Blue Dogs–A Dying Breed

It all started in 1995 during the Clinton admin…..Dems, some Dems, were ultra-conservative Democrats that came together in our Congress….but for a more in-depth look at these, in my opinion, party cowards…..if there are DINOs then these people are the very definition.

The Blue Dog Coalition was created in 1995 to represent the commonsense, moderate voice of the Democratic Party, appealing to mainstream American values. The Blue Dogs are leaders in Congress who are committed to pursuing fiscally-responsible policies, ensuring a strong national defense, and transcending party lines to do what’s best for the American people.

The name “Blue Dog” was inspired by the famous Blue Dog paintings by Cajun artist George Rodrigue. The term is also based on the long-time tradition of referring to a strong Democratic Party supporter as being a “Yellow Dog Democrat,” who would have “sooner voted for a yellow dog than a Republican.” The founding members of the Blue Dogs said they felt that they had been “choked blue” by the extremes of both political parties, leading to the Coalition’s name.

Since 2010 their numbers have been declining for why have a Dem conserv when you have those thugs in the GOP….

But as I say they are declining…..(which is a godsend, IMO)

Blue Dog Democrats are seen as a moderate bloc in the House—a “fiscally conservative, pro-national security caucus” among Democrats that acts as a counter to progressives, per Roll Call. After the 2008 elections, the group had a healthy 54 members. Today, however, the number is down to seven, the lowest in the group’s long history, reports Politico. It might have been 15, but seven members have bowed out and an eighth is undecided. This group, which includes Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, wanted the Blue Dogs to ditch their name and rebrand as the Common Sense Coalition, per Politico.

When a vote on the name change failed, the exodus began. Spanberger’s camp (she and Sherrill were the last two female members) worries that the group still carries a stigma of a “boys’ club,” as Politico puts it, from its Southern roots. Remaining members, including four members of color, dispute that. “It seems like it’s been a pretty diverse group of people over the last four years,” says an unnamed member. “I’m not thinking of 30 years ago. I don’t really entertain that type of critique.” As small as they are, Blue Dogs could still wield influence, both sites note. Given the Republicans’ slim majority, even a handful of votes can make a difference in the current House.

The Democratic Party is dying as well and personally I believe the Blue Dogs are speeding the demise up.

That is my opinion but others see it not so differently…..(the DNC sucks!)

The future of the Democratic Party is bleak.

Up until recently in possession of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, the Democrats have failed to accomplish anything meaningful, anything that improves the quality of our lives.

Voters tend to notice that sort of thing. 

However, the DNC’s problem isn’t merely about contemporary underperformance; it’s not about Joe Manchin or Kristin Sinema’s moderate-conservative disruption of the liberal agenda.

No, the DNC’s problem is much deeper and more profound; the Democrat’s problem is the culmination of a four-decade ethos shift that has left what was once the party of the people a shriveled, impotent shell of its former self.

The Democratic Party is supposed to protect the middle class. And through the middle of the twentieth century, the Dems did just that.

Middle-class voters (i.e. the majority of Americans) responded favorably, and the results were politically prosperous – the Dems dominated federal elections; The Dems held the White House from 1933 until 1953 and then again from 1961 until 1969 – and once more from 1977 until 1981. Liberals also dominated the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Warren led a nearly two-decade run of consistently progressive case rulings.

More importantly, during this time period of Dem vitality, America prospered. The American middle class was the envy of the world; long overdue reforms regarding race and gender were implemented; the American dream was a tangible thing – rather than just a campaign slogan – available to an ever-increasing swath of the U.S. population. The GOP had a powerful counterpoint in a righteous, convicted Democratic Party that knew how to win elections and knew how to govern. Professor Mark Lilla called this era the “Roosevelt Dispensation,” which “pictured an America where citizens were involved in a collective enterprise to guard one another against risk, hardship, and the denial of fundamental rights.”

Why the Democratic Party Is Dying

The Dems are now the Party of war….the middle class is not safe with the Dems nor the GOP.

I have been calling for a third party that has the interests of the workers and the middle class at their core…..we have none of that with our party system these days.

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Ukraine: Answers Not Given

This is a post that few will care about or will give a lot of unrelated answers….but what the Hell.

Questions?

When I was in school a teacher gave me some good advice.

“The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions. “

It is the answers, not the questions, that are embarrassing…..and I ask embarrassing questions and get few substantive answers….but I will continue to ask.
 
It is what I do.
 
Since the war began a year ago I have been asking questions….some hard questions….and so far the answer I get are boiler plate responses….by boiler plate I mean the rubbish the media throws out with little facts behind the garbage they spread.
 
Recently I posted on the debate around this conflict….
 
 
The media has not always been so gung-ho in Ukraine’s corner….

The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn.

I bring this up because the perspectives you’ll find in that article are jarring in how severely they deviate from anything you’ll see published in the mainstream press about Ukraine in 2023. It places the brunt of the blame for the violence and tensions in that nation at that time squarely at Washington’s feet, opening with a warning that the “threat of war in Ukraine is growing” and saying there’s an “unelected government in Kiev,” and it only gets naughtier from there.

I strongly recommend reading the article in full if you want some perspective in just how dramatically the mass media has clamped down on dissenting ideas about Ukraine and Russia, beginning with the frenzied stoking of Russia hysteria in 2016 and exploding exponentially with the Russian invasion last year. I doubt there’s a single paragraph which could get published in any mainstream outlet in the media environment of today.

Milne writes about how “the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover,” and about “the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime.” He says that “Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia,” and that “you don’t hear much about the Ukrainian government’s veneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government’s ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down.” He says that “after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west’s attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure.”

 
It is fascinating but that would be for those that are interested and from what I have read few are that interested in what has been written and only embrace the manure spread by the MSM.
 
Then I read about a ignored settlement of this situation….and from an Israeli….
 

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in an interview posted to his YouTube channel on Saturday that the US and its Western allies “blocked” his efforts of mediating between Russia and Ukraine to bring an end to the war in its early days.

On March 4, 2022, Bennett traveled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin. In the interview, he detailed his mediation at the time between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he said he coordinated with the US, France, Germany, and the UK.

Bennett said that both sides agreed to major concessions during his mediation effort. For the Russian side, he said they dropped “denazification” as a requirement for a ceasefire. Bennett defined “denazification” as the removal of Zelensky. During his meeting in Moscow with Putin, Bennett said the Russian leader guaranteed that he wouldn’t try to kill Zelensky.

The other concession Russia made, according to Bennett, is that it wouldn’t seek the disarmament of Ukraine. For the Ukrainian side, Zelensky “renounced” that he would seek NATO membership, which Bennett said was the “reason” for Russia’s invasion.

(antiwar.com)

Appears no one wants this conflict to end…..maybe there is too much cash to effectively find a solution.
 
Like I said….hard questions.
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”