Virginia Foxx Is Working To Shut Down The Government

One of the most dedicated and inspiring candidates endorsed by Blue America in 2010, Billy Kennedy, took on the thankless task of holding Virginia Foxx's stinky feet to the fire. Massively outraised ($322,361 to $853,579) by North Carolina's richest congressmember-- in a district that has trended very red (Obama only took 38% of the vote)-- Billy finished with over a third and fought her machine to a virtual tie, 8,610- 8,211 in Watauga County. Blue America is encouraging Billy to run again and he's considering it. Yesterday he shared a letter to the editor with us, essentially a response to Foxx's backing of a government shutdown.

My mother always told me that actions speak louder than words. She said not to judge a person by what she says, but by what she does. I bet your Mother told you the same thing.

So when Rep. Virginia Foxx tries to get ahead of the blame game in a recent column (a government shutdown won't be her fault, she says) and claims that all she wants to do is cut wasteful spending, Who does she think she’ s fooling?

Let's take a look at what Rep. Foxx calls wasteful":

* She voted to eliminate funding for schools, nutrition programs, heating and housing subsidies for the poor, and regulations against polluting industries.

* She voted for an end to government assistance for women's screenings for cancer and birthcontrol.

* She voted against support for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

* She voted to cut $600 million from border security and immigration programs.

On the other hand, take a look at what Rep. Foxx thinks is not wasteful:

*She voted to continue billions in taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil companies while they make huge profits.

*She voted to continue tax cuts for corporate loopholes that reward companies for sending our jobs overseas.

*She voted against an increase in taxes on Wall Street barons.

*She voted against an end to tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

*She voted to end any and all oversight of Wall Street (the Securities and Exchange Commission)

*She voted to continue funding of the “ Bridge to Nowhere.” (HR662)

What happened to all Ms. Foxx's recent campaign talk about creating jobs? The proposed budget Ms. Foxx stands so firm on does not create one single job. In fact, two recent independent studies projected that Ms. Foxx's fiscal plan will destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012.

Add to that Ms. Foxx's support of the privatization of Social Security (so we can hand what little remains of our money over to Wall Street) and her support of drastic Medicare cuts, and we get nothing but increased bailouts for billionaires and Wall Street on the backs of middle-class workers.

Her votes prove who she is protecting and it’s not us!

-Billy Kennedy, 2010 Candidate US House NC-05

Sounds like he's seriously considering a rematch! Digby, John and I plan to meet with him personally next month to try to persuade him to make the move. Keep in mind, the DCCC didn't lift a finger or raise a nickel to help Billy take on Foxx in 2010. And this year they've already announced their North Carolina priority for 2012-- keeping reactionary Blue Dog and Boehner ally Mike McIntyre in office. Between 2008 and 2010 Democrats in his district abandoned his ultra-conservative agenda in droves and his winning margin dropped from 69% to 54%. Since then he has voted nearly 70% of the time with Boehner on the contested substantive votes. If you donate to the DCCC, that's where your money will wind up, with an anti-Choice reactionary on the wrong side of nearly every issue. Next time you think about donating to the DCCC, stop yourself-- and put the money in a jar... and hold it for Billy Kennedy when he decides to jump into the race against Foxx.

Nightly Random Notes: Nixon, Mean Jean, Krugman, Rand Paul Brown Shirts Beat Up Girl... And A Patti Smith Contest!

Yes, they are trying to subvert democracy again

I tweet away the days with random thoughts in between writing my DWT posts. But although my brain seems to have altered itself to think in 140 character blurts, sometimes, especially when the thought comes from a book I'm reading, a thought or two just might not fit into the twitter format. So from now until the election, I'm going to try to put up some politically relevant not-quite-tweets every evening.

I owe my first two to Rick Perlstein and his always elucidating latest tome, Nixonland. Let's make my first random thought a quiz. What later mega-famous/then Assistant Attorney General explained circumventing the Constitution to spy on American citizens by telling the Senate that "self-discipline on the part of the executive branch would provide an answer to virtually all of the legitimate complaints against excesses of information gathering?" The Senate was mollified and every president since-- including the "constitutional scholar" we have in there now-- has proceeded as though the Constitution was just a debatable theory. If you guessed Supreme Court Chief Justice Billy Rehnquist, who cut his teeth as a GOP lawyer intimidating and disenfranchising minority voters at the polls in Phoenix, you win the prize! Congratulations. This evening's second Random Thought was also inspired by Nixonland.

Were you rolling your eyes at reports over the weekend that Obama's hapless DNC Chair, Tim Kaine, was calling the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative coffers-- both from American corporations and shady foreign entities-- the "biggest political story since Watergate?" Well Kaine may be a loser but he wasn't stretching for that comparison. Anyone recall Americans Dedicated To Better Public Administration? No? How about Volunteers Against Citizen Apathy? Or Supporters of the American Dream? Still no, huh? How about Americans United For Objective Reporting? Damn. Oh, wait, you'll remember this one; it was in a book and a movie, the Committee to Re-Elect The President (CREEP). But they all started out in the fevered brain of Nixon's sleazy personal attorney, Herb Kalmbach, as Republican front groups to funnel massive amounts of illicit money into GOP campaign coffers. Eventually, Kalmbach was arrested, convicted, fined, imprisoned and disbarred for his pivotal role in the Watergate scandal-- but not before the damage was done and Nixon had stolen the election and dealt a serious blow to American democracy. Now, recall the long, proud histories of American Crossroads ($17,969,740.47), American Future Fund ($14,077,693.17), SuperPac For America ($678,379.50), Americans For Limited Government ($831,967.44), The 60 Plus Association ($5,888,997.66), The New Prosperity Foundation ($1,284,654.25), American Principles In Action ($312,337.79, all of it to Carly Fiorina), CitizenLink ($381,519.25), RightChange.com ($2,229,242.20), Alliance For America's Future ($632,540.92)... They all formed to funnel shady, secretive money into GOP campaigns-- just the way Kalmbach did for Nixon. And there's a lot more coming over the next 8 days.

And speaking of sleaze, remember Mean Jean Schmidt? She's been supplanted in recent years by the likes of Virginia Foxx, Darrell Issa, Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Paul Broun. But she's never far from the surface, never far from bubbling over in a fit of psychotic hysteria. Last weekend when the Republican Party newspaper in Cincinnati did what it always does and endorsed all 3 local congressional ne'er-do-wells (as well as Rand Paul and the architect of the de-industrialization of Ohio, Rob Portman), they called Mean Jean "a seasoned incumbent who has established herself well in Washington after a rocky and sometimes embarrassing neophyte term, who has steeped herself in the issues; who has matured greatly in office as a savvy, more bipartisan player; and is a tireless, disciplined advocate for the people of her district. It would be a shame for the 2nd District to lose Schmidt's experience, contacts, rich insights and seniority, particularly if Republicans regain control of the House. She richly deserves to continue her service in Washington." The editorial board should lose their license for journalistic malpractice and perhaps be put into fairytale-writing jobs. "Matured?" "Savvy?" "BIPARTISAN???" Mean Jean Schmidt? Even when a majority of Republicans abandoned Boehner and crossed the aisle to vote against Chinese currency manipulation, Mean Jean voted with China, not America. Does that make her more savvy, mature or bipartisan?

Earlier today WLWT News reported that Mean Jean told a group of first graders that abortion is killing unborn babies in their mothers' wombs. When the principal flipped out and wrote an apology to the parents of the traumatized 6 and 7 year olds, Mean Jean hid in her office and had a spokesperson go out and imply that the children had asked her about it. She was lying. But the Cincinnati Enquirer says she's mature and filled with "rich insights." I suppose compared to them...

Continuing on in with sleaze zeitgeist, we hear that jury selection begins Tuesday in the criminal trial of Tom DeLay and in Austin, a city he hates and that hates him. He fought like a mad dog to have the trial moved to a more backward part of the state (basically, anywhere else). He'll be facing two serious charges: "money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted of money laundering, he faces from five years to life in prison. The conspiracy charge carries a prison term of two to 20 years."

A gang of John Bircher type teabaggy thugs, apparently distraught after Jack Conway demolished Rand Paul at a debate again, found just the right victim. The whole gang of 'em brutalized a young woman and stomped on her head this evening. Not quite Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment solution," but close enough... and a step beyond Joe Miller's handcuffing and kidnapping a journalist asking embarrassing questions. But who else would support someone like Rand Paul?

