Democrats
mikethemadbiologist | December 31, 2009Add this to the list of symptoms of post-partisanship depression. Do you remember Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who was originally nominated by Obama as Secretary of Commerce because he was viewed as a moderate? Well, 'moderate' Gregg (did I mention that he almost joined the Obama Administration were it not for opposition from we Dirty Fucking Hippies?) has this to say about recent legislation:
American government changed last night. "We are now functioning under a parliamentary form of government," says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) in a conversation with NRO. "An ideological supermajority in…
mikethemadbiologist | December 26, 2009Assuming that the House progressives fold, and the healthcare reform legislation resembles the Senate's (and why wouldn't one assumes this), let's not mistake what this is: a victory for conservatives. As I've argued before, this legislation is better than no legislation (probably), and, at this point, we should take what's possible.
But we never should have reached this point. While I agree with Amanda Marcotte about the legislation (pass what you can), I'm far less sanguine about what this means. Amanda (italics mine):
If we want better legislation, we need better politicians. And if…
mikethemadbiologist | December 16, 2009Recently, I argued that the Democrats need to start really going after the Blue Dogs by cutting funding to their states, including Nebraska's USSTRATCOM. According to the Weekly Standard (take it for what it's worth), this is finally happening:
According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line.
Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a "naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson's…
mikethemadbiologist | December 16, 2009Matthew Yglesias fires off a screed against Democrats who have told pollsters that they are unlikely to vote for Democratic congressional candidates in 2010 (I think Amanda's response sums up my thoughts rather well: people have to like this stuff, or surprisingly, they might not take the time to vote--or want to make the emotional investment in supporting you). Yglesias and others primarily pin the blame on the Blue Douchebags in the Senate. Yes, the Senate is dysfunctional. But to pin this all on Nelson, Bayh, Lieberman and the rest of the Asshole Caucus is overstating the case.
Ezra…
mikethemadbiologist | December 8, 2009...Martha Coakley. Although it's close. If I had my druthers (and druthers are hard to come by, what with the economy and all), I would rank the Dems as follows:
1) Khazei
2) Coakley
3) Capuano
While I like Khazei the best, despite some high profile endorsements, he's not going to win (note: I don't want to get into the whole 'pragmatism' thing; the issue is how does your vote get you closest to where you want to be). So for me, it's between Coakley and Capuano.
Capuano has a lot going for him: he is a reliable liberal vote, and he's very good at securing local funding (people seem to…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2009...might just be too stupid to realize it. A reader sent me a story guaranteed to piss me off. And it worked! Senator Ben Nelson, in all his intellectual glory:
In lieu of a "war tax" to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) is proposing war bonds.
"We didn't have a war tax in the second World War," Nelson said, and instead the government sold Americans bonds."People invested in their country, in that fashion [and] made a lot of sense back then. I don't know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to tax."
A sitting senator can't…
mikethemadbiologist | December 2, 2009...at least by the Blue Dog Democrats. Digby, in discussing the history of the demobilization of the Democratic rank-and-file, observes (boldface mine; italics original):
Clinton was pretty good at speaking in several layers of code, but he had terrible problems in 1994, even though he delivered the economic plan he promised. And that's because that economic plan was based on the abstraction of reducing the deficit which is a conservative talking point --- even if not one Republican voted for it. He failed to get health care, of course, and passed NAFTA, another Republican initiative. (There…
mikethemadbiologist | November 30, 2009File this under "Democrats are the stupidest political party in recorded history." A recent poll asked, "In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?" The answer:
This isn't just the 'liberal' base: the entire party has been demobilized. Only 56 percent of Democrats are likely to vote, versus 81 percent of Republicans. And now, some Democrats are talking about cutting Social Security benefits, even though there is no crisis. That's not going to rally the Democratic rank-and-file.
Democrats, and Democratic-…
mikethemadbiologist | November 22, 2009...because that's your job. TPM reports the following whine from an anonymous Senate Democratic chief-of-staff:
However, I believe it's worth reminding folks that--as long as the Republican Senators hold together--we have to hold EVERY single Democratic Senator, including folks like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, which is usually impossible unless the legislation in question gets substantially watered down.
So, what we might end up with is a Senate Democratic Caucus that holds 98% of its members but still fails to pass healthcare reform, AND a mob of angry progressives who are screaming for…
mikethemadbiologist | November 19, 2009At TPM, Josh Marshall asks an "obvious" 'framing' question about the ARRA:
Why was the Stimulus Bill called the 'stimulus bill' and not a 'jobs bill'?
To which Atrios responds with a "Pretty Obvious Answer":
Because for whatever reason, economist lingo is what people in the Obama administration are comfortable with.
I actually don't think that has much to do with it at all. I can't be certain, but someone in the Hopey Changey administration must have thought of calling the stimulus bill a "jobs bill" (if nobody did, then these guys are a lot dumber than most people think they are). They…
mikethemadbiologist | November 13, 2009If you haven't heard by now, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds got clobbered by the Republican candidate. One of the things that hurt him was the poor turnout by independents and Democrats compared to the 2008 presidential election. And why did they stay home?
Consider the answers to these three questions posed to VA Democrats who voted for Obama, but not for Deeds:
And:
And:
If the Democrats don't stop acting like Republican-lite, like Herbert Hoover (although that's an unfair comparison to Hoover, who, while ideologically hidebound, had saved millions of lives from famine…
mikethemadbiologist | November 8, 2009
(from here)
Needless to say, I'm disgusted by the amendment introduced by Democratic Congressvermin Bart Stupak which would effectively make most abortions not covered by health insurance, even though many are now. Given the tremendous numbers of women who have had an abortion, it's not like he's going to put a dent in the 'problem'--women will still become pregnant, still want to become unpregnant, and still have abortions. It's just some will have to go into debt. So I suggest, if you can afford it, hopping on over to Planet Parenthood, and making a donation in honor of Bart Stupak (…
mikethemadbiologist | November 4, 2009Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah doesn't want Democrats to pass a successful healthcare bill because then people might think Democrats do helpful stuff. Then people would vote for Democrats. Then...TEH SOCIALISMZ!!:
The healthcare reform proposals before Congress threaten the existence of the two-party system, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) alleged Monday morning.
Hatch asserted that the health bills, which he believes represent a "step-by-step approach to socialized medicine," will lead to Americans' dependence on Democrats for their health and other issues.
"And if they get there, of…
mikethemadbiologist | October 27, 2009I like this ad, because it makes a point I've made before: rank-and-file Democrats did what we had to do in 2008, now it's the elected Democrats turn to do so. And yes, rank and file Democrats: the public option is so popular among Democrats, corporate propaganda notwithstanding, this is not coming from the 'liberal base' (not that there's anything wrong with the liberal base).
Anyway, from the Great State of Maine:
mikethemadbiologist | October 19, 2009Bill Maher notwithstanding, a recent Pew survey shows that Democrats are far more willing to get a swine flu vaccination than either independents or Republicans:
For every four Democrats willing to get the vaccine, only three Republicans and independents are willing to do so. While I'm tempted to say something snarky, if this political divide holds up, this actually has serious repercussions for the spread of TEH SWINEY FLOO!!.
At both the state and local levels, there are often sharp skews in party affiliation. I've spot checked some county registration data for localities and it's worse…
mikethemadbiologist | September 27, 2009...it takes a lot of money to buy his vote. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million, give or take:
Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross -- a Blue Dog Democrat playing a key role in the health care debate -- sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment and an independent appraisal say it was worth.
The buyer: an Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with a keen interest in how the debate plays out.
Ross sold Holly's Health Mart in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 -- an eye-popping price for real estate in a tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles…
mikethemadbiologist | September 10, 2009Needless to say, I'm not happy with Obama's healthcare proposal. Before I get into this, I want to make something clear: my opposition is due to experience, not ideology. If it appeared (or better, if there were evidence) that putting on a pink mumu, whirling a rubber chicken around our heads, and singing the Star Spangled Banner would make a good healthcare system, then rubber chickens, mumus, and singing lessons all around.
But what Obama proposed is what we're living through in Massachusetts. And it's, at best, a modest improvement--it's more 'chang-iness' than significant change.…
mikethemadbiologist | September 9, 2009One problem with the Blue Dog Democrats is that they're corrupt, venial, and cowardly. Sadly, there's not much to be done about that. Another problem, and usually much less noticed, is that many of them are dumber than a fucking sack of hammers, with a good dash of ignorance to boot. Certainly, they have never heard of viral marketing. More about that in a bit.
When thinking about reelection, most Blue Dogs still seem to be focused on traditional fundraising, although a couple probably realize that they could get some money through the intertubes. Let's not be naive about the role of…
mikethemadbiologist | September 2, 2009Stupidly, Democrats have never pushed back against the idea that a hard-line deficit reduction hawk is a 'moderate', which I think might be what leads an astute political observer like Steve Benen to describe Senator (D-ND) Kent Conrad as a "moderate." To me, a moderate is someone who attempts to synthesize and find the balance among several objectives that may contradict with each other: while I think limiting the stimulus package was stupid fiscal policy, arguably that's a 'moderate' policy, in that there is an attempt to balance out different concerns (of course, if moderation becomes…
mikethemadbiologist | August 31, 2009To set the context, in 2007, the Republicans in the Senate were using all sorts of parliamentary maneuvers to prevent a bill from reaching the floor for a vote--the bill raised the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour (TEH SOCIALISMZ!!). It gets really good around 4:00.
Of course, I'm sure there are GOPniks who will claim that "Teddy didn't want" a livable wage...