pelosi, widely considered one of the greatest Speakers in contemporary American history, would never appeal to a dedicated servant of the corporate special interests like Boren.

Nancy Pelosi may be moving out of her spacious office in the Capitol, but the woman who broke the marble ceiling to become the first female speaker of the House has already moved into the ranks of the most effective legislators in history.

"While right now she is overshadowed by this thumping, she's going to rank quite high in the pantheon of modern speakers" of the last 100 years, said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Only Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving speaker in history whose parliamentary maneuvers cleared the way for passage of civil rights and social legislation in the 1960s, ranks higher.

...[H]istorians and nonpartisan political observers who take the long view say Pelosi stands out among the 52 lawmakers who have held the job set forth in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. And not just because all the others were men.

"The last Congress in particular has been remarkable in its productivity-- in both the number of bills enacted and their scope-- and Pelosi shares much of the credit," said Matthew Green, a political scientist at Catholic University of America and author of "The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership."

Many speakers shepherded through big bills: Democrat Tip O'Neill guided major energy legislation though in 1978, and Republican Dennis Hastert twisted arms to create a new Medicare prescription drug benefit. But few, Green said, have passed more legislation than Pelosi.

Other speakers have taken a back seat on major legislation on their watch, Green added. John McCormack presided in the 1960s when Congress enacted Lyndon Johnson's historic Great Society program, but it was the president who wrote and lobbied for most of the bills, not the elderly speaker. In contrast, Obama took a mostly hands-off approach to health care reform, leaving it to Pelosi and others in Congress to work out the details.

Next Tuesday-- Jim Wilson Gets A Chance To Take Out GOP Shill Dan Boren In Oklahoma

Last night, despite Regina Thomas having won Chatham County (basically, Savannah, the biggest county in the district by far) by better than two to one, Blue Dog John Barrow managed to win the Democratic nomination. Georgia doesn't have paper trails and there is no way to know what the vote really was but I watched the Secretary of State's feed as a clear Regina victory in rural Johnson County turned into Barrow landslide. I've heard from half a dozen people in GA-12 today that Barrow bought off electoral officials and got the vote totals in outlying counties that he needed to make up for the thrashing Regina gave him in Savannah. Did he steal the election? Almost definitely.

We have two more progressives we're backing in this cycle with contests against Blue Dogs, Doug Tudor and Jim Wilson. Doug looks like he'll beat Blue Dog shill Lori Edwards in central Florida and Jim is putting up a valiant effort against entrenched incumbent Dan Boren in eastern Oklahoma. This morning Jim sent out an open letter to Boren that I want to share with you. The primary is in 6 days (next Tuesday).

As you know, the reason I am running for Congress is because the quality of life for Oklahomans is not improving under the existing leadership. Oklahoma ranks 50th in overall health care, 49th in education spending and over 20% of the population in this congressional district is in poverty. Our health care costs are going up at an annual rate of 6.7%. Higher education is inflating at 8.5% per year. Real wages have decreased 1% over the last ten years. As a twenty-five year resident of the 2nd Congressional District, I would like to address some of the issues and reasons I’ve been motivated to run for Congress.

Special Interest Money

You’ve spent a lot of money trying to disparage my character. You have done it by accumulating almost $2 million from special interest including $250,000 from healthcare contributions, over $500,000 from oil contributions and over $200,000 from Wall Street. As Texas pundit Jim Hightower once said, “The water won’t clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek.” MY supporters, the grassroots, working Oklahomans from the 2nd Congressional District, are the ones paying for my response to you.

Liberal vs. Conservative

You’ve called me liberal because I believe in policies that foster decent housing, a good education, adequate and affordable health care, the ability for small business to fairly compete, a living wage, equal pay for women, a living wage, equal pay for equal work and respect for women. I can only guess that when you voted against education benefits for veterans, unemployment benefits, equal pay for women, a living wage and affordable health care, you were merely demonstrating that you were a conservative. How does your brand of conservatism help the people of the 2nd District?

Health Care Quality

You have said that I advocate for changes in our health care system similar to the French health care system. I realize statistical analysis is not the friend of politicians, but the data show that those who are sick with the curable disease will have a better chance of survival under the French health care delivery system. The United State health care delivery system ranks 19th in the world. I certainly want the best health care possible for my family and I’m surprised that you would disregard this data for political purposes. Can you be so blinded by special interest that you can’t even consider why another health care delivery system might work better for District 2 and your own family?

Health Care Cost

You voted against health care reform and told us it would cost too much money. The fact is it will save Oklahomans billions of dollars. Quality will improve because of electronic medical records as well as preventions and early detection. In this district alone 310,000 residents will have improved coverage with health insurance, 137,000 Medicare beneficiaries will have improved care, 128,000 uninsured will be covered, 21,700 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage and 900 families will not have to file for bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs, and we will do it while reducing uncompensated care for providers by $95 million. Since much of this savings comes from overpriced insurance premiums, perhaps those contributions from the insurance lobby have fogged the judgment of our current congressional delegation. By cutting the waste out of the health care/insurance industry we can save every man, woman and child in Oklahoma $2,000 per year. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?

Guns

You suggested I want to take your guns away. I don’t know where you get your fascination with guns or why you think that is the most important issue in this district, but you haven't earned the right to criticize me. I spent a little over a year in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, much of it in combat-- sworn to protect the constitution-- which includes the 2nd amendment. The reason you are on television criticizing me is because I fought for you to have that right. By the way, I also have an ‘A’ rating with the NRA (Project Vote Smart).

30% Sales Tax

You co-sponsored a measure in Congress which would add a 30% sales tax to everything we buy. When we buy $100 worth of groceries, we would have to pay $130. Then you voted to extend the tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of the population-- those living in luxury in New York and Hollywood and of course millionaires such as yourself. I guess the 30% sales tax is necessary to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy, but it’s coming out of the paychecks of working folks in the 2nd District.

Wall Street Bail Out

You voted to bail out Wall Street and then voted against a bill to regulate it. It’s obvious they can’t regulate themselves. You voted against extending unemployment benefits for the people in this district and you voted against equal pay for equal work.

Veteran’s Benefits

You voted against the GIO Bill for returning veterans along with education benefits and unemployment benefits. Veteran’s benefits are important in this district. I’m a perfect example. Returning from Vietnam, I used the GI Bill to attend OSU.

Pro-Life Claim

You claim you are pro-life. The top two reasons women cite for abortion are poverty and lack of health insurance. It seems that a 30% sales tax will create more poverty-- and of course you voted against affordable health care. Do you not see the hypocrisy of politicians claiming to be pro-life while voting against adequate and affordable health care? Do you no play attention to constituents who are desperate for heath care?

Oil Tax Breaks

You voted for Tax Breaks for Oil Companies, then you voted to lift oil regulations. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is directly related to special interests having enough influence to remove regulation.

Summary

It seems you left the working men and women of District 2 behind and have “gone Washington” on us. It is an affront to our intelligence that you think we can be duped into thinking someone wants to take our guns away so we won’t pay attention to policies which deprive us of feeding our families, educating our children and obtaining affordable health care. You and I are different people with different ideas about the role of a Congressman. I have listed some of our differences above while making my case for a change in Congress. I think you have turned your back on the values of the working people in this District. We’ll see what the people think on July 27th.

Sincerely,

Senator Jim Wilson

www.votejimwilson.com

Blue America Welcomes State Senator Jim Wilson (D-OK)

A labor union president once told me that the worst Democrat in Congress, at least from the point of view of ordinary working families, is Oklahoma reactionary Dan Boren. I've never been able to find anyone to persuade me that he was wrong. The video above should explain that pretty well.

Today Blue America is very proud to present the courageous populist who's decided Boren doesn't deserve a free ride from Oklahoma Democrats. State Senator Jim Wilson, long considered Oklahoma's most pro-family state legislator, made up his mind after Boren voted in favor of the anti-Choice Stupak amendment and then against the overall healthcare reform bill-- twice. Healthcare reform has been one of Jim's signature issues as a state Rep and state Senator. He'll be joining us over at Crooks and Liars at 11am (PT)/1pm in Oklahoma.

Jim, whose political career has been dedicated to the most needy in his community and who has fought a long and unrelenting battle on behalf of public education, the environment and health care reform, decided to take the plunge into national politics when his congressman, Dan Boren, once again joined the Republican Party in trying to derail healthcare reform.

"I've been working on healthcare in the state legislature for 10 years," Jim told me. "Oklahoma ranks 50th in overall delivery of healthcare statewide... Health care costs are escalating at the compound rate of 6.7% per year. This year's increase for every man, woman and child, directly or indirectly, is $428. That represents income that can't be used elsewhere in the economy which removes, to some extent, discretionary spending which in turn hurts other business or quality of life segments."

There doesn't seem to be a resulting justification for the increased expenditures. One-third of health care spending doesn't seem to help or prevent sickness. If in Oklahoma we were to return the waste in health care to the people, the savings would be equivalent to all the state taxes paid by individuals and businesses. In Oklahoma we have in statute a floor of 60% for a medical loss ratio. The new federal reform legislation will require a medical loss ratio of not less than 85% for big groups and not less than 80% for small groups. The savings in Oklahoma will be at least $210 million. 

Just automating health records in Oklahoma would save $800 million and 750 lives annually.  Nationally we have one medical error per patient day and have an 80% error rate on provider billing. Cleveland clinic has to have 1,400 clerks to support 2,000 doctors-- and it's more cost effective than any other major provider with the possible exception of Mayo and the VA. 
 
To improve quality of life for our citizens we should strive to improve disposable income. If we are resistant to increased pay or if increases in pay are mitigated by rising health care costs, we owe it to the citizens to make the health care system more efficient which will produce better health outcomes at less cost.

Jim, a former combat marine in Vietnam, who walked away with the valuable lessons of that tragic conflict, would be another voice of reason in Congress regarding Afghanistan. His astonishingly progressive record in Oklahoma shows what kind of a Member of Congress he would be. We can be absolutely certain we'd be trading in the worst Democrat for someone who will be giving Members like Alan Grayson and Raul Grijalva a run for their money! After Boren crossed the aisle again to support Boehner, Wall Street and the GOP in their jihad against regulating the money-changers in the temple, Jim issued a simple and direct statement that shows the contrast between the two of them:

“While driving around Eastern Oklahoma in my pickup truck, I have met thousands of people whose lives were ruined by the crash just two years ago. How can Dan Boren forget about those people and vote for his donors instead? It's a shame that he’s been in Washington so long he’s forgotten about the people in Eastern Oklahoma... This is common sense legislation. I have not met a single person on the campaign trail begging me to be compassionate to Wall Street. Dan Boren needs to spend less time in Washington with his Wall Street lobbyist friends and more time in Eastern Oklahoma."

The last two mangy Blue Dogs we're trying to dislodge in this cycle are John Barrow-- who faces off against Regina Thomas on July 20-- and then Boren, who will be facing Jim on July 27. If you can, please consider donating to Jim's campaign so that he can continue getting out his message to Oklahoma Democrats. By the way, that labor union president I referred to above? Nowhere to be seen on this race-- or in Regina's. I guess we should be happy his union isn't endorsing their Blue Dog opponents this time.

Is Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK) The Joe Barton Of The Democratic Party?

Earlier today I was tweeting about Blue Dog Dan Boren's repulsive attack ad against populist Oklahoma state Senator Jim Wilson. It looks like someone had the foresight to cut off the pricetags but Boren is clearly out of place in the tree and clearly wearing brand new, never-before-worn hunting duds that someone from a movie prop shop had bought for the ad shoot. Inspired by the ridiculous and outrageous ad by a gun-toting Dale Peterson, at least Peterson did serve in the military. So did Senator Wilson. Gun-toting, inauthentic loudmouth Boren? Draft dodger just like his hero, Dick Cheney.



But... but, just because Boren paid off an ad firm to make a slick ad for him that doesn't mean that all of Hollywood is on his side. Filmmaker Josh Fox has a new film, being shown now on HBO, Gasland. You can watch the trailer below. In it you will notice that there's a congressman defending the outrageous behavior of Big Oil corporations poisoning ground water across America. That isn't an actor. It's Oklahoma's own Dan Boren, one of Big Oil's most dependable fully-owned subsidiaries. Since 1990 Big Oil has invested around $144 million in the careers of congressmen, almost all conservatives. Almost 70% of the payoff have gone to Republicans. And among current members of the House there's only one Democrat in Big Oil's Top 10: Dan Boren ($565,460). As you can see, Big Oil is, by far, the biggest source of cash for his political endeavors. What you haven't been able to see, until Fox caught it on tape, is that Boren, who bragged about not voting for Obama and who has voted against virtually every piece of Democratic legislation since Obama has become president, has never found anything in the oil industry's agenda that he didn't get behind. And, as a member of the Committee on Natural Resources-- and on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources-- that support has been worth a lot more to Big Oil than the $565,460 they've given Boren for his campaigns.

On May 19, 2005 Boren voted with Republicans to allow the kind of deep water drilling that led directly to the current Gulf of Mexico ecological disaster. In fact, a few weeks earlier, on April 21, 2005, he voted, again with the GOP, against Raul Grijalva's amendment to the Energy Policy Act that would have stricken from the bill a provision directing the Secretary of the Interior to stop collecting royalty fees for the government from oil and gas companies operating in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a giveaway to his gas and oil patrons and as clear a case of bribery as you'll find in Congress.

A week from Saturday Sen. Jim Wilson will be joining the Blue America team at Crooks and Liars for a live blog session. He's not just "good for Oklahoma"-- he's just plain good. Please take a look at the Gasland trailer, get a feel for what a corporate shill Dan Boren is, and consider helping Jim get the resources he needs to get his message out in the face of Boren's-- and Big Oil's-- onslaught.

It's On! Progressive State Senator Jim Wilson Is Challenging Blue Dog Dan Boren In Oklahoma's Democratic Primary

Jim Wilson, flanked by Senators Andrew Rice and Debbe Leftwich, surrounded by Oklahoma medical professionals

More than a few Blue Dog watchers think that the worst of the whole mangy bunch is Oklahoma son of privilege Dan Boren. It would be hard to argue otherwise. To the delight of Oklahoma Democrats and independents news started leaking out yesterday that the most beloved-- and progressive-- state legislator in Oklahoma, state Senator Jim Wilson, has decided to challenge Boren in the July 27th primary. Wilson represents a rural district in the northeast part of the state.

Adair County, which is on the Arkansas border, is about 42% Native American. The per capita income in 2000 was $11,185. Around 20% of the people live below the poverty line. Just to the west is Cherokee County, which is around 32% Native American and where the per capita income is $13,436, and where something like 1 in 5 residents live below the poverty line. Sequoyah County is south of the other two and its population is around 20% Native American. Per capita income was $13,405; and slightly less than 20% of the population lives below the poverty line. The three counties are part of Oklahoma's sprawling second Congressional District (25 counties), represented by, like I said, one of the most conservative of all the Blue Dogs. And yet these three counties are represented by the most progressive member of the Oklahoma state legislature, Jim Wilson, once a state Rep, now a state Senator.

The two lawmakers, both Democrats, could hardly be further apart politically. Boren flaunts his default position as an aisle crosser who votes against most Democratic Party initiatives, healthcare reform being only the most recent. Wilson's signature issue in the state legislature has been fighting for the kind of healthcare reform his constituents need so badly.

Wilson is challenging one of the House's most entitled members. Boren, widely viewed as among the most mediocre and ineffective politicians in Washington, is the son of David Boren, a former Oklahoma Governor and Senator, currently the president of the University of Oklahoma. Dan's grandfather, Lyle Boren, also represented a large portion of the district on Congress. Among the most reactionary Democrats in Congress, Boren is on the board of directors of the NRA and made a news splash by refusing to endorse President Obama. A member of the Natural Resources Committee, he takes immense amounts of money ($504,610 so far), generally seen as thinly veiled bribes, from the oil and gas interests whose profits he protects.

Boren is a sponsor of H.R. 25, John Linder's proposal to abolish progressive income taxes and replace them with a highly regressive flat sales tax, something that would dramatically shift the burden of taxation away from the wealthy and powerful and onto the backs of the middle class and would likely destroy the federal government's already limited ability to act as a control on the power of avaricious transnational corporate predators. Every other sponsor is an extreme right wing Republican, characters like Steve King (R-IA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Paul Broun (R-GA) and Trent Franks (R-AZ).

Boren is even better known as one of the least environmentally-friendly members of Congress and has the lowest environmental score of any Democrat in the House. On the other hand, Boren's the only politician other than George W. Bush, who was endorsed by Toby Keith.

Wilson won't be running as another Republican-lite reactionary but on a solid record as a forward-looking state legislator. In 2007 he was one of only 13 members of the state Senate to vote against Oklahoma's ban on funding abortions and one of only 8 members to oppose redefining homicide as to include a fetus. In 2006 He was one of only 5 members of the Senate to vote against a law that made it legal to shoot anyone you feel threatened by, including in public areas. And last year when the governor vetoed a ban on stem cell research, Wilson was one of the 19 members to keep the veto from being overridden.

I managed to get a hold of Jim late yesterday and he went through some of the dynamics on the ground that have compelled him to enter the race. "I've been working on healthcare in the state legislature for 10 years," he told me. "Oklahoma ranks 50th in overall delivery of healthcare statewide. And we're 49th in education funding." But the movers and shakers in the state-- wealthy oil and gas interests and the big media outfits-- are eager to continue defunding public education, while having no problem at all for $60 million of taxpayer money going into incentives to lure the Seattle Sonics, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, to the state. Jim has a different set of priorities. "21% of the people in the second district are living below the poverty level. Average household income in around $32,000 but for a family that has to pay for their own health insurance there's a $13,000 outlay. It's just unachievable... The Oklahoman is the state's ultra-right big newspaper. Yesterday in an editorial they tried disparaging me as the Harry Reid of the Oklahoma Senate because I reject further cuts to education. I'll wear that as a badge of pride."

This is going to be a tough, uphill battle and the second Jim was on ActBlue, Blue America added him to our BadDogs page. I hope you'll want to click on the link and welcome Jim to the race with a contribution for feel comfortable with.

Dan Boren, Another Blue Dog Who Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About-- Probably Doesn’t Care Either

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping through the vast emptiness between Dan Boren’s ears

-by Doug Kahn

I’ve begun to understand something about politics in the American West; it’s a lot like my home state of Florida and the rest of the Deep South. Any politician who makes it obvious he or she is proud of being ignorant has an automatic following. This item from Talking Points Memo proves that one of my favorite Bad Dogs is as dumb as a stump, as we say in the South. (That expression seems to have become overused. I promise to dredge up better insults, if my memory cooperates.) 

Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, is not only predicting that the party will lose a significant number of seats in the House-- he's welcoming it, saying it will be a "good thing for Oklahoma and for me."
 
"If we have a tight majority one way or another, that puts me in the driver's seat," Boren told the Tulsa World. "In the 112th (Congress), I probably will have the most influence I have ever had, no matter who has the majority."
 
Boren did say that a Republican takeover of the House was a "tall order," but also added that the Democratic Party would be forced to move more toward the center politically with a smaller majority.

The Tulsa World’s report on key votes in Congress for the week of December 20, 2009 covered 6 votes. Oklahoma has 6 Representatives, 5 of them Republicans, and Dan voted with the Republicans all 6 times. Earlier, he voted against the House’s version of Health Care reform, and against the Clean Energy and Security Act (Cap and Trade). 

Dan’s lifetime Progressive Punch ranking is 245th out of 435 House members. [His ProgressivePunch score has dropped significantly since Obama came to the White House. His lifetime score of 44.69 sank to a 18.46, reflecting his tendency to cross the aisle and vote with the GOP as his normal default position.] 246 through 257 are the only Democrats worse on progressive issues: Jim Marshall (GA-08), Mike McIntyre (NC-07), Parker Griffith (AL-05), John Tanner (TN-08), Glenn Nye (VA-02), Ike Skelton (M)-04), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Travis Childers (MS-01), Gene Taylor (MS-04), Bobby Bright (AL-02), and Walt Minnick (ID-01).  (Note: Parker Griffith claims he’s a Republican now. They may throw him back in November. All the rest are Blue Dogs, except Ike Skelton.)
 
He’s consistent, anyway: his score for 2009-2010 was tied for 244th. The Dems in his vicinity have changed, though. Some are voting a bit more like Democrats, while others are excelling in their stupidity. Harry Mitchell (AZ-05) is one of those diving towards the bottom, now ranking 247th (previously 232nd). That district interests me because my kids live there, and I visit a lot. I guess old Harry is better than the Republican he beat, J.D. Hayworth, but that’s just a guess. In 1998 (and again in 2006), Hayworth was voted the second biggest "windbag" in Congress in Washingtonian magazine's survey of 1,200 congressional staff members of both parties. He said he wasn’t happy about slipping out of the top spot. Ignorant. Proud of it. 

What Dan said; why is it dumb? Because even if we at BlueAmerica and around the progressive community do nothing, a lot of Bad Dogs are going to lose, making the Democratic Caucus more progressive. Democrats who campaign as real Democrats will get more of the base out to vote (duh), increasing victory margins, which will demonstrate that moving towards the right is exactly the wrong thing to do. This isn’t wild speculation, it’s the safe bet, given the history of Congressional politics. It could turn out differently, but you’d lose money betting the long shot. The long shot is what Dan Boren is talking about, that the Democratic Party gets more conservative. Dan is going to end up with less company in the Beavis Wing of the party. 

And the thing about Republicans always voting "no" unanimously; all that matters is the Democratic majority in the House, and the Democratic majority in each committee and subcommittee. The difference between Bad Dogs voting the Republican line and Bad Dogs losing, being replaced by Republicans: we get better legislation out of committee in 2011. Instead of the heap of stinking garbage that made 2009 so nauseating. 

A Promise To Screw Oklahoma Voters Over Again That Dan Boren Will Certainly Keep

The report last night that Obama is getting so frustrated with the blatant obstructionism from the Republican Party regarding health care reform-- like the "need" for 80 votes instead of 51-- and that he's prepared to just give up on them and let the Democrats pass the legislation without them, may be true. I doubt it but it may be true. But none of that matters to the House's worst Democrat, Blue Dog Dan Boren (OK).

Boren, who represents the "Little Dixie" section of the state that voted heaviest for McCain in the country, is the only Democrat in Oklahoma's congressional delegation. He usually votes with the Republicans when it comes to substantive, contentious issues. Like Republicans and other Blue Dogs, he voraciously scoops up massive (legalistic) bribes from corporate America and then does their bidding regardless of the impact on his own constituents, by far, the poorest, least educated and most poorly served in the state. Boren has taken $121,985 from the Insurance Industry to whom he is so loyal, and another $267,710 from the Medical-Industrial Complex (all in just 4 years!). He's already announced that he's a definite "no" vote on health care reform (just like his bribe-besotted fellow reactionary Blue Dog Allen Boyd in Florida did at a town hall meeting this week.) In fact, according to the Tulsa World he said he was so certain he would join his pals and fellow-bribees the Republicans to kill health care reform that if he votes yes, "I'll shave my head."

Boren is enough of a clown already that he surely needn't shave his head to play the fool. He brags how he didn't vote for Obama for president and how he opposes Employee Free Choice. This year he voted against equality for women in the workplace and against hate crime legislation that would help protect gay men and women from violence and he seems to revel in distancing himself from President Obama and calling him a political liability.

Last year Boren beat his GOP for with 70% of the votes slightly down from the 73% he received in 2006. Supposedly the NRCC is targeting him next year. I hope they beat him but judging by the imbecile they're putting up against him (see video below), Howard Houchen, a clueless dittohead, Boren will be safe to wear out the carpet across the aisle for two more years. The Chairman of the state GOP referred to Houchen as "well educated" after he ascertained that he could read.

Blue Dogs Behaving Badly-- Again

Yesterday the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted to approve the Health Affordable Choices Act. Every single Democrat on the committee, even right-wing corporate shill Kay Hagan of North Carolina, voted for it and, predictably, every single Republican member voted against it-- from the drooling extremists and anti-family fanatics like Richard Burr (R-NC), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) to more mainstream conservatives like Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Judd Gregg (R-NH) and John McCain (R-AZ). One of the most determined progressives on the committee, Jeff Merkley (D-OR), explained the bill at DailyKos yesterday.

This bill will help rein in the runaway health care costs that are bankrupting families and businesses.  It will give Americans the peace of mind of knowing that they are no longer one pink slip away from losing coverage.  It will make it illegal for insurance companies to charge people more or turn them away just because they’re sick or older.  Combined with the work that is being done by the Senate Finance Committee, 97 percent of Americans will have coverage. People who like their current coverage will be able to keep it, and everyone will have more choices and access to affordable coverage, no matter their lot in life.  And importantly, it includes a robust public option.  This bill represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our broken health care system.

The fact, though, that a reactionary like Hagan was forced to vote for it, doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of Democrats making common cause with obstructionist Republicans to derail it-- or at least water it down and make it ineffective. In the Senate corrupt reactionary Democrats on the Finance Committee like Max Baucus, Tom Carper, Kent Conrad and Blanche Lincoln are working with the Republicans to carry out the demands of their Insurance Industry paymasters to weaken the bill to the point of making it untenable.

And in the House, of course, we have the always treacherous, always disingenuous Blue Dogs, many of whom are southerners who will, by nature, oppose anything and everything that could possibly help Black families or immigrant families. Although Blue Dogs ostensibly stand for fiscal discipline, in reality, many-- if not most-- of the Blue Dogs just use that as an excuse for their own reactionary and racist politics. The only Democrats, for example, to cross the aisle and vote with the Republicans against Hate Crimes legislation last April were a gaggle of sleazy, bigoted Blue Dogs. Similarly, it is primarily the Blue Dogs in the House who are screaming that they will oppose any bill that includes a public option or in any way forces the Insurance Industry CEOs who shower them with so much money to compete with an alternative that is based on delivering health care instead if denying it. These are the 51 Blue Dogs in the House. There aren't a dozen worth a collective bucket of spit:

• Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Co-chair for Administration
• Rep. Baron Hill (IN), Co-chair for Policy
• Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA), Co-chair for Communications
• Rep. Heath Shuler (NC), Whip
 
• Rep. Jason Altmire (PA)
• Rep. Mike Arcuri (NY)
• Rep. Joe Baca (CA)
• Rep. John Barrow (GA)
• Rep. Marion Berry (AR)
• Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA)
• Rep. Dan Boren (OK)
• Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA)
• Rep. Allen Boyd (FL)
• Rep. Bobby Bright (AL)
• Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA)
• Rep. Chris Carney (PA)
• Rep. Ben Chandler (KY)
• Rep. Travis Childers (MS)
• Rep. Jim Cooper (TN)
• Rep. Jim Costa (CA)
• Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX)
• Rep. Lincoln Davis (TN)
• Rep. Joe Donnelly (IN)
• Rep. Brad Ellsworth (IN)
• Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (AZ)
• Rep. Bart Gordon (TN)
• Rep. Parker Griffith (AL)
• Rep. Jane Harman (CA)
• Rep. Tim Holden (PA)
• Rep. Frank Kratovil, Jr. (MD)
• Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC)
• Rep. Jim Marshall (GA)
• Rep. Jim Matheson (UT)
• Rep. Mike Michaud (ME)
• Rep. Walt Minnick (ID)
• Rep. Harry Mitchell (AZ)
• Rep. Dennis Moore (KS)
• Rep. Patrick Murphy (PA)
• Rep. Glenn Nye (VA)
• Rep. Collin Peterson (MN)
• Rep. Earl Pomeroy (ND)
• Rep. Mike Ross (AR)
• Rep. John Salazar (CO)
• Rep. Loretta Sanchez (CA)
• Rep. Adam Schiff (CA)
• Rep. David Scott (GA)
• Rep. Zack Space (OH)
• Rep. John Tanner (TN)
• Rep. Gene Taylor (MS)
• Rep. Mike Thompson (CA)
• Rep. Charles Wilson (OH)

And speaking of this trash, it's worth noting that the Blue Dogs are already reaching out to conservative candidates, particularly in the South, in an attempt to enhance their power within the Democratic caucus. Although progressive Navy vet Doug Tudor astounded the political establishment last year by doing so well-- with only grassroots support-- against GOP leader Adam Putnam, the Blue Dogs are trying to maneuver the DCCC into supporting a reactionary, anti-family fake Democrat, Lori Edwards, against Tudor. Edwards, like the worst of the Blue Dogs, opposes the public option and the Blue Dogs, with corporate shill Allen Boyd in the lead, have endorsed her.

"We know a little bit about Lori's record; we know that she will be a great fit with the Blue Dogs," said Boyd, who was in a similar group with Edwards when both served in the legislature. "She understnds how the government economic model works."

Edwards, who faces Doug Tudor in the Democratic primary, in a conference the endorsement will help voters unfamiliar record understand that "I am a conserv and moderate Democrat." Asked about President Obama health care reform proposal, Edwards indeed sounded like she'll fit right in with the Blue Dogs, saying it should be "deficit-neutral" and focus on "small business protection."

DWT has endorsed Tudor and we urge everyone who can to consider making a donation to Doug's campaign and sending a message to the DCCC that we want real Democrats in Congress, not Blue Dog hacks serving the interests of corporate CEOs.

One Blue Dog, Patrick Murphy (PA), who has been supportive of a great deal of progressive legislation, including health care reform and, most recently, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, is now a chair of the DCCC’s Red to Blue program. Yesterday he endorsed progressive Democrat Doug Pike for the seat being vacated by conservative Republican Jim Gerlach in the suburbs south of Philly. Although I wasn't too happy to read that the DCCC seems to be involving itself in a primary again, at least it's to the detriment of Blue Dog-oriented state Senator Andy Dinniman. It will be interesting to see if the DCCC persists in butting into local primaries this year. We don't even like it when they do it against a conservative like Dinniman but when they do it to support Republicans-disguised-as-Democrats like Lori Edwards, it means real trouble.

Ask almost any Democrat in the House who's the biggest scumbag in the party caucus and Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK) will usually beat out even slimy neo-Confederate shit-eaters like Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC) and Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), all of whom vote with the Republicans on substantive matters at least as much as they vote with Democrats. Yesterday, Boren became the first so-called Democrat to go on a full frontal attack against President Obama.

Ten feet from the desk, in the main hallway of Boren's new Durant headquarters, the congressman beams from a portrait, his arm draped around President George W. Bush. A photo with the current president is nowhere to be found.

“Barack Obama is very unpopular,” said Boren, who represents Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District. “He got 34 percent of the vote statewide, and less in our district. If he were to run for re-election today, I bet it would be even worse.”

...“It would be a lot nicer if we had someone who was in the middle,” he said. “Bill Clinton won our district. A lot of people don’t remember that, but he, in 1996, carried this district. I think if you have someone who governs from the middle, who’s pragmatic, who works with both parties. President Obama talks a lot about bipartisanship. If you look at some of the legislation, he may have one or two Republicans.”

Next time you get solicited by the DCCC to donate please think about this brief piece in today's Hill:

Centrist Democrats are threatening to oppose their party’s healthcare legislation unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accepts changes that make the bill more to their liking.

Seven Blue Dogs on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have banded together to draft amendments that they’ll co-sponsor in the committee markup, which starts Thursday. Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the Blue Dogs’ point man on healthcare, says if those changes aren’t accepted, they’ll vote down the bill.

“We cannot support the current bill,” Ross said. “Last time I checked, it took seven Democrats to stop a bill in Energy and Commerce.”

And remember, when you donate money to the DCCC you are contributing money to anti-family extremists, reactionaries and racists like Dan Boren, no matter what you think your money is going towards. Money donated through Blue America goes only to progressive candidates who you pick yourself-- like Doug Tudor and Jennifer Brunner.

The struggle for the soul of the Republican Party (and the conservative movement): It's the age-old war between crazy and stupid

"AND, OH YES, I'M MAD AS A FRIGGIN' HATTER"

Anyone who's tried to read the drivel penned over the decades by Peggy Noonan, or has been forced to listen to the "eloquent" speeches she's written for presidents and such, knows the feeling of trying helplessly to puzzle out: Is she just dumber than spit, or is she completely out of her pea-pickin' mind?

"We’re not talking fringe activists here; we’re talking U.S. senators. The truth is that lunatics have been running this particular asylum for years."

-- Paul Krugman, in a NYT blogpost yesterday (see below)

by Ken

I have been left mostly speechless (as some of you may have noticed) by the, um, "intellectual" climate of what now passes for political discourse in this great country of ours. As usual, I have my ups and downs with the people on Our Side, but what's struck me dumb is the total abandonment of even the slimmest pretense of sense or sanity by the Other Side.

I loved Howie's piece yesterday ("Cornyn Denounces Limbaugh and Liddy Denounces . . . Women," with a really terrific batch of comments) about what appears to be a pullback among Official Republicans, notably Texas Sen. John Cornyn (chairman of the GOP's Senate campaign committee), hardly a voice of moderation himself (as I understand it, he has been a principal architect of the GOP's "All No All the Time" strategy, and is more than anyone else responsible for keeping Al Franken from taking the Senate seat to which he was elected -- for the simple reason that, as he realized, he can prevent it), from the cliff over which, they finally understand, the Un-official Party, that passel of raving lunatics ringled by the Daddy of the Dittoheads, is leading them.

In part, I loved the piece because Howie is a lot more confident than I am about where the country is in all of this. Not only do I share commenter Balakirev's concern about the irreducible 24 percent "base" that appears to be willing to follow Rush and Glenn and the crazies over the cliff, I think the 24 percent figure seriously understates the portion of the public that's susceptible to the reign of craziness. Even if they're no immediate threat to regain power, I worry that 30 or even 40 percent of the country in the thrall of ignorance and insanity makes for a powderkeg that could blow up what's left of our democracy.

One of the things I've been trying to dope out is what part sheer stupidity plays, and what part evident insanity.

One should never underestimate the stupidity factor. Both Howie and I have written frequently about the stupidification of America, which he believes is the result of a careful right-wing master plan to turn the American educational system into poop for the conscious purpose of turning masses of Americans into retards who will cheer madly at the wackiest inanities passed off as policy prescriptions.

Me, I'm not so sure about the careful planning. I think if you elevate stupidity to a virtue, and make heroes of enough dimwits whose nitwittitude is their only virtue, you'll wind up at the same point, especially if you have enough "opinion leaders" -- in particular the kind who claim to get their guidance straight from God -- who have as their educational goal making their offspring as smart as they are. Throw in ruthless manipulators like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, and the rest is history -- our history, from Reagan through Little George.

I've been trying for months to write something on this subject, and failing. So I was greatly cheered by a pair of delicious posts this week on Paul Krugman's NYT blog, "Conscience of a Liberal." The one I really loved was this one from Wednesday:

May 27, 2009, 6:40 PM
A note on identity politics

The attacks on Sonia Sotomayor are getting crazier by the minute. The pronunciation of her name is unnatural. Her fondness for Puerto Rican cuisine -- sorry, her "claimed" fondness (you never know) -- may cloud her impartiality. She doesn't have enough money in her retirement account.

But is this any crazier, when you come down to it, than the Cult of Bush that ruled much of Washington for years? It was positive, not negative (though there was plenty of that too), but it was similarly about identity politics -- you were supposed to support Bush, not because of how he did his job, but because he was, drumroll, a regular guy. Remember Peggy Noonan:

I was asked this week why the president seems so attractive to the heartland, to what used to be called Middle America. A big question. I found my mind going to this word: normal.

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he’ll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, “Where's Sally?” He's responsible. He's not an intellectual.

Of course, a year and a half later there really was a fire on the block — actually a flood in New Orleans, but basically the same thing — and what he actually said was, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” But I digress.

The thing that is really driving conservatives crazy, I think, is that their identity politics just isn’t working like it used to. Their whole approach has been based on the belief that Americans vote as if they live in Mayberry, and fear and hate anyone who looks a bit different; now that the country just isn’t like that, they’ve gone mad.

Paul is, of course, being kind to our Peggy. There isn't a word in her paean to her beloved George W., unless you count the declaration that her boy "isn't an intellectual," that doesn't mark her as the dumbest life form in the history of creation. (The "isn't an intellectual" comment merely marks her as someone implacably hostile to the thought process.)

"He thinks in a sort of common-sense way"?