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich asked a good question at Huffington Post today: After the Midterms: Why Democrats Move to the Center, and Republicans Don't. "If Republicans succeed in taking over the House and come even close to gaining a majority in the Senate, expect calls for the president to 'move to the center.' These will come not only from Republicans but also from conservative Democrats, other prominent Democrats who have been defeated, Fox Republican News, mainstream pundits, and White House political advisers." Sunday, in fact, Wall Street lobbyist Harold Ford was on Meet the Press doing just that... at every opportunity. Reich, of course, understands what a dreadful idea that is and begs Obama-- pointlessly, since Obama seems to be frothing at the mouth to do just that-- not to. (Sneak peak.)

Why are Democratic presidents so much more easily intimidated by the "move to the center" rhetoric after midterm losses than Republican presidents?

Because Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation. It's easy to reverse course by compromising more and giving up on legislative goals. Bill Clinton never mentioned the words "health care reform" after the 1994 midterms.

Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements. It's far harder to reverse course on these (look what happened to the first George Bush when he raised taxes), and easier to keep them alive: Republican presidents just continue looking for opportunities to implement them.

Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians). This makes it easier for them to stay the course. Their base continues to organize and fulminate even after midterm defeats. Democrats, on the other hand, are less organized. Electoral defeats tend to fracture and dissipate whatever organization they have.

Republicans are cynical about politics from the jump. Political cynicism fuels them. Democrats are idealistic about politics. When they become cynical they tend to drop out.

Message to Obama: Whatever happens November 2, don't move to the center. Push even harder for what you believe in. Message to Democrats: Whatever happens, keep the courage of your conviction and get even more active.

The White House asked two of my partners to come to the White House for a chat with Obama this week. One laughed but one is actually going; I guess he wants a photo with the president. He asked me if I wanted to suggest any topics of conversation. I told him that I suspect that they have all the topics already picked and packaged. But just in case he has an opportunity to get a word in edgewise, there are a couple of excellent Paul Krugman posts that would be excellent topics. Last week, for example, he wrote a post on his blog that Obama should certainly read and re-read, Epitaph For An Administration (and he wasn't talking about Bush's).

As the foreclosure abuses have come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Surely this can serve as a generic statement:

As (NAME ISSUE HERE) has come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Stimulus, bank rescue, China, foreclosure; it applies all along. At each point there were arguments for not acting; but the cumulative effect has been drift, and a looming catastrophe in the midterms.

Or to put it another way, the administration has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And soon there won’t be any more opportunities to miss.

Yesterday Krugman offered Obama a similarly cheery topic for though: Falling Into The Chasm

This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm-- but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.

If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states-- was more conservative than his election platform.

A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.

But the truth is that if the economic situation were better-- if unemployment had fallen substantially over the past year-- we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would, instead, be talking about modest Democratic losses, no more than is usual in midterm elections.

The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.

When Mr. Obama took office, he inherited an economy in dire straits-- more dire, it seems, than he or his top economic advisers realized. They knew that America was in the midst of a severe financial crisis. But they don’t seem to have taken on board the lesson of history, which is that major financial crises are normally followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment.

...America needed a much stronger program than what it actually got — a modest rise in federal spending that was barely enough to offset cutbacks at the state and local level. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: the inadequacy of the stimulus was obvious from the beginning.

Could the administration have gotten a bigger stimulus through Congress? Even if it couldn’t, would it have been better off making the case for a bigger plan, rather than pretending that what it got was just right? We’ll never know.

What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.

Probably better to just practice smiling and a firm handshake.

Oh, and a nightly contest: Before I write this column tomorrow evening, I'll put all the names of donors in a hat who contributed today and tomorrow to make sure our Billy Kennedy ad runs all day on Halloween-- for obvious reasons-- and pick one who will win... an extremely rare (only 6 exist), gorgeous Patti Smith print by Richard Aaron, autographed both by Richard and Patti. Donate to the Blue America PAC on this Billy Kennedy page to make sure the ad below runs and you get a chance to win the print, which is probably worth around $1,000.

Blue America: Down The Home Stretch

You may have read about our radio buy in Bobby Bright's Alabama district earlier in the week. Congressman Bright didn't like the idea of a progressive group like Blue America engaging Democrats in this race. His spokesperson told Alex Isenstadt of Politico that "It’s not surprising that partisan political organizations on both sides of the aisle would take issue with Congressman Bright being the most independent member of Congress. Standing up to political parties and special interests to do what’s right for his district will naturally upset those who want him to toe the party line. Congressman Bright will continue to be an independent voice for those he represents and is looking forward to receiving the support from the only group that matters: voters in the 2nd Congressional District of Alabama."

His own media ad campaign is aimed squarely in a very different set of voters than the true blue Democrats our ads were talking to. Bragging that he's voted 80% of the time with Boehner and that he won't help the Democrats win the leadership of the next Congress may work well in the rich, white suburbs of Montgomery with McCain voters-- Bright's political strategy every day of his life-- but we think the Obama voters in Barbour, Lowndes, Butler and Bullock counties needed to be part of the conversation too-- and hear just what Bright is telling his target audience.

So today we released a TV spot to further bolster our message. You can watch it up top. The ad was paid for by one donor and no money donated to the Blue America PAC has gone into making the ads or running them-- except the money raised at The Bobby Bright Page, and if you'd like to kick in there... well, we can run it longer and wider.

But running ads with the express purpose of defeating the most reactionary Blue Dog in the House isn't all Blue America is up to in the final two weeks of the campaign. Thanks to generous contributions we've been able to aggressively up our TV ad schedules on southwest Ohio for Justin Coussoule and in northwest North Carolina for Billy Kennedy. The DCCC has point blank refused to help either candidate. They're spending all their money on anti-Choice, antigay, anti-healthcare, anti-reform conservatives like Bobby Bright instead. As of yesterday they'd poured $1,135,508.95 in attack ads alone into Bright's campaign. Nothing for Justin; nothing for Billy. Both of them have made gigantic strides against, respectively, John Boehner and Virginia Foxx. The biggest newspaper in NC-5, the Winston-Salem Journal, broke with its former editorial stance and endorsed Billy, pointing out that Foxx "has angered and embarrassed many with her sometimes wild statements" and recommending that "it’s time for a fresh, progressive voice in the 5th District. We believe that Democrat Billy Kennedy, a Watauga farmer and carpenter who says he’ll work to reverse the high rate of unemployment in the district, is that voice. He’s the best candidate in the Nov. 2 election for the 5th District." Billy then went on to win both debates hands down. The problem, of course, is name recognition. Billy isn't a wealthy man; like the editorial says, he's a farmer and a carpenter-- a regular middle class working man. He's not friends with millionaires and he isn't promising to do any favors with special interests or carry water for Wall Street or China. So he hasn't had the money to reach all the voters across the sprawling, unfocused district. That's where a competent and vibrant DCCC would come in. Would. Instead, it's up to grassroots efforts that Billy's feisty volunteers are making and up to whatever we can do for him.

Click the graphic on each of these ads

It's very much the same story for Justin Coussoule. He's made immense progress, But he's up against a name recognition problem. The only public polling in the district-- which was carried out independently last week by the Hilary Clinton Legacy PAC-- shows the district doesn't like Boehner and doesn't want to re-elect him. But they don't know who's running against him. Again, thanks, DCCC. "Boehner is leading his Democratic opponent Justin Coussoule 30.4 percent to 19.6 percent." But the poll found that three quarters of congressional district residents have never heard of Coussoule and that an astounding 60% of the respondents rated Boehner's job performance as "unsatisfactory." Justin has been endorsed by Congress' most outstanding progressive leaders, Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Bob Filner (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Barney Frank (D-MA), and Jim McDermott (D-WA) as well as by organizations like VetPAC, People for the American Way, the Alliance for Retired Americans, DFA and all the labor unions active in southwestern Ohio, from the AFL-CIO to the United Steel Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Teamsters, Firefighters, Auto Workers, Laborers, Machinists and Electrical Workers. But no DCCC. If you want to donate to our newest TV spot-- or even see it-- you can do that here. The web-ad at the top of this paragraph, though, is something we're getting out to over 330,000 voting age residents of OH-8. (In 2008, a presidential year, 297,000 people voted in the congressional election in this district and in the last midterm it was 207,000.)

