Dan Boren, Democrat? Not Really. Blue Dog? Oh, Yeah.

I first blogged about Dan Boren back in 2006, I was getting a little tired of my supposed Democratic Congressman voting with the Republicans.  Four years later nothing has changed.

You would think that even the folks who don't keep up with political goings on would have noticed something when Dan voted against the people in his district and for the Health Insurance Industry on health care reform.  Dan's going to vote for the people who pay him, not for the people who vote for him.

Industry  Total   Indivs   PACs


Oil & Gas  $150,200   $51,950   $98,250

Lawyers/Law Firms  $56,699   $47,699   $9,000

Casinos/Gambling  $51,450   $50,450   $1,000

Health Professionals  $42,000   $32,500   $9,500

Insurance  $29,000   $2,000   $27,000

Retail Sales  $26,250   $250   $26,000

Commercial Banks  $25,150   $20,150   $5,000

Electric Utilities  $23,750   $1,250   $22,500

Democratic/Liberal  $20,500   $500   $20,000

Hospitals/Nursing Homes  $18,800   $4,800   $14,000

Lobbyists  $18,262   $17,050   $1,212

Crop Production & Basic Processing  $18,050   $1,550   $16,500

Telephone Utilities  $16,500   $0   $16,500

Food & Beverage  $16,500   $1,000   $15,500

Mining  $16,400   $0   $16,400

Misc Finance  $15,900   $15,900   $0

Building Materials & Equipment  $14,325   $2,325   $12,000

Real Estate  $14,200   $10,200   $4,000

Human Rights  $13,850   $13,850   $0

Business Services  $13,850   $12,850   $1,000

Big Oil, Big Banks, for profit Health Care Industry, the Big Telecoms over Net Neutrality, in other words, the Players over the people.

Since 1990, Big Oil has invested around $144 million in the careers of congressmen, almost all conservatives. Almost 70% of the payoff have gone to Republicans. And among current members of the House there's only one Democrat in Big Oil's Top 10: Dan Boren ($565,460). As you can see, Big Oil is, by far, the biggest source of cash for his political endeavors. What you haven't been able to see, until Fox caught it on tape, is that Boren, who bragged about not voting for Obama and who has voted against virtually every piece of Democratic legislation since Obama has become president, has never found anything in the oil industry's agenda that he didn't get behind.

Take a look at Boren's Interest Group Ratings.  If you happen to be a paranoid delusional who believes that everybody's trying to take your guns away, then Dan's your man.  Well, actually he's the NRA's man, but they'll both be happy to validate your paranoia and delusions.

A couple of the more interesting things in the Interest Group Ratings is his high score among the Religious Right, like the Family Research Council, an anti-gay, anti women's rights group who would gladly do away the the Constitution and replace it with their particular interpretation of the Bible.

Another is the American Family Association, anti-gay, anti-women's rights and anti-labor and doing the Lord's work in deregulating the oil industry.  Seriously.  And Dan scored 100% with them.

The American Family Association (AFA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes conservative Christian values[1][2][3][4] such as traditional marriage, anti-pornography, and pro-life activism,[5] as well as other public policy goals such as deregulation of the oil industry and lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act.[6]

My personal favorite is the 83% Dan got from ACT! for America.  You know it's good stuff when it's featured on Loonwatch.com.

ACT! for America has a problem. Its first problem is that it was founded by Brigitte Gabriel. Yes, the same Brigitte Gabriel the New York Times called a “radical Islamophobe” and who in the past has made statements like “Arabs have no soul,” and “Arabs are barbarians.” She might be novel eye candy for some (which I’m guessing is the reason Bill Maher had her on his show) but it is clear that Brigitte Gabriel is a whacked out fundamentalist with a seething rage against Muslims and a determination on the one hand to destroy Islam and on the other to make as much profit in the process.

Just a piece of Boren's more recent voting record, he voted no to beefing up the Endangered Species Amendment and voted yes on anti-enviornment Richard Pombo's (R-CA) Endangered Species Reauthorization Bill.  Pombo believes that land developers are endangered.

Dan voted no on  Employment, Infrastructure, and Transportation Appropriations, read that job creation and unemployment extention.  Democrat bill.

He voted no on oversight of this country's financial institutions.  Democrat bill.

Voted no on capping carbon dioxide emissions.  Democrat bill.

Voted no to allow federal judges to reduce interest rates or extend repayment in order for people to keep their homes.  Democrat bill.

Voted no on hate crimes and employment discrimination.  Democrat bills.  Boren did vote yes on a couple of employment discrimination amendments.

Voted no to keep the Fed from interfering with state marijauna laws.  Obviously a Democratic bill.  And as a former chemo patient, trust me, those state laws are a wonderful thing.

It looks like Dan is pro-war, pro-permenant military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and pro-torture, judging by his vote on this Democratic bill.  Iraq Related Provisions such as a Troop Withdrawal, a Permanent Base Ban, and Limiting Interrogation Techniques

Voted no to expand the G.I. Bill.  Democratic.

Voted no to an Equal Pay bill with some teeth in it.  Another obviously Democratic bill.

Voted no to oil companies being environmentally responsible or responsible, period.

To be honest, not all of Dan Boren's votes are bad.  But the ones that are effect women's rights, gay rights, labor, the environment and almost always favor Big Business over the working class.  It's not just Dan, it's the whole Blue Dog Democrat Coalition, they are little more than Republicans masquerading as Democrats.

Dan will probably win, but it's a shame that Oklahoma doesn't have a real Democrat in D.C..  The Blue Dogs claim to be fiscal conservatives, but that's just better than saying that they sell their vote to the highest bidder.  You know, just like Republicans.

This just in:

This morning at the Democratic caucus, the message from leadership to Blue Dogs unwilling to support a new campaign finance measure requiring more disclosure in political advertising -- wise up.


The bill -- a response to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision -- passed this afternoon, 219-206. There were 36 Democrats -- members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and Blue Dogs -- who voted against it. Many Blue Dogs feared retribution from the business community in an already tough election year if they had voted for the legislation.

So in a huddle with rank-and-file members this morning, Democratic leaders told Blue Dogs they should ignore threats from the bill's chief opponent, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber endorses the occasional Democrat, albeit infrequently, but leaders made the case that Blue Dogs aren't likely to be rewarded by the usually pro-GOP group for blocking the bill.

And where is Dan Boren on this issue?  

Late Update:  Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) is among the Blue Dogs to vote "Nay" today. He was endorsed by the chamber yesterday.

Do you really want to vote for the anti-labor U.S. Chamber of Commerce's lapdog to represent you in Congress?  Just another reason we need an actual Democrat to send to Washington.

Democrats Are The Real Fiscal Conservatives.

OK, the Right has been putting out their "Tax and Spend" garbage about Democrats for a lot of years now.  But like most of the stuff that comes from the Right it has very little to do with, well actual reality, as you can see from the graph above.

Keep in mind that the hero of the Right and most Teabaggers, Ronald Reagan, is considered the prototypical model of the ideal president, no "Tax and Spender" was he.  Of couse, this is mythology.  Ronald Reagan was no taxer, he cut the taxes for the richest among us and left the rest of us to take up the slack.  But Ron was a spender, a bigtime, Hollywood Blowout kind of a spender.  He tripled the national debt and turned this country from the largest lender in the world into the largest debtor in the world. 

In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion,[21] and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation

So remember this when you see our teabaggin' friends out prostesting the socialists and yearning for the Reagan years.  BTW, those socialists that they're protesting against are us.

And Obama owns all the national debt now, according to the Right.  It's an interesting phenomenon that the Right only discovered the debt after Bush was out of office.  You can see by the chart below that Obama does own part of the debt.  But the choice was clear, either spend or enter another Great Depression.  And since those of us on the left have functioning hearts and brains, we opted to spend and we'll have to spend more if we want to generate the economy in order to create jobs.  I don't mean spend on Wall Street and Big Banks, but spend on the mainstreet level, spend on research for new job creating technologies, spend putting people to work fixing our crumbling intrastructure.  Or we could use the other side's model of letting the market sort every thing out.  If we did that, my guess would be that we would become a wholly owned subsidiary of China and that the Right would be first in line to suck up their new masters.

And now for someting completely different, 10 Lessons for Tea Baggers.