New Congressional Ads

Two very different ads for each of the two New Hampshire congressional districts, one up top for Ann Kuster and one directly below this paragraph for Carol Shea-Porter. NH-01 and NH-02 are two of the only districts in the country where the DCCC is supporting independent-minded progressive reformers instead of their usual corrupt conservatives in the image of Steve Israel, Joe Crowley and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And they just released two good ads targeting the Republican incumbents, Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta. The object is to replace Bass with Ann Kuster and to replace Guinta with Carol Shea-Porter. Both women are currently leading in the polls. But both Republicans are expecting massive infusions of cash from Rove and the Koch brothers. Which ad do you think is most effective?

This next ad isn't from the DCCC. Patrick Murphy's own campaign went for the nuclear option all on their own, although, presumably either with a DCCC green light or a push from Papa Murphy, who calls all the shots there-- probably both. I don't much like Murphy but I love the ad and I think it's a completely appropriate and effective response to the Allen West ad we ran here-- the one showing Murphy as a degenerate drunk-- a few days ago. Murphy is spending something like $175,000 to get this on TV, according to his campaign. 

West, a sadist who built his political following on the far right, by illegally torturing Iraqi civilians, responded with anger. His campaign manager, Tim Edson shot back at Murphy with furor that seems to indicate a nerve was hit: “What kind of man who has never worn the uniform attacks an honorably discharged combat veteran for acting to protect the lives of his soldiers? A desperate man and apparently the same kind of man who calls a decorated combat veteran a coward, hides behind his father’s racist attack ads, gets into drunken bar fights, verbally assaults police officers and then uses his family’s connections to get out of trouble. Patrick Murphy is a spoiled brat and a truly terrible person.”

Meanwhile, Blue America has 7 different radio spots in production, which we'll be sharing with you soon as well as lots and lots of billboards. Remember the old Rob Zerban billboard we had up for months at the Ryan Road exit of the I-94 south of the Milwaukee airport? Same billboard, same spot ... and up starting this weekend until election day. As well as newspaper ads blanketing all the WI-01 small markets. This ad:

And... smaller billboards all over the district, Burma Shave style. Here are just a couple of random examples:

And then we have trucks; I'll tell you about our coast to coast trucks soon--  in fact, I'll show you them soon. If you'd like to help us finance these efforts and help us win a couple of seats for progressives against exceptionally odious Republicans-- think Paul Ryan and Buck McKeon as examples-- who are NOT being considered by the DCCC, here's the place to give. That's our I.E. Committee and there are no limits on the amounts we can accept there. So if you know any rich lefties who aren't under the spell of the DCCC...

May 25, 2011-- Bill Clinton, Paul Ryan And The Conservative Consensus

I can't find that old video of President Obama referring to Paul Ryan as "serious" and giving Village credibility to his corporate-written harebrained schemes to reverse the New Deal, destroy Medicare and privatize Social Security. It was one of the first indications I had after the 2008 election that Obama was in way over his head. Paul Krugman's 2010 columns on Ryan's ignorance and unseriousness helped put the lie to Obama's idiotic assertion. Krugman's classic Flimflam Man OpEd:

One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans. You might have thought, given past experience, that D.C. insiders would be on their guard against conservatives with grandiose plans. But no: as long as someone on the right claims to have bold new proposals, he’s hailed as an innovative thinker. And nobody checks his arithmetic.

Which brings me to the innovative thinker du jour: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Ryan has become the Republican Party’s poster child for new ideas thanks to his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a plan for a major overhaul of federal spending and taxes. News media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable; on Monday, the Washington Post put a glowing profile of Mr. Ryan on its front page, portraying him as the G.O.P.’s fiscal conscience. He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious.”

But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

...So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense. And last but not least, there’s deference to power-- the G.O.P. is a resurgent political force, so one mustn’t point out that its intellectual heroes have no clothes.

But they don’t. The Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America’s fiscal future.

Has Bill Clinton been taken in too? Or is he part of the scam? Last week we saw Clinton endorsing one of the most corrupt conservatives running for Congress anywhere, Maryland multimillionaire loan shark, John Delaney. Want to feel sick to your stomach? Just watch this video on Clinton offering to help Ryan with his plans to kill Medicare the day after Democrats won a Republican seat in upstate New York based almost entirely on opposing Ryan's Medicare plans:



It's less than a minute long, caught surreptitiously on someone's cell phone... but it speaks volumes about the corporate money-driven conservative consensus that rules Washington, a consensus that allowed Clinton and Rahm Emanuel to succeed in passing George H.W. Bush's tragic NAFTA legislation and that allowed Obama to continue George W. Bush's policy of bailing out criminal banksters-- instead of jailing them. That's why Blue America is a progressive PAC, not a Democratic Party PAC and it's why you'll see us fighting against corrupt conservatives regardless of political party. Our primary targets right now, for example, are a Republican corporate whore in California, Buck McKeon, and a Democratic corporate whore in Pennsylvania, Blue Dog Tim Holden. Corrupt members of DC's conservative consensus are frantic to save both their necks. Their constituents are having second thoughts. And as for the Flimflam Man himself... he has his very own Blue America page, Stop Paul Ryan. Have you visited it lately?

One question before you go... Many Democratic candidates have been urged by the DCCC to send out letters to their supporters like this one from Ann Kuster. Does it appear to put them at odds with Bill Clinton?

In the next two weeks Congressman Bass and the Tea Party Republicans will once again try to dismantle Medicare. At the exact same time a right-wing advertising campaign from American Action Network will be targeting New Hampshire seniors, claiming Congressman Bass will ‘protect’ their healthcare.

Let’s be clear: Last year Congressman Bass supported the Ryan budget, and in doing so voted to end Medicare while preserving tax cuts for millionaires. And when Congress votes on the budget again this month, we have every reason to expect he’ll do the same.

