Cornelius McGillicuddy IV Eyes His Old Ft. Myers House Seat; Stumbles Over Puerto Rico

Best dressed Connie and Mary

This is a post about what's been happening politically in FL-19, one of the 3 or 4 Florida congressional districts being most savagely impacted by global warming. The hurricane-ravaged district, where salt water is seeping into the groundwater as the Gulf rises, starts down south around Turtle Island, works its way up through Naples, past Bonita Bay to Fort Myers and Cape Coral. It includes most of Lee County and half of Collier County. At just 28%, it's the congressional district with the lowest share of registered Democrats. Obama lost to Romney 61-39%.

Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III won the seat in 1982 and held onto it until he ran, successfully, for the U.S. Senate in 1988. (In his 1994 reelection bid he defeated Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham in a massive 71-29% landslide, winning every single country in Florida!) He retired in 2000 and has been a sleazy Tallahassee lobbyist ever since. His not very bright son, Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, won the open seat in 2004 and served until 2012 when he ran for the Senate against Bill Nelson, the man who replaced McGillicuddy III. McGillicuddy IV was wiped out by over a million votes-- 55.2-42.2% Like his dad, he's also a sleazy Tallahassee lobbyist now.

When McGillicuddy IV gave up the House seat, Henry Jude "Trey" Radel III, a loud-mouthed Hate Talk Radio host who was both a teabagger and the owner of a network of hard-core porn web-sites. This is the kind of district FL-19 is: Radel won 62-36%. Caught selling cocaine to some colleagues in DC, he didn't serve out a full term and he was succeeded by another extreme right-wing lunatic and teabagger, Curt Clawson, who beat his Democratic opponent by an even greater margin, 67-29%. He spent $4,824,230 to win the seat, $4,017,543 of it (84%) self-funded. Thursday he unexpectedly announced he would be retiring after achieving nothing at all as a congressman.

Chauncey Goss, whose father was briefly the congressman for the district between McGillicuddy III and McGillicuddy IV, and who ran for the seat himself in 2012 but was beaten by the screaming coke-freak, is running. Ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who also ran for the seat unsuccessfully says she'll probably run again too. Same with State Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, who came in second to Clawson in the 2014 primary. And it looks like McGillicuddy IV wants back in too. Oops... I forgot to mention that McGillicuddy IV (like McGillicuddy III) is known as "Connie Mack" and that McGillicuddy IV was voted best-dressed man in Congress and his then-wife, Sonny Bono's not-Cher widow, Mary Bono, who lost her reelection the same night McGillicuddy IV lost his Senate race, was voted best-dressed woman in Congress. They were the best-dressed couple; they divorced just after they both lost their last elections. Adam Smith, the Tampa Bay Times political editor:

We haven't back from CM4, now a lobbyist, so don't know how seriously he is processing this. If he is interested, though, his would-be campaign is already off to a mighty rocky start, