DINO Ben Betrays Kentuckians; Will Help Bevin Steal Medicaid From Tens of Thousands

When I saw the headline at the Herald-Leader - Bevin announces partnership to implement Medicaid changes - I knew who it had to be.

Shame on you, Ben Chandler.  And how fucking stupid, aligning yourself with the trumpies just as the Resistance is notching its first victories.

Do you really hate Kentuckians that much for not electing you Governor in 2003? Do you really think the repugs will reward you for this betrayal?

Are you so desperate for money that you will take 30 pieces of silver from the Yankee carpetbagger who is systematically bulldozing the state your grandfather served as governor not once but twice?

What are you getting out of this, you motherfucking piece of shit?

Kentucky's Republican governor is partnering with a former Democratic congressman to help implement the nation's first work requirements for Medicaid.

Former official yes but mostly former Democrat.

On Wednesday, Gov. Matt Bevin announced a partnership with the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, a nonpartisan health policy research group run by Ben Chandler.

Once the new work requirements take effect later this year, state officials predict Medicaid will cover 95,000 fewer people in five years, leading critics to accuse Bevin of taking away people's health insurance. Chandler said the foundation's goal will be to help Kentuckians keep their coverage.

You don't help Kentuckians keep their coverage by partnering with Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You to force 95,000 of them off health coverage.

Shame on you, Ben.  I hope every real Democratic candidate in Kentucky stands up to condemn you, your new repug buddy and every inhuman policy the two of you now stand for.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article212164799.html#storylink=cpy

Stop Wooing Repugs, Tim Kaine: You're Wasting Time and Pissing Off Real Democratic Voters

Yep, he's exactly the repug-lite motherfucker we thought he was. 

 

How anyone with the sense dog gave a goose could have lived through the last 20 years and imagine that there is a repug anywhere who will ever, EVER vote for a Democratic candidate is beyond me.

Not only will no repug vote Democratic, but all those pearl-clutching repugs disowning Donald Traitor are going to fall in line and vote for him come November.

Meanwhile, all the easily-discouraged Democratic voters that Hillary needs to turn out in November are watching Kaine and wondering what the fuck is the point, I've got better things to do than vote for repug-lite candidates with a D next to the name.

Well done, Clinton-Kaine.  Convention's not over and you've already lost the election.

How the Repugs and Centrists Have Left Democrats and Minorities Powerless

Short version: Racism.  That's what has powered conservatives for 200 years, and looks to be powering conservatives for another 200.

Enabled by fake centrists and cowardly dems whose repeated solution to electoral defeat is to run to the right.

Where Democrats find only more defeat, and more excuses to run further to the right.

It's political suicide.  It has been political suicide for 40 years, but dems never learn.

Martin Longman @ Political Animal has the details:

There’s no point in sugar-coating this. In the Deep South, the Democratic Party is now the non-white party, and minority politicians don’t have the white partners they need to exercise any but the most local political power. While the problem is less severe in the border states, it has clearly made advances there. You can look at pretty much the whole Scots-Irish migration from the Virginias to Oklahoma and see that the Democrats were trounced last Tuesday. They badly lost Senate elections in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and they actually lost two Senate elections each in South Carolina and Oklahoma. Their seat in Virginia was only (just barely) saved by the DC suburbs in the northeastern part of the state.

This isn’t just a problem for the Democratic Party. It’s a big problem for blacks, too.

This situation is so deleterious for African-Americans in the Deep South because, unlike in Congress, where black Democrats have many white Democratic colleagues—not to mention a Democrat in the White House—in these Southern states, black Democratic state legislators (and, by extension, their black constituents) are completely at the mercy of Republican legislative majorities and Republican governors. What’s more, unlike in Washington, where control of the White House—and at least the Senate —swings back and forth between both parties, the Republican control of Southern state houses seems here to stay for a long, long time.

This loss of power is not what progressives or the black community envisioned when the first black president was elected, but the fury of the blowback is now undeniable. Both the party and its African-American base share a self-interest in doing something to combat the impression and (in these parts of the country) the increasing reality that the Democrats are not a party for white people.

This can’t be done by any simple tweaks to the party platform, and there’s a broader cultural element at play here that implicates more than race. Attitudes about religion and human sexuality are also major factors in what has happened, as the country has galloped ahead at breakneck speed to destigmatize homosexuality, for example, while Republican legislatures have furiously sought to restrict women’s rights.

Asking how the party can get white Democrats elected in these regions again isn’t something that blacks or progressive whites are eager to discuss, particularly when the answers may not be to their liking. But their power is at stake, as well as many of the values that they’ve fought for and thought, perhaps erroneously, that they had secured. At stake are basic civil rights (including voting rights), women’s reproductive health, and even the president’s landmark health care law. The black community’s political power is at stake, too, in a major and urgent way.

These problems will require fresh thinking, by which I mean that reconstructing the Blue Dog Coalition is probably not the answer. It’s not the local Chambers of Commerce we need to court, but the economically pressed white voter who must be cleaved from the plutocratic coalition that has enchanted him.

The Third Way led us here. It does not provide the route out of this maze.

QOTD

While Alison Lundergan Grimes tells LGBT Kentuckians to fuck off and die because the courts - their only hope of achieving civil rights in the Commonwealth - need to "butt out" of Kentucky banning marriage equality, more disappointed Democratic voters are sinking back into their chairs and making plans to watch West Wing marathons on Election Day.

Digby nails it:

Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry --- as long as you act like a Republican. It's pathetic.

Why I Don't Contribute to "Centrist" Democrats and You Should Not, Either

Because they are cowardly losers whose cowardly losses lead directly to the avoidable deaths of women.

Not that they give a flying fuck.

Digby:

The Democrats listened and followed that advice. They hemmed and hawed and droned on about "safe,legal and rare" and a "culture of life" --- and it didn't buy one, single vote. In fact, a strong stand in favor of women's rights is credited with energizing the Democratic voters in 2012. Imagine that.

Unfortunately, it was too late. Where fighting this might have at least resulted in an awareness of what was happening, years of Democrats chasing votes that were never going to come their way resulted in zealots quietly passing laws at the state level making abortion more and more difficult to obtain.  I guess that's what the anti-choice minority in the Democratic Party calls "winning." They must be so pleased.

Democratic Candidates Who Oppose Obamacare Lose Election

That's why Mitch McConnell is telling Alison Lundergan Grimes to run away from Obamacare - because that would be the final nail in her political coffin.

Thirty-four Blue Dogs, including ben chandler, ky-6, voted against Obamacare in 2009. All but 5 lost their seats to repugs in 2010.

Digby:

That's a list of all the Democrats who voted against Obamacare in 2009.   Afterwards a number of them looked at the polls and decided they needed to spend more time with their families and "retired." Their seats were won by Republicans. Davis and Melancon decided to run for higher office (and lost.) Altmire and Holden lost their jobs through Democratic primaries in 2012 --- and voting against Obamacare was an issue in both campaigns. As for the rest, with the exception of Barrow, Lipinski, Matheson, McIntyre, and Peterson, every last one of the remaining Blue Dogs on that list lost his seat in 2010 to a Republican.  Voting against Obamacare didn't help them one little bit.  And voting against it again by going along with more GOP sabotage won't help any Democrats in 2014 either.

Democrats cannot run away from this. They shouldn't even try. In fact, if they're worried about keeping their seats they need to convince their constituents to hang in there and explain to them how the reforms will end up being a net plus for them in the long run. Every Democrat in the country has Obamacare wrapped around them very tightly whether they like it or not. So they'd better do everything in their power to make sure it works.

Of course, any Democratic candidate who is actually Democratic rather than repug-lite knows that the surest path to election is to oppose absolutely everything that comes from repugs and to do exactly the opposite of what repugs advise.

Figure Grimes to announce her eagerness to gut the Affordable Care Act by end of the day.

How a Real Democratic Candidate Campaigns in a Red State

Is there a substantive issue on which Alison Lundergan Grimes disagrees with Mitch McConnell? Any reason at all to think she would vote with the Democratic caucus any more than he does? Anything she's ever said to inspire a discouraged Democratic voter to get up off her ass and vote?

Down with Tyranny:

Not long after Jay announced his candidacy for Graham's Senate seat, he had a talk with Jaime Harrison, the newly elected Chairman of the state Democratic Party. Harrison was curious about Jay's candidacy and they talked amicably for about half an hour. At the time, Jay told me that Harrison had said, “I’m glad you’re running" and he seemed quite buoyed by the conversation and more determined than ever to take the fight to Lindsey Graham, expecting the help of the state party.

Blue America endorsed Jay and, as the months went by his campaign grew and Harrison remained friendly. Just last month, Jay and his wife even co-hosted a state Democratic Party event with Harrison, his wife and actress Phylicia Rashad in attendance.

"But," Jay told me this morning, "I had begun taking stands on controversial issues. I was adamantly pro-choice and I announced my support for marriage equality. As my profile on these issues increased, I began getting negative feedback from party insiders; the party was concerned that my candidacy (in particular my progressive stances on controversial issues) had the potential to highlight Vincent Sheheen’s opposition to both marriage equality and choice. The last thing that the state party wants is anything to distract from Sheheen’s campaign, which it deems the best chance in years to capture the governorship. My candidacy had become a distraction."

Yesterday, on his campaign website, Jay posted a message, I Won't Back Down:

As many of you know, I recently came out in favor of marriage equality. I knew it was politically risky in a state like South Carolina, but I also knew it was the right thing to do.

Several days after my announcement, a state party official summoned me to his office. To my disbelief he tried to persuade me to drop out of the race. I said no thanks.

Apparently, certain well-connected “party elders” believe that my candidacy is a distraction that will only hurt Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen by highlighting his opposition to marriage equality and women’s reproductive rights.

Now, my campaign is meeting resistance from the last place I expected: from within the state party establishment.

I’m proud to be a Democrat. But the party is more than just a handful of well-connected insiders sitting in an office building. It’s you, it’s me, it’s millions of “ordinary” people across the country who believe in equal rights and equal opportunity for all. I’m not going to drop out. I’m not going to back down. And I need your support.

If you'd like to help Jay win against bigotry, you can do so here. - See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/#sthash.izpzrkp2.dpuf

The mere fact that the Kentucky Democratic Republican Party luuuurrrrrvvves Grimes and the repug-incument-protection racket known as the DCCC backs her to the hilt should tell you everything you need to know about the kind of Senator Grimes would be.

How Long Will It Take Grimes to Deny She's a Democrat?

The proper response from a Democratic elected official "accused" of supporting her party's own President and Miinority Leader of the House of Representatives is as follows:

"You bet your ass I do. Thanks for the compliment!"

Alison Lundergan Grimes' response to Mitch McConnell's latest ad salvo* is more likely to be along the lines of:

"Nuh-UNH! Am NOT!"

From the Herald:

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes remains undecided about challenging U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell next year, but a pro-McConnell group is running newspaper ads linking her with President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

OH MAH GAWD WHARS MAH SMELLIN' SALTS.  "Linked" to the President of the United States!  The infamy! 

C'mon, Alison, just judo this one back on him. Here's the perfect chance to stand tall for real Democratic values, to call out McConnell for obstructing Democratic bills that would create millions of jobs and lift millions of Kentuckians out of poverty.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/06/05/2667051/pro-mcconnell-group-runs-ads-linking.html#storylink=cpy

But no:

Grimes' political adviser, Jonathan Hurst, called the ads "false attacks that show just how scared Mitch McConnell and his supporters are."

Sigh. "False attacks." Saying an elected Democratic official supports a Democratic President is a "false attack."

Fuck you, Alison Lundergan Grimes, you worthless piece of conservatard shit.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/06/05/2667051/pro-mcconnell-group-runs-ads-linking.html#storylink=cpy

* Yes of course it's from McConnell. In the no-holds-barred post-Citizens-United era, there's is no such thing as an "independent" PAC.  They are all candidate-controlled.

Kentucky Democrats Already Self-Destructing Against McConnell

If you set out to destroy the Kentucky Democratic Party, you couldn't do it more effectively than the KDP is doing to itself.

Joe Sonka at Leo's Fat Lip:

LEO Weekly has learned from multiple Democratic sources that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is now applying the brakes to their once all-in support of Ashley Judd as the challenger of choice against Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014. While not ready to abandon Judd, they are now taking a serious second look at recruiting Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

David Atkins at Hullabaloo on why that's the path to self-destruction:

The point is that from now until 2022, Democrats are going to have a difficult decision to make. The country is on their side on nearly every issue of importance and controversy. But to win the seventeen House seats it will take to wrench the gavel out of John Boehner's hands may require Democrats to water down their brand and take unpopular conservative positions out of step with the American people.

Democrats can choose to spend the next 9 years chasing Republicans to the right in the hope of knocking out a few Michele Bachmanns. Or Democrats can spend that time painting conservative Republicans farther and farther into a corner, potentially taking the House over the next four to six years, with a view to an overwhelming knockout blow after redistricting in 2020.

It's a difficult choice. Republican cheating via the gerrymandering process certainly makes the Rahm Emanuel decision more attractive. And the experience of the wrecking ball that is the GOP House just these past few months makes the prospect of nine more years of similar gamesmanship almost unthinkable.

But chasing the Republicans to the right is a fool's errand. Playing politics that are deeply unpopular and harmful public policy on a national level in order to win over a few abnormally conservative districts will weaken the brand and deflate the base such that victory will not be possible. On the other hand, as with the immigration debate and even possibly the gun debate, pushing the Republicans farther off the brink of unpopularity may force them into the moderating ground on a number of fronts, whether or not they continue to hold the House.

It will be difficult, but the right choice for America and for the Democratic Party lies in holding popular ground and not shifting rightward for the sake of a few outlier districts. Even if it means giving up already vain hope of retaking the House in 2014.

Allison Lundergan Grimes is a good little Blue Dog who will do everything the Wall Street Big Boyz tell her to do.  She won't upset the Kentucky conservadem apple cart.

Ashley Judd is a Proud Liberal who's not afraid to say what she thinks. The Boys in Frankfort, DC and Wall Street have no hold on her. If she does what none of them can do - beat McConnell - they'll be humiliated forever. They'd rather McConnell win than lose to Judd.

Apply NFL Rules to the Filibuster

Maybe Harry Reid's Hulk side is going to make an appearance and force the Cowardly Dems to eliminate the ludicrous and obstructionist filibuster once and for all.  But it's looking more and more that Reid and the reduced-in-number-but-still-disprortionately-powerful Senate Blue Dogs will water it down to nothing.

They should abandon all the complicated new rules and just adopt Occasional Plant's genius idea for fixing the filibuster:

Adopting the “Jimmy Stewart Rule” seems to be an improved way to limit the damage that the filibuster does to the will of the majority. But borrowing a procedure from the National Football League might be far superior.

The NFL has a rule stating that the coach of each team is able to throw a red flag on the field twice a game. The red flag indicates that he wants to challenge the referee’s ruling on the field. The coaches have to be judicious about throwing the red flags, because if their appeal does not result in the decision being overturned, the coach’s team loses a time out, which can be crucial to managing the clock.

The key is that there is a limited to the number of challenges each team can have per game.

How it would work

Suppose that this was applied the number of  filibusters the minority party could use in a session of Congress.

When Lyndon Johnson was Senate Majority Leader in the 1950s, Republicans engaged in only one filibuster. That’s right, one. Over the past six years, in which Harry Reid (D-NV) has been majority leader, Republicans have engaged in 386 filibusters. These filibusters are the primary reason why Congress has been in a state of gridlock ever since Barack Obama became president.

Suppose that the minority party was limited to ten filibusters (and “a hold,” – a topic for a future post) per year. The minority party would have to be extremely judicious about how they used their filibusters. Currently, they can use a filibuster for a wide expanse of legislation, ranging from the confirmation of judges or cabinet to funding an overseas military engagement. Frequently, Republicans have used the filibuster to stop important social welfare programs, such as food stamps, or extending unemployment benefits. In fact, they have often used it to block any effort to reach a budget accord aimed at reducing the national deficit through increased taxes and cuts in government expenditures.

Indeed, the filibuster is important to protect the rights of the minority party. Many of the issues that face the Congress are designed to protect minorities, whether they are in the field of civil and human rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, or other social issues. The Senate is often referred to as the deliberative house of Congress. It needs to remain that way. However, being deliberate is not the same as causing gridlock. With Democrats currently in the majority in the Senate, now is the time to reform the filibuster system. Senate rules allow one day, the first day of the new session in January, for changes to the rules. Maybe members of the Senate should spend their holidays watching NFL games so that they see the wisdom of putting limitations on the number of challenges.

Suicidal Dems and the Repugs Who Exploit Them

Anyone who can look clearly at the behavior of congressional repugs over the last four years and claim that what the nation needs is more Democrats willing to compromise with a bunch of psychotic nihilists is not just a DINO, not just a betrayer of the only sane political party we've got, but a deluded clown who shouldn't be trust with car keys, much less national political policy.

I'm deeply saddened to say that describes Robert Reich.

From the Courier:

Trey Grayson, the former Kentucky secretary of state and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010, is running a political action committee formed by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that will try to elect Democrats who want to work with Republicans.

Grayson told The Washington Post that he remains a Republican but will be co-chairman of “Gabby PAC,” which is being created by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was the victim of an assassination attempt in 2011.

The other co-chairman will be Robert Reich, a Democrat who served as Labor secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Giffords, before her attempted assassination, was one of the repugs' favorite Blue Dogs, consistently voting against the best interests of her middle-class constituents. It's no surprise that she is still working to help repugs destroy not just Social Security and Medicare, but the entire New Deal and Great Society.

Grayson lost the 2010 Senate primary to Rand Paul because he is not a teabagger, but neither is he the closet democrat his supporters whisper he is. He's a hard-core repug, and this new gig allows him to push the teabagger agenda while pretending to be the Last Moderate Republican.

Don't believe him. Don't believe her. And stop listening to Robert DINO Reich.

DCCC Trying to Lose the Election

Wondering if your local Democratic congressional candidate is as progressive as she claims? Worried she'll join the Blue Dogs and start voting with the repugs as soon as she's sworn in?

Here's an easy test to find out: if she's getting financial support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, you can be sure you've got a reliable Boehner-voter on your hands.

Down with Tyranny, which covers this issue like a blanket:

This week the DCCC was bragging how they are continuing "on offense since Congressman Paul Ryan was named to lead the Republican ticket, launching new automated phone calls to expose 50 vulnerable Republicans for backing Ryan’s budget that ends Medicare." Here's a sample call:

Hi. This is Julie calling from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to alert you to a new development about Medicare.

Your Congressman, [insert Republican freak's name], voted for a budget that would end Medicare and now the budget’s architect, Paul Ryan, is the Republican candidate for Vice President.

A nonpartisan analysis showed that Ryan’s budget would raise health care costs for seniors by $6,400. The Tax Policy Center also said the Ryan budget would give people making over $1 million a year an average tax break of $265,000. And Congressman [insert Republican freak's name] supported all of it.

That’s just wrong.

Call Congressman [insert Republican freak's name] at (xxx) xxx-xxxx and tell him to stop protecting millionaires at the expense of Medicare and the middle class.

And they did a variation on the theme for GOP challengers who didn't get to vote for the Ryan budget but have in some way embraced it. Sounds kosher, right? Look a little deeper. The first hint that something's not kosher is that the DCCC ran these robo calls in Wisconsin 7 and 8 but not in Wisconsin's first CD, the southeast Wisconsin district Paul Ryan himself represents. Alarm bells started ringing. Here was the hand of Steve Israel again-- undermining Rob Zerban's already tough race against Ryan by sending a signal to whoever takes signals from the DCCC that they're just not interested in defeating Ryan. This is a message that the DCCC has been sending for Ryan's entire career. Obama won the district in 2008 and Rob is in a much better position to win than either of the DCCC candidates in WI-07 and WI-08.

So then I went through all 50 seats they're running the calls in. And it was the same everywhere across the country. In state after state, with just a very few exceptions, they've left off progressives and put their money behind reactionary Blue Dogs and New Dems, including rightwingers and anti-Choice fanatics who would be sure to vote with the GOP. Take Michigan for example. They're running the calls in MI-01 against Dan Benishek and in MI-03 against Justin Amash, respectively for Blue Dog Gary McDowell and anti-Choice freak Steve Pestka. But they left off MI-11, an open seat that Obama won that would be FAR easier to win than either of these other Michigan seats. Why would they do that. Dr. Syed Taj just won the primary there and he's a progressive, exactly what Steve Israel is trying to prevent from getting into the caucus. Here are a list of winnable seats with progressive candidates where the DCCC should be running ads like this-- and would be if it was serious about taking back Congress:

CA-25: Lee Rogers vs Buck McKeon
CA-39: Jay Chen vs Ed Royce
FL-09: Alan Grayson vs Todd Long
FL-26: Joe Garcia vs David Rivera
MI-08: Lance Enderle vs Mike Rogers
MI-11: Syed Taj vs random crazy teabagger
NC-10: Patsy Keever vs Patrick McHenry
NY-23: Nate Shinagawa vs Tom Reed
OH-15: Pat Lang vs Steve Stivers
PA-03- Miss Eaton vs Mike Kelly
PA-16: Aryanna Strader vs Joe Pitts
TX-18: Beto O'Rourke vs Barbara Carrasco
VA-07: Wayne Powell vs Eric Cantor
WI-01: Rob Zerban vs Paul Ryan
WV-1: Sue Thorn vs David McKinley

The DCCC needs to take back 25 seats to win back Congress. Here are 15. Steve Israel flushing money down the toilet in pursuit of absolutely unwinnable seats for his corrupt Blue Dog cronies like Hayden Rogers (NC-11) isn't going to do anyone any good at all-- especially while he throws away 15 seats just because the Democratic candidates are actual Democrats, not his kind of corrupt corporate whore. If you'd like, you can help most of these candidates on this ActBlue page.

As Down with Tyranny notes later, many of the DINOs the DCCC supports are also anti-women, anti-abortion fanatics as bad as Paul Ryan if not worse. 

Give Us Real Democratic Candidates

The other day I had a depressing conversation about why working class voters don't vote for Democratic candidates. The answer, of course, is because they don't think dems have done anything for them lately, and for the most part they are right.

But it's also because far too many dems act like repug-lite, so why vote for the motherfuckers?

Then I watched Jennifer Granholm interview Alvin Brown, the mayor of Jacksonville, FL. If I tell you he's a favorite of DLC founder and repug lite capo di tutti capo Bill Clinton, can you guess the rest?

Yep, Jennifer let him tout no restrictions on gun purchases but massive cuts in social spending. Then she failed to pin him down on whether he would campaign with President Obama - this from a black Democratic mayor! He even refused to say which presidential candidate would win. Look out, Harold Ford and Artur Davis - there's a new race/party traitor in town.

No wonder the video isn't posted on her website - the interview is shameful.

Working people aren't going to vote for Democratic candidates until the Democratic Party stops running repugs like Ben Chandler and starts running real Democratic candidates.

Down with Tyranny:

Gallup reported this week that voting enthusiasm among Democrats is down sharply from 2004 and 2008, while GOP voter enthusiasm is up. Gallup suggests that "Democrats' depressed enthusiasm may be influenced by the comparatively tough re-election battle the president is facing, likely due to the state of the economy and Americans' generally sour mood."

I want to propose two other possibilities. First, the GOP super-serves their base while the Democratic Party spits on theirs. Since 2010, House Republicans were willing-- even eager-- to make themselves look like clowns and imbeciles for the sake of their core constituents, and they were willing to do that irrespective of the damage they did to the country. It's not so much that Democratic congressmembers put country first-- though many of them certainly do-- as much as Democrats being confused and splintered... and conflicted. They like calling themselves a Big Tent party. But what is that mean? That they welcome all kinds of opportunists whose values (and voting records) are antithetical to core Democratic principles. And that brings us to the second problem.

In 2010 Democratic voters and left-leaning independents sent the Democratic Party a clear message at the polls. By staying away in unprecedented numbers-- and allowing the worst Tea Party monstrosities to win seats, take over states and take over Congress, even to the point of crippling the country-- grassroots Democrats made it clear they would NOT vote for Blue Dogs, New Dems and conservative disguised as Democrats. 63 seats changed hands, all but two from Democratic to Republican.

SNIP

Want to increase Democratic enthusiasm? Support real Democrats running for office-- like these.

 And you don't even have to wait until November - there are crucial Democratic primaries three Tuesdays in August. Here are the real Democrats running against repug-lite, DINO Blue Dog corporate shills:

 

Darcy Burner (WA-1)- August 7
Syed Taj (MI-11)- August 7
Trevor Thomas (MI-3)- August 7
Chris Donovan (CT-5)- August 14
Nick Ruiz (FL-7)- August 14
Matt Heinz (AZ-2)- August 28
Raúl Grijalva (AZ-3)- August 28

Quote of the Day

 Digby:

The worst people in politics are often the so-called "moderates" who are only "moderate" by virtue of the fact that they believe themselves to superior in every way to the people who believe in something.

Chandler Not Attending Repug Convention in Tampa

Well that's a smart decision. After all, Ben's party's nominee, Mitt Romney, is struggling even with his own base and is almost as unpopular in Kentucky as President Obama is, and ...

What's that you say? Ben is not going to the Democratic convention? But why would he go to Charlotte, lying repug weasel that he is?

Ben Chandler who voted with the repugs on fake contempt charges against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder?

Ben Chandler who voted with the repugs to uphold the despicable and unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act? (Only homophobes support DOMA, and all homophobes are closet cases, Benny Boy - what are you hiding?)

What possible reason would he have to go to a convention full of actual Democrats?

An Obama Democrat in Deep Red Northern Kentucky

So, a teenaged Texas parasite bought a Kentucky congressional seat for a freakazoid teabagger.

This sets up as clear a choice for Democratic voters as is ever seen in Kentucky outside of Louisville: your typical wingnut crazy repug against not the usual conservadem, but an actual proud progressive.

Zandar, who has a ringside seat in the Fourth:

Bill Adkins, (who won the Democratic primary), has raised...about $14,000. It's a shame too, because Bill Adkins is that rarest of breeds: A Kentucky Democrat who isn't running screaming from President Obama.

Bill Adkins, one of two Democrats running in the 4th Congressional District, said he believes government-payer health care system can best tackle the inefficiencies and problems and that’s the way to preserve Medicare.

“Single payer is my preference. I think that the compromise that is the buy-the-insurance mandate is an incremental move,” Adkins said (7:00).

He also said he would consider one of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s proposals — to decrease the level of benefits for seniors with the highest incomes, known as means testing.

Adkins, a Williamstown lawyer and the Grant County Democratic Party Chairman, said he decided to get into the 4th District race because he said he wanted to make sure there was a full discussion of the issues.

“We needed a Democratic presence in this race,” he said.

Yeah, that's right, a Kentucky Democrat who acts like a real gorram Democrat. Single payer. I love this guy. The problem is after redistricting, KY-4 has gone from fairly conservative to blood red. Adkins is going to need a miracle against Massie ....

Not giving up entirely on Adkins either. He's one of the folks we need in Congress.

When Democratic candidates lose to repugs in Kentucky, the Kentucky Democratic Party "leadership" screams the same thing: "Not conservative enough!" Time after time, Blue Dogs to the right of Mitch McConnell lose to real repugs, and the KDP uses every loss to justify yanking the party further over the DINO cliff.

Adkins winning would be the KDP's worst nightmare: proof that Democratic candidates who run as loud, proud progressives - who actually stand by That Ni**er In The White House - can win by inspiring discouraged Democratic voters.

So the party will ensure he loses by denying him money and support - maybe even going so far as to actively harm his campaign with whisper campaigns and threats to potential supporters.

How to puncture the conservadem myth that a liberal dem can't win outside Louisville but a Blue Dog can? Simple: make sure Adkins gets more votes and a higher percentage of the vote than that received by the dems who lost to retiring incumbent Geoff Davis.

Yes, the DCCC and conservadems will claim liberals are losers regardless of the facts, but that's not a reason not to support Adkins; that's a reason for Democratic candidates and Democratic voters to get the fuck off our fat asses and make the liberal argument publicly. Why are we ceding them the stage?

"Centrist" Gimmick Fails; But Centrism Always Fails

Anyone who's ever voted knows that the Beltway analpundits' claim that Americans want "bipartisanship" is bullshit. Americans want My Side to Win. We vote for winners - candidates who will give us what we want, not fence-straddlers who won't take a stand.

So the death of "Americans Elect" is no surprise.

Steve Benen:

Last summer, there were plenty of centrists who expressed genuine excitement about a project called Americans Elect, which its backers perceived as a vehicle towards bipartisan governing. Thomas Friedman, last summer, devoted a column to singing Americans Elect's praises, saying its organizers are "really serious, and they have thought out this process well."

As it turns out, that wasn't quite right.

Americans Elect, the deep-pocketed nonprofit group that set out to nominate a centrist third-party presidential ticket, admitted early Tuesday that its ballyhooed online nominating process had failed.

The group had qualified for the general election ballot in 27 states, and had generated concern among Democrats and Republicans alike that it could wreak havoc on a close election between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

But just after a midnight deadline Monday, the group acknowledged that its complicated online nominating process had failed to generate sufficient interest to push any of the candidates who had declared an interest in its nomination over the threshold in its rules.

I never fully understood the appeal of this enterprise. Voters were supposed to gravitate towards Americans Elect out of a desire to see a presidential campaign committed to centrist, compromise-focused policymaking. Americans Elect did not, however, have a candidate. Or a 2C but nothing else.

But the centrism fetishists never give up, even though they are always wrong. As David Atkins wrote last month:

Oh how cute! The Blue Dogs are starting to realize that their brand might be getting a little tarnished, so they're remaking themselves. Behold: The
"Blue Dog Research Forum" is now...Center Forward.

They have the following quote prominently displayed on their site:

America is neither right nor left. Republican nor Democrat. Red nor blue. The solutions that will move us forward come from where they always have – the center.

Most political agendas engage in a level of historical revisionism, but this one takes some serious chutzpah. The level of blind mythmaking in this comically inaccurate statement is breathtaking.

It was radical revolutionaries who helped birth this nation and free it from the British crown. It was centrists who urged on the disastrous compromises on slavery prior to the Civil War, including and especially the Compromise of 1850. It was Centrists who encouraged Lincoln to simply allow the South to secede. It was Lincoln who took the radical step of insisting on fighting the war and emancipating the slaves.

Social Security and the New Deal were not centrist legislation, nor was much of anything FDR did centrist. The one major "centrist" move FDR made to appease the Blue Dogs of his day was the attempt to close the deficit in 1937, and it was a disaster.

It was radicals who earned women the right to vote, radicals like Rosa Parks who helped end Jim Crow and segregation, radicals who earned 18-year-olds the right to vote, and radicals who pushed through Medicare. And today, it is radicals who have fought and clawed their way to allow LGBT Americans to live relatively openly and share in most of the same civil rights as their fellow straight Americans.

On the conservative side of the aisle, it was not the Eisenhower and Rockefeller Republicans who were responsible for the movement that begat Ronald Reagan, but rather the insurgent and radical conservatives of the Goldwater stripe. As a progressive, I view the Reagan ascendancy as a very negative thing, but insofar as any of the Reagan mythology is to be believed, it wasn't centrists who created him, but conservative revolutionaries.

On the Affordable Care Act, it was centrists like Baucus and Nelson who delayed and stalled the passage of the bill, demanding bribes in exchange for their votes and attempting futilely to earn the support of even of a few Republicans even as the nature of the bill shifted further and further to the right.

In fact, centrists have almost never helped create the solutions that have moved us forward in our nation's history. They have either been irrelevant, or actively harmful. There is nothing honorable or noble about the centrist position in American politics, partly because the system is intrinsically so resistant to change and easily corruptible that radicals are the only ones who are ever able to move things in any direction except in favor of moneyed interests.

Which leads us to the first issue listed in the Center Forward Solution Center: opposition to greater taxes on the wealthy.

Politicians often cite the fact that Warren Buffet’s secretary pays a lower effective tax rate than he does as Exhibit A on why the tax code is unfair. But as our economy claws its way back from a recession does it make sense to target one particular group of taxpayers with a tax increase? In this series, we examine opinions from the center left and right on how we can make our tax code fairer without impeding economic growth.

Hmmmm...I wonder where the center of American public opinion is on this question. Oh, right:

Americans favor raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama’s proposed jobs plan by a margin of two-to-one, a new Gallup poll Wednesday says.