Yesterday Digby penned a Blue America donor letter to our members which read, in part:

A lot of people are trying to say that all politicians are the same, that your vote doesn't matter. Well, let's look at the evidence. In the last month, here are some headlines about politicians.

"Democrat Alan Grayson Calls for Foreclosure Moratorium"

"Democrat Ohio Secretary of State Attacks Foreclosure Fraud"

"President Obama Pocket Vetos Pro-Bank Bill That Would Increase Foreclosures"

"Democrat Harry Reid Calls for Foreclosure Moratorium"

"Democrat Nancy Pelosi Calls for Investigations of Foreclosure Fraud"

"Democrat Ohio Attorney General Attacks Foreclosure Fraud, Sues GMAC"

"Democrat Illinois Attorney General Asks for Foreclosure Halt in Illinois"

"Democrat Maxine Waters Calls for a Foreclosure Freeze"

"Democrats Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, and Corrine Brown Call for Fannie to Stop Working with Foreclosure 'Mills' Being Investigated for Fraud"

"Democrat Earl Blumenaur Asks for a Foreclosure Freeze in Oregon"

"Democrat Jeff Merkley Calls for a Special Investigator for Foreclosure Fraud"

"Democrats Luis Gutierrez and Dennis Moore Call for Investigations of Bailout Recipients Engaging in Foreclosure Fraud"

"Democrat Attorney General in California Asks for Foreclosure Halt"

"Democrat Attorney General in Massachusetts Asks for Foreclosure Halt"

Notice a pattern here? If not, let me give you another hint.

"Republican Richard Shelby Tries to Weaken Rules, Kicks Regulators"

And people wonder why banks and corporations are spending $5 billion on this election, nearly all of that for Republicans.

We think this shows the fundamental difference between the two parties. With the exception of some Blue Dogs and Conservadems, most Democrats have rallied instinctively to the side of the average citizen caught in this foreclosure fraud mess. The national Republicans have rallied to the side of the banks and Wall Street. As usual.

We will be running some web based local newspaper ads in the closing days of this election asking people to vote for some of our Blue America candidates who have been out front on this issue. And we could use your help to pay for them.

This foreclosure fraud issue is still unfolding before our eyes and we don't know where it will lead. But we know for sure that unless we have these progressives in congress, average working Americans and their families will be the ones left holding the bag.

Please donate to this campaign by hitting the link above and giving to Blue America PAC. (And if you happen to feel like passing a few dollars to our worthy candidates on the way, we're sure they would appreciate it.)

And these ads aren't just for Justin. We're running them for Mary Jo Kilroy in Columbus, Alan Grayson in Orlando and Raul Grijalva in Tucson, three proven progressives who have stood up and fought time after time against the corporate interests and for ordinary American working families. We think it's the least we could do. We wish we could do more. If you can, please chip in. A little inspiration-- this is the ad Earl Blumenauer is running on TV in his Oregon district. It's the polar opposite of the ads Bobby Bright is running. And I want you to know that Earl has reached out and shared some of his own contributions with some of the struggling progressives-- like Justin Coussoule-- who have been ignored by the DCCC. This is the kind of positive, inspiring ad Democrats should be running everywhere:

The Inside-The-Beltway Democrats Are Missing Two Winnable Races In North Carolina

There was an outstanding line in yesterday's fiery endorsement of Elaine Marshall in the Raleigh News & Observer. The Senate, the editorial explained, "could use someone who has never lost touch with ordinary working people and their worries." We agree, and we were enthusiastic about adding Elaine Marshall to our ActBlue Senate candidates list. Please consider making a contribution to her campaign.

Sleazy New Jersey ward boss and DSCC Chair Robert Menendez-- easily the most incompetent loser to ever head a national party committee-- is determined to prove he was right about Marshall, despite what North Carolina voters think. Menendez, an anti-Cuba fanatic as bad as any neo-fascist Republican Cuba-hater, was determined to block Marshall's bid to win the North Carolina Senate seat occupied by his anti-Cuba ally Richard Burr. Menendez recruited a reluctant nebbish and empty suit, Cal Cunningham, to run against Marshall in the primary. Cunningham made little headway but managed to drain over a million dollars out of Marshall's campaign, precisely what Menendez planned from the beginning. Needless to say, the DSCC hasn't spent a nickel in North Carolina, lavishing nearly $2 million on a campaign in West Virginia that seems to be about who hates Obama and the principles and agenda of the Democratic Party more, Menendez candidate Joe Manchin or GOP sociopath John Raese. Both candidates solemnly swear to vote against the Democratic agenda-- so of course Menendez is using Manchin's race as an excuse for not helping Elaine Marshall, a proven progressive fighter for the working families who have been the bedrock of the Democratic Party.

Burr & Menendez-- a match made in Hell

I sure hope Democratic senators who made the awful, if not fatal, mistake of trusting the execrable Menendez with the chairmanship of their election committee take a look at the News & Observer editorial. It isn't something a corrupt, sordid political hack like Menendez could ever hope to understand.

She grew up as a farm girl from Maryland who knew how to drive a tractor before she was a teenager, and who has slopped her share of hogs. She has cleaned a chicken house or two in her time. She has run a decorating and book business in a small town and struggled to keep them going. She has been divorced and twice widowed. She went back to law school later in life. She got into politics in Harnett County and won local and statewide office from the ground up.

Elaine Marshall's life is in many ways a mirror, many mirrors, of the lives of the people of North Carolina. It is a life marked if not defined by adversity. But it has been adversity overcome, and it's no overstatement to say that it very well could be a life inspiring to others.

Now Marshall, North Carolina's Democratic secretary of state, faces another big challenge, one that few "professional" observers think she has a chance of overcoming, and that is a bid to become one of North Carolina's two U.S. senators. She has the News & Observer's editorial endorsement for the office.

Her campaign for the Senate is based on her long-standing public profile as secretary of state, an office to which she was first elected in 1996, defeating the king of racing, Richard Petty. At that time, Marshall was the first woman elected to a statewide executive job in North Carolina. She's done some creative things with her office, making it more aggressive, for example, in the regulation of lobbying.

Her campaign is running practically on a shoestring, which no doubt delights special interests who fear they wouldn't get Marshall to do their bidding-- for example, on weakening a regulation here and there.

And that's just fine with Robert Menendez, who comes from the same mindset as Burr and the Republicans when it comes to the role of corrupt corporate cash in the electoral system. That, after all, is what he owes his own rise to power to. The editorial goes on to point out that the special interests who oppose Marshall are overjoyed at the thought of another six-year term for hopeless Wall Street shill Burr, one of the Republicans who never want to talk about their votes for Bush's no-strings-attached Wall Street TARP bailout in 2008, something Marshall opposed at the time.

Burr's sizable campaign treasury ($9 million at one point) included gifts from those connected to health care and drug companies, Wall Street and a host of others with an intense interest in seeing to it that the government does not get too far into their business. Burr can be relied upon to give regulation the stiff arm just as he did would-be tacklers when he played football in high school and college.

...Burr's votes reflect the senator he has been and his philosophy: He opposed health care reform and says he wants to repeal it. He voted against extending a children's health care program to be funded by a tobacco tax. He opposed an extension of unemployment benefits.

...Elaine Marshall's view of government is that it should serve the many, not the few, whether that means helping to shore up the economy and create jobs, protecting the sick from losing health insurance or ensuring that the predators of Wall Street are brought to justice. What a people's senator she would be.

Northwest North Carolina is the part of the state that gave us Burr. Once he ascended to the Senate, he was replaced-- in a fluke accident-- by notorious hate merchant Virginia Foxx. Last week we looked at North Carolina's other "impossible" race: Billy Kennedy's go at the seat Foxx is occupying-- and how it is looking more and more possible. The Winston-Salem Journal endorsement of Kennedy against Foxx was devastating to her, since she's always had the support of the district's biggest newspaper in the past. Last weekend, reading the first lines of the searing indictment against her must have driven her batshit crazy: "U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Watauga County, has not achieved any great accomplishments for the residents of the 5th Congressional District, and has angered and embarrassed many with her sometimes wild statements that seem designed to provoke. It’s time for a fresh, progressive voice in the 5th District. We believe that Democrat Billy Kennedy, a Watauga farmer and carpenter who says he’ll work to reverse the high rate of unemployment in the district, is that voice. He’s the best candidate in the Nov. 2 election for the 5th District." It got worse.

