Another Reason You Can't Trust the Blue Dogs

Another reason you can't trust any "compromise" coming out of this Congress.

Abortion measure passes, then fails, in House

WASHINGTON — An anti-abortion amendment to a sweeping health overhaul bill was voted down in a House committee late Thursday — a dramatic reversal just hours after the measure initially was approved.

The amendment said health care legislation moving through Congress may not impose requirements for coverage of abortion, except in limited cases. It was approved in the Energy and Commerce Committee after conservative Democrats joined Republicans to support it.

But committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., invoked House rules that allowed him to bring up the amendment for a second vote, despite Republican objections.

This time, one conservative Democrat — Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee — changed his vote from "yes" to "no." And a second conservative Democrat who hadn't voted the first time — Rep. Zack Space of Ohio — voted "no."

It was enough to take down the amendment on a 30-29 vote.

How can you call Gordon and Space "conservative" when they voted to keep the abortion provisions in the health care legislation?

Yes, I know they identify themselves as Blue Dog Democrats, alleged conservatives, but if you support taxpayer funded abortions you really cannot call yourself a conservative. Not even a fiscal conservative.

Do not be fooled by these "Blue Dogs." They are not nearly as conservative as they pretend to be. They are stealth votes for the Progressive agenda. Their very presence in Congress keeps Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank, and their ilk in power.

If the Blue Dogs won't work with conservative Republicans to stop taxpayer funded abortions, how hard will they work at anything else?

Egg-Sucking Blue Dogs & the ObamaCare Compromise

Back when I was growing up on the farm, I learned that there was a difference between dogs that could hunt, and dogs that would make a lot of noise but were generally lazy.

We didn't own these dogs. We had a fine watchdog that was a cross between Alaskan Husky and Border Collie. He kept the yapping rabble from the woods out of the yard around our house. But the hunting dogs visited us anyway. Often. Their owners would turn them loose of a night, and they would go baying across the countryside in search raccoons and possum.

The hunting dogs produced results for men who were genuinely hunting.

The others, the noisy, lazy ones, were generally the dogs of shiftless, beer-swilling men who claimed to be coon-hunters but in truth were just guys who liked to get away from home to swap ribald stories of loose women, lie about their exploits, and talk sports. Like most people, we didn't really care as long as they didn't leave their empties alongside our property.

But you could tell a difference in the dogs. The good hunting dogs were well fed, usually returned to their masters, and if they did wander by they were well behaved until someone came looking for them.

The dogs of the bull-tossers were often poorly fed, mistreated, and poorly behaved. They would often as not wind up in the henhouse where we would find them stealing eggs. Naturally they were penitent when they were caught, tails tucked between their legs, and they would flee as soon as you told them to "git." However, if you turned your back on them to soon, they would return to the property, and to the hen house.

Some people would shoot these dogs. My folks and I could never bring ourselves to that point, although they made us angry enough. Sometimes we'd load 'em into the pickup where we would drive them over to the property of one of the men we knew were involved with this kind of faux hunting. My dad said that they would get back to the original owners soon enough, because no one wanted to feed extra dogs, especially "the lazy SOBs who don't actually hunt."

I couldn't help but think of the two types of hunting dogs when I heard that the Blue Dog Democrats had reached a "compromise" on the health care reform bill with their fellow Democrats on Henry Waxman's committee.

The baying Blue Dogs have promised us that they are fiscally conservative men hunting for savings on our behalf. Well, according to the word from Waxman's committee, here's what they've accomplished:

First, they "won" a promise that ObamaCare won't be voted on for a few more weeks. They already had that one in the bag. This is a non issue.

Second, they claim that ObamaCare will not have a mandatory government plan but will be optional. That was already in the wording of the bill.

Third, on a bill that easily will cost $1.5 Trillion in its first 10 years, they've got Democrats to agree that a meager Point One Trillion in savings will be made in the cost, leaving us with "only" $1.4 Trillion to worry about. With that small egg from our hen house, these Blue Dogs congratulate themselves on a fine hunting expedition and toss in the white towel.

And they expect us to pet them behind the ears and feed them some more. Oh, yes; they expect our grateful vote in 2010.

Well, pardon the hell out of me, but what did I warn you about? I told you the Blue Dogs would sell us out, that they were merely looking for sufficient political cover so that they could tell us that they worked hard to "protect us" from those evil liberals on Capitol Hill, all the while seeing how many eggs they could suck from our hen house!

Those noisy hounds from my youth were worthless, and not worth shooting. So, too, with these "blue" hounds of the today's political world. You can't count on them to have principles, other than their own self-preservation. If we do not rid ourselves of them in November 2010, they will sneak back into our lives, and destroy our nest eggs, one by one.

A pro-ObamaCare columnist at the online version of the Kansas City Star noted that the Blue Dogs essentially gave President Obama a victory. You can read his valedictory here.

If the Pro-ObamaCare people know the truth, what is your excuse?

Blue Dogs Acting Like Lap Dogs on Spending

How are the Blue Dogs doing in Congress in terms of trimming spending and making sure that huge liberal/progressive majorities do not run roughshod over personal liberty?

There are 51 congressmen who identify themselves as Blue Dogs, including Oklahoma Second District Rep. Dan Boren. (How do I know this? They have a website. ) They claim they've “been particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement from politically popular ‘raids’ on the budget.” This "relentless pursuit" sounds more like Don Quixote than Lexus, don't you think, considering we've had the Porkulus, Son of Porkulus and Obama's $3.7 trillion budget since the new term began in January.

Since many of these Blue Dogs asked for our votes in 2006 and 2008 based on the claim that they could more effectively represent our values by working within the Democratic Party majority than the Republican incumbents they replaced, it only makes sense that we should hold them accountable for their votes.

Michael G. Franc, vice-president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, examined the nine major votes in the House that dealt with the release of the second half of the TARP funds, the expansion of SCHIP, the economic-stimulus package, the omnibus spending bill, the expansion of government funding for volunteer activities, and the FY2010 budget. He used Rep. Barney Frank as the big spending measuring stick; each one of Frank's votes was for greater spending. (Frank missed one vote, so Rep. Barbara Lee of California was the substitute vote for big spending.)

Using this Big Government Scale of Spending, how did the Blue Dogs stack up?

-- 11 Blue Dogs voted 100 percent with Barney.

-- 10 voted with Barney 8 out of 9 times.

-- 11 voted with Barney 7 out of 9 times.

-- 6 voted with Barney 6 out of 9 times.

If you're keeping score, a whopping 38 of 51 of these "fiscally conservative" Blue Dogs voted with the big spenders on 67 percent or more of these bills. That's 75 percent of the Blue Dogs.

That's not Blue Dog fiscal conservatism. That's pathetic yellow lap-dog behavior.

It gets worse. Only six Blue Dogs voted against the spending on more than half of the 9 bills, and four of those were freshmen congressmen, which means they will probably cave in to pressure from the liberal establishment in another year or so. Who are the true Blue Dogs? They are Bobby Bright (Ala.), Parker Griffith (Ala.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Colin Peterson (Minn.), and Gene Taylor (Miss.).

Okay, you've been waiting for it: How did fearless Dan Boren fare?

Our intrepid budget battler voted with Barney Frank on six of the nine spending bills. Yes, indeedy! He claims to be one of us, but he's sure looking like one of them!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you should always trust a Republican over a Democrat, or that Blue Dogs can't do good work. Big spending is as big spending does. A politician who won't put principle over party is valuable to the party but not to the American republic.

It's time We the People (WTP) quit voting by party and starting really quizzing candidates about what they really believe. Any candidate who merely claims that "I'm with you fellers" isn't worth a spit, and flag-waving allegiance to the Second Amendment alone isn't going to be much help when the government takes control of major portions of our economy because we spent the dollar into oblivion.

There are big votes coming up this year, earth-shattering pieces of legislation that effect energy, health care, farming, transportation, and without exception they are all designed to decrease our freedom and increase our cost of living. Even if the Blue Dogs rally in opposition it is not likely they can stop the Progressive Express from radically changing our nation.

At this point, given their performance so far, I'm not sure they should even save their jobs.