I really, really detest blue dogs:
The secret Senate Democratic budget resolution drafted by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and shared with the White House relies heavily on cuts to the Pentagon which would see its budget slashed by more than $800 billion over 10 years, according to sources.
Overall security spending is cut by less than $900 billion in the budget which Senate leadership is still mulling making public.
This compares to $178 billion in security cuts in the House-passed budget resolution, only $78 billion of which is not reinvested in the defense budget. President Obama in his April deficit reduction framework called for $400 billion in security cuts over 12 years.
The plan has been signed off on by budget committee Democrats but some in the full caucus like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said cannot support it because it contains as many tax increases as it does spending cuts. Conrad outlined the plan to President Obama in a meeting on Friday according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Nelson will be one of the first to spout off at the mouth about deficits and debt, but we’re apparently just supposed to wish it away. God forbid we pay it down with tax receipts.
Corner Stone
He’s the best D you’re going to get in NE.
Linda Featheringill
Again I ask: Why are we still listening to Ben Nelson?
But moving along, I read a recap of the Conrad budget blueprint at wapo and am really quite impressed. Is there anything we can do to encourage Washington to seriously consider the suggestions contained?
Corner Stone
Shit, I forgot my #ConventionalWisdom tag and edit time has run out.
“Show me how Bernie Sanders wins in NE! Show me the votes! Show me the arrrrggleebargle mumble mumble!”
cat48
@Linda
How is Mojii?
This is the Budget that was Bernie Sanders approved. I haven’t seen it yet; guess I’ll go to WaPo or his website.
burnspbesq
Sounds like a plan.
Martin
Anything? Sure. But a “Pass this budget or I kill this Republican Congressman” activity would have other consequences.
Bruce S
Nelson doesn’t care about deficits. Conrad is the quintessential Democratic “moderate” as well as a “deficit hawk” (sic) himself – and only beat a Republican by slim margin to get to the Senate from a midwestern state – but the difference is that Conrad isn’t butt stupid and he has some integrity, even if it sometimes takes him places I might not agree with. Nelson is scum – it’s not just that he’s a Blue Dog, but he’s the worst sort of pol. Dumb, self-serving, running scared, soul-less, pandering…
Did I leave anything out?
cbear
That ridiculous hairpiece he wears looks like a dead muskrat?
* Any motherfucker dumb enough to look in the mirror and think that he looks good with that shit is probably not the guy you want making important decisions regarding your future.
Dennis SGMM
@Bruce S
Heartless, soulless, gutless, balless, for-sale, lying, unprincipled…
Glidwrith
Classic case of what John (I think) mentioned downstream: how can we have a strong repeatable message if the moment it goes public someone from OUR OWN TEAM kneecaps it?
burnspbesq
@Dennis SGMM:
Did you even bother to look at Conrad’s plan before you trotted out your same old tired shit?
FlipYrWhig
@ Corner Stone : You do realize that what you said was, in fact, true. He probably is the best Democrat you’re gonna get these days from Nebraska. That doesn’t make him a hero or anything, or any less of a dickbag. That doesn’t mean you have to like him or invest any emotional energy in his reelection. It just means that if you have a “Democratic” “majority” that includes Ben Nelson, you aren’t very close to ProgTopia; and if you have a “Democratic” “majority” that _doesn’t_ include Ben Nelson, you’re even farther away. I don’t see that this is a particularly difficult concept to grasp.
Yutsano
Umm…I think he was talking about Nelson, not Conrad.
Dennis SGMM
@burnbesq
I did. As for tired old shit, I’m a tired old shiot myself so what more can you expect? I suggest that you stop wasting your time replying to me and go on being The Smartest Person in the Room.
Dennis SGMM
@Yutsano
I was, but burny just can’t resist sometimes.
Corner Stone
@Dennis SGMM:
It’s a common failing found in Republicans. Like Burnsy.
Tim in SF
If you don’t like Blue Dogs then never give a cent to the DCCC or the DNC or any other national organization. Give only to individual candidates and give until it hurts.
Linda Featheringill
cat48 #4
Mojii is doing well, thank you. What was once a big gaping wound is now only a thin scar. He is beginning to grow hair back over his “400 dollar haircut.” He has started playing again. And getting in the way again. :-)
[We are still paying off that haircut.]
Citizen Alan
I disagree with this analysis. First of all, if there were a credible threat that disloyal Democrats would lose out on committee assignments and other seniority benefits, Nelson might still be a closeted Republican, but at least he wouldn’t be so brazen about ratfucking us. Second, if Ben Nelson is truly the best we can get in Nebraska, then frankly, we’re better off writing off Nebraska and spending the money that’s currently funneled into the rat-hole of Nelson’s reelection into states that are bluer but currently represented by Republicans. Which reminds me: do we have a top-tier Democrat to run against Olympia Snowe yet? Or are we writing that campaign off because she’s “one of the good ones” or some such nonsense.
cathyx
Besides the D after his name, what makes Ben Nelson a democrat?
FlipYrWhig
@ CA: I disagree with the idea that punishing disloyalty within the caucus would do much: too many Democrats would _relish_ the idea of being branded as the Democrat the official Democratic party loves to hate. Lieberman loved that. Nelson would too. Manchin already is salivating over it.
I think you’re right about funding, but we’re both thinking about it from a standpoint that what we want is progressive Democrats. I don’t think the Democratic muckety-mucks care that much about progressive vs. moderate-to-conservative Dems; they figure they might as well get any shmoe in there with a D after his name and work on nudging him into line later. But we have to remember that there are a lot of Democrats who aren’t progressive and don’t really care very much about the aims of progressives.
My own lost-opportunity hobbyhorse from 2010 was why there was so little effort to pick off Chuck Grassley in IA. Looked like a solid progressive candidate, a fully demonizable Republican, and at least a level playing field for Dems. Nothing happened. In that spirit, I agree with you on Maine. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get Maine D’s to vote for D senate candidates.
Feudalism Now!
The Senate Dems all like Conrad and Nelson. They care less about their cock blocking of any progressive leaning bill because they play ball on appropriations and appointments. Hell, Lieberman campaigned against the Democratic candidate for PotUS whom he mentored as a freshman senator and he still kept his committees. The Senate is not progressive it is not particularly Democratic. It is an old boys club that make sure to take care of incumbents.
If we did not have Nelson, the Senate Dems would find a replacement for a RINO to turn.
Heliopause
Those are some pretty amazing numbers in Conrad’s reported budget, perhaps the first time in my lifetime I’ve seen a serious proposal for a non-trivial amount of money being cut from “security”. Too bad the Republicans and Nobel Peace Laureate will scuttle it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
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I’ve asked that question of Mainers I “meet” in the toobz, and the only answer I’ve gotten is “constituent service”. Even an Eschaton poster who hated them referred to them as “Olympia” and “Susan”. Also, I think people have weird (to me) sentimental attachments to the ideas of independence, Eisenhower-Chase-Smith Republicanism, etc. I thought Tom Allen would have a real change against Collins, but I just checked an he lost by 20 points.
ruemara
@catyx he eats less babies than a republican.
I remember that story! I posted it yestreday. I can’t wait to read the full txt of the budget that Sanders approved of.
Citizen Alan
You cannot say that conservadems would “relish” being punished for disloyalty and then list one who was famous for suffering no punishment at all! That backstabbing, sanctimonious weasel Lieberman was allowed to keep an extremely high level committee chairmanship after campaigning against his party’s nominee for President, who was also a man he had officially mentored upon Obama’s election to the Senate!!! Hey, here’s an idea! Maybe someday, just as an experiment, we could at least try to maintain party discipline. You know, just to see what might happen.
mk3872
Nelson & Conrad are 2 of my favorite conservadems to point out to left-wing Obama haters about what he has to contend with in his own Dem caucus.
Just cause the Dem Congress has a D next to their name, does not mean that they are liberal.
Of course, the typical FDL or DK response is: Obama needs to twist more arms and use the bully pulpit … Ugh.
Yutsano
You do realize in 2008 Lieberman was an independent, amirite?
El Cid
Why do people keep thinking that revenues have something to do with budgets?
I mean, sure, families & businesses do what they can to increase revenues so as to have lower deficits or even surpluses.
But it doesn’t work that way for our elected government, because it doesn’t, and also shut up.
Citizen Alan
And I just answered my own question: Olympia Snowe already has TWO declared Republican opponents and NO declared Democratic opponents. Apparently, the DSCC has just decided that they “wuv” Snowe so much that they won’t even try to unseat her. If she starts losing to a Teabagger, I wonder if the DSCC will offer her funding.
PaulJ
We have no debt, so there is nothing to pay back – this debt hysteria is just that – hysteria. Manufactured Shock Doctrine to get us to give up our goodies to help the poor banks.
If we can’t even identify the problem how are we going to solve it?
Here is the simplest explanation I have seen on the web:
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/why-the-politicians-the-media-and-even-many-economists-still-dont-get-it/
Corner Stone
@mk3872:
I’m sure they are. Nobody loves an excuse to not change a god damned thing like people who revel in Nelson et al being in the D caucus.
Corner Stone
@Citizen Alan:
She’s with us on everything but the war.
Corner Stone
@Feudalism Now!:
It’s an Old Boys Club where Senate D’s are concerned. But Senate R’s like DeMint etc would stick the fucking shiv in so fast and so deep it probably couldn’t be captured on film.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Fine. Knee cap them. Tell them to switch parties, which is absolutely what Manchin will do after re-election.
Have them outside the tent pissing in. Them taping the D agenda to a tree and shooting it?
How much worse would it be for Manchin-R ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Snowe actually interests me, in a low-key, off-hand way. Every few years she gets some press attention for being such an awesome, independent powerhouse who will determine the course of the Senate. She doesn’t seem to believe in anything, has never done anything that I’m aware of. I think she just really likes having the title. Somebody (Davis X?) said she’s a Republican because she hates Democrats. I can’t conceive of her feeling such a strong emotion. And apparently, she and Collins can’t stand each other.
TG Chicago
Wow, so instead of “defense spending” and cuts to the “military” budget, it’s all “security” now.
Not that The Hill is taking sides or anything.
Southern Beale
Well, please tell me when Ben Nelson HASN’T tamped his widdew feet and made a big stink about something — anything — that the rest of the Dem caucus wants? We saw this over and over during the healthcare debate, the “cornhusker compromise,” etc. This is why the “filibuster proof majority” argument has always been false, because there will ALWAYS be a Ben Nelson who demands attention.
We need someone who can tell Ben Nelson to go fuck himself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
efgoldman – July 9, 2011 | 5:38 pm
Yeah, I get how she stays in, what confuses me is why she wants to. She seems to have no ego, no ambition, no political interest that I can detect.
Suffern ACE
@We need someone who can tell Ben Nelson to go fuck himself.
The Dems in the Senate will never elect a Senate leader who does that. And so a lot of the strategy of passing anything in the Senate involves protecting the election prospects of folks like Evan Bayh (who wanted this debt commission in order to get his vote for ACA and then decided not to run anyway) and Ben Nelson.
Sko Hayes
Listen, Ben Nelson might be an odious bastard that only votes with the Dems 50% of the time (I’m just guessing at that, BTW), but he’s not a Republican that would vote with the Dems 0% of the time.
Haven’t we learned our lesson from 2010 yet? Blue Dogs in the House, as rotten as they were, still gave us a majority that passed some damn good legislation (never mind that 80% of it died in the Senate).
Would we have seen the defunding of Planned Parenthood if we still had a majority in the House ? NO. Cutting funding to SCHIP? The Paul Ryan plan? Defunding Title IX?
It’s really easy to bash Blue Dogs, but when you’re from a red state, and getting any Democrat elected is a straight up freaking miracle, you learn to appreciate what you’ve got.
Especially when those Blue Dogs gave us a majority.
Yay, we got rid of the Blue Dogs in the House! How’s that workin’ out for ya?
satch
Conrad’s budget proposal may have something to do with the fact that he’s planning to retire in ’12, so there’s no penalty this time for what might pass as integrity. By the way, does anyone think that ND will elect another Dem to replace him?
Another Bob
Obama uses people like Nelson and Joe Lieberman to “make him” do things he wants to do without incurring too much wrath from liberals. Lieberman, Conrad and Nelson were always there to “force” Obama to give up parts of the health care legislation he didn’t really want to give the liberals, so he “reluctantly” had to give in to their demands. The president is, after all, completely helpless in the face of conservative pressure from parts of the Democratic caucus, while strangely, being immune to pressure from the liberal side.
boss bitch
This thread is devolving into madness.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, remember what bold progressives those guys were before Obama got hold of them and forced them into his crafty plot?
Jesus, all the sturm and drang over the “catfood commission” and I’d never heard that. Clarifies a lot.
Corner Stone
@Sko Hayes:
Eventually it will have to be acknowledged. If you don’t want the pissy messaging battles Cole highlighted yesterday then you’re going to have to bite it and punch the Ben Nelson’s of the Senate in the junk.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@9 Dennis SGMM
Your characterization of President Obama is duly noted for the record.
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Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Uncle Clarence Thomas, I took your name in vain in the Saturday Open Thread.
Please forgive your humble correspondent.
FlipYrWhig
@ CS / 37:
Much, much worse. Teabagger House majority plus Republican Senate majority means no way to slow down the gusher of nonsense. If you’re going to have even a nominal Democratic majority, even for doing things like organizing committees and holding hearings, you need to have many “moderate” dumbfucks in the fold, because if you decide you’re only having progressives, that’s going to be like 30 at best. Congress sucks now. It would be like that freakshow at Lollapalooza where guys hung cinderblocks from their dicks if you somehow managed to drum out the “moderates.”
I don’t understand “moderates,” not at all, from an ideological standpoint. But the Democratic party has A FUCKLOAD of them. It totally hamstrings American progressivism. Democrats aren’t more liberal as a whole _because there’s this whole other wing to reckon with_. The liberal-moderate coalition can make it to majority status. Liberals alone cannot. Because of the nature of the American system, a party that can’t field a majority is a circle jerk. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but structurally, it is.
Corner Stone
The Senate is going R in 2012. There’s nothing to do about that. And even with a two seat majority it’s useless.
The only check is the WH, and 9%+ U3 isn’t fucking helping.
You can talk about mitigating, but we just ain’t got it.
Even if we cut the House lead and end up even steven in the Senate, there ain’t shit gonna happen good for us or the country. Mainly because no one seems to give a good god damn about pushing for it.
Fuck Manchin and fuck Nelson.
Corner Stone
You know that comes with a private island?
It does?
No. It comes with a hat.
That’s 2012 for Democrats.
Geeno
@Sko Hayes
So – tell him he can vote his conscience most of the time, and just not fuck over the party on BIG votes (like ACA) or he can switch parties and lick off Mitch McConnell and the R apparatus 100% of the time. The choice is his.
Frankly, I say fuck him. Let uncle Mitch have his way with him for the last few years of his career.
Monkey Business
Let’s say, hypothetically, Snowe gets picked off in the primary by the Tea Party in Maine. Wouldn’t the Democrats be crazy not to run her under the “D”? She won her last reelection with 70% of the vote. Sure, she wouldn’t be liberal, but if she’s willing to play ball, why not?
The same goes for Collins in 2014. If the GOP keeps lurching rightward, these two are going to get primaried long before they’d actually lose a general election.
Yutsano
Maine law says that’s a no-go. She’d have to change before the primary or she’s out period.
Corner Stone
@Monkey Business:
Yes they’d be crazy. Fuck her. Groom a back bench of actual D candidates to run sometime this decade.
Did you see her pull the chain?
Let me ask you this, how “less” Republican do you think AK Murkowski is now?
Another Bob
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
If they’re genuine conservative assholes, they’re even more useful to act as a public foil for liberal policy ideas that might threaten the security of Big Pharma and other corporate interests. Compare that with what came of Anthony Weiner’s insistence on having an up or down vote on single payer. Who got their way?
When has Obama ever given in to liberals in the Democratic caucus? Doesn’t there seem to be a pattern here?
Chris
If Nelson were a Republican mole, he couldn’t be any more useful to the other side.
There are a handful of states that are conservative enough that it’s basically not worth taking “Democrats” from, because they’re not, functionally, Democrats, and they make us look desperate to have people in our caucus who despise the rest of us.
boss bitch
you guys must love having your dreams crushed over and over. So what if the vote wasn’t allowed? the votes to get it to Obama’s desk wasn’t there. I would think that single payer getting passed in VT would push progressives to organize and push other Dem governors to do the same. All I see are people still complaining about the public option and single payer votes. Shit, Bernie Sanders said there was only 18 votes in the senate for it.
that when faced with political reality and in a position to be held responsible for their actions, True Progressives push their principles aside for the greater good?
Corner Stone
@boss bitch:
bitch, more like Democrats get sabotaged by the oh so pure pragmatists amongst us.
Tell us. Were you even a Democratic voter before Obama ran for president?
Because you seem to fucking hate everything they stand for.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@51 Corner Stone
I’m Uncle Clarence Thomas, and I approve this message. Now Ginni, get down on the carpet and approach the mic – my BAGS are ON FIYAR!
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OzoneR
Fixed
OzoneR
yeah, that’s right, Obama uses the guy who comes from a state where he has a 30% approval rating and the guy who didn’t even endorse him for President as cover to fuck with liberals.
Do we people ever hear yourself when you talk? I mean wow.
OzoneR
Did that, in the 1960s, what happen was a lot of Democrats became Republicans and it has been downhill ever since.
Davis X. Machina
Snowe faces at least two Democratic challengers.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina: Thank the FSM. In your opinion, can a D beat her?
Another Bob
@OzoneR
Yes, precisely. When Obama needed to do something like inexplicably support an extension of the Bush tax cuts despite vehement resistance from congressional progressives, who did he turn to?
Remember, Obama didn’t have to do anything on the Bush tax cuts and they would have expired. He was not forced to make a deal with Republicans. His hands were not tied by an insurmountable majority. But he did anyway, and in doing so sought support from Blue Dogs while he fucked with liberals in the caucus. So yes, you’re exactly right.
El Cid
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I’m not sure “maintaining party discipline” and “passing Civil Rights laws” would be seen as equivalent, given that the Democrats becoming Republicans were overwhelmingly Southern Democratic rightist segregationists, reacting both to CR/VR and that the Southern state’s monopolistic control of parties for one-party dominance was falling to court after court challenge.