The DCCC has refused to recognize that there even is a race going on in NC-5. They haven't even given Billy Kennedy the kind of lip-service they give the Red to Blue candidates like Ami Bera (CA), Steve Pougnet (CA), Ann Kuster (NH), Joyce Elliott (AR), John Callahan (PA), Manan Trevedi (PA), Tarryl Clark (MN), Tommy Sowers (MO) and Suzane DelBene (WA). This year, if you're not frothing at the mouth and barking epithets against Obama and Pelosi-- and if you're not coated in mangy blue fur-- the DCCC has nothing for you.

And despite the similarity in some respects, Foxx is no Bachmann. A Fox TV favorite, Bachmann has raised over $10 million. Foxx, despite voting virtually exactly the same as Bachmann for the past four years, has managed to suck in only $789,390. (She does have $1,262,346 in cash on hand, left over from the DCCC's not challenging her in past years.) Billy has taken in $158,017, almost exclusively from small grassroots contributions, and had just $70,406 in cash on hand as of June 30.

In 2008 Foxx took 58% of the vote while the district was giving McCain 61%. Winston-Salem's WXII News 12 described the Blue America ad we did on behalf of Kennedy as "one of the best political ads this year." It won our on-line contest for who the Blue America blog readers wanted us to target. (Yes, Foxx even beat crackpots Michele Bachmann and Steve King.) But we didn't have much money to run it fully. So we ran it in the populous suburbs around Winston-Salem, and Foxx did the rest for us by calling attention to the ad. We'd like to run it again between now and the election. Please take a look at the whole ad and consider making a contribution here. Look how close we are to being able to get it up on the air. And look how the biggest news show in the district used it on Friday.

Yes, Billy Kennedy Can Beat Virginia Foxx And Rid Congress Of Its Worst Hatemonger

Billy Kennedy has long been one of Blue America's shining stars, one of the endorsements Digby, John and I are most proud of. Needless to say, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DCCC wrote him off as unelectable and have told Democratic donors not to give anything to his campaign. They have struggled on in the most all-American, Outside-the-Beltway grassroots campaign and have made tremendous gains against loathsome bigot Virginia Foxx is a northwest North Carolina congressional district. While the DCCC wastes millions of dollars on unreelectable Blue Dogs like reactionary Bobby Bright, Blue America managed to put up a homemade ad for Billy Kennedy that drove Foxx insane. The ad we ran-- and want to run again:



Help us get this ad back up on the air and give Billy a chance to retire Congress' most hateful member. The DCCC has told all the Inside-the-Beltway LGBT groups not to bother, so, of course, none of them are going after the most bigoted member of Congress. You can contribute here. And instead of paying attention to Inside the Beltway corporate shills like Wasserman Schultz, this is what the biggest newspaper in NC-05, the Winston-Salem Journal editorialized when they endorsed Billy Kennedy this weekend:

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Watauga County, has not achieved any great accomplishments for the residents of the 5th Congressional District, and has angered and embarrassed many with her sometimes wild statements that seem designed to provoke. It’s time for a fresh, progressive voice in the 5th District. We believe that Democrat Billy Kennedy, a Watauga farmer and carpenter who says he’ll work to reverse the high rate of unemployment in the district, is that voice. He’s the best candidate in the Nov. 2 election for the 5th District.
 
“I’d like to make Congress work,” Kennedy, 52, recently told the Journal. “I believe with the bickering going on, they’re not solving problems.”

We endorsed Foxx, 67, in the Republican primary as she ran against an opponent less qualified than Kennedy. Her constituent service is strong, we noted, and we’ve occasionally praised her on this page, as when she sponsored a bill that tweaked the federal tax code so that troops stationed overseas can invest their income in individual retirement accounts.

While fiscal conservatism is good, Foxx, who is finishing her third term, has been too tight with the federal purse strings. For example, she does not support the Blue Ridge Parkway Protection Act, which would allocate $75 million over the next five years to preserve land along the parkway. Foxx has said she’d normally support such a measure, but not in the current economic times. But the parkway, a major cash cow of the state’s tourism industry, brings in more money in a single year-- $2.1 billion dollars, through 17 million visitors-- than the cost of the entire act. U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who also touts fiscal conservatism, realized that when he crossed the aisle to sponsor the protection act with Sen. Kay Hagan.

Then there are Foxx’ statements, which reflect a viewpoint far to the right of many of her constituents. Foxx, a former college educator and graduate of UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Greensboro, said on the House floor in January that the federal government “should not be funding education.”

Last November, she said on the floor that “I believe that the greatest fear that we all should have ... to our freedom comes from this room, this very room, and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax-increase bill masquerading as a health-care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.” (In July of 2009, she had said the Republican version of the health-care plan is “pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.”)

In April 2009, she suggested to students at North Surry High School that tobacco was no worse than Mountain Dew. That same month, she said on the House floor that it was a “hoax” that Matthew Shepard’s 1998 killing in Wyoming had anything to do with him being gay.

She issued a quasi-apology for the Shepard statement, and she and her spokesman have sought to explain the other statements by contextualizing them. But the fact remains that she has continued to make such statements, the worst of which was comparing the potential danger of the health-care bill to terrorism. She’s positioned herself so far to the right that, even if her party regains a majority in the House with this election, it’s doubtful that she’d gain any power.

That said, Foxx will be hard to beat. Her district, which stretches from the mountains to Winston-Salem, is heavily Republican. She has more than $1 million in campaign money. Kennedy, making his first run for office, has raised about $240,000.

But Kennedy, a graduate of what’s now Rhodes College in Memphis, says he has a good chance of beating Foxx. He’s getting his message out through canvassing and calling, supported by a small but dedicated core of volunteers working Facebook and Twitter. The 5th District has one of the highest rates of job losses of any district in the country, he said, and people want a candidate who will work hard to create jobs.

“I worry about the middle class getting squeezed. People are suffering,” he recently told the Journal. “They’re worried about losing their homes. People are hurting and they want solutions.”

Kennedy says he’s a good listener, a man who can work with Republicans to solve problems. He’s more even-tempered than Foxx. He says he wants to concentrate on creating jobs and improving education, rather than wedge issues such as gay rights. He wants to take away profit motives to ship jobs overseas by giving tax incentives to companies that hire and keep American workers. Tax incentives for new technology will help as well, he said, as will putting more money into alternative forms of energy. He realizes that money for efforts such as the Blue Ridge Parkway Protection Act is money well spent.

Kennedy said that he sees running for office “as a chance to serve others.”

The Journal endorses Billy Kennedy for the 5th District congressional seat.

So far our ad has only run in the suburbs of Winston-Salem. Help us raise the money we need to run it across the district between now and election day. Think of how sweet it would be on November 3 to wake up without Virginia Foxx's brand of rancid hatemongering in Washington. And the DCCC will not lift a finger to help. Will you? Here. We can do this!

This was from Tuesday night's debate. Looks like Foxx was a little shellshocked to have an audience of real live people instead of just Fox News talking heads:

Billy Kennedy: Tax Cuts For The Middle Class/Virginia Foxx: Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest 3%

Earlier today we asked you to consider helping us get our Virginia Foxx ad on TV in northwestern North Carolina. Several people have asked me to contrast Foxx with the Democrat running for the seat she presently occupies, Billy Kennedy, one of the first candidates endorsed by Blue America this year. Rather than go over old ground or republishing one of the half dozen posts we've done on Billy and his campaign, we called him and asked him about how he differs from Foxx on the issue foremost in the minds of ordinary American families-- getting the economy back on its feet again. "Let me get this straight," he started... "if the Republicans have their way, they would take us back to the worst economic policies of the last century by keeping tax cuts for millionaires. I say we just can’t afford it. We have work to do." He sent me this video of his opponent spewing her lies on the floor of the House and asked me to share it today:

Virginia Foxx is great at talking about lowering taxes and controlling government spending, but her rhetoric is just revisionist history. Here are a few of the facts:

• In June 2001, the first of the Republican tax cuts was signed. Three years later, there were 600,000 fewer jobs in our economy.

• The tax cuts at the high end have not produced any jobs. In fact, in Virginia Foxx’s own district, unemployment in Western NC’s 5th district has gone from 5.1% the year Virginia Foxx was elected to 11.2% in 2010. Of the past 12 presidents, the top six in terms of job creation were all Democrats.

• It’s no coincidence that 84 percent of the debt incurred since 1980 has been under Republican Presidents. Republican presidents haven’t balanced a budget in the past 34 years.  

• Congressional Republicans’ plan to permanently extend the millionaires’ tax cuts would add $4 trillion dollars to the deficit over the next ten years, doubling the deficit, and irresponsibly leaving the bill for our grandchildren to pay.

If the tax cuts for millionaires are left to expire, as few as 1-3% of small businesses would be subject to higher taxes, including Rep. Foxx, the wealthiest member of the NC delegation in Congress.  But under her plan the rest of us are left holding the bill. Americans must make tough choices, she’ll say, but the sacrifices won’t be made by her or her wealthy pals.

If Congress keeps coddling the nation's wealthiest few, this will mean an astronomical $830 billion give-away to these millionaires!  We must put an end to the increasing government debt - which has been growing steadily since the 1980’s."

What you don’t get with Virginia Foxx is the complete truth. She will tell you what you want to hear-- even at the expense of the working people she supposedly represents.

There are several ways you can help Billy beat Foxx today. One would be to hit the thermometer and donate to the Blue America ad campaign our PAC is running against Foxx as of today. The other would be to donate directly to Billy's campaign here.

Would You Like To Help Retire Hatemonger Virginia Foxx?

It's very nice that Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock works out in a gym and wears lavender blouses and chartreuse belts, and it's a step forward-- I think-- that California Republican Rep. David Dreier no longer even bothers to pretend and is basically "out" Inside the Beltway, having discarded the closet everywhere except in the suburban L.A. district he rarely even visits and has no real connection to. Both of these gay closet cases, however, along with a dozen others, vote against gay equality time and time again-- from opposing protecting the LGBT community from hate crimes to opposing ending Don't Ask Don't Tell and ENDA. 

As recently outed homophobic state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-CA) explained when asked why he voted against all issues regarding equality for gay people, Republican closet queens live in terror of being outed. "I was hiding," he told California journalist Patt Morrison. "I was so in terror, I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic 'no' vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that." 

One day Dreier and Schock will give similar interviews. Virginia Foxx never will.

As far as I know, Virginia Foxx isn't gay. Her anti-gay voting record-- the most virulently anti-gay voting record in Congress-- is fueled by pure, unmitigated hatred. Dreier, Schock and all the GOP closet cases voted against the hate crimes bill named for Matthew Shepard, but only Virginia Foxx managed to take to the House floor and spit on Shepard's memory while his mother sat in the visitor's gallery:



Foxx is a sick cookie no matter how you look at it. Her bigotry and hatred know no bounds. Aside from her jihad against the LGBT community, she has consistently voted against ordinary working families, and bears a particular animus against public education. She was one of only 13 Members of Congress this year to vote against a bipartisan resolution to support the goals and ideals of the National School Lunch Program, against recognizing that our pupils deserve access to high-quality, safe and nutritious meals in school. 155 Republicans, including the entire leadership, voted for it. Foxx and a dozen radical right antisocial nihilists were the only NO votes. 

Today Blue America began running television spots in Foxx's northwestern North Carolina district. She was chosen for this distinction in an open vote of Blue America contributors. And she won by a landslide. Here's the ad we made, which started running today:



I hope you like it. I hope you like it enough to keep it running in Forsyth County and help us spread it west through Yadkin, Wilkes and Iredell counties all the way to Watauga and Ashe. Replacing a reactionary, narrow-minded hater and bigot like Foxx with an enlightened man of the people like Billy Kennedy would be a giant step, not just for North Carolina but for the whole country. The cost is fairly reasonable to run these ads in the Winston-Salem suburbs-- the most expensive ad market in the district-- and that's what we're doing right now. Let me give you an idea about some of the prime time spots we've bought so far and what we've paid:

The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC: $25.50
The Daily Show w/Jon Stewart on Comedy Central: $23.80
Morning Joe on MSNBC: $13.60
Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN: $59.50
American Morning on CNN: $28.05
The Ed Show on MSNBC: $25.50
Countdown w/Keith Olbermann on MSNBC: $25.50
The Colbert Report on Comedy Central: $23.80
Hardball w/Chris Matthews on MSNBC: $8.50

Can you help us keep the ad running? One of the things that makes Blue America different from other PACs is that every cent donated goes on the air. There are no commissions and no rake-offs. Everyone is a volunteer, and no one charges any expenses to the contributions. The ads were made by people who believe in Billy Kennedy and are outraged by Virginia Foxx's politics of divisiveness. 

If you donate $25.50, that means another airing of the ad on Rachel's or Keith's show. And we'd like to expand the buy, in terms of time, geography and... we'd even like to put it on Fox (don't worry, we don't advertise on Glenn Beck's hate talk show), HGTV and the Weather Channel! Please consider donating here. You can also send a check made out to Blue America PAC to PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

And Our Craziest Republican Of The Month Contest Winner Is...

At the end of July, Blue America and our pals at the Americans For America PAC launched the first in a series of videos that highlights what kind of people now lead the Republican Party. We featured Sarah Palin, Rand Paul and John Boehner. And we asked the readers at DWT, C&L and Digby's Hullabaloo to tell us who to do the next ad for. Lots of votes for Ken Calvert and Michele Bachmann but it was North Carolina reactionary haridan Virginia Foxx who got the most votes.

As you can see in the ad above, there are a lot of things that the voters in western North Carolina need to think about when they consider returning Virginia Foxx for another term in Congress. But there's also an outstanding alternative. Populist champion Billy Kennedy would make a far better Representative for ordinary working families, a part of the population Foxx is dismissive of. Foxx already has $1,270,733 on hand. Her biggest donors are the sugar lobby, banks, the Medical Industrial Compex, alcoholic beverage companies, gambling interests and foreign powers with their own agendas. Meanwhile Billy Kennedy has $70,406 on hand. He addressed the probelm on the cascade of corrupt corporate cash flooding into congressional campaigns:

"The case of Citizens United v FEC was heard by the Supreme Court back in January. When all was said and done, the Court ended up changing the law so that corporations can now spend as much as they like on political campaigns without even identifying themselves. That’s right-- average working people get the short end of the stick. Again.

So the US House has now just passed the “Disclose Act,” a law which will at least require that these corporations tell us who they are when they put their fancy, high-dollar commercials on TV that attack anyone who would dare come up against them. The “Disclose Act” could most certainly be better than it is. If we didn’t have so many politicians in Washington beholden to corporate interests, we’d surely have gotten a better bill in the end, but the bill is at least a start.

Even so, I wasn’t surprised to hear Rep. Virginia Foxx rail against the “Disclose Act” on WPTF radio Thursday. I wasn’t surprised because Rep. Foxx’s record is pretty clear on this kind of thing. Her take is that working people need to get in line and work longer hours for less money and be thankful they’ve got any job at all. Corporations and rich people, on the other hand, deserve better because they’re the ones providing jobs for longer hours and less money. It sounds like code for "we can't do it because it's too complicated."

It’s worth noting that Rep. Foxx never said a word on any radio stations when the Supreme Court made sure individual Americans’ rights came up short against corporate rights. She wasn’t on talk radio, outraged, when Americans woke up one morning to find out they’d been sold out by corporate interests again. Not at all. The only thing on this whole issue that got Rep. Foxx in a tizzy and made her want to “sit down and cry” (as she said on the radio) was that someone in Washington was actually trying to do something about it. Rep. Foxx didn’t show up at any radio stations the morning after corporations stole the peoples’ power in the dead of night. But she showed up pretty quick to be outraged when some brave folks in Washington tried to reclaim it.

Rep. Foxx has been in Washington too long. She’s forgotten what she’s supposed to be doing up there, and she will say anything to be re-elected. It’s time to send her home."

If you'd like to help us put the ad on TV in the Piedmont and the suburbs of Winston-Salem, just click on Foxx's face-- and, no, that photo is not photoshopped.

Unemployment Benefits Finally Approved

DCCC begs us to keep shelling out cash so Walt Minnick can keep voting with the GOP on... everything!

Yesterday the House voted one last time-- so that their bill and the one the Senate finally passed this week would be identical and Obama could sign it, retroactively sending missed insurance compensation checks to over 2.6 million Americans thrown out of work by the very policies put forward by the conservatives who voted against unemployment insurance! The final vote in the House yesterday was 272-152, 10 worthless conservative Democrats joining Boehner to form a coalition against working families and 31 Republicans crossing the aisle in the other direction, mostly too scared to vote against their own constituents.

The treacherous Democrats-- exactly the types the DCCC is sure to give the most support in the upcoming midterms-- are retiring Washington shithead Brian Baird, Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN), Betsy Markey (Blue Dog-CO), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID), Glenn Nye (Blue Dog-VA), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)... oh, an angry, retiring mentally unbalanced guy and 9 reactionary Blue Dogs. What a shock!

Speaker Pelosi was quick to blame Republicans responsible for causing this mess-- and rightly so-- but it strikes me as a little hypocritical that she rails against them and doesn't say a word about conservative Democrats who did the same-- and who are getting millions of dollars in DCCC re-election funds from a DCCC that she controls.

This emergency legislation will extend unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to millions of Americans families, which Republicans have held up for more than 7 weeks causing an estimated 2.5 million families to lose their lifeline that they have earned through their work... This is urgently needed after weeks of Senate Republicans’ ongoing obstruction of job creating legislation that extended critical unemployment benefits to help Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own make ends meet as they look for a new job. We will not abandon these families.

Note: without the connivance of conservative Democrat Ben Nelson, the bill would have passed weeks ago and averted the tragedy for hundreds of thousands of American families. That said, most conservatives-- and especially most conservative sociopaths without consciences are Republicans. John Campbell, a far right California congressman from Orange County, voted against the unemployment extension once again yesterday. His opponent, former Irvine Mayor Beth Krom, currently on that city's Council, has been endorsed by Blue America-- and, of course, ignored by the DCCC. We called her after the vote yesterday and she told us she was disappointed-- but not surprised-- that Campbell wasn't among the nearly three dozen Republicans who put aside their partisan agenda for a moment to do something for average Americans in a tough spot. “Once again," she said, "as Congress in a rare show of bipartisan support voted to extend jobless benefits for 2.5 million unemployed Americans, John Campbell decided partisanship was more important than leadership. While Mr. Campbell makes excuses that he can’t support something if he doesn’t know exactly where the money is coming from, he conveniently forgets voting to support two wars as well as the bailout of Wall Street and the auto industry without ever concerning himself with how it would be paid for. The truth is, a lot of those 2.5 million unemployed Americans have people like John Campbell to thank for supporting policies that undermined our national economy.”

Just down the road a ways Blue America has another progressive candidate, Bill Hedrick, running against another reactionary shill, corrupt sleazebag Ken Calvert, who also refused to join in the bipartisan support to help the unemployed workers. "While I'm glad Congress finally passed extending unemployment benefits," said Hedrick, "it's sad to see local families being held hostage by the partisan political games Republicans like Ken Calvert are playing in Washington. Congressman Calvert should be ashamed of himself for using local families as pawns to score political points and for turning his back on his constituents when they needed his support the most."

Interestingly, every single Republican the Blue America candidates are running against voted in opposition to the extension: Michele Bachmann, John Boehner, Calvert, Campbell, and, of course, North Carolina crackpot Virginia Foxx. Ah... yes, crackpot Virginia Foxx... I called Billy Kennedy what the folks in western North Carolina think about Foxx's anti-family antics. He told me that around 9,300 of her constituents "have lost their jobs due to outsourcing to cheaper labor in China."

Her reasoning is that the government cannot possibly be expected to help those who are desperate to find jobs because it will add to the deficit.

But Virginia Foxx, the richest House member from North Carolina, doesn't worry about her personal tax cuts breaking the bank. She supports huge tax breaks that are extended to the richest Americans, even if the government has to borrow money to pay for it.

The unemployment benefits extension cost $34 billion. Virginia Foxx opposes it. The tax breaks for the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans cost more than one trillion dollars, all of which is borrowed money. Virginia Foxx supports them.

The big tax break windfall Virginia Foxx supports didn't go to most Americans. It didn't go to Americans who work hard days and long hours. It went to the bankers, big oil executives, crooked Wall Street traders, and... Virginia Foxx.

The way I see it, we just can't afford Virginia Foxx's tax break. And we can't afford Rep. Foxx any more either.

Too few jobs have been created in the past 10 years, and good people looking for jobs can't find them. But why should Virginia Foxx care? She's got hers. And you're paying for it.

I'm calling Virginia Foxx out on this hypocrisy. It's clear that she's out of touch, and it's time she took a peek outside those thick walls of Washington and came home to struggle to make ends meet like the rest of us.

Club For Growth-- Making Trouble In Michigan, North Carolina... And Across America

Clubful o' Freaks

In Michigan's third congressional district-- half a dozen counties starting with Kent (Grand Rapids) plus part of Shawnee and the northern slice of Oakland-- there's a crowded Republican primary to replace retiring mainstream conservative Vern Ehlers. The district is the reddest in Michigan and one of the 2 or 3 reddest in the whole Midwest, but red in the sense of voting for mainstream Republicans, not red meaning neo-fascist. Although... we're about to see if that's still true. The Club for Growth just endorsed a neo-fascist candidate over the mainstream conservatives who are running.

Obama basically tied McCain in MI-03 (49-49% with McCain just a handful of votes ahead)-- quite a difference from Bush's 60% and 59% wins in 2000 and 2004. In 2008 Ehlers was reelected with 61%, slightly under the 63% he got in 2006. Last month, after the two top Republican Party recruits demurred, Ehlers endorsed Steve Heacock, a former Kent County Commissioner. But as popular as the 8 term incumbent is, his word probably isn't enough to make or break a candidate. The other Republicans in the race are state Senator Bill Hardiman, Louise Johnson, Bob Overbeek and first term state Rep. Justin Amash. Amash is an out-of-the-mainstream teabagger fanatic who had already announced he would primary Ehlers. The powerful Grand Rapids GOP Establishment is uncomfortable with Amash's extremism and prefer more practical, mainstream conservative pork barrel earmarkers like Ehlers, Paul Henry before him and Harold Sawyer before him.

Hardiman, who, if he wins, would give the GOP it's second African-American member of Congress (the first being South Carolina primary winner Tim Scott), has been leading the race but with John Birchers and militia types rushing to support Amash-- including Ron Paul, who endorsed him last month-- last week's decision by the Club For Growth to get behind Amash could be a game-changer. If you like Sharron Angle (NV) and Mike Lee (UT), Club for Growth's last two primary winners, you'll love Amash. A drooling Club for Growth spokesman, promising enough campaign cash to win the race, announced "We will do whatever we can to help Justin Amash win this race. This guy is going to be a rock star the moment he is sworn in." It's not the first time the Club for Growth upset the GOP applecart in Michigan.

In 2006, it largely bankrolled Tim Walberg’s upset victory in the Republican primary over U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, a moderate from Battle Creek. Walberg went on to win the general election, but was defeated in 2008 by Democrat Mark Schauer.

According to analysis by Robinson, the Club for Growth in 2006 funneled $607,000 in individual contributions to Walberg, most from outside Michigan. It also independently spent $514,000 to back Walberg, including TV ads accusing Schwarz of being “embarrassingly liberal."

...Critics-- and even some Republicans-- say the organization actually harms the GOP by helping elect candidates so far to the right they have trouble winning general elections.

“If their goal is to increase the Democrats’ numbers in Congress, they’re doing a very good job,” U.S. Rep. Steven LaTourette of Ohio said in 2009, speaking as a moderate Republican who won his seat in 1994.

...“Club for Growth is an organization that irrespective of what they tell you, it really stands for nothing,” Schwarz said.

“They basically want to buy a member of Congress. My advice to Amash, and he isn’t asking for it, is don’t take their money. They are poison."

