Blue Mass Group

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Brown just voted AGAINST DADT repeal — DADT repeal just failed

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Update 1: Have you called your office, to express outrage yet? Here’s his DC number: (202) 224-4543

Please, take 2 minutes and call. This matters.  

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  1. I thought that the earlier praise for Brown’s position on DADT was premature.

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    p>I though he might try to play both sides here and claim he’s for repeal while finding a way to actually vote against. I don’t know his reasoning here, but it looks like this is exactly what happened.

    <

    p>Also, keep in mind the vote count on this — all Democrats but one in favor of repeal, and all Republicans but one against. It should be abundantly clear to all who is to blame for DADT remaining on the books.

      • There are a few Republicans who won’t hurt because of this — perhaps because they represent conservative states — but Brown made a huge blunder here.

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        p>So far, this is the best political ammunition to use against Brown in 2012 he’s given us so far. Fortunately for the Democratic nominee, and unfortunately for the country and the Commonwealth, there will likely be more coming down the road.

        • She’s not going to win the Republican nomination, her only shot was jumping ship or running indie. This hurts her chances if she does either of those things.

          <

          p>I think she thinks that if she keeps running to the right, she won’t get flanked from it in the primary… but that’s not how the Tea Partiers work. If anything, they’ll just distrust her more.  

        • He also just voted against spending $7B on the 9/11 first responders health bill.  Why?  Other GOPers have explained that they want their millionaire’s tax cut, or nothing gets passed.

          <

          p>If the police officers and firefighters and EMS responders of MA all get outraged, there’s no way Brown wins in 2012 — they’re a well respected, blue collar, organized group.  Will they take Brown to task?

      • No matter how bad the behavior from Republicans sinks to, there never seems to be a level so low that it produces a real backlash or any consequences. When is enough, enough?

  2. I just talked to a staffer in his D.C. office.  He still supports DADT, but voting to extend tax cuts comes first.    

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    p>This hostage taking was predicted here:  

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    p>

    “We have waited a long time for Scott Brown to support repealing DADT,” said Arline Isaacson, cochair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. “We are pleased he has finally decided to agree with the majority of voters in Massachusetts on this important matter. And we thank him for that change.”

    But she added, “We hope he does not hold our equality hostage to other issues or procedural matters that then cause the repeal to not take place.  We urge him to not play procedural games on an issue that affects so many lives.”

     

    • out on their ass for being outed, is about as unpatriotic a thing as I can think of right now.

      <

      p>Senator Scott Brown, you just helped destroy the readiness of our military, which is in the middle of a war. Nevermind how bankrupt you are morally on this crucial civil rights issue. I hope you sit and stew in it all the way til 2012. See you then.

      • –from the Dem leadership that makes this case?!

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        p>Brown (and GOP) are saying VERY EXPLICITLY that tax cuts for millionaires is MORE IMPORTANT than soldiers, 9/11 responders, START, DREAm… EVERYTHING.

        <

        p>And they are WRONG on the numbers:  millionaires’ extra tax cuts are not stimulative. They add shitloads to the debt.

        <

        p>There is nothing more nakedly partisan–and wrong for America–that they could be doing right now.

        <

        p>SO WHY AREN’T DEMOCRATS ABLE TO EXPLOIT THIS????

    • that there won’t likely be an up-or-down vote in the next congress, and he’ll probably be out of town on the cloture votes.

    • When will we hear about this? Will the Dems have the balls to call Brown out on this? Will the Republican media that so savaged Senator Kerry actually point out these flaws? Will the mainstream media harp on this consistently? Lets not hold our breath.  

        • …. distinguish himself from the national GOP on an issue he allegedly actually does disagree with the national GOP on, then he’s just an enabler of the national GOP.  This is why I can’t ever vote for even a Republican I like as a candidate – they just enable all the others who push the policies I don’t like while they are thwarted by their own parties on the policies I do like.  

          <

          p>Brown had an opportunity here to prove the ‘independence’ he touted during his campaign and failed miserably.  Measuring independence against a standard set by Olympia Snowe is no measure at all.

  6. I was told by the woman who answered the phone that he planned to vote for repeal.  I even followed up by confirming that he will make whatever procedural votes he had to to achieve this result.  Calling his office to ask about this is definitely on tomorrow’s to-do list.

    • The woman I spoke to (voice sounded like possibly the same one I spoke to above) said that I was given the statement they had at the time.  She assured me that I was hardly the only person to have called in frustration about this and really couldn’t give me an answer about why the tax cuts should be at all related to this.  She seemed to leave the door open for Senator Brown possibly voting for the stand-alone version of DADT repeal (SB 4022).  I made very clear that I’m dismayed that the caveats were not included in the statement I was given the FIRST time around.

  7. I wrote before that his tepid “support” was meaningless posturing. I believe his vote demonstrates this.

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    p>Scott Brown, like Mitt Romney before him, is a right winger who is also an opportunist. He lacks the integrity and courage to speak his true convictions.

    <

    p>Like a loaded dice or a weighted coin, he may show other positions from time to time, but in the long run he is a right winger.

    <

    p>

    • short term political reasons but in the end he is a right winger.   It is easy for people to fall for the nice guy act or the occasional moderate position.    

        • There are plenty of folks who are nice guys and lean right, and plenty of folks who are nice guys and lean left.

          <

          p>What Scott Brown did is pretend to support repeal of DADT while it was obvious (from his hedging) that he would find some excuse to vote against it when it came to a vote.

          <

          p>This doesn’t need much translation: “Scott Brown” = “right wing vote”, no matter what he says along the way.

          • …he didn’t sound like he was hedging when the staffer conveyed his statement when I called.  I would have prefered a message that sounded hedging; at least it would have been honest.

            • I don’t mind when folks (including JohnD) call me “partisan”. That’s just God’s honest truth. I am partisan.

              <

              p>I truly believe that the GOP is wrong. Has been all my life. Nixon was wrong. Reagan was wrong. Both Bushes were wrong. McCain was wrong. I suspect that even JohnD can agree with me that Sarah Palin is wrong.

              <

              p>I strongly suspect that I could sit down with JohnD, drink a couple of glasses of wine or some good scotch, smoke a cigar or two, and have a great conversation. Yes, we’d argue about some things. So what. He’s a Republican. I think he’s mistaken. So what. Orin Hatch is as Republican as they come. Ted Kennedy was as Democrat as they come. They still managed to be reasonably good friends, by all accounts. I like to think that JohnD and I, in meatspace, would probably end up someplace similar.

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              p>I’m a Democrat. I’m liberal. No, I’m radical. I just am.

              <

              p>I also think I’m right more often than I’m wrong.

              <

              p>I guess that makes me partisan.

              <

              p>Now, at midnight on Friday night after a very long week, I think I’ll have another glass of wine and another cigar.

    • who don’t hang out on BMG?  How many of them are eligible to vote, and might consider voting Brown (or not voting at all)?  Those too are important questions.

          • On the heels of me asking how many people here at BMG would vote for Scott Brown, no matter what… I then was commenting back to stomv about “how many will speak highly of him to other people (assuming non-BMG people). I say some nice things about people whom I’ll never vote for too.

            • … aren’t going to praise him when not deserved.  Isn’t that as it should be?  I won’t vote for him because I knew this was the kind of bullshit we’d have to deal with.  At issue here is is vote – looking for praise on other issues about him as a human being here is kinda dumb because you’re expecting people to speak off-subject and are disappointed when they don’t.  How rational is that?

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              p>Fine – he appears to have raised some lovely kids.  

              <

              p>Not really relevant here, but maybe it’ll satisfy your irrational needs.

        • is a Scott Brown I’d go easier on.  Truly.

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          p>This is a deal-breaker. If he’d taken that vote–it would have been TRULY all about Scotty–and he would have been deserving of that.  

          <

          p>Not now. If/when he does take a DADT vote–it will be tainted by this hypocrisy.

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          p>It’s fucking crap.  

          • How many GITMO, DADT, tax for the “rich”, illegal wiretapping, public option… promised/unpromised issues will Obama be given a pass for before you turn on him… my guess never.

              • Who put him there… Me? Nope.

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                p>Who’ll be voting for him in 2012… me? Nope!

                <

                p>Obama vs. Palin… you will vote for Palin?
                Obama vs. Romney… you will vote for Romney?
                Obama vs. Huckabee… you will vote for Huckabee?
                Obama vs. XXXX… you will vote for XXXX?

                • about disappointment with Obama — and he’s our guy?

                  <

                  p>And I wasn’t the only one pointing out in spring 2008 that there was no progressive running in the Democratic primary for President. Nor was I the only liberal warning that a Democratic Administration would be a well of disappointment for progressives.

                  Who to vote for in 2012? Palin who shows no interest in policy beyond point-scoring? Romney, the man whose principles are to have none? Huckabee, the friendly religious lunatic? And yes, every Republican is palpably worse than Obama on economics and foreign policy.

                • Those debates will be coming up soon enough. All I was trying to say is for all the moaning by people over the last week or so, Obama is still “your guy” and he will be hailed as the returning messiah when Nov 2012 arrives.

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                  p>You, BrooklineTom… and all the other people ranging from slight doubts to calls for “growing a spine” will be pulling the big D lever.

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                  p>I know many of you are unhappy, some downright livid, but mark my words, you’ll all be voting for him again in 2012 (AND HE KNOWS IT!) sorry for the caps…

                • Um, no liberal I know ever thought that Obama was the returning messiah or is prepared to anoint him as such. Reading conservative blogs, one might have thought Obama-as-messiah-believers was the only existing species of liberal.

                  <

                  p>Let’s also be clear about politics in the year 2010. It’s a PR game. Of course, the Democratic message machine will be proclaiming Obama as the greatest President ever. To do less would be malfeasance on their part. You really think liberals believe that, though?

                  <

                  p>Really?

                • Then I guess you simply didn’t speak to the liberals who I did who did think Obama was almost mystical, caused people to drop to their knees and cry when he was elected, sent chills up their legs… He “arrived” in 2008 and will only “return” in 2012.

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                  p>

                  … Obama as the greatest President ever. To do less would be malfeasance on their part. You really think liberals believe that, though?

                  <

                  p>No sir, don’t think it now nor was that my point. Again, I am simply saying that he is “your guy” whether you like it, agree with it or endorse it. You (liberals) will not be voting for a Republican and Obama will be the Democratic candidate so to deny the idea that he will be “your guy” (which translates in my lingo as the person you will be raising money for, campaigning for and voting for) is disingenuous. Really!

                • I for one DID sense some of the great progressive hope attitude and took a lot of heat for supporting that big bad centrist corporate Democrat Hillary Clinton in the primary.  We were reminded again and again that Obama was the only major candidate who saw the light on Iraq and from there extrapolated that only he represented the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

                • This calculus — “as bad as this is, the alternatives are worse” — leads to a return of the long hot summers of the late sixties and early seventies.

                  <

                  p>I watched the tall columns of black smoke rising on the horizon from the ghettos of Washington DC. I remember the taxi rides through block after gutted block in Harlem.

                  <

                  p>I remember when white suburbanites who made the mistake of driving through the wrong neighborhoods after dark were dragged from cars and robbed or worse in Southeast Washington DC.

                  <

                  p>We must not forget that there are 99 suffering people for one of those 1% that hold nearly 40% of the nation’s wealth. Squeeze people hard enough, and they will fight back.

                  <

                  p>We need to solve this problem, and neither Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, nor Mike Huckabee shows the ability or inclination to do so.

                • I hope they never return and if they do I hope we use real bullets this time to quell any murderous mobs.

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                  p>This is what happens when you have a system of entitlements to the masses and suddenly they’re not getting their checks. The nation’s populace has never had more guns than they do now and pulling people from cars will unleash an ugly wrath. People will be happy about the Second Amendment in record numbers.

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                  p>Let’s all pray that we never enter a time in our country where we have violent civil disobedience and loss of any “innocent” human life.

                • “This is what happens when you have a system of entitlements to the masses and suddenly they’re not getting their checks.”

                  <

                  p>No, John, this is what happens when 1% of the population takes 40% of the wealth.

                  <

                  p>It won’t be angry inner-city blacks hauling whites out of cars this time. It might be right-wing thugs beating “liberal” politicians. It might be union workers beating scabs trying to cross picket lines. It might be mothers and fathers looting grocery stores for food.

                  <

                  p>The point is that since we agree that both of us want to avoid this descent into violence, collapse of law and order, and anarchy, then we must find a way to more fairly distribute the wealth that this economy creates.

                • …bu his call for real bullets against the mobs.  Did he like what happened outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968?

                • Shall we take back their wealth. Hello Mr Buffet, Soros, Bloomberg, Kerry/Heinz, Oprah… please deposit a check for $X billion dollars by Friday of next week or an angry mass will pillage your estate.

                  <

                  p>Order has to maintained at all costs.

                  <

                  p>From my recollections Tom, we Republicans/Conservatives don’t riot. Name the last non-urban riot.

                  <

                  p>Having said that… it would be nice if we had a fair way for the super-rich to help out. But I don’t see one. John Kerry as a great example for your feelings when he had his $7,000,000 boat built in New Zealand to save money and keep more American workers on the unemployment line and then the icing on the cake was to avoid paying his MA sales tax. That one act defined him (and many other rich people). What did Kerry cost the tax payers to move the hydrant in front of his Beacon Hill house? Does Kerry pay even a nickel more in taxes than he needs to? All legal I’m sure, but not a good role model. But guess what Tom, I’m sure you and the rest of the blue crowd here will happily campaign for Jerry and vote him in on Election Day. Correct?

                • I agree with you that the riots of the long hot summers were in urban areas. Those were the extremists of a 10-30% minority. What you don’t seem to realize is that today, we are talking about the extremists of a 99% majority.

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                  p>There is a difference.

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                  p>You know what I suggest; I suggest a return to the tax policy of the fifties and sixties:

                  <

                  p>

                  • Restore, not slash, the estate and gift tax at the federal and state levels
                  • Restore, not slash, the capital gains tax.
                  • Restore, not slash, marginal income tax rates on the top 1-5% of income earners.

                  <

                  p>None of these are particularly radical, they characterized tax policy during our most prosperous era.

                  <

                  p>In fact, it is the embrace of Gilded Era exploitation by the very wealthy that is radical. It is radical, and it has failed.

              • This tax cut move will win him no friends in the Republican party. We don’t consider it a “gift” when the government says you can keep some of “your own money”. Or say thank you when they tell you how much of your “own money” you can give to your children/family after you die.

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                p>But let me try, “Thank you for not robbing us of more of our money!” See it doesn’t work.  

                • …when enacted by legislators we elected.  Taxation WITH representation is a much more legitimate way of funding government than borrowing the money.

                • It’s not thievery slavery when enacted by legislators we elected.

                  <

                  p>Maybe you’re onto something. The rights of the minority have to be protected. What happens in a society where the minority pays the taxes and the majority keeps voting to raise the taxes? Since 50% pay no taxes, what if they elect people to double the taxes on working people to pay for all the masses who just milk our society? Will you like that?

                • I call your attention to the 13th and 16th Amendments to the Constitution:

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                  p>

                  Amendment 13 – Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865.

                  1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

                  2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

                  ——————————————————————————–
                  Amendment 16 – Status of Income Tax Clarified. Ratified 2/3/1913.

                  The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

                  ——————————————————————————–

                  <

                  p>Slavery is a human rights violation; taxation not so much.  Still waiting for a cite on that 50% figure you keep throwing around.

            • If you want me to shoot my long term priorities in the foot by voting for a Pres Romney–that’s not gonna happen.

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              p>I have been vocally critical of this president since day 1. So if that’s “turning on him”, I’ve been doing it.  

              <

              p>That’s what a good friend/supporter does:  ask you to be better.  

    • but I’m a very busy guy during election seasons and normally I stay involved in the state house stuff. This time around, the only volunteering I’ll be doing is to unseat him.  

  9. and was on hold for 10 min. Had to listen to Brown’s recorded voice telling me how busy his staffers are talking to constituents.
    My guess is they’ve taken the phones off the hook, knowing the calls aren’t those of congratulations and praise.
    I’ll try again later.

  10. Look, Brown is with the GOP establishment when it comes to what counts, which is Senate floor speeches and Senate votes.

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    p>Massachusetts is pro-gay and pro-abortion politically. So he says “down with DADT” in some media interview, so that the low-information voters will not think he is part of the Religious Right.

    <

    p>But when it counts, he’s with the right wing with his votes.

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    p>Remember, “speak moderately, but govern for your base.”

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    p>The media interviews were the moderate speaking, and the right wing is his base.

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    p>And that’s how it works.

  12. Did it occur to anyone that maybe his vote had nothing to do with DADT and everything to do with the Dream Act? You all are acting like the only thing being voted on was DADT.

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    p>Harry Reid made it clear that if this bill passed cloture that he would attach the Dream Act to it with no ability to debate it or make changes to it.

    <

    p>Many people voted against this because of that. It is believed that there are at least 60 Senators who support the repeal of DADT, so logically it would indicate that the failure is probably due to something else in the bill. If I were a betting man, I’d say it was the Dream Act and we all have Harry Reid to thank for killing the repeal of DADT.  

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