Our seniors and their families deserve to know the facts. I intend to set the record straight-- but to do it I’ll need your help.

Can you contribute $3 or more so I can stop Congressman Bass hiding from his record?

The Ryan budget would retain tax cuts for the wealthy, while replacing Medicare with a voucher system that would almost double healthcare costs for seniors. We need a budget that is fair-- a budget that creates jobs, rebuilds the middle class, reduces the deficit, and protects the services our elderly rely on.

These are my priorities-- but Congressman Bass' support of the Ryan budget demonstrates that he does not share them. When Congress votes on the budget again this month, New Hampshire seniors and their families deserve to know where he stands.

Together we can ensure that the voice of our seniors is heard, and the services they deserve are protected.

Republican Speculators And Hedge Fund Manipulators Driving Up The Price Of Gas

The 15 most corrupt Big Oil whores in the history of the House-- 13 Republicans & 2 slimy Blue Dogs

Thursday we took a brief glimpse at how Romney's billionaire backers-- hedge fund dealers and speculators-- are driving up the cost of gasoline. That will cover the cost of their contributions to Romney (much the way Enron paid for the Bush campaign by over-charging California rate-payers) and it will have the bonus effect of slowing down the recovery and giving the Republicans an opportunity to try to blame Obama and the Democrats. Obama has been successfully pushing back against this perfidy but so have Democrats running for Congress. Thursday evening I went up to Santa Clarita to hear Lee Rogers, the Blue America-endorsed candidate running against Big Oil whore Buck McKeon, speak to CA-25 Democrats. What he had to say resonated with everyone in the room:

"Oil speculators gamble on Wall Street and we pay the price at the pump. The price is not governed by supply and demand. The supply is not our problem. Fuel was America's largest export in 2011. Our oil output is higher now than it has been in decades. But speculators who bet that oil will be a higher price in a month from now, based on turmoil in the Middle East, rising global demand, or refinery capacity, end up causing an artificial supply problem even when one doesn't exist. This is because those who own the commodity, hold on to it waiting for the price to raise. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that makes both the speculator and the oil company rich. Oil is one of our most valued commodities. It affects the price of nearly everything we purchase from fresh produce, to shipping, to airplane tickets, to taxi rides. In some cases those who gamble with speculation, also own the commodity. Talk about a conflict of interest!

"Big oil and the Republicans solution is to 'drill, drill, drill.' Since high gas prices isn't really a supply problem, drilling for more oil and increasing the supply won't solve our problems. It will just make more money for the oil companies already raking in record profits, because speculators will keep the price high and there will be more oil to sell at that high price. Plus, if we start drilling today, the real effects at the pump will take months or years to feel. On the other hand, ending oil speculation will have an immediate effect on gas prices.

"Speculation causes volatility in the market price for oil. Let's restrict oil trading like other goods, in the open market based on real stock investments. I'm calling for an end to oil speculation and when I get to Congress, some of my first actions will be fighting to remove this stranglehold around the necks of consumers at the hands of big oil companies and speculators trying to get rich."

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire Ann Kuster took a solid swing at longtime Oil Industry shill Charlie Bass, who she's opposing in November. Bass has taken $419,490 in "contributions" (really nothing more than blatant legalistic bribes) from the Energy/Natural Resources Sector and has completely toed their line, even when that line, as it often does, is to the detriment of his own constituents. Like McKeon, he's an adamant supporter of continuing transferring billions of taxpayer dollars into the oil companies as they continue to make obscene profits. Congressmen like Bass and McKeon get direct kickbacks for their support of these payments in the form of campaign "contributions." Kuster is fuming that the already super already profitable oil industry is being subsidized by tax dollars while New Hampshire residents are paying painfully high prices at the pump (and for heating oil). Her campaign put out a statement saying that “While families are struggling on tight budgets, it’s getting harder to fill the gas tank and Congressman Bass is giving taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies that are already making record profits. Families here in New Hampshire are already tightening their belts and the last thing they want is to continue giving billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies. Congressman Bass not only continues to support the subsidies, he is getting rewarded for his support with campaign cash.”

Last May, both Bass and McKeon voted to bypass consideration of the Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act of 2011 (H.R. 1689), which would repeal key taxpayer-funded subsidies for oil and gas companies. Ann Kuster and Lee Rogers are on the same page in terms of ending taxpayers subsidies to Big Oil-- and they're both on the same page here as well, the Blue America ActBlue page.

Blue America Welcomes Back Our Old Friend Ann Kuster

Annie's campaign is financed by actual people, not Romney people, not corporate special interests looking for government handouts

Today at 11am (PT), so 2 back East, Blue America will formally endorse Ann McLane Kuster for Congress, as we did in 2010. Digby will be leading a discussion at Crooks and Liars that will emphasize Annie's progressive philosophy of governance, contrasting it with the corrupt, failed conservatism of her rubber-stamp opponent, Charlie Bass. As Digby pointed out in a letter to Blue America donors on Thursday morning, "On election night 2010, when progressives around the country were pummeled and defeated, one race kept us all up late, hoping against hope that we'd have a memorable victory among the defeats. As it turned out New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District candidate Ann McLane Kuster lost to Charlie Bass that night by only a few votes, but showed that even in a GOP tsunami she had what it took to compete as a progressive." Bass has been amassing a campaign war chest hand over first.

He's collecting money from all the usual suspects, notably energy and insurance companies who have business in front of the energy and commerce committee [on which he serves], along with practically every other lobbyist from tobacco to Walmart. It didn't take him long to put his hand out and start collecting the big bucks from the corporations and the 1%.

By contrast Annie has had over 11,000 individual donations, 90% of which are under a hundred dollars.