Sixty-six percent of respondents said that they backed increasing income taxes on individuals earning over $200,000 and families earning at least $250,000, while only 32 percent were opposed.

An even greater majority thought that taxes should be raised on corporations,2C000 and families earning at least $250,000, while only 32 percent were opposed.

An even greater majority thought that taxes should be raised on corporations, with 70 percent of respondents favoring hiking taxes on corporations by eliminating tax deductions and 26 percent were opposed.

Centrism, ladies and gentlemen. It has little to with what the American people want or need, or with the solutions that make sense and have worked in the past. It has everything to do with what the narrow band of people who happen to fall in between the modern Democratic and Republicans political parties happen to think Americans deserve. And it's just an amazing coincidence that it happens to align with the interests of the nation's most well-off.

Centrism Kills. Stay away politicians who praise it.

What Happens When You Elect Blue Dogs Like Ben Chandler

First, they feel free and safe to pull inexcusable shit like this:

Down with Tyranny:

While Obama's support for LGBT equality was being widely hailed as a courageous act setting an important international precedent, the Republican House took another tact-- a typical display of vicious homophobia. The House passed a gratuitously anti-gay amendment by Kansas' fanatic hate-monger Tim Huelskamp, who is so hung up on gay issues that psychologists just assume he's either gay himself or spending a great deal of time repressing his homosexual desires. His amendment would prohibit the Justice Department from actively opposing DOMA in the courts. Nancy Pelosi led almost all Democrats in opposition to the GOP ploy. “On an historic day and in the dark of night, House Republicans have voted to tie the hands of the Obama administration with respect to their efforts to end discrimination against America’s families. House Republicans continue to plant their feet firmly on the wrong side of history.” But, depending on how you define "Democrat," not every "Democrat" agreed with her. The viciously homophobic Blue Dog caucus-- and a few of their fellow travelers-- hid behind Cantor's skirts and voted with the Republicans. The amendment passed 245-171, all but 7 Republicans vote with the hatemongers. Sixteen anti-LGBT "Democrats" voted with the Republicans:

John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Mark Critz (PA)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)
Dan Lipinski (IL)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Colin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Nick Rahall (WV)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

But that's just the beginning. Eventually, you get this:

Throckmorton County is a tiny rural affair in north central Texas. There's no city and the population was 1,641 as of the 2010 census. There are two African-Americans, 152 Latinos, 7 Asians and a Native American living among all the white folks there. Throckmorton, with a long history of lynchings, was considered a "no-go zone" for black Americans. Doesn't look like that's changed much. The population has been steadily dropping. Yesterday the county switched from faux Democrat-- it was a Blue Doggie haven-- to Republican.

In 2008, the state of Texas voted 55% for McCain and 44% for Obama. Throckmorton County only gave Obama 20% of its vote, the identical percentage that voted against the deranged far right incumbent Republican congressman, Mac Thornberry. (Thornberry was reelected with 77% of the vote district-wide, so Throckmorton was even 3 points crazier than the rest of the 13th congressional district. Two years ago the Democrats didn't even manage to nominate an opponent for Thornberry-- and when Rick Perry was beating conservative Democrat Bill White 55-42% statewide in the governor's race, Throckmorton gave Perry a far more generous 74%.

Yesterday evening, at a staged event at the county courthouse-- not as exciting as a lynching, no doubt but people in Throckmorton are grateful for whatever entertainment they get these days-- all the county officials officially switched to the Republican Party. County Judge Trey Carrington, Sheriff John Riley, Treasurer Brenda Rankin, County Clerk Susie Walraven, Justice of the Peace Billy Ray Fowler, County commissioners Casey Wells, Wilton Cantrell and Johnny Jones all drank the koolaid. The featured speakers were Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and Texas Republican Party Chairman Steve Munisteri. The event was spoiled when God showed his disapproval with sudden thunderstorms.

Commissioner Cantrell said there isn't a Democratic Party in the county anymore. Munisteri said it was the first time in Texas history that a county has gone from having only a Democratic primary to having only a Republican primary. Brad Bellah, the Republican Party county chairman, said that "the significance is that Throckmorton County is still a one-party county, but now it's a Republican county. With the current administration (in Washington), the county didn't want to be identified as a Democratic county." He noted that none of the county officials had to switch their political philosophy when they jumped the fence. That pretty much holds true for almost every Blue Dog, especially the southern ones.

The end of the Democratic Party in Throckmorton County is exactly where Steve Israel, Steny Hoyer, Joe Crowley and the rest of the corrupt DC Dems are taking the national Democratic Party. Blue Dogs are Republicans in all but name. That's the significance of what happened in Throckmorton County last night. And that's why Blue America works so hard to defeat Blue Dogs and their fellow travelers, the way we did in PA-17 (Tim Holden) last month and the way we are now in Albuquerque and Grand Rapids, where we are trying to help Eric Griego and Trevor Thomas win the Democratic nomination against right-wing faux Dems who will one day stand in front of a county courthouse and take off their blue tee-shirts and put on red ones.

Voting in Blue Dogs is political suicide. Period.

How to Hunt Blue Dogs

If you are still giving money to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, stop right now.

All three are sabotaging Democratic efforts all over the country by helping repug-lite Blue Dogs beat real liberals in primary contests.

What do you do? You fight back against the Blue Dogs in your back yard.

Digby:

There is a supposed truism among many progressives that the only thing the Democrats understand is pain and until they are soundly defeated they will not learn that they must listen to us. I agree that the worst Democrats must be defeated --- but it truly matters who defeats them. And that's because the lesson they learn from being defeated by conservatives is that they lost because they weren't conservative enough. Indeed, they run as hard and fast as they can to the right the next time. It is, after all, more rewarding for them anyway, in any number of ways.

Howie has a post up ... with all the big news about how the Blue Dogs and New Dems are reconstituting themselves as a power base in the wake of the 2010 Tea Party tsunami that nearly destroyed them. Let's just say they didn't exactly decide to become less beholden to corporate America or more ideologically progressive.

"Howie" of course is at Down with Tyranny, the go-to blog for superb, detailed coverage of liberal and progressive candidates fighting Blue Dogs in primaries around the country.

My favorite so far is Cecil Bothwell.

Few Democrats-- and none from North Carolina-- voted more frequently with the GOP since the 2010 elections than fumbling Blue Dog Heath Shuler. It made him so unpopular among Democrats in his western North Carolina district that polls showed that he would be defeated by progressive Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell. So, Shuler, a bigot and religious fanatic who voted with Republicans against equality for women and against equality for the LGBT community, decided to scale back on his plans to become Speaker or senator or governor or something big. Instead he'll settle for something rich-- as he trundles over to K Street to take up the mantle of a sleazy lobbyist. Lee Fang wondered yesterday if Shuler is engaging in bribery by negotiating for a lobbying job with the corporate shills at the Majority Group while he's still in Congress. It's one of several Blue Dog-oriented lobbying firms that launders corporate cash into political campaigns for Democrats who will get in bed with anti-family interests-- perfect for Shuler.

SNIP

At least he's out of Congress-- or soon will be. Shuler's ProgressivePunch score this session is 38.55. That means crucial votes during 2011 and 2012 he voted with Cantor and Boehner over 60% of the time. And he has a chief of staff he wants to leave in his place to continue his work against the middle class and working class families who live in the district-- and, of course, to be available for all the lobbying he plans to do.

Shuler endorsed his staffer, Hayden Rogers, and last week the Blue Dog caucus came right in after him. That means the countdown for a check from Steny Hoyer and the nod from the DCCC can't be far behind. The flawed theory behind conservative Democratic support for Rogers is that the district is very conservative and that Rogers will have the best chance to beat the Republican. The problem, of course, is that conservatives in the district will support the Republican and that the only way for a Democrat to win in the newly gerrymandered district is to offer a vigorous alternative to the toxic, failed Republican agenda. But conservatives would rather lose with Rogers than win with Bothwell.

Democratic voters showed their regard for the Blue Dogs in 2010 when more than half of them were either defeated at the polls or forced to retire rather than be defeated. Since then, many of the most extreme right members of the Blue Dog caucus have announced their departure from electoral politics-- like Shuler. Rogers was Shuler's campaign manager before he was his chief of staff. Before that he was roommates-- at Princeton-- with Lyle Menendez, who was convicted with brother Eric in the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills, Calif. Rogers worked for Lyle Menendez at the restaurant he bought after getting his parents’ life insurance money. Rogers hasn't been indicted for being part of the murder plot and he refuses to discuss his relationship with the Menedndez brothers.

Rogers may not be a murderer but he's a typical corrupt conservative careerist hack. The Democrat likely to beat him in the primary is Cecil Bothwell, who has been endorsed by Blue America . They couldn't be further apart on issues or approach. Last week Bothwell addressed women's health issues, issues where Rogers finds himself in bed with the Republicans (of course).

SNIP

Last week the Bothwell campaign held a Family Fun Night Funder in a small town in District 11, with three bands, jugglers, face painting, balloon animals, pizza and beer with a suggested $15 donation at the door (kids free). One farm couple showed up with empty pockets, but offered two dozen eggs in lieu of admission which the campaign happily accepted. Meanwhile, Hayden Rogers was hosting a $2,500 a plate steak dinner, 250 miles east in Raleigh, the state capital. Bothwell quipped, "I guess with WNC ranking #3 in hunger in the United States, we both felt a need to feed our constituents."

Blue America's great hope Ilya Sheyman lost to a Blue Dog in Illinois on Tuesday, but a Blue America liberal in another district beat his Blue Dog:

So now that Dr. Gill has won the Democratic primary, the Democratic Party will step up and make sure he gets all the support he needs to win this swing district from vulnerable Republican Tim Johnson, right? Sure... and Steny Hoyer and Steve Israel will deliver that help on the back of a white unicorn. Wednesday Israel couldn't wait to add all the Illinois corporate shills the Machine had delivered to the DCCC's Red to Blue program. Every winning Democrat was added but one-- David Gill, the one progressive, the one anti-corruption candidate, the one candidate insisting on single-payer and insisting on thinking for himself instead of parroting the Beltway Democrats' claptrap. If we're going to get a Prairie State progressive into Congress this time, we won't be counting on DC Dems. This is something progressives and reform-minded citizens will have to step up to the plate for.

You don't have to settle for a corporate-owned Blue Dog. Find your liberals and progressives, and help them win.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Love Me, I'm A Liberal"

Yes, children, once upon a time - not so long ago - people were proud to call themselves liberals, although their actual actions did not always reflect actual liberal values.

We have the same problem today, although because of the movement of the Overton window a few light-years to the right only true liberals call ourselves that. The liars call themselves Democrats and we call them conservadems, Blue Dogs and DINOs.

In office, they vote with repugs, and out of office they vote for repugs. Either way, they are not Democrats, much less liberals, and must be exposed and rejected.

Uploaded by passingremark on Feb 20, 2011:

İ cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal