The Daily Blue America Report-- #2

Florida-08- Beneson released a new poll yesterday for the Orlando-centric district and it's more really bad news for incumbent rubber stamp Ric Keller. It's the third poll since the primary and the third showing him losing decisively to progressive truth-talker Alan Grayson. Grayson leads Keller by 11 points, 52-41%, up significantly since the September poll that stunned the DC Establishment by showing Grayson up 4 points over Keller. Keller's response has been a barrage of costly negative ads, paid for by the corporate interests he has steadfastly represented instead of central Florida voters. Keller has three times as much money in his campaign war chest as Grayson.

Florida-18- With Annette Taddeo's polling numbers steadily rising, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been confronted with a question she's never had to face before. How far is she willing to go to win re-election? Clearly she won't move away from her extremist reactionary world view and she's not going to suddenly end her rubber stamp posture towards Bush and the GOP. Apparently though, she is willing to toss her dignity to the winds and... poll dance in a bar. Watch:



Another thing she won't do: debate her opponent. Her nasty, elitist argument is that she's been around a long time and if the voters don't know where she stands by now, it's too bad. She so shocked the NBC and ABC affiliates by flatly turning down an opportunity to debate Annette on the biggest broadcast outlets in Miami-Dade, that they each invited Annette to come on and discuss the issues facing south Florida voters tomorrow. At 9 AM Annette will be on with Nick Bogert (NBC 6) on Today in South Florida Sunday and at 11:30 AM she'll be on WPLG Local 10 with Michael Putney on This Week in South Florida.

Meanwhile, the two south Florida progressives, Joe Garcia (FL-25) and Annette, will be holding public a meeting with Congressman Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to discuss veterans' issues on Monday morning at 10AM in Kendall. Very few members of Congress have such unambiguously anti-veteran voting records as Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Diaz-Balart participated in 22 roll calls regarding veterans issues since 2003-- and he voted against our vets all 22 times! The pole dancer has a slightly worse voting record-- 23 roll calls/23 votes against American veterans. These are two of the sleaziest and most contemptible members of Congress, each running around screeching that they support the troops. But when it comes to paying for armor for the troops, they're AWOL and when it comes to supporting our vets, no member of Congress is worse than Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen! No wonder Chairman Reyes is traveling all the way to Miami. After the Iraq and Afghan wars we will need members of Congress who support a fair deal for vets and their families, not slimy hacks like Diaz-Balart and the pole dancer.

And America's worst senator-- and Oklahoma's shame-- James Inhofe has joined the ranks of divisive extremist maniacs like Michele Bachmann, Robin Hayes, Scott Garrett and Sarah Palin. These shameless swine would rather divide Americans up and provoke animosity and hatred than talk about real issues facing the country. Garrett actually accused his opponent, Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi of being in league with anti-Israeli terrorists! These people know no bounds. They follow pure Rovian constructs that advocate attacking political opponents with lies that go after their strongest points. Inhofe just came out with his newest TV smear campaign, a negative attack ad insinuating that Barack Obama and Andrew Rice are not "real Americans" and not like the rest of us.

Inhofe has been one of corporate America's most steadfast tools against the interests of American working families. Inhofe has accepted $1,356,302 in so-called "donations" from the finance, insurance and real estate industries, authors of the current economic misery that is plaguing this country's working people. And in return he has supported every single deregulation and every single tax break for them while offering regular Americans nothing but a pointy stick in the eye. Similarly, Big Oil has found a real partner in crime in James Inhofe. While his legislation drove their profits into the billions, while impoverishing working families, they lavished him with "donations." Big Oil has only given 4 current senators over a million dollars: shills John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, John Cornyn and James Inhofe. There isn't a single member of Congress more corrupt than James Inhofe-- more corrupt and less in touch with his own constituents' needs. That's why he'd rather run a smear campaign against Andrew Rice than debate the issues.

As Karina Henderson from Rice's campaign wrote about the road trip to 30 Oklahoma communities he and his wife did last week, "The Oklahomans they meet aren't afraid of Andrew Rice, or of Barack Obama-- they're afraid of losing their jobs, being bankrupted by a health problem, watching their retirement savings disappear, and losing their home.  They're afraid of the very problems Jim Inhofe helped create because he thought the financial industry was 'overregulated.'"

You can donate to Andrew Rice, Joe Garcia, Annette Taddeo, Dennis Shulman and Alan Grayson all on the same page.