Bass has gotten an eye-popping 72% of his campaign funds from corporate PACs. Clearly they've bought themselves another sleazy congressman. As Digby notes, Kuster's campaign money has overwhelmingly come from individuals: 90% of it from donors giving less than $100 each, Blue America-type donors. If you haven't joined in yet, please consider doing so here. The average contribution has been around $45. Most people give around $20.

Does it work? Can small amounts of grassroots money make the difference? We've seen it work in the past when we helped ensure victories for grassroots candidates like Donna Edwards, Alan Grayson, Paul Hodes, John Hall, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Bruce Braley, Carol Shea-Porter and Steve Cohen, to name a few. Earlier this week, NPR's Kai Ryssdal hosted a Marketplace show premised around the question to campaign finance author Steve Dubner, Does Money Really Buy Elections? It was right after Romney's big, albeit predictable win in the New Hampshire GOP primary on the back of the $50 million in campaign money he vacuumed up in 2011.

DUBNER: [I]n previous campaigns that he’s run for senator, governor and president, Romney’s spent $54 million of his own money. But you know who else put a lot of money into their campaigns? Let me give you a few, uh, lovely names: Steve Forbes, Linda McMahon, Meg Whitman. And you know what? None of them won anything, did they?

RYSSDAL: OK, so this is the hidden-side-of-everything part, is that where we’re going here?

DUBNER: This is the hidden side of everything. Here’s what I want to tell you today, Kai: Money does not buy elections. At least nowhere near what we’ve always been told. Here’s Steve Levitt, my Freakonomics co-author. He once conducted a study of congressional elections, where he tried to isolate the effect of campaign spending from all the other factors:

Steve LEVITT: When a candidate doubled their spending, holding everything else constant, they only got an extra one percent of the popular vote. It’s the same if you cut your spending in half, you only lose one percent of the popular vote. So we’re talking about really, really large swings in campaign spending with almost trivial changes in the vote.

RYSSDAL: All right, here’s the thing: Steve Levitt, very nice guy, knowledgeable economist… sadly though, I don’t believe him. Cause if you look, it’s always the guy with the most money who wins.

DUBNER: You’re right; it is almost always the guy with the most money who wins. That is what we know as correlation without cause. So let me explain: When it’s raining out, everybody’s got an umbrella, we know that. Those things are correlated. But you know what, the umbrellas don’t cause the rain, we know that too. Here’s the thing: Winning an election and raising money do go together, but it doesn’t seem as though money actually causes the winning either. It’s just that the kind of candidate who’s attractive to voters also ends up, along the way, attracting a lot of money and the losing candidate, nobody wants to give money to that guy.

RYSSDAL: Right, it makes sense, but what happens when you tell politicians this? I mean, this is a message they don’t want to hear, right?

DUBNER: Yeah. No politician’s going to step forward and say, “Please don’t send me your money. I do not want it. I will not use it.” You know, look, campaign fundraising has become an arms race, and as in any arms race, the first casualty is logic, right? But let’s look past new Hampshire and back to Iowa last week. Here’s some good evidence for these politicians. Rick Perry spent $4.3 million on advertising there-- nearly triple what Romney spent-- and got only 10 percent of the vote. Rick Santorum, on the other hand, spent only $30,000 for ads in Iowa, and he lost to Romney by just eight votes. So, so much for the money argument.

RYSSDAL: All right, so far this is a lot of you talking about politicians and money-- did you actually talk to any politicians about money?

DUBNER: Well, you think they’re going to come out and say, “Nah, I don’t need the money.” I did find one former politician. At least he says he’s former. You remember Rudy Giuliani, I gather, yeah?

RYSSDAL: I do: twice the mayor of New York City and for like five minutes in 2008, the front-runner.

DUBNER: That’s right. Well, I asked him if money buys elections:

RUDY GIULIANI: So campaign spending doesn’t mean anything, because you can spend it incorrectly. I have lost an election by spending it wrong. I won an election, my first election that I won, I won when I was outspent $16 million to $2 million, in a Republican primary. We can see recently in Mike Bloomberg’s election. Mike Bloomberg spent $100 million dollars! And he won by 4 percent!

DUBNER: So I asked Giuliani what advice he would give to candidates:

GIULIANI: I tell candidates, it’s always better to be the candidate with the most money, but you can win without it.

RYSSDAL: So to finish the sentence, it’s better to be the candidate with the most money because that means you’re the most popular, right? People like you the best.

DUBNER: That’s exactly right. It’s like saying it’s better to be the radio show host with the most money, but really, what you want to be is the most popular.

This year Blue America is backing a pretty big slate of blue-collar working-class candidates running against plutocrats like Fred Upton in Michigan (heir to the Whirlpool fortune) or craven servants of the one percent like Bass. Come by the C&L chat today and hear what Annie Kuster has to say herself. And please, if you can... even $5 and $10 contributions make a difference in the battle against the corporate special interests. Here's our House candidates page, where we're just getting started with Annie's campaign.


TODAY'S INSTALLMENT OF "THE NOAH DIARIES"
WILL APPEAR AT 2pm PT/5pm ET

#

Charlie Bass (R-NH) Job Approval-- 29%... And Falling

No clown make-up needed for Charlie Bass

I hope you enjoyed the New Hampshire ad we ran yesterday about Charlie Bass voting with Paul Ryan to kill Medicare. Bass freaked out completely-- and demanded WMUR, the New Hampshire TV station DFA and the PCCC are running it on, stop broadcasting it-- just like they healthcare hypocrite Leonard Lance did when Blue America started running radio ads about him a few months ago. Bass and the GOP claim the ad is false and that Ryan's bill doesn't end Medicare-- since they still call the inadequate voucher program they're replacing Medicare with "Medicare."

WMUR's parent company is Comcast and they usually agree to whatever Republicans demand. As Greg Sargent pointed out at the Washington Post, "The GOP demand that Comcast Boston yank may give progressives a chance to draw that line-- but if the ad does get pulled it could become tougher for Dems to amplify the claim going forward. This is an important test case, and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out."

Adam Green, co-founder of the PCCC, which made and ran the ad, told us "It's awesome that Republicans freak out when held accountable for their vote to end Medicare. As Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman said, 'that's just what it is. If you replace a system that actually pays seniors’ medical bills with an entirely different system, one that gives seniors vouchers that won’t be enough to buy adequate insurance, you’ve ended Medicare. Calling the new program "Medicare" doesn’t change that fact.' Hear hear. No carping, complaining, or whining from national Republicans will change the fact that they voted to end Medicare -- and New Hampshire TV stations agree." So far no one has pulled the ad off the air and Comcast's attorneys have rejected Bass' and the NRCC's assertions that the ad is false. I suspect that by making a big stink, all Bass did was draw more attention to the ad, which is now a legitimate news story for other stations.

This is all very dangerous territory for Bass, since voters in New Hampshire are already turning sour on the GOP and his polling numbers look very bad for what appears to be a likely second rejection shaping up by his constituents.

Just 29 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire’s 2nd district approve of Bass’ job performance, according to a survey conducted May 31 and June 1 by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on behalf of Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The margin of error for the poll, obtained by Roll Call for an early look, was 4.2 points.

When asked about Medicare, 2nd district voters offered a similar sentiment as those of New York’s 26th district, who gave now-Rep. Kathy Hochul (D) an upset victory in last month’s special election. She won at least in part because her Republican opponent supported Medicare cuts in the House Republican budget plan written by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.).

Sixty percent of New Hampshire respondents said they oppose cutting Medicare. And 69 percent said they support raising federal taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 a year “to save programs like Social Security and Medicare from cuts."

Even before the new polling was released, it was clear Bass’ re-election effort would be no cakewalk.

Anyone think Bass will invite Paul Ryan into New Hampshire to campaign for him? No? In honor of Bass' whining, here's the ad again:

How Will New Hampshire React To Charlie Bass' Vote To Gut Medicare?

DWT readers are not unacquainted with slippery New Hampshire congresscritter Charlie Bass. We first started covering his slimy roll in politics back in 2006, 7 months before the voters decided to retire him. That November, the people of New Hampshire's 2nd CD gave the incumbent rubber stamp Republican 93,905 votes, 45%. Last year, in the Republican wave election, Bass was back as the GOP tidal wave engulfed New Hampshire. He got 48% of the votes, beating grassroots progressive Annie Kuster by around 3,000 votes in one of the closest elections in the country. Today New Hampshire seems to regret what happened, not just in the 2nd CD, but everywhere across the state. We saw a few weeks ago how a once-safe GOP legislative seat was swamped by a Democrat in a special election. Yesterday two top GOP state legislators resigned from the party leadership in protest against the Republicans' war against working families. "It is evident now that pro-worker Republican views like mine are not respected under this leadership team,” said House Deputy Majority Leader Matt Quandt (R-Exeter), one of the two who resigned. House Whip Tim Copeland (R-Stratham), a freshman legislator and retired state worker, gave his resignation this week and said he has become frustrated with the attacks against public employees. "I just couldn't do it anymore. Delivering their message goes against my grain, so I did the right thing and resigned," he said. "What they're doing, going after the public employees and pensions just isn't right."

Paul Ryan hasn't been campaigning in New Hampshire, but his budget-- or, as he terms it his "cause"-- is very much in the minds of voters there. The new ad (above), plus Annie Kuster's decision to seek a rematch, will keep voters thinking about whether or not they want to wreck the social compact and follow Ryan and Bass down the rabbit hole of right-wing social nihilism, gutting Medicare, abolishing Medicaid, privatizing Social Security, enshrining the anti-Christian Law of the Jungle mentality that thrilled Ryan in Ayn Rand's adolescent novels.

Special interest money will once again act as a bulwark to shore up Charlie Bass' pro-Big Business, anti-family career. The main thing on voters' minds is probably Bass' vote against Medicare-- twice. His tendency to be a shameless rubberstamp for his party-- and a lackey for Wall Street-- got him in trouble with the voters before and is likely to do so again next year. Last year the Kuster campaign pointed out that "Bass supported subsidies for oil companies and bailouts for big Wall Street executives-- now those same interests are subsidizing his campaign and bailing-out" his campaign. The Koch Brothers, in appreciation of Bass' support for their efforts to ship American jobs to China, bought him another shot in Congress. Bass' "support for tax breaks for big oil and tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs matches the agenda of these shady, outside groups," pointed out the Kuster campaign at the time. "Charlie's outsourcing friends are understandably concerned about Annie Kuster's plan to close the tax loopholes he supported during his twelve years in Washington."

Blue Hampshire thoroughly laid out all the facts on Bass' disgraceful relationship with Big Oil which has given him, over the course of his disgraceful career, more thinly veiled bribes from the oil & gas industry than all of the other 22 members of U.S. House of Representatives from New England combined. In return, Bass has consistently voted against cracking down on price gouging by Big Oil and against removing billions in tax breaks to Big Oil from legislation. In fact when he was in Congress the first time, and part of the reason New Hampshire voters tossed him, he voted for Cheney's 2005 Energy Bill which featured a $1.6 billion tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas. This year he once again voted for tax breaks for Big Oil and against closing the loopholes the GOP thinks they deserve.

That, his vote to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program and an assertive, progressive Kuster campaign, should stop Bass once and for all. If you'd like to help, you can do it at our Act Blue page.

Will Paul Ryan's Toxicity Poison New Hampshire Politics Too?

Which one is Charlie Bass?

One of Blue America's top contenders last year was Annie Kuster in New Hampshire. And she came tantalizingly close to winning against prohibitive Republican headwinds. While the state did a disastrous about-face and Republicans swept the Senate race, both House seats and both houses of the state legislature, often by overwhelming margins, Ann fought Republican rubber stamp Charlie Bass to a 48-47% near-draw.

As we saw in last week's special election, few voters are experiencing buyers' remorse as severely as Granite Staters.

When New Hampshire's lunatic fringe Speaker, Bill O’Brien, persuaded Rep. Robert Mead to resign and become his chief of staff, no one worried about the GOP's ability to retain the seat. After all, House District 4 is one of the reddest in the state-- the 14th most Republican seat in the legislature. But they did lose-- and they lost big, Daler sweeping all 5 towns in the district (Mont Vernon, New Boston, Lyndeborough, Temple and Wilton) against O'Brien's handpicked candidate Peter Kucmas, who struggled to stay above 40%.

Delusional and refusing to see the writing on the wall, the state Republican Chairman, Jack Kimball, who many think lost his mind long ago, said "Unfortunately special elections have a lower voter turnout and I am disappointed with the outcome. Jennifer Daler is a tax-and-spend liberal... Republicans hold super-majorities in the House and Senate and will continue their outstanding work, promoting economic growth and job creation while continuing the fight against irresponsible spending in Concord." Republicans are unwilling to see the results as a verdict from voters on their destructive and reckless extremism even though the turnout Tuesday was the highest for any special election in New Hampshire's history. Voters don't want to see New Hampshire's public education system dismantled and they won't stand for the Republican's power grab. The vote Tuesday augers well for a swing back towards the center next year in the legislature and it augers well for victories for Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster in the two House races.

Annie is already getting down to business and last week penned editorials for several of the biggest newspapers in the state. She isn't allowing Bass to creep away from his vote for Paul Ryan's disastrous budget that features a plan to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher system that would be catastrophic for seniors from coast to coast and hits New Hampshire seniors extremely hard. The out-of-pocket costs for a New Hampshire senior on Medicare will more than double if the Ryan-Bass budget, as I like to refer to it when writing about New Hampshire, is ever signed into law. By 2022 a typical New Hampshire Medicare enroll would have to pay $5,716.96 as the system now operates. According to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, under the Ryan-Bass plan, the out-of-pocket expenses go up to $11,624.36 by 2022. That's an increase of $5,907.40 every year. There are an awful lot of seniors who just cannot afford that. In 20 years-- 20 years of retirement-- that increase would amount to $118,140 for granny and $118,140 for gramps. Can they afford that? Can New Hampshire voters afford Charlie Bass and the Republican Party. Is Senator Ayotte going to bring that budget one step closer to reality by voting for it this week? The other New England Republicans aren't going to.

Annie's message is clear and in sync with New Hampshire voters. Bass’s “private mandate and voucher system sets up an unstable, hurtful, and discriminatory system for seniors. In essence, the only element it keeps from our current, successful program is the name 'Medicare'." Bass is desperate and is lying to his constituents insisting that he didn't vote for a voucher system even though he did. The Nashua Telegraph called him on it:

"Neither 'sweeping overhaul' nor 'change' comes anywhere close to the unvarnished truth: the Ryan budget would abolish Medicare."

So did the editors of the Concord Monitor:

"Please, Charlie, you’re insulting people. Call it what it is: a voucher whose value increases more slowly than the cost of health care."

Harsh! But the editors of the Keene Sentinel were not less brutal: "This plan would in fact end what we know as Medicare.” And AARP skewers their "cause" as well:

Tomorrow’s seniors “would not get traditional pay-as-you-go Medicare benefits once they become eligible. They would receive federal vouchers to buy coverage from the private sector."

But Bass is running from his vote as fast as he can. Anyone think he'll invite Paul Ryan to visit New Hampshire's second district to explain his "cause"-- their cause-- to the citizens of Concord, Keene, Berlin, Lebanon, and Nashua? After all, Ryan, probably the most toxic politician in the country, announced on Meet The Press yesterday that he's available for someone's vice presidential ticket. Herman Cain... here's your chance. 'Cause a Newt/Ryan ticket isn't all that likely. Ryan blasted Gingrich’s assessment of his Medicare plan as “deeply inaccurate” and a “gross mischaracterization.” No doubt Charlie Bass was sitting at home wishing he had never heard the name "Paul Ryan."

Republicans Are Getting Booed Defending Ryan's Indefensible Budget-- Starting With Racist Fanatic Lou Barletta

I once lived in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, which is in Monroe County, part of Pennsylvania's 11th congressional district. A blue collar Democratic district that voted for Gore and Kerry and gave Obama 57% in 2010, it was represented in Congress by sleazy Democratic wheeler-dealer Paul Kanjorski since 1984... until last November when he was beaten 102,179 (54.7%) to 84,618 (45.3%) by a deranged teabagger, Lou Barletta, known only as a vicious racist whose entire political career-- he was mayor of tiny Hazelton, which worked hard to make immigrants, and American Puerto Ricans, feel unwanted-- has been built on a steadfast message of hatred and fear.

And now he's famous for something else. A steadfast supporter of the Paul Ryan budget to dismantle Medicare to give more tax breaks to millionaires, Barletta held a townhall to bask in his vote. And the same thing that happened to Ryan the day before happened to him: his constituents let him know what they thought of him.

Reminiscent of the August 2009 town halls when members of Congress faced angry constituents over health care reforms, a public forum in Carbon County with Rep. Lou Barletta Wednesday night provided a glimpse of the strong emotions stirred by a Republican plan to alter Medicare benefits.

