There are so few of them left (22), that it's pretty easy to keep track of the handful of mangy Blue Dogs left in Congress. Basically the same species-- just with less overt bigotry-- the New Dems are not as well known-- unless you're on Wall Street or K Street. Here's the whole disgusting list-- in short the Republican wing of the Democratic Party inside the House of Representatives:
Yesterday we saw that may more Americans have been leaving the two corrupt Beltway political parties and re-registering as independents.
My grandfather was a Socialist who was proud to have voted for FDR in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. A couple of decades after his last vote for Roosevelt, I had come on the scene and he told me too never trust the Democrats. No, he hadn't turned Republican, of course, he just saw how the corporate warmongers and Southern racists were able to extort effective control over the party on crucial issues. I've usually taken his advice to heart.
The ad above was released 3 days ago by the Republican Governors Association. It's an unadulterated attack ad on Mike Ross, the Democratic Party candidate for governor of Arkansas, who is running against extremist GOP sociopath Asa Hutchinson. I don't care who wins because both candidates are the worst garbage American politics has to offer. I suppose a lesser of two evils argument could be made in favor of Ross, but, given his virulently reactionary and anti-working family record when he was in Congress, that would be a stretch.
According to ProgressivePunch, 39 congressmembers have perfect lifetime scores on all votes regarding LGBT rights. All 39 are Democrats and almost all of them are across-the-board progressive Democrats like Keith Ellison (MN), Jim McGovern (MA), Mike Honda (CA), John Lewis (GA), Judy Chu (CA), Donna Edwards (MD), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Jerry Nadler (NY), Maxine Waters (CA), Jim McDermott (WA), Barbara Lee (CA), and Chellie Pingree (ME).
Sunday morning we asked what it's like to be a Blue Dog in America today. And the picture that emerged was far from pretty. When looking at the natural progression from Blue Dog-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- to plain old Republican, we focused on the freak from Kansas who led the anti-gay and anti-Choice forces of hatred and bigotry in her badly afflicted state, Janice Pauls, finally finding her natural home in the GOP.
When John Barrow first ran for Congress in 2004, friends of mine in Athens persuaded me that he had been a liberal county commissioner and had a chance to replace freshman GOP extremist Max Burns in Congress. I wrote a maxed-out check. It didn't take long before I realized I'd made an error. Towards the end of the campaign Barrow revealed what a slimy worm he is. He called me to tell me that although he personally had nothing against gay people, he had to campaign as though he did. I didn't think to ask for my money back.
Beltway pundits tend to get their opinions from their friends in the political parties and, for the most part, those opinions tend to be worthless. In the video above from her show on Tuesday, Rachel Maddow amuses herself at the expense of all the conventional wisdom that showed Southern Democrats having virtually no chance against an onslaught of top Republican recruits.
