by digby
Check out Pennsylvania Blue Dog congressman Tim Holden, endorsing fracking in national forests:
As Howie says:Holden is one of Boehner's and Cantor's best friends inside the Democratic caucus. Although he's sort of a Democrat, he agrees with the GOP leaders on ideological grounds most of the time-- and routinely votes against women's Choice and women's health issues and on a boatload of issues from AgriBusiness and Big Oil to voting rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech. He's one of the only Democrats who voted with the GOP, not just on Choice, but on every single bill regarding contaceptives. This guy is PART of the Republican War Against Women-- a conservative foot-soldier embedded inside the Democratic congressional caucus. Since President Obama was elected, Holden has voted with the GOP on crucial roll calls 64.23% of the time-- and that's not on naming post offices. That 64.23% represents substantive legislation were his vote was needed by Democrats. He didn't deliver.
But it isn't all ideological with Holden; it never is. It's also who's paying him-- basically which sleazy lobbyists and which big corporate donors are pulling his strings.
Apparently, he's thrilled to take money from the people who what to make your water flammable.(Not to mention
polluted.)
Howie:
Big Energy PACs run by Dick Cheney's Halliburton donated $511,638 to help finance Tim Holden's slimy career. Why would they help finance a Democrat? Holden is barely a Democrat and, after all, he supported them when it really mattered most-- in creating the Halliburton Loophole, exempting Holden's big campaign donors from EPA regulations so they could poison the water table with impunity. In conjunction with Holden's congressional manipulations. the U.S. Forest Service announced it didn't plan to issue a universal ban on horizontal drilling on federal land, allowing many national forests to remain available for natural gas production, the agency's deputy chief said Friday. Continuing to push both GOP and Big Oil and Gas talking points, "extolled the importance of domestic energy production. Public land generated more than $112 billion in 2010, he said, noting the contribution of mineral resource management to that figure."
This is one awful Democrat. Among the worst. (He was even one of those Blue Dogs who refused to vote for Nancy Pelosi for minority leader.)Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for his constituents (and the planet) he's been redistricted and has a very viable opponent in the primary, a well known lawyer by the name of Matt Cartwright. And Cartwright has a good chance to win --- only half the district knows Holden from Adam at this point, and they aren't like what they're seeing. And that same half knows and likes Matt --- he's their local "TV lawyer." So this is a winnable battle for the good guys.
Holden is a one man wrecking crew for the energy industry, with a record of support for fracking, the single most important environmental issue in that area. And that's not a winning position in Pennsylvania Democratic primaries.
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