This is a man who doesn't think, ever. He seems to have discovered at Yale, surrounded by all those smart kids, that thinking wasn't his forte, and that trying was only going to get him into trouble. Out of sheer laziness, mixed with the arrogance of a subhuman blob who believed himself as entitled as he is ignorant, he willed himself into an ignoramus, and that ought to be literally unforgivable -- not praised by pseudo-populists like drooling Peggy.

"He speaks the language of business and sports and politics"?

Uh, yeah, I suppose, but he knows only the tiniest, most superficial bit about sports, and nothing whatsoever about business or politics, unless you count "how to fake it."

Maybe I'm just slow to adapt, but I don't believe that Noonanism has been banished from American discourse. Yeah, I saw Karl Rove, the master of this form of political manipulation in our time, pulling back from his earlier ritual smears of Judge Sotomayor. But I don't believe for a moment that he's lost faith in those tactics, or that they won't work just fine another time: "[insert name of latest defiantly ignorant blob of human waste] is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He’s normal."

As I suggested above, I'm less than persuaded by John Cornyn's sudden conversion to reason in the matter of the Sotomayor nomination. Can the arch-loon in Cornyn really be put to rest so easily? Captain Courage he's not. I guffawed at the contribution of another commenter on Howie's post yesterday, Comrade E.B. Misfit:

"Coryn's apology to el Rushbo in 3....2....1..."

Um, yeah, Comrade, I hear you.


POSTSCRIPT: ANOTHER STROLL DOWN CRAZINESS LANE

I mentioned that Paul Krugman had written a second blogpost on this subject, and I would be remiss not to direct your attention to it as well:

May 29, 2009, 11:46 AM
Same as they ever were

Obama is a socialist/fascist; Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, and La Raza is the KKK; there’s an evil plot against Republican car dealers. The GOP is sounding a bit, well, demented these days.

But here’s the thing: it always did. A few trips down memory lane:

Senator Tom Coburn:

In a tape recently released by Brad Carson, Coburn’s Democratic opponent for the Senate race there, Coburn is heard warning the good clean citizens of Oklahoma of the great lesbian threat to their state.

On the tape, Coburn tells how a campaign worker form Coalgate, Okla., told him that lesbianism is “so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom."

Senator James Inhofe:

Why did the UN cook up the idea of global warming? To “shut down the machine called America.” In fact, we learned, global warming is a plot to destroy the US economy and to initiate one-world government–a goal not only of the UN but of the American political left more broadly.

Establishing his Christian credentials, Inhofe invoked Romans 1:25 (For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever) to suggest that taking steps to ameliorate global warming would constitute a form of idol worship.

We’re not talking fringe activists here; we’re talking U.S. senators. The truth is that lunatics have been running this particular asylum for years. But in a classic case of emperor’s new clothes, it wasn’t acceptable to notice this until the lunatics lost power.

Thanks for that little stroll down Craziness Lane, Paul. I still can't help considering that if only, say, 40 percent of the insane blithering being blithered about Judge Sotomayor, by people who ought to know better (and, yes, some who probably don't), is being absorbed by the public, that still represents a staggering quantity of psychotic lies and filth.


[For the record: The world is anxiously awaiting word from Senator Doctortom Coburn (who like his unlamented colleague, former Senate Majority Leader Doctorbill Frist, is a physician, but more importantly is a beyond-certifiable kook, proud to be known as "Doctor No" for his tireless one-man crusade of obstructionism in the Senate) as to whether he will run for reelection. If he doesn't, can we expect that the Oklahoma Republican cult has someone of comparable, er, stature to slot in? We know that Oklahoma Democrats have nothing better to throw at the seat than unspeakable DINO Rep. Dan Boren.]

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Two Congressional Democrats Join GOP Anti-Gay Jihad In DC

A few weeks ago I mentioned how clueless Mormon demagogue and extremist Jason Chaffetz volunteered to lead the crusade against gay families in Washington, DC. I doubt it will get anywhere but Chaffetz and a couple dozen other congressional bigots signed on to a bill that would force the Washington, DC government to stop recognizing same-sex marriages. The bill was formally introduced by two of Congress' worst hate-mongers, Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK). The man recently voted the most disliked member of Congress by his colleagues, Georgia reactionary Tom Price, couldn't wait to sign on as a co-sponsor. "Nothing," he said, "can be more important than the sanctity of our families." What a clown! I'm certain he doesn't even see any irony in his hateful statement. Presumably they're just practicing for this, the pending battle over Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's why I'd like to see someone like Anthony Woods in Congress; it's about time!

DC is a heavily Democratic city. It is also heavily African-American. Chaffetz and the other bigots pushing the anti-gay agenda are also all notorious racists who are never on the same side of the battle lines as black people. Can they make common cause now? Some African-Americans, largely because of shameful cowardice and misdirection from candidate Obama, helped the Mormon bigots outlaw marriage equality in California last year. Ironically, when southern blacks and whites sought to marry in the 1950s and '60s they fled to Washington, DC, where it was legal. The Supreme Court didn't strike down "miscegenation" laws until 1964 (Loving v Virginia). Yesterday at Crooks and Liars we talked with singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith, whose new album, The Loving Kind was inspired by an obituary she read last year when Mildred Loving died and talked about her struggle against racism in terms of the LGBT struggle against bigotry. Nanci's album comes out in 2 weeks and I hope many people in DC get a chance to hear it. If you haven't heard the title track, give it a listen: