August « 2009 « PDHblog

August 29, 2009

Democratic Party Central Committee Upholds Reprimand of Gabbard!

Filed under: HI Politics, Legislature — Bart @ 1:40 pm

NOTE: For a deeper examination of Mike Gabbard’s ideas, involvement in the Chris Butler cult and political agenda, go to this earlier post, written shortly after Gabbard joined the Democrats:

Some Thoughts on Gabbard (Sept 8, 2007)

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The State Central Committee of the Democratic Party voted today to uphold the decision of the Oahu County Committee to reprimand Senator Mike Gabbard for his “active opposition” to the civil rights plank of the party’s platform.

Unfortunately, the vote was fairly close, 37-31, which indicates to me that many SCC members are unwilling to stand up for the Party’s interests against even the most egregious efforts by nominal “Democrats” to work against the Party’s positions.

As the author of the motion to reprimand Gabbard, I wrote a lengthy email in advance of the meeting to explain my rationale to SCC members. That email follows the jump.

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Comments (23)

August 9, 2009

Clueless

Filed under: HI Politics — Joe @ 7:43 pm

Lou Dobbs said recently that people are asking a lot of questions about that Hawaii birth certificate (Obama’s).

Yes, ……. it’s the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night.

And where you put the stamps on e mail.

Bill Maher

Comments (0)

August 6, 2009

The Senate’s Blue Dogs

Filed under: HI Politics — BobSchacht @ 9:01 pm

Blue dogs in the House of Representatives are well-defined, because they self-identify. But what about the Senate?

There are a number of ways to identify Senatorial Blue Dogs, since they don’t self-identify. My rough definition is that they tend to vote with Republicans on most issues, especially the important issues.

There are many ways to score their voting patterns. For example, Progressive Punch scores Senators and Representatives on the basis of their voting records:

“We show the performance of members within 160 different issue categories, and detailed vote descriptions, thereby empowering you to zero in on what matters to you.”

Their scoring method is described here. Suffice it to say that for senators, they have chosen seven “hard core progressive United States Senators” as their yard stick. Thus, on each issue, “The Progressive Position” by definition, is the position of the majority of the Progressives.” For Senators, their definitional list consists of Barbara Boxer (CA), Richard Durbin (IL), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Edward Kennedy (MA), Jack Reed (RI), Bernard Sanders (VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI).

Now, you might disagree with this list. For example, why isn’t Sen. Feingold one of the Sacrosanct Seven?

As an alternative, I have developed a different yardstick—one provided by Glenn Greenwald in an important post dated January 30, 2008, What “bipartisanship” in Washington means. In this post, Greenwald identified 12 laws and resolutions passed over the last couple years “on the most significant and contentious pieces of legislation, particularly (though not only) in the area of national security.” I call these the “dirty dozen,” passed with “bipartisan” support. Each of these laws and resolutions included provisions that should have earned the scorn of every Democrat.