Schwarz may be correct, at least metaphorically, about them being poison, but they very much do stand for something. They are Republican obstructionism on steroids and they are, more than the GOP itself, a faction dedicated to the most reactionary tenets of conservatism. Theirs would be a world with masters and servants-- very few masters and lots and lots and lots of servants. Yesterday, the Blue America candidate in western North Carolina, Billy Kennedy, reminded us very clearly of what the Club for Growth does stand for:

Last week, under pressure from the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation, Republican members of Congress began signing on to a "discharge petition" which would force immediate action on legislation to completely repeal the recently passed health insurance reform law (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010).
 
The Club for Growth's government affairs director Andy Roth emailed Republican members with an implied threat that support for repeal "will be considered as a key vote on the Club's annual congressional scorecard," one of  the "gold standards" in conservative rankings. Representative Virginia Foxx  promptly signed the discharge petition last Tuesday.

Congressional candidate Billy Kennedy issued the following statement:

"Once again, our incumbent Congresswoman shows that she is much more interested in satisfying extremist and powerful special interests than she is in helping the hard working people of Western North Carolina.

"Rep. Foxx has signed on to radical legislation that would immediately repeal every provision in the new health-insurance reform act. A repeal of the bill would return us to the days when insurance companies could refuse to sell insurance policies to people with preexisting conditions.  A repeal would mean insurance companies could once again kick people off their health insurance policies when they get sick.  A repeal would mean children could no longer stay on their parents' insurance until age 26.  A repeal will reopen the Medicare Part D  'Donut Hole,' putting our seniors back into a situation where they can't afford essential medicine.

"There are problems with the health care bill, and I am committed to fixing those problems, but we shouldn't throw the good parts out of the bill just to score political points in an election year.

"I support an optional Medicare buy-in for all Americans at cost. An optional buy-in would not add to the federal deficit, and people could choose to buy a Medicare plan or buy an insurance policy from a private company.

"Repealing the reforms to health-insurance delivery in this  country is definitely the wrong direction for the 5th District and for all North Carolinians."

There are a lot of reasons to replace Virginia Foxx with Billy Kennedy-- and her toadying up to the Club for Growth barely begins to tell the story. Blue America is asking progressives to get behind Billy's fiery populism and help him get his message out to North Carolina voters sick and tired of Foxx's extremism and her embarrassing antics. I wish there was a candidate as good as him in every district where the Republican is a Club For Growth backed sociopath.

Virginia Foxx And Billy Kennedy Have Exactly Opposite Views On Corporate Dominance Of Election Finance

Yesterday we talked a little about the blatant way conservatives thumbed their noses at voters in regard to campaign finance. They just flat-out refuse to go along with even the most modest reforms. One of the most reform-minded Democratic candidates running for Congress this year, North Carolina farmer and carpenter Billy Kennedy, is vying for a seat currently held by one of Congress' most arrogant and stubborn relics of mindless corruption, Virginia Foxx. Needless to say, she voted against the DISCLOSE Act. Like many of the self-serving corporate shills on both sides of the aisle-- remember, Blue Dogs were as opposed to reform as Republicans-- Foxx was shrieking that reforming the system is "unconstitutional." I asked Billy for a guest post on how he sees it and why he differs so fiercely with such a "constitutional scholar" like Foxx.

"The case of Citizens United v FEC was heard by the Supreme Court back in January. When all was said and done, the Court ended up changing the law so that corporations can now spend as much as they like on political campaigns without even identifying themselves. That’s right-- average working people get the short end of the stick. Again.

So the US House has now just passed the “Disclose Act,” a law which will at least require that these corporations tell us who they are when they put their fancy, high-dollar commercials on TV that attack anyone who would dare come up against them. The “Disclose Act” could most certainly be better than it is. If we didn’t have so many politicians in Washington beholden to corporate interests, we’d surely have gotten a better bill in the end, but the bill is at least a start.

Even so, I wasn’t surprised to hear Rep. Virginia Foxx rail against the “Disclose Act” on WPTF radio Thursday. I wasn’t surprised because Rep. Foxx’s record is pretty clear on this kind of thing. Her take is that working people need to get in line and work longer hours for less money and be thankful they’ve got any job at all. Corporations and rich people, on the other hand, deserve better because they’re the ones providing jobs for longer hours and less money. It sounds like code for "we can't do it because it's too complicated."

It’s worth noting that Rep. Foxx never said a word on any radio stations when the Supreme Court made sure individual Americans’ rights came up short against corporate rights. She wasn’t on talk radio, outraged, when Americans woke up one morning to find out they’d been sold out by corporate interests again. Not at all. The only thing on this whole issue that got Rep. Foxx in a tizzy and made her want to “sit down and cry” (as she said on the radio) was that someone in Washington was actually trying to do something about it. Rep. Foxx didn’t show up at any radio stations the morning after corporations stole the peoples’ power in the dead of night. But she showed up pretty quick to be outraged when some brave folks in Washington tried to reclaim it.

Rep. Foxx has been in Washington too long. She’s forgotten what she’s supposed to be doing up there, and she will say anything to be re-elected. It’s time to send her home."

Blue America stands fully behind Billy Kennedy in this race. I hope you'll join us in helping him fund a grassroots people's campaign. Remember, Virginia Foxx was one of the Republicans who Joe Barton surreptitiously funneled Big Oil cash to through his sleazy money laundering operation, the Texas Freedom Fund. He's slipped her $5,000 so far-- on top of the $52,100 Big Oil executives and lobbyists gave her openly-- and she has delivered big time for their pals at Big Oil. Not one time since she gotten into Congress has she ever opposed Big Oil's agenda. And, in fact, she can proudly boast to having the worst voting record in the entire House of Representatives when it comes to clean water, oceanic conservation, and consumer protection. There isn't a race in the country that would be a cleaner break with the corruption and malevolence of elite power over regular folks than the one pitting Billy Kennedy against Virginia Foxx.

A Day Of Oily Apologies

While I was putting on my shoes and socks this morning, I watched Ed Lavendara on CNN interview some brainwashed redneck in Kenner, Louisiana. All of the poor guy's information came straight from either Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and he wasn't capable of anything beyond spewing GOP talking points-- which the leering and brainless Lavendara gleefully prompted him on. He enjoyed talking about how "the unions" have prevented a cleanup and how badly Obama has handled it compared to how much better Bush handled Katrina. This, obviously is all from the alternative universe inhabited by Michele Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Steve King, Rand Paul... the whole teabagger sideshow. The poor schnook did manage to say, not having been schooled on this one yet, that he was happy about the $20 billion escrow fund Obama had gotten BP to agree to. Across the dial on liberal bastion, MSNBC, Pat Buchanan was declaring that Joe Barton had just shown immense "political courage" in the House Energy Committee hearings.

By now, most Americans-- other than Fox viewers since that network has censored out Barton's jaw-dropping apology to B.P.-- who had never heard of the conservative Texas Republican congressman before, know a lot about him. A former employee of B.P. subsidiary, ARCO, Barton has taken more in campaign "contributions" than any other House member in Texas... in America... in the history. His haul-- not counting perks (and there have been many)-- is $1,447,880 so far, the only House member to get over a million dollars. But, as the Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he's also their most valuable congressional asset. (I might add that B.P., which has given 70% of it's political contributions to Republicans, has rewarded Barton with a nice $27,350 towards his political career.)

Before the Democrats retook Congress, Barton was the Chairman of Big Oil's most congressionally important committee and there was never a single instance-- not one-- when Barton disagreed with them or stood in the way of their malevolent designs. He personally guaranteed that all regulation aimed at preventing things like the catastrophe in the Gulf would get deep-sixed. He earned his $1,447,880, although Barton is now going to cost American taxpayers as much as $100 billion.

Environmentally-conscious and energy-conscious Democrats had already been talking to the voters about how their approach drastically differs from the Republican approach. On Wednesday Billy Kennedy, the Blue America-endorsed candidate challenging reactionary corporate shill Virginia Foxx in western North Carolina came out swinging with a claim that Foxx shares the blame for the B.P. disaster. He hit all the relevant points that Americans should be assessing around this national catastrophe:

"Last week in her town hall phone-in, Rep. Virginia Foxx said she didn't understand why President Obama didn't immediately send 'big ships' to the Gulf to sop up all the oil."
 
