Two More Reasons For Progressives To Get Behind Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)

Earlier we saw that Tuesday is primary-day for Dr. Syed Taj in MI-11. Of course that means it's primary day for all the candidates running in Michigan, including Blue America-endorsed Trevor Thomas, who's running against another pathetic anti-Choice shill, Steve Pestka. I was really impressed this week to see former (and future) Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) send out a fundraising letter to her own supporters for Trevor. Other than Alan Grayson, who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for progressives this year, you almost never see candidates asking their own donors to give to other challengers-- and especially not in a tough primary. I love it! Here's what Carol had to say:

I'm writing to ask you to support a progressive candidate, Trevor Thomas, who is working to defeat an extreme Tea Party freshman in Michigan. Trevor is a strong progressive: pro-choice, committed to environmental protection, and fighting for opportunity for all, and next week he has a primary election against an anti-choice Democrat.

...I got to know Trevor when he helped out with my campaign, and when he worked for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' As a member of the Committee on Armed Services, I saw up close as Trevor personally worked with Republican and Democratic members of Congress to repeal DADT, helping to achieve a bipartisan victory for a progressive cause. We need more of that spirit in Washington.
 
Trevor has the passion and commitment our country needs in Congress. He spoke out publicly in favor of marriage equality in his local paper, the Grand Rapids Press, back in 2004. Before he ran for office, Trevor worked as a reporter for the local NBC news affiliate, and he worked for former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.

...All of the funds that Trevor raises this week go directly into funding voter contact between now and Primary Election Day, August 7. I hope you will offer him your support. Now is the time to make a difference-- help a progressive take the seat of a tea partier.
 
Thank you for helping my friend Trevor.

You can contribute to both Trevor and to Carol here on the Blue America page. And Carol, who is currently leading her own crazed teabagger opponent, Frank Guinta, has a pretty hard race of her own-- and like Trevor, one that isn't being supported by the DCCC or the Inside-the-Beltway corrupt Democratic Machine. That doesn't stop Carol for going right up in the face of well-honed Republican talking points... and taking them apart. This week, for example, she was pummeling Guinta and his deranged party for their denial of Climate Change science. Guest post:

Fix Congress To Fix Climate Change

-by Carol Shea-Porter

America and the world have had quite an awful time the past few years with wild weather-- drought, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wind, heat. Many people in our country have died in these natural disasters, and New Hampshire has had its share of trouble. While we use the word "natural,” most people now believe that these disasters are a result of global warming, also called climate change. However, there are still too many climate change deniers in Congress, and this is preventing the United States from moving forward, even as time is running out to slow down climate change.

After years of arguing about whether we were experiencing climate change as a result of our human activities, the evidence is pretty convincing to most scientists at this point. Most agree it is from burning fossil fuels. Seth Borenstein, an AP science writer, reported that Richard Muller, a "prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming," conducted a two-year study to see if the earth was heating up. While he did not study the cause, his conclusion was that the earth was rapidly heating up. This was huge news in the climate skeptic industry, whose ranks grow smaller every day.

Consider the evidence for just this summer. The heat has been tormenting people. American farmers are experiencing a drought disaster. There are wild storms across the country. Greenland has just experienced a huge ice melt. Christine Roberts of the New York Daily News wrote that, "The ice sheet that blankets Greenland has melted at an astonishing rate this summer, stunning NASA scientists and leaving many wondering what will happen next. Nearly 97% of Greenland's surface ice sheet thawed during a four day period in July-- more than it ever has in the last 30 years, NASA satellite data shows."

Extreme weather and climate change are tied together, and scientists have collected a lot of data to show this. Reuters environmental correspondent Alister Doyle just reported that "A study this month, for instance, showed that greenhouse gas emissions had raised the chances of the severe heat wave in Texas in 2011 and unusual heat in Britain in late 2011." Doyle says that evidence that we will continue to have severe weather where we live might help experts to plan for the costs associated with it, and to find ways to deal with climate change.

Maybe. But first, we need our policy makers-Congress-to finally acknowledge climate change and stop stalling on finding solutions. We have too many members who refuse to admit there is climate change, or that the federal government has a role to play in stopping it. For example, our Congressman in New Hampshire's First District, Frank Guinta, told the Raymond Tea Party that the federal government has no role to play in fixing global warming.

Congressman Guinta is not alone in trying to block any corrective action. The military has been very concerned about climate change and access to fuel, and is now using some biofuels. Some senators are fighting this on the grounds that it could cost more than traditional fuels. This is discouraging, because scientists tell us we need to act quickly now to change our dependence, and there is also a national security issue here. We must break our dependence on oil for environmental and security reasons, and we must do it now.

I believe there should be an Apollo-type program to address these issues, advance renewable energy, and slow down climate change. But our current Congress took 27 votes to block action to address climate change in 2011, and 94% of the Republican members voted to block any action. If Americans want to fix this climate change problem, they will first need to fix Congress in November.