At the start of his town hall meeting-- in a county that is predominately Republican-leaning and 17 percent over 65 years old-- Barletta welcomed people to use the conversation to get things off their chests. While he was going through a slide projector presentation about the Medicare changes proposed by House Republican Paul Ryan, a woman raised her hand.

"Excuse me, I’d like to get something off my chest," she said, standing. "You seem to think that because I’m not effected I won’t care if my niece, my grandson, my child is affected. I do care. What you’re doing with this Ryan budget is you’re taking Medicare and changing it from a guaranteed health care system to one that is a voucher system where you throw seniors on the mercy of for-profit insurance companies..."

"You said nothing in the campaign about I’m going to change Medicare, now you voted for a plan that will destroy Medicare," Linda Christman, 64, said. Christman is president of the Carbon County Democrats for Change, according to Barletta's office.

"I won’t destroy Medicare, Medicare is going to be destroyed by itself," Barletta said.

Then it got ugly.

Christman talked over Barletta saying, "I have a great way for you... take the tax cuts given to the wealthy two percent... and put it into Medicare."

Two men in the back began yelling at her, "Sit down, let him talk, sit down." This prompted another man in a blue Hawaiian shirt to bolt to his feet, turn to the men in the back and yell, "Why don’t’ you make me sit down? Maybe you don’t believe in free speech? Why don’t you show some respect?"

"Sit down."

"Make me, make me."

This went on intermittently with a lot of angry name calling and yelling until the man in the Hawaiian shirt was escorted out by police.

Yesterday Time magazine pointed out that another corporate shill backing Ryan, Charlie Bass, ran into the same reaction. And Bass is in choppy water to begin with having only beat Anne Kuster by around 3,000 votes last year (48-47%)-- and with her running again next year-- he's widely viewed as one of the top half dozen targets for the Democratic Party. It hardly helps that he's out defending dismantling a program, Medicare, that is widely esteemed in New Hampshire.

Rep. Charlie Bass knew he was in for a rough night. The first question out of the gate during his Wednesday town hall in Hillsborough, NH was about his vote for Paul Ryan’s budget. And the second. And the third and the fourth, fifth and sixth questions. “I enjoyed the discourse,” he said, almost hopefully, afterward. “It’s important to speak with people who disagree with me. Of course there was going to be backlash.”

...[T]he district is one of 14 districts held by Republicans and won by both Obama and John Kerry. “Bass is one of the few Republicans in big trouble, not necessarily because of national climate or his actions, but more the trend line of his district,” says David Wasserman, House editor for the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan group that tracks congressional races. “He only won by a handful in a great GOP year.”

All the more reason for Bass to resist the party line and vote with his moderate district in mind-- but it was a temptation he didn’t give in to on the Ryan budget. “I’m not surprised it’s controversial: This is a groundbreaking budget that really pivots the direction where government will go,” Bass says, explaining why he didn’t hesitate to vote yes. “I wanted to vote for something that would change the relationship of the federal government to the people.”

What does Bass have to worry about?... [T]he 13% of Bass’s district who are 65 and older. Although those 55 and older would be grandfathered in to the current system under Ryan’s plan, hardly a day goes by that Democrats don’t remind Bass’s constituents that it would fundamentally change Medicare-- giving seniors money to purchase private insurance rather than directly provide government coverage. Bass spent a lot of time at his town hall trying to explain why it’s not, in his characterization, a voucher system. But he didn’t convince Spitzbarth and Loomis. “I like Medicare the way it is,” Spitzbarth told Bass to applause from the audience, “don’t screw it up.”

Bass’s case isn’t helped by the high-profile defection of two of his colleagues: Denny Rehberg, who is running for Senate in Montana, and David McKinley, who comes from a district in West Virginia that’s similar to Bass’s. Both Rehberg and McKinley said this week that they voted against Ryan’s budget because they were concerned that the plan could hurt seniors-- bolstering the Democrats’ case. Bass tried to explain to the crowd over and over: “This is just a blue print, budgets are non-binding… It’s a starting point.” But Spitzbarth and Loomis left unimpressed: “It could affect my vote,” he said, Loomis nodding her agreement. “I was over this from the get-go.”

Tomorrow we'll look at what happened when Robert Dold (R-IL) tried selling the Ryan message to his constituents in the suburbs north of Chicago. Republican Patrick Meehan, like Barletta, represents a swing district in eastern Pennsylvania. His constituents let him know what they think too. And in his case there's a special reason for extra anger. He specifically promised during a public debate to not support Ryan's agenda. He promised to oppose it and he voted for it. Sean Duffy's Wisconsin constituents have also come to realize they gotten taken in last November. Tuesday they let him have it:

CONSTITUENT: I hear you saying two contradictory things about taxes. One you want to reform the tax code so that corporations to pay more, and two you don’t want corporations to pay so much so that they’ll somehow stimulate business. So I don’t understand that contradiction. The CBO […] the Ryan program proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

DUFFY: It doesn’t, No it doesn’t.

DIFFERENT CONSTITUENT: Yes it does.

DUFFY: No, it doesn’t there’s no voucher.

CONSTITUENT: That’s what my understanding of what it is.

DUFFY: No.

CONSTITUENT: They count the cost to seniors if it goes into a voucher program, it’s going to be trillions of dollars for those young men like this guy in front.

DUFFY: It’s a premium support it’s not a voucher. The bottom line is if we do nothing, if we do nothing, you can all say this is all fine and dandy, you can get it and I know any young people here you can all get this program.

CONSTITUENT: I agree that if we do nothing we’re in trouble, that’s why we have to raise taxes on the rich, and raise taxes on the corporations who have never been richer than they have now. And you guys just cut their taxes again.

ANOTHER CONSTITUENT: Oh, Yeah!

DUFFY: When you say cutting taxes, if taxes maintain the same level and rate is that a tax cut.

CONSTITUENT: To maintain the same level that was long ago, that was sold on the premise of creating jobs by giving more money to the wealthy.

OTHER CONSTITUENTS: Yeah!

Joe Sestak And Ann Kuster Are Running Against Two Republicans Who Favor-- Literally-- Outsourcing American Jobs To China

Yesterday we looked at the disturbing question Has The Republican Party Turned Itself Into A Great Big Chinese Mole? and I think the answer is even more disturbing than the question. We've focused in on some of the worst of the Republicans and Blue Dogs who have conspired with foreign interests-- your Boehners and McConnells-- to sell out American workers and we've touched on some of the most egregious cases of self-interested candidates like Wisconsin's Ron Johnson. Two days ago, however, Joe Sestak, who has been fighting this countries enemies for his entire career, debated Wall Street derivatives trader and job outsourcing proponent sleazebag Pat Toomey.

Toomey is desperate to run away from his own record, especially now that voters are getting to know that record and are melting away from his campaign in droves. Although he decided to gamble by rolling out what could be a highly toxic endorsement from Sarah Palin, Toomey is attempting to cover up his support for outsourcing. It's not easy for him because his book, The Road to Prosperity talked about his belief that the United States has an “unfortunate tendency” to use “buy American language” in legislation. And according to a report in the Allentown Morning Call on September 26, Toomey wants a regulatory system more like Hong Kong. Like Ron Johnson, these authoritarian-leaning Republicans just love China, where the rich run the show and the poor shut their mouths and love like ants. “I was seeing pretty close up which economies were succeeding and which ones weren’t, and there is an unmistakable correlation,” Toomey said. “Those that are heavily regulated and centrally controlled underperform. And those like Hong Kong, where there is regulation but it is sensible, they thrive.”

In fact, Toomey's campaign is partially being financed by Communist China through a deal they have with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Ann Kuster is facing a similar challenge from an outsourcing fanatic who used to be in Congress, Charlie Bass. Bass' campaign is also full of illicit yuan, rubles, dinars and rupees, courtesy of the Chamber. And if Toomey is smart enough to try to hide his love of outsourcing, Bass is too stupid to understand how hated it is by Americans and was still defending it in a debate last week! He cited a former Bush economic advisor claiming, “For every single job that is outsourced in America, two new jobs are created.” Ann Kuster, a community activist who talks with real people doesn't figure out what's going on in New Hampshire by talking with former Bush advisors and lobbyists.

“Nearly 40,000 of our neighbors in New Hampshire are unemployed,” said Kuster. “By Congressman Bass’ logic shipping 20,000 more US jobs overseas will put them all back to work. Only people like Congressman Bass, who have spent way too long in Washington, believe that kind of nonsense... I completely disagree with Congressman Bass’s impassioned defense of outsourcing, and with his votes to protect tax loopholes that reward companies for sending American jobs overseas. Instead of helping companies outsource jobs to India and China, we should be helping them grow good jobs here at home.”

Like Joe Sestak, she advocates closing the tax loopholes that Bass and Toomey voted for and which reward corporations for sending jobs overseas. Both also favor proposals to incentivize the creation of domestic jobs and each is insisting that trade agreements are fair to American workers. Sestak voted against China’s currency manipulation in September and Kuster says she would have done the same. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, David Dreier, and Mike Pence whipped the GOP on behalf of the China's position and there is nothing in Bass' long record in Congress to indicate he would have opposed them. He certainly never did in the past. While he was in Congress, pushing the same patently unfair trade policies that Toomey was agitating for, New Hampshire lost over 10,000 well-paying middle class jobs to China. This is the ad Kuster started running in New Hampshire Wednesday:



UPDATE: Sleazy Boehner-Boy In Columbus Tries To Blame Outsourcing On Democrat... Who Fought Against It Most Loudly



Straight out of Rove's manual for attacking your opponent's strength, the ethics-free zone that is the Steve Stivers campaign is trying a new ploy to attack Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy. In an incredibly cynical and deceptive act of desperation, bank lobbyist and Boehner puppet Stivers produced an ad attempting to saddle anti-outsourcing crusader, Kilroy, with the very crimes Boehner and his GOP cronies are guilty of: shipping good paying American jobs to China. Even the conservative Columbus Dispatch was astounded at Stivers' patently fake hysteria. All that's missing is news that Stivers, like Republican Mark Kirk, was holding a Beijing fundraiser to pay for the ad!

Why Is So Much Special Interest Money Flooding Into New Hampshire?

These fellas think they should have their own New Hampshire congressman

New Hampshire voters tossed shameless Wall Street shill Charlie Bass out of Congress in 2006, when they elected Paul Hodes, 108,525 (53%) to 93,905 (45%). Now Hodes is running for the open U.S. Senate seat and Bass wants "his" old seat back. And the special interests are pouring huge sums of money into the second congressional district to help him beat progressive activist Ann McLane Kuster. This week the NRCC and four Republican Party front groups put another half million dollars into the race, all working in lockstep with his campaign to hide and distort a 12-year record of working hand-in-hand with the ideological reactionaries who ushered in the economic mess that Bush and the GOP Congress left us when the voters finally said, "No More!" [If you'd like to contribute to Ann Kuster's campaign, you can do it at the Blue America ActBlue page.]

“In Washington, Congressman Bass supported subsidies for oil companies and bailouts for big Wall Street executives-- now those same interests are subsidizing his campaign and bailing-out his faltering effort,” said Kuster Communications Director Neil Sroka. One of the worst, and best known, is Americans for Prosperity, a shady outfit funded by nefarious billionaire oil executive David Koch, whose company won the "Outsourcing Excellence Award" for its work shipping American jobs to China. Koch wants Charlie Bass back in DC and fork out whatever it takes. "It's no wonder Congressman Bass' out-of-state friends are rushing to his defense. His support for tax breaks for big oil and tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs matches the agenda of these shady, outside groups," said Sroka. "Charlie's outsourcing friends are understandably concerned about Annie Kuster's plan to close the tax loopholes he supported during his twelve years in Washington."

A couple weeks ago Dean Barker at Blue Hampshire thoroughly laid out all the facts on Bass' disgraceful relationship with Big Oil who has received, over the course of his slimy career, more thinly veiled bribes from the oil & gas industry than all of the other 22 members of U.S. House of Representatives from New England combined. In return for which Bass has consistently voted against cracking down on price gouging by Big Oil and against removing Billions in tax breaks to Big Oil from legislation. In fact when he was in Congress, and part of the reason New Hampshire voters tossed him, he voted for Cheney's 2005 Energy Bill which featured a $1.6 billion tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas.

OK, so that-- plus Kuster's promise to shut down the tax loopholes that reward companies for sending good American jobs overseas and to cut subsidies for big oil companies and end the Wall Street bailouts-- explains much of the GOP gusher of special interest money flooding into the NH-02 race. But what about the Safari Club? Yeah, another international special interest outfit, the Safari Club, threw a few grand into the race as well. I don't know a lot about them but I do know that their biggest legislative effort has been to get the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow for the importation of trophies made of dead gorillas, cheetahs, tigers, orangutans, snow leopards and lobbying for shady tax write-offs taken by big game hunters. And then there's this...

The Return of Chef
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Charlie Bass Begging New Hampshire Voters For Another Chance-- To Serve Wall Street And K Street

Ann McLane Kuster has 2 reprehensible conservatives running against her

Most of the energy we've directed towards the race for Paul Hodes' open House seat has been to try to fend off the potential disaster of arch-conservative Liebercrat Katrina Swett, oozing into the Democratic nomination. It's the reason Ann McLane Kuster was one of the first Democrats to make it onto Blue America's Sending A Message page. Yesterday, however, the former seat-holder, Wall Street/K Street fave turned teabagger asskisser, Charlie Bass officially declared his candidacy for the seat he lost, with only 45% of the vote, in 2006 to Hodes.

Now Kuster will have two conservative candidates carrying the anti-working family/Big Business messaging to fend off, one in the primary and one in the general. I like the way she greeted Bass' official announcement by pointing out to New Hampshire voters that:

• Today Bass accused President Obama of “coddling terrorists” (even though Bass himself voted against establishing the original September 11 Commission and blindly diverted troops away from the real War on Terror and into Iraq for years).

• Today Bass attacked a “multitrillion dollar nationalization of health care” (even though he spent 12 years in Congress helping the special interests make our broken health care system worse, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has concluded that health care reform would decrease the deficit, not add to it)

• Today he pretended to support “cutting government spending” (even the he voted repeatedly for George W. Bush’s fiscally irresponsible budgets, helping to double the national debt from $4.8 Trillion to $8.7 Trillion while Bass served in Congress).

Bass has gobbled up over half a million dollars from the Finance Sector and he has been a devoted puppet to the special interests-- which is why his constituents rejected him in 2006. Kuster is campaigning to rein in Wall Street and help fix the balance back towards ordinary working families. Unlike Bass she pledges to work towards comprehensive healthcare reform with a strong public option, something he is violently opposed to. Kuster's campaign platform promotes civil rights, marriage equality, ending DADT and standing firm on Choice. Bass is on the wrong side of every one of these issues. He's Wall Street's candidate, the lobbyists' candidate, Big Business' candidate. They're financing him. She's out candidate and she can use our help. If you can do it, please donate here at the Blue America's Ann McLane Kuster page.

CHARLIE BASS, CORRUPT REPUBLICAN RUBBER-STAMP, VOTED TO SCREW UP THE INTERNET. TIME TO REALLY GET BEHIND PAUL HODES IN NH-02

Matt over at MyDD has an important diary called "Ten Days Ago, These Six Democrats Took a Sledgehammer to the Internet". I recommend everyone read it but I want to summarize it in one sentence: 6 Democrats joined 17 Republicans to vote down net neutrality protection and pave the way for the big telecommunications corporations to completely fuck with the way the internet is delivered. Matt is suggesting we hold the 6 Democrats' feet to the fire by supporting primary challenges against them (presumably in 2008). OK, I'm in-- especially for the ones who have consistently supported corporate interests over consumer interests like Ed Towns (NY-10), Al Wynn (MD-04) Bart Stupak (MI-01), and Charlie Gonzales (TX-20). Of course 2008 is a long time from now and many issues and distractions are sure to come up between now and then.

Is there anything we can do now? Most of the Republicans are in relatively safe districts or have weak, ineffective opposition. A couple of races jump out as possibilities for concerted netroots action, particularly what is shaping up to be a close contest in NH-02, where Paul Hodes is offering up a strong challenge to Republican rubber-stamper Charles Bass. Hodes seems progressive and independent and probably not a DCCC stooge, a big plus (at least for me). And Bass is most definitely tainted by his relationships with some of the worst instigators of the Republican Culture of Corruption, having taken many thousands of dollars from unsavory characters like Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Bob Ney, Roy Blunt, and John Boehner.

New Hampshire's second congressional district is a moderate district with a modest Democratic PVI (which combines the last two presidential election results and compares them to the national average) of +2.7. In other words, it's a district that voted against Bush but elected a Republican. Bass has been a rubber-stamp shill for all of the Bush Regime's catastrophic agenda for our nation. It isn't the agenda of western and northern New Hampshire. Bass is a miserable congressman, undeserving of another term. His predictable vote against net neutrality should give impetus for the netroots community to get behind Hodes in a real way.


MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: HODES KICKIN' BUTT ALREADY

David over at Swing State Project has some great fnancial news on Hodes' campaign today.