"The fact is there are 8,100 vessels responding to the Gulf oil disaster. The Congresswoman's understanding of this spill is simplistic, and her suggested solution is naïve."
 
"Livelihoods are lost, and a national treasure faces devastation. A government panel of scientists has now determined that the well is leaking as much as 2.52 million gallons a day. The oil continues to threaten not only Gulf shores but North Carolina shores and our way of life as well. The clean-up and recovery will take the commitment of generations and billions of dollars."

"As more internal BP documents have become public, it is now crystal clear that BP made risky decisions leading to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon and the spilling of tens of millions of gallons of crude oil over the lives and livelihood of Gulf Coast citizens."
 
"The bottom line is that BP engineers chose a faster, less safe design to save money, and Congress let them get away with it. The cheaper design saved BP $7 million to $10 million.  As a result, we now have 11 lost lives and 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf each day all because a corporation cared more about profits than people and because politicians in Washington didn't have the courage to stand up for the people."
 
"The U.S. has some of the most relaxed regulations in the world on deep-water off-shore drilling. The AP reports that Canada requires energy companies to have plans for relief wells in place before drilling is approved. This is not the case in the U.S. The five largest oil companies raked in $289 billion in profits over the past three years but spent just $60 million on safety research and development, accident prevention and oil spill response planning over the same period."
 
"Currently, oil companies are only responsible for $75 million in damages resulting from a spill.  Congress must eliminate that cap immediately."
 
"Campaign finance reports show that the top 16 recipients of oil and gas industry money are Republicans. Incumbent Virginia Foxx has accepted more than $52,000 in contributions from the oil and gas lobby since she went to Washington. She and her Republican cohorts have received $11.6 million since 1990."
 
"BP must pay any and all damages. This disaster has taken away the ability of thousands of Gulf Coast citizens to make a living, and we must get BP out of the claims process. We must make sure that fishermen, hotel owners, restaurateurs and others have a fast, efficient, and transparent claims process to regain their livelihoods.
 
"But even in the wake of this national disaster, there is hope and possibility. The American people have stood strong in the face of serious challenges before, and we can do it again."
 
"It has now become a matter of national security that we explore our options for cleaner energy that will not only protect our environment but that will bring much needed, good-paying jobs to our communities as well."
  
"If we commit ourselves to a goal of energy independence, we will ensure a better life for our children and for their children as well. We owe them, and ourselves, nothing less.  We have an opportunity at hand.  We have the technology to use clean and renewable energies. We just have to find in ourselves the commitment to make it happen. I have faith we can if we elect leaders in Congress who will stand up to lobbyists and corporations."

Foxx may agree with her buddy Barton that BP is owed an apology and that the escrow fund is a "slush fund, but even Republicans are jumping off that sinking ship. Florida Congressman Adam Putnam might have once backed Barton up too but now he's running for statewide office in Florida-- and this was his immediate response:


He wasn't the only one to sense the extreme mortal danger this puts Republicans in. Oh, don't expect to hear it from the lunatic fringe like Foxx, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Tom Price, Haley Barber, Michele Bachmann, Sharron Angle or the kook who wants to put landmines on the New Mexico border, but even a far right extremist like Jeff Miller-- who represents a Florida coastal area that is getting drenched in oil-- demanded that Barton step down from his committee position. "I condemn Mr. Barton’s statement. Mr. Barton’s remarks are out of touch with this tragedy and I feel his comments call into question his judgment and ability to serve in a leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He should step down as ranking member of the Committee.” Other Gulf state Republicans, like Ginny Brown-Waite, Steve Scalise and Michael Burgess were smart enough to distance themselves from Barton's toxic remarks-- although it's much harder to distance themselves from the toxic Republican Party ideology and policies behind those remarks.

Justin Coussoule, who's running a strong campaign for the western Ohio seat currently held by John Boehner, is making sure voters in his district are aware of Boehner's role is this costly mess. Justin:

John Boehner is not only a considerable financial investor in oil stocks, but is also a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign largesse from oil companies. He has recently called on taxpayers to fund the multi-billion dollar clean up of the disastrous British Petroleum blow-out and now-- even refuses to lift the liability cap on oil companies who drill in the gulf.


 
He is tucked so tight into big oils pocket that he cannot even muster genuine anger, sympathy for the victims or call for increased accountability-- because he can apparently find no fault with his oily benefactors who have brought us the worst environmental catastrophe in American history.
 
Like the BP executives who see the victims of this disaster as merely the small people who should willingly endure the pain and cost of this horrible fiasco, Boehner continues to defend, along with his fellow apologists the Chamber of Commerce, the removal of oversight while the shill ‘drill baby drill’ chants that pass for public policy in his narrow circle are endlessly repeated.


His comments this week clearly show that he is devoid of shame and has lost all touch with the millions of Americans who are fighting to protect everything they have from this man-made calamity in the Gulf.

Harry Reid, reacting to Barton's insane remarks today, which aren't very different in substance from what his own opponent has been spewing, sounded a lot like Justin: “It takes an appalling amount of chutzpah for Congressman Barton to apologize to the BP CEO this morning about Democrats’ efforts to hold BP accountable. Where is his apology for the families of the 11 men who lost their lives and the industries along the Gulf that have been devastated because of this disaster? Where is his sympathy for the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico that will be damaged for generations because of BP’s negligence? And shouldn’t he be apologizing to the people of the Gulf Coast for decades of Republican policies that ignored oversight and accountability for the oil industry?
 
“Republicans should get their priorities straight: are they going to keep protecting and apologizing for Big Oil or will they finally stand up for families and businesses whose lives have been upended by the BP oil spill?”   

New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett is another of Big Oil's closest allies and we reached Tod Theise, the Democrat opposing his reelection bid. Tod was as angry as Coussoule and Reid: “Offering an apology to BP for simply expecting them to take responsibility for their grossly negligent conduct is an affront to the American people. The Gulf and surrounding regions have been irreparably harmed by BP’s indefensibly careless conduct. The people who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods have had their prosperity stolen from them. Rep. Barton’s misbegotten apology is just another in a long line of excuses made by politicians for the special interests that buy their loyalty. Working Americans cannot be expected to pick up the tab for what amounts to  an environmental bailout.BP must be held fully responsible for their unconscionable conduct and the carnage they’ve caused."

Two top California House candidates also issued statements this morning. Bill Hedrick's and Beth Krom's opponents are extremely pro-Oil and anti-environment, anti-green energy fanatics. Bill pointed out that "Ken Calvert has been a dutiful servant of Big Oil for years. Regardless of the cost to constituents, he’s done their bidding. And he has worked to keep Big Oil’s stranglehold on American consumers by blocking possible energy innovation beyond carbon-based fuels and promoting expanded drilling. In 2006 Calvert voted against keeping a moratorium on drilling offshore in environmentally sensitive areas-- many in California. In 2007 he voted against investing in biofuel development. In 2008 he opposed tax credits for renewable electricity. Worse still, last year he re-introduced his MORE Act-- a bill to lift drilling restrictions on the Pacific coast to allow drilling up to the beach-- then on March 31 of this year, Calvert criticized President Obama for not including California in the proposed expansion of offshore drilling. On April 20, the Deepwater horizon exploded killing eleven workers, triggering the worst environmental disaster to his the US in our history."
Beth Krom is facing the same kind of kook in John Campbell. "To have Rep Joe Barton, Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, apologize to BP for the administrations demand that they set up a $20 Billion escrow fund to compensate those who have and will continue to suffer massive impacts from the largest offshore oil spill in history is an outrage. Barton opposes regulation, advocates off-shore drilling and supports nuclear energy. That’s just the kind of guy you want chairing a committee on energy... if you’re BP!”

The GOP front group, Heritage Foundation, funded primarily from Big Oil and similar kinds of abusive and predatory corporations, is calling reactions to Barton like the ones above a public lynching. Conservatives' feelings were hurt by the White House's reaction to the Republican talking points Barton exploded with this morning:

“What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments.”

BP CEO Tony Hayward is stalling, waffling, dodging, weaving and stonewalling in front of the House committee. It's a first step towards inevitable prosecution. Here's a GOP propagandist and egregious corporate propagandist, Neil Cavuto, on the Republican television station, interviewing Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado: