If that takes the Democrats and 20 Republicans to do it.

Boehner is in a world of hurt right now. His only path to remaining in control of the House is to work with Democrats because Cantor has cut his legs out from under him.

To, 1, make it look less like a GOP takeover and
2, to give Boehner room to negotiate in apparent good faith.

. . . and they better start talking fast.

What possible justification do they have for voting the way they did? Or were they too stupid to understand what they did?

Sounds like a slippery slope.

who was shot in the head.

knew how easy that was. And I won't be kicking this thread further. A fucking nutbag shot her as easily could have been you or me. Oh, and I don't like her husband either. Just a personal preference. Something about them doesn't quite work for me. I am sorry for what they will be going through the rest of their lives because of gun lovers. They are gun lovers.

He's a DINO.

As noted in the comments to the Kos article, the vote on the bill was:

...and that the fault lies at the feet of BOTH parties.

I think many votes are orchestrated/staged. Who votes for what--is often controlled by those who want certain outcomes.

they're accomplishing with a Gov Shutdown and all that has done to Americans and our Country.

Fuck them..jeeze.. one is from my old District in NY.

liars that lied till they were needed.

the lowest of the low.

What they did was just so unnecessary and stupid. I don't get it.

Gabby Giffords guy.

Even kooky Jan Brewer is against defunding Obamacare.

Yet these clowns decided to side with Republicans?

would continue to stay on duty ....

Stay on duty? For what? For what the fuck, what? (Is that even a sentence?)
To guard the fucking empire!!
Bring them home and put them to work doing something useful, like...oh, repairing the infrastructure, inspecting beef, monitoring high school exams, fighting forest fires, arresting teabaggers gone wild, answering Time Warner customer service calls... the list is endless.

Thankyouverymuch for the horrifying image of scantily clad intoxicated Teaturds protesting against the evil government.

He's such a douche. He does this kind of thing to his own party just about every time something important comes up.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

even if we don't live in their districts. I'm calling every one of them tomorrow since my land phone registers "Restricted" on the receiving end. No give-away area code.

they sure as hell aren' t Democrats. Utah actually allow Democrats on the ballot? They are Repukes and perhaps ran as Democrats to because their districts were in blue areas. But Utah? didn't think they even allowed Democrats into the state.
....The NY guy Mahoney? cant believe he voted against a clean bill so there must be some Tea Party type money making its way to his campaign accounts.

baka! doji! Manuke!! ばか！ どじ！ まぬけ！

Very stupid indeed.

あいつらは頭がぼけてしまった。

Kokoro no naka de, karera wa mina no tame ni waruidesu. In my mind, they are bad for everyone!

He's useless

Just go ahead and switch parties so our campaign contributions can go to a real Dem. I hope you won't have the nerve to solicit from me ever again.

Last edited Mon Oct 14, 2013, 07:07 PM - Edit history (1)

We are being played by corporatists in both parties. Again.

These are not rogues. They are the designated villains for this round. This is the same con our own corporate-purchased party plays on us, over and over again.

These 7 did not need to vote for the rules change--it already had 221 GOP votes and only 217 were needed to pass it. Under GG's theory, the 7 should have voted no and let the GOP be the villain, while they laid low until their votes were actually needed, THEN they would rotate in as the villain.

In fact, it looks pretty much like a textbook example.

Democrats voted to betray the interests of the 99 percent and continue a corporate con in what was a very close vote. No, they're not stupid or transparent enough to have every single betrayal occur by a margin of exactly one vote, and, yes, probably a small margin of error is figured in at times when exact totals cannot be ensured. At any rate, here we have the predictable outcome once again; the infestation of corporate Democrats in our party contributes, predictably, to the predatory direction of policy.

It's the same old game, over and over again.

GG's theory, per the article you cite, is that DINOs vote with the progressive Dems when there is no way the legislation will pass (single payer), but against them when their vote would get the progressive legislation passed (public option). In other words, they only reveal their betrayal when they have to, when their vote is necessary to block progressive legislation. The 7's vote here meant nothing towards the passage of the rule change. It would have passed easily without them. All it did was confirm them to be the DINOs many people already knew them to be.

Yes, there are Blue Dog Dems, but their numbers have dwindled since 2010. Other than these 7, I'm pretty proud of the House Dems for standing firm in this hostage situation. Chris Von Hollen is one of my favorite Dems. He really is there to protect the 99%. As is every Dem in the progressive caucus; they are not there playing the "same old game" as the Republicans.

you will continue to argue this point until everyone else gives up from exhaustion. You will argue relentlessly, because any overt statement of the obvious, coordinated control of this party by corporatist Dems cannot be permitted to stand in the current climate of 24/7 propaganda and messaging.

You will do this even though history and simple observation render your conclusions absurd. We are to accept that the now-predictable votes of Democrats to enable corporate hijacking of government are evidence that the Party really opposes corporate hijacking of government....just as in other threads we are solemnly lectured that Obama's offering up Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block proves that he opposes cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

War is Peace, and the chocolate ration has been increased, and they are working on an even bigger increase for all of us.

You will create and fixate on absurd distractions like suggesting that 2-3 spare GOP votes would be "close," but "4-5" certainly wouldn't be, ignoring entirely the larger point, which is that each and every important vote like this is predictable as the sunrise when it comes to its ultimate outcome: The Party makes sure of it.

Houston, we have a problem.

No time right now.

Most of the links bitch about Blue Dogs in the Senate, some of whom are not there now (some of these are old links). Others bitch about how many in the House Progressive caucus would not sign on to a letter designed to embarrass President Obama. A couple of the links noted that a small minority of the members of the House Progressive Caucus voted in favor of certain amendments to Dodd-Frank financial regulation legislation (not news, House Dems don't vote in lock step). The rest are blog posts with no support, accusing the Dems of being the same as the GOP, this little fact-free gem saying "there is virtually no difference between democrats and republicans" being a representative sample:
Oh well the American people just a got a bipartisan fucking.......
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022115254

What none of them discuss, let alone support, is the poster's assertion that the House Progressive Caucus votes with the GOP in "each and every important vote."

Last I checked, the House Progressive Caucus voted for the ACA, the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare. If GG's theory was true, they would have joined the GOP in the House and voted no on the ACA.

Last edited Tue Oct 15, 2013, 09:48 PM - Edit history (7)

but illustrative of the corporate propaganda that is now ubiquitous on this site.

You chose to ignore the most relevant information in that thread expressing the rage of DU at another "bargain" that overwhelmingly favors the rich. Look at the numbers:

My reply was accurate. I did not "mock" GG, I pointed out his theory--and your assertions --were wrong.

I genuinely was trying to figure out why these 7 would vote this way. I received some insightful answers by others on the thread, namely that these 7 were in vulnerable red/purple districts. They feared a challenge from the right at home and Pelosi probably released them to vote this way since the measure was going to pass regardless. The problem with vulnerable Dems is that if they vote with progressives, the progressives among us do not reward them with campaign contributions the way the Tea Party GOP rewards their favorites like Cruz. Cruz raked in $1M in the last month.

I am not your enemy. I agree we need to get corporate money out of politics. It should be illegal for corporations to make political donations. They are not people.

But until we get a Dem House majority back and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, you can forget campaign finance reform.

We need to stand together against the GOP. The GOP is the enemy, not Dems. We need to make sure every American understands that. This is the GOP's shutdown. When you say stuff like...

There is always an excuse. Usually it is a lesser of two evils con. Sometimes it is problems with redistricting. It's interesting that Virginia was gerrymandered while a Democrat who could have prevented its passage was absent from Washington. Things like that sure seem to happen a lot. And Harry Reid couldn't seem to rally Democrats to change the filibuster rules, either.

The propaganda will always try to make the arguments personal, too. It is always about "anger" or "enemies" or the sin of questioning the motives of a Democrat. We are never to notice or seriously consider the effects of the tsunami of corporate money flooding Washington and our Party, and we are never to look at the PATTERN.

Like in Groundhog Day, we're expected to retain no memory or awareness of the relentless, horrifying pattern of betrayals unfolding before us, day after day after day after day after day, the unslowed eating of the poor by the rich through policy. Each betrayal is presented as an aberration, a "special circumstance," or perhaps gazillion-dimensional chess on our behalf, that we couldn't possibly understand.

We are merely to smile and treat each one, again and again and again, as merely an aberration. We are to drift from betrayal to betrayal in hypnotic belief that our corporate Democrats share the same heartfelt principles and policy goals we do...even though their actions repeatedly, relentlessly pursue the opposite.

And even though the flood of corporate money they receive explains why.

It takes strenuous, almost superhuman effort to deny the obvious problem here, but that is what the propaganda does. You have no response to my extensive lists of betrayals by Democrats. You simply ignore them and divert.

And we are urged to circle the wagons and deny the real problem again.

Even Manchin pulled back his initial suggestion that would should delay the ACA to appease the GOP. Considering that Dems, unlike the GOP, do not vote in lock step, the unity has been stronger than I have seen in over 40 years. Regarding your "list of betrayals by Democrats," I did address it, albeit to someone else in the thread, which it appears you have read, so I am not sure what you are talking about.

I am very proud of my party right now. To see Dems so united is thrilling. I feel sorry for you if you don't see that.

Read the links.

Why do you have to make this personal? I was not attacking you, I was just pointing out that GG's theory does not apply here. Abandoning that discussion, you resort to attacking the Dem party and calling me a "corporate Dem." I am not. I am a loyal liberal Democrat. I don’t work for a corporation and never have. I am offended by these 7 as you are, as my Initial post in this thread demonstrates.

I am genuinely trying to figure out what these 7 idiots were thinking, like others on this thread. GG's theory does not explain it and is inapplicable. Indeed, Libertarians are notoriously bad at explaining the real world.

is a "personal attack" is particularly ironic when the posts themselves clearly illustrate the diversions, distortions, and dismissals I describe.

And the ironic cherry on top is the use of smear ("GG" is a Libertarian!&quot , again, to attempt to divert from history, reality, and the main point here of corporate influence driving policy in both parties now.

GG's analysis of Dems is wrong here and pointing that fact out does not warrant name calling by you.

I have yet to come across any political or economic theory Libertarians have espoused that is correct. That is not mocking. That is an observation that I imagine most on this Board agree with. That is because most here, including me, are progressive Dems and this is Democratic Underground, not Libertarian Underground or Third Party Underground.

...because it was becoming horrendously apparent that the Republicans were being solely blamed for the
government shut down. Someone needed to throw in a bit of Democratic blame.

So, when this is all said and done--there will be a soundbyte thrown in "Oh yeah! Well, seven Democrats voted against a clean CR bill. This cannot be ALL blamed on the Republcians!"

There will be other glimmers of Democratic blame. Those glimmers will be packaged into talking points and spouted off repeatedly by right wing radio, and also on the MSM by reporters reading on script.

And not because these 7 themselves are conservative assholes whose political ideology is indistinguishable from Republicans?

and have constituents to answer to.

And since their votes wouldn't change the outcome, Pelosi released them to vote against the party's preference.

I didn't know they all came from red districts, but it should have been obvious by their actions.

On edit:

Isn't Barber's AZ district blue? That's Gabby Giffords' old district. WTF was Barber thinking?

Tucson is blue, but there's a lot of rural Southeast Arizona in that district too - the racist ranchers who shoot undocumented immigrants crossing their lands. Minutemen types.
Gabby was a moderate who won over an arch conservative running to replace a gay Republican disgraced in a sex scandal And she barely won reelection in 2010. Barber barely won as well, with a libertarian or independent (don't remember which) splitting the Tea Party vote. Arizona's Republican lawmakers passed a law that will pretty much make it impossible for 3rd party candidates to run in 2014, so the numbers don't look as good for Barber in 2014 - assuming the current crisis doesn't nuke the Republican's chance.
Sinema is the same way - she squeaked in by beating a tea partier and a libertarian because the incumbent, Quayle, decided to run in a safe district against another incumbent Republican.
They're covering their asses for the 2014 campaign, as much as I find it distasteful (and have let Sinema know) I understand why they are doing it.

Thank you. We're fucked.

I have to admit I hadn't quite worked the contradictions in my brain.. These two pieces from levvymg and Greenwald makes more clear, what I actually already knew. Just couldn't see the the play by play moves as clearly.

wow.

thanks woo...

Far too often I let appearances stir up my frustrations. Although, of late - and ESPECIALLY with the health insurance subsidizing we got stuck with - I'm growing weary of anyone any less demonstrative than Warren and Grayson. I'd LOVE to know what sort of "directives" the party leaders try to anchor them with - and you KNOW they at least TRY to!

reading your post helps to clear up some of the fuzziness around the edges.

I first started paying close attention to this phenomenon during the game of musical pass-the-buck that Reid, Pelosi, and BO played over the Public Option.

Look, I understand that there are BLUE DOGS, but this is a matter of national security as well. We are fulfilling one of the stated goals of Osama Ben Ladin: to wreck our economy so bad we lose everything.

And sorry, but the fact two of these idiots are from NEW YORK is disgusting..Coumo and Gillebrand should drag them to Albany, then NYC, to let New Yorkers let them know what they think!

In accordance with the terms of service at DU I am wholeheartedly supporting him for re-election to continue the Democratic party holding onto this vital district. Further, I call on everyone here to continue supporting all Demcratic Party representatives.

What are you trying to do destroy our chances to take the House back?

That (D) is standing for less and less as time goes on. DLC, DINO, 3rd Way, Blue Dog, Stealth,

The Conservative-Underground posters were just telling us a few days ago how important it is to support Conservative Democrats. After all this shut down was cause by liberals. At least that's how they see things in the Conservative "tree"-house.

I don't know what kind of districts these men come from, but chances are Nancy Pelosi released them to vote this way because she knew it wouldn't matter. If not, they can count on repercussions down the road.

And not a lot of facts.

This is how Congress often works.

The "educated" bit is debatable.

Barrow(GA) -Voted against the Affordable Care Act

Matheson (UT) - "“I have voted against the health care bill at every opportunity in the legislative process. Plain and simple"

Mike McIntyre (NC) - Voted against Affordable Care Act

Did Pelosi release them too? Matheson and McIntyre didn't even vote for Pelosi.

When the polls are showing that even half the Republicans oppose the shutdown and only the most extreme right-wing Teabaggers support it it seems inexcusable for any Democrat to get behind it. These seven Democrats have proven they are allies of the Tea Party and they need to be primaried.

I'm sure its CYA with voters so he can't get pegged as voting to shut down the gov't but wasn't responsible for costing Dems the vote.
It's annoying living in a swing district, but this is the reality.
Kyrsten Sinema is as liberal as they come, and she's doing it too on these votes - because she won a tight race with a thin margin thanks to a Libertarian spoiler.

if we hadn't lost so many DINO's in red/purple districts in 2010.

are supposed to do what is RIGHT. Nancy Pelosi didn't elect them. This nonsense we've been hearing for so long now, that elected officials don''t have to do what is right, they are supposed to the 'pragmatic thing' is pure garbage and we are now seeing the RESULT of it all.

If Democrats had NOT played these games and instead voted for what is beneficial to the PEOPLE, we would not be here right now.

We heard it each time Dems, just enough of them, voted WITH REPUBLICANS during the Bush years, helping those criminals to get some of the WORST LEGISLATION ever passed which we are still dealing with.

AND we were told 'they had to do it, or the Speaker allowed just enough of them to do it' for what???

And those of us who warned that this was WRONG and would have dire consequences, were told 'you don't understand politics'. I'm happy to say that I DON'T. I don't understand these games, and I especially never understood ANY DEMOCRAT EVER voting for any of Bush's vile policies knowing, as they must, or should have, how harmful they were to this and other countries.

How about we start execting our elected officials to do what is right.

Where did all these political games get us??? Right where we are now as predicted.

How about we try something new, like expecting our elected officials to do what is most beneficial to this country because nothing could be more of a failure than what is called 'politics' could it?

they might have to take positions occasionally that fit with their district more than their party. When it doesn't change the outcome, Pelosi gives the go-ahead. Otherwise, they can get replaced by Rethugs. Is that preferable? How pure do we have to be?

decide who gets elected. No one has any 'right' to get reelected.

How this 'giving them permission' to vote worked for us so far??? I mean for the PEOPLE?

I do NOT want Nancy Pelosi telling MY Rep how to vote. She doesn't representen MY district. She has no interest in the issues that concern my district. That is why THE PEOPLE elect their own Reps.

Democrats elected those people. THAT is who they are responsible to. They betrayed them for political reasons.

How on earth do you think that voting to shut down the government is going to get them reelected??? What kind of strategy is this? Do you really think that Republicans are going to vote for them, and now Dems who DID so before, are they going to do it again?

What horrible strategy this is. People respect those who vote their conscience, even if they don't always agree with them.

This kind of political game-playing is why Congress has a 5% approval rating and I am willing to bet that Nancy Pelosi will regret 'giving them permission' to vote the WRONG WAY on this.

I'm not saying Nancy told them to vote against the Democratic position. I"m saying she released them -- in order to to leave them free to take whatever position would help them in their conservative district, since it would have no effect on getting the vote passed.

She knows, as many here don't, that we need every Democrat we can get in the House and the Senate -- even if some of them don't vote 100% of the time along party lines. Losing a number of DINO's in 2010 to tea party people was what has brought us to this juncture. Anyone who thinks that the solution for red districts would have been to run "real progressives" against tea party candidates has a shaky sense of reality. Ask Dennis Kucinich. He was a real progressive with a fantastic track record till he found himself in a red district running against a tea party person. He didn't have a chance.

Serving the public interests while in office is the end game. You get to be reelected if you do that well. Of course, in our CU world, politicians don't work for us or on behalf of us anymore. They are owned by TPTB. And that's when the endgame becomes to get reelected, because they no longer need to worry about how people will vote when they can just throw money at the elections and every candidate in them. They could care less if it's a Dem or Republican that wins, they still get what they want.

but they increased the chance that a Dem would hold onto a seat in a conservative district.

It's important to make good choices in the present AND to think strategically about the future.

In other words, it's important to have both short term and long term consequences in mind.

Otherwise, when you get sucked into the whole strategy game and trying to outfox everyone you end up playing to not lose instead of playing to win. And I think that's why we don't get Dems who fight for something real, something that the people of this country need, because they are calculating their moves and decide they should do this or that instead of standing up for what is right.

When someone fights for something with passion, because in their heart and soul they know it is the right thing to do, it gets noticed and cannot be ignored.

in the conservative district he ended up in.

He didn't get ignored but he didn't win either -- one more lost vote in the House.

We had the perfect time to do that right after Obama was elected, when this nation was elated and relieved that he won, he could have ridden that tide to a Great New Deal, but all the Dem leaders failed us. Especially Obama. He squandered it away on the Banana Republicans, thinking if he gave them stuff they would work with him. Well today we see exactly where that got us. They have no integrity and it's clear to me now that every move they have made has been an attempt to get an impeachment. I think things would be drastically different now if Obama had really fought for the people and fought against the lunacy instead of enabling it. The problem is that what is also becoming more and more clear to me is that Obama isn't the person I thought he was. I think he is on the side of corporate America. In order for the "passion theory" to work, the person has to have altruistic goals as well, to overcome the adversaries. I'm thinking more of a MLK or Gandhi situation. You truly believe in something and hold strong. But if you sell out or compromise your values... then all bets are off. I understand you have to make some deals here and there, like Sen. Kennedy did, but I don't feel that he sold his soul or even just his position of power out.

we'd lose miserably. Even more miserably than we did in 2010.

And why do you think Dinos lost in 2010? Most progressives WON in that election.

All we know is the so-called strategy of electing people just because they have a 'D' after their names hasn't worked. We did that throughout the Bush years and all we got were MORE people voting for Bush policies.

People should run on ISSUES, and we know that Dem issues are overwhelmingly MORE POPULAR across the board, than Repub issues.

So something has gone very wrong when even when WE WIN, we lose and it's way past time to start rethinking these failed policies.

It isn't because we don't win. We've won over the past six, seven years, then we are told we 'need to compromise' EVEN AFTER WE WIN!

How about when we WIN, we push OUR policies and stop the compromising because it sure hasn't gotten us anything, has it?

If Repubs had the Senate and the WH, what do you think they would be doing?? I can't even imagine them being held hostage this way. Why is that?

As much as I hate it, I live in a conservative district with a liberal representative. She is not voting my views right now, but I bet she is voting the majority of her constituents' views, sadly. So should she represent the party, or the people who live in her district?

Politics in swing states is often ugly. I'll take a blue-dog over a teabagger any day because I have to live with the consequences.
People complain about Representatives not representing the views of their constituents. The sad fact is, a lot of Reps. are. Change the minds of the voters, then you can get liberal Representatives who can stand on principle, knowing their voters have their back and they are representing the majority of their district.

Didn't like him then, don't like him now.

in upcoming elections.

There is no excuse for that shit, period. Boot them the fuck out!

-p

How dare they even call themselves Dems?

It is just freakin' STUNNING to me, how many of those who are supposed to be on our side willingly walk into dead ends and traps.

Posting here so those TOLL FREE Capitol Hill Switchboard numbers, conveniently listed in my sig line below, are here in this thread, too.


DC, TOLL FREE: 866-338-1015, 866-220-0044, 877-662-2889

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) should immediately begin searching for popular Democrats to run against these traitors in next year's primaries.

(It's a strategy that has worked well for the Tea Party)

Immediately begin the search

I like that!


peace to you
kp

He's a blue dog, but this goes a bit far. He's been redistricted into a red district. $3-5 million was spent to beat him last year and he pulled out the win. While he's pretty far to the right for my taste, read this vote as trying to save his seat. NC only has 4 Democrats in Congress since the most recent (and worst ever) case of gerrymandering in a state that's mastered it. Don't be too quick to give this guy the boot. He voted in favor of a resolution that was lost anyway. It's not like his vote mattered one way or the other.

That is exactly the amount of votes Mr. McIntyre won by.

NC is one heck of a weirdly divided state as far as electoral districts go. I agree with you, I think Mr McIntyre is trying to build some "conservative credibility". Besides, if he is challenged in a primary, and someone to the left of him won, they would need to get out the vote in places where they never got out the vote before... and use whatever leverage they can against the Tea Party candidate (because I don't think it's the Republican Party any more).

McIntyre is one of those rare cases where the story about him needing to lean right to keep his seat is true. NC's districts are atrocious, though there's supposedly a plan in the Assembly now to create a non-partisan commission. Even the loony John Locke Foundation is in favor, but it's being held up by Phil Berger in the Senate. Somehow, I suspect Berger is playing bad cop to let everybody else get some good press.

We need better vetting of candidates at the grass-roots level.

Donate to the candidate of your choice and not via the DNC.

These 7 want what? This wasn't even the debt ceiling but just the CR for the budget.

And why give this to Cantor? Not Boehner? Ryan?