This just came in from the Red State Strike Force email list.
Dear XXXX:
We need to get the Blue Dog Democrats to slow down budget approval in the House of Representatives. The vote in committee is tonight.
STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
PICK UP THE PHONE.
CALL 202-224-3121.
Ask for Rep. John Yarmuth’s Office.
Please ask Congressman John Yarmuth to vote no on the budget tonight. We can stop the budget if you will pick up your phone right now. The vote is tonight.
Sincerely yours,
Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com
Update: I seem to have gotten an email about Yarmuth because one of my Red State Strike Force personae lives in Louisville.
norbizness
Wow, it’s like there are two Redstates on the internets these days.
Punchy
Cuz I’m about to ruin
The image and style that you’re used to
Zifnab
Hammer time?
Joshua Norton
Unless you’re from the Congress critter’s district, you might be talking to a brick wall. They don’t give a rat’s ass what you have to say.
ImJohnGalt
Hammer Time? C’mon. Humpty!
TenguPhule
Why does Redstate hate having a running government?
Punchy
/shakes head in frustrated disgust
bayville
In other words, turn off the Limbaugh show.
MikeJ
If they keep going they’ll be down to two red states in the US.
Ricky Bobby
PUNCHY WINS TEH INTERWEBZ!
Seriously though, WTF are these Blue Dogs doing? I have a lot of sympathy for their platform overall, but there is a world of difference between being for a balanced budget and not understanding basic macroeconomics.
They are acting like dummies.
Dobby
This Red State e-mail must be a fake. Because Republicans would never hold up a budget that had any kind of defense spending attached to it. That would be abandoning our troops. Or voting against the war after voting for it.
Jon H
"Unless you’re from the Congress critter’s district, you might be talking to a brick wall. They don’t give a rat’s ass what you have to say"
These are blue dogs they’re talking about. Their greatest fear is that a Republican might think poorly of them.
TenguPhule
Long past time they were neutered and properly trained then.
ImJohnGalt
Punchy,
"Forgive them father for They know not what they do."
(Beware the false motives of others Be careful of those who pretend to be brothers And you never suppose it’s those who are closest to you, to you)
kommrade reproductive vigor
Stay on hold forever and ever because Supreme High General Erickson was too fucking lazy to look up the number for Yarmuth’s office.
Strike Farce!
Scoby
I had forgotten all about the Humpty Dance until a couple of weeks ago when I realized that Michael Steele looks uncannily like Humpty. Also, by extension, like MC Hammer on crack…
Joel
Stop what you’re doing
Cause I’m about to ruin
The image and the style that you’re used to
oz
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8yCQsJfpb24&refer=home#
Barack is using Volcker and his crew to tackle the tax code. Do you get the feeling that barack is kinda taking away talking points from the right. Notice how they are relatively silent on National security and their arguments now are he has too many ideas and his teleprompter is everywhere.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Stay on hold forever and ever because Supreme High General Erickson was too lazy to look up the number for Yarmuth’s office.
Keith
Here’s a free tip to the Strike Force on how to convince the Blue Doggers to vote your way: Insult them!
Graeme
Yarmuth is considered a blue dog? I’m from Louisville, and I used to read his columns in the Louisville Eccentric Observer. I beg to differ with Red State over the blue dog label.
Really, when he finds out about this, he’ll probably vote yes just to spite Eric and his Red State ‘Super’friends. I think he’s fairly safe in Louisville, though I live in SF and can’t say that with real certainty off the cuff. I may have to take an informal poll of Louisville friends on facebook and see what they think…
Lev
Umm…are they going to do this fifty times, for each Blue Dog? The Dems have about a 70 seat majority…it’s not going to work.
And WTF? John Yarmuth isn’t a Blue Dog, he’s a mainstream Dem.
Is it possible that "Erick Erickson" is actually just a mentally challenged 8 year old whose make a wish dream was to be a right-wing scumbag/idiot?
someguy
Now that the seats (and the nation) have turned Dem, time to drive the blue dogs out to the dog house where they belong and put some proud, unashamed liberals in those seats. Isn’t MoveOn or somebody running a campaign to come up with primary opponents to get these Republicans-in-sheep’s-clothing sent home? I can’t believe these bastards would get in the way of the President’s budget at a time like this. Guess they didn’t get the memo last night.
Will
John Yarmuth is as much a Blue Dog as I am the Tooth Fairy. He’s a liberal congressman of the most liberal part of the state, Louisville. Anyone who ever read his old paper the Leo already knows this. He campaigned for office on an anti-war platform, for God’s sake. These guys are complete idiots.
Joel
@Joel:
I tried to edit this out, but couldn’t. Anyhow, it appears that I’m not the only one who thought of Digital Underground. See, the GOP is reaching out to the hip-hop audience!
TenguPhule
In other news, we need a new rule. No fucking bailouts for you if you haven’t paid any income taxes.
HT Crooks and Liars.
Thlayli
Just let me introduce myself
kindness
I called his office. I asked if they knew RedState sent out an e-mail asking folks to press the Congressman to vote no on the budget bill. The very nice woman who answered said that "No, I didn’t know that. Maybe that explains the increase in our call volume." I went on to ask that the Congressman vote yes on the budget bill.
DFH’s will be DFH’s after all.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Because that’s unpatriotic. And we all know how much the chickenhawks at redstate love ‘murka.
CapMidnight
"I once passed a budget in a Burger King bathroom"
MikeJ
To be fair (although I have no idea why), Son of Erik did mention a committee vote, not a floor vote. I doubt it will work, but committees are certainly the place to go to get things killed or favourably altered.
John Cole
My email had five names:
1. Alan Boyd of Florida
2. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina
3. Charlie Melancon of Louisiana
4. Chet Edwards of Texas
5. John Yarmuth of Kentucky
Comrade Dread
How many of the elite strike force will be thwarted because their fingers are too fat to dial a phone?
Truly proof that AT&T is in league with Imam Obama.
Corner Stone
@ricky bobby
So you’re a Republican then?
JenJen
Is this the part where, like internet board commenters, the writer insists he’s a lifelong Democrat and of course voted for Obama, but is now realizing he is a SOSHELIST and is KILLING AMERICA AND MUST BE STOPPED AND I HAD NO IDEA?
They’re not a very convincing bunch when you read their crap online, and doubt they’ll be any better when spoofing Blue Dogs.
NonyNony
@kindness:
@John Cole:
If there’s anyone here living in the districts of the other four folks on this list, a polite call to their office explaining that they’re getting hammered with calls because the right-wing website RedState is trying to push them into block the budget bill would be appreciated.
The folks answering the phones really have very little way of knowing whether the person on the other end really is a constituent or not, so they may be thinking that they’re getting a lot of outrage from their district over the budget when in reality they’re getting a few dozen calls from people all over the US.
Ned R.
Okay the idea of Erick Erickson as Humpty is going to keep me entertained all day.
He likes his lamesauce lumpy…
Joshua Norton
What’s even funnier is seeing them try to use Twitter from a rotary phone.
Joshua Norton
That’s one of the first questions out of their mouths. They want to know exactly who you are and where you live. They’re not like the Butterball Turkey Hotline who will listen to anyone who can pick up a phone. They may listen for a bit, but if you’re not one of their possible voters, your rant goes into the trash can – if they write anything down at all, that is.
JL
Erick is from Macon, GA. If he were truly concerned about budgets, he would be in down town Atlanta meeting with the state congress. He’s a joke!
binzinerator
@CapMidnight:
Jesus that must’ve hurt.
big woo
Yes Erick, you instill fear with your angry little confab of white shoe lawyers, chickenhawks and religious kooks.
That just might get the Blue Dogs to bite.
kindness
binzinerator @ #39:
I assumed he was using the Larry Craig lobbying method….You know, put your mouth where your money is…or something along those lines.
Greg
I am from Louisville. I worked for the LEO Weekly. I was very active in local politics.I have met John Yarmuth many times. I voted for him. I would be surprised if he has any idea who Erick of Redstate is, and would be even more surprised if he cared.
DougJ
@John Cole
I think this came to the email address that I registered with them under a fictitious name in Louisville.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I’ll see your budget and raise you a piece of pie.
Cerberus
You know, this is why I don’t really listen to any of the whining about "one-party rule" and oh no, the democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority.
The democrats have always been their own worst enemy and contain at least three different parties in and of themselves. If we had one-party Democratic rule in this country, it’d either immediately split back into two new parties or the Democrats would fight amongst themselves in every way indistinguishable from genuine two-party debate.
Don’t worry the conservatives will still get their voice. The Blue Dogs will insure it over and over and over.
John Cole
I am fine with what the blue dogs are doing for now. Part of being a big tent majority party is having actual internal debates about policy and fighting for what you believe in.
And you know what? It should be hard as hell to spend a couple trillion dollars.
Lola
John Cole should be happier: Dr. Doom endorses Geithner plan.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/25/2009-03-25_give_credit_to_timothy_geithners_new_tox.html
Punchy
Chirst in a sawmill, why all the hating on the turkey hotline?
Which makes me think– is there a Butterbean Hotline? For washed up fatasses who need boxing advice?
NonyNony
@Joshua Norton:
Sure, and if you say "I live in Louisville and Rep. Yarmouth is my Representative" they don’t really have a way of telling that you’re lying out your ass. Especially if you’re acting all pissy and indignant anyway – they try not to alienate voters over the phone if they can help it. I’ve called my Congressperson’s office a few times in the past and they never drill down into "no, really, who the fuck are you" territory. Probably because they don’t get many spoof callers to their office very often, or they don’t think anyone would bother. They ask what town I live in and when I say "Columbus" they don’t probe further. I’ve never gotten a "what part" or "what’s your voting district" or even "what’s your zip code" from the staffer on the other end.
Without knowing that a call to spam the phone lines has been sent out, they don’t even know to be on guard for people pretending to be from their district.
Zifnab
@Cerberus:
Because of the way the party system elects leadership and the way primaries are conducted, it is a concern. In order to "be a Democrat" or "be a Republican" you basically need to vote for party leadership, and the party leadership then determines who maintains which positions on committees. Committees are powerful things. So a one-party US Congress can be very effectively whipped by a Speaker or a Majority Leader.
But then it becomes incredibly tempting to just fill in for the corpse of the other party. I mean, take a look at the GOP. They stepped neatly into the shoes of the defunct Whig party and proceeded to take the Presidency under Lincoln. Because, at a certain point, you just feel the need to vote for "the other guy" no matter how bad he is. See Jefferson v Cao in Louisiana.
Joshua Norton
Must be a California thing then, because our reps offices always ask those questions. Of course you can do research ahead of time and get a fake name and town and zip code info, but they all use caller id now.
geg6
Gotta agree with Joshua Norton. Any PA rep calls I’ve made, they ask questions about where you’re from and they definitely have caller ID.
sgwhiteinfla
Hey DougJ
I figured you might want to know that hell has frozen over at Swampland. Earlier today Joe Klein actually responded in comments. And just a little while ago he totally refuted one of Scherer’s idiotic wingnut posts with a post of his own. Times might be a changing so to speak.
Joshua Norton
I do agree that warning them is a good idea. If even if just by sending them a copy of the email.
jibeaux
Somewhere lurking on the internets is a very simple, very funny line graph in which the Y axis represents your coolness and the X axis represents your business in Burger King bathrooms, and the highest point on the coolness axis corresponds with "one", because that means you’re Humpty, and it deteriorates rapidly from there.
I can’t find it, but maybe you can picture it.
Tomorrow I will describe some lolcats.
Ricky Bobby
@Corner Stone
Assemble the circular firing squad post haste!
@John Cole
Exactly right, EXCEPT… I happen to believe in the Keynesian theory that the government needs to spend like mad domestically to increase demand and stave off drastic unemployment. Modern fiscal conservatives (aka Hooverites) believe the opposite, that shrinking spending and watching private sector jobs evaporate is the right way to go about things.
Fact is what works for my personal finances doesn’t work for the government.
NonyNony
@Joshua Norton:
Caller ID means diddly squat these days, what with cell phones that let you keep your phone number no matter where you move and voice-over-ip internet phone services. And the ability to block caller id, of course.
And I’m glad to hear that some offices do that kind of information checking, so now I’m falling back to my secondary assumption that the Representative I’ve been calling for the last few years (Deb Pryce – who just got ousted thankfully) has been pretending to take my concerns and then just circular filing it afterwards.
schrodinger's cat
What are blue dogs? are they like corn dogs made out of blue corn?
Zifnab
@Ricky Bobby:
Unpossible. That’s why you will never be a super smart policy wonk. It’s a well-known fact that all budgets work the same in all instances.
Next you’ll be arguing that when the government is flush with cash it shouldn’t issue massive tax cuts but, instead, stockpile the money for a rainy day.
TenguPhule
And that regulation is not the Anti-Christ of Prosperity as promised by the Chosen Reagan.
The Moar You Know
@Ricky Bobby: Sure it does. I print more money when I run out, for example.
Now I’ve got to go see who the hell is pounding on my door.
Ricky Bobby
@Zifnab
Thank god for that.
Miriam
Well, I just called and urged a yes vote.
PanAmerican
Yarmuth? His district went like 55% for Obama. Survey USA has Obama at 56/38 job approval in Kentucky.
Plus Yarmuth isn’t a bluedog.
someguy
Agreed. The real problem is they aren’t spending anywhere near enough, anywhere near fast enough, to turn this sinking ship around and beach it, much less keep it afloat.
The Populist
And if I was John Yarmuth I’d be telling my staff to send all calls to voicemail.
Fuck Erick and his evil little minions. You guys cannot come up with a better idea then take Rush’s advice to dems a few years back and SHUT THE HELL UP.
Corner Stone
@ricky bobby
Not at all. I’m not saying if you’re a believer in a broad interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (as I am for an example), or are ferverently Anti-Choice, that you have no place in the Democratic Party.
However, ISTM that every time a bluedog is mentioned it’s because they’re sabotaging the Democratic Party. Their platform is Republican-Lite.
The Populist
Yet here we are watching a President listening to the opposition when he should be telling them to either put up or shut up.
I go to many sites and I tire of this populist rightie thinking that we are spending too much. How’s that? Maybe we should stop and let the economy fail. Not only would Osama Bin Laden be claiming victory (that’s right a-hole righties) but the very people who blindly listen to this nonsense and run with rightie talking points will suffer.
The government HAS TO STEP IN and pick up the economic slack. If these people who are whining about Obama’s budgets had any brains they’d be more mad at GW Bush for getting us as high as we are now!
The Populist
ANd unfortunately the idiot voters in these purple areas of the country put them in because they can’t convince themselves to vote for a more liberal candidate.
They are mad at the far right so they see a "dem" who would more or less be a Goldwater/Eisenhower Republican in years past.
Brick Oven Bill
I hereby offer to trade Erick Erickson for Senator Webb. I will additionally trade Sean Hannity for Senator Tester.
TenguPhule
For that price all you’re getting is some of their nose hairs.
geg6
BOB, there’s no one I’d trade for either of them, especially Webb. That’s one your side lost. Live with it. They don’t want your kind.
Wayne T
What’s up with the name in his signature???
Is "Wood" his middle name or is his first name really Erickwood??
classic….
cosanostradamus
.
Blue dawgs are red ho’s. There’s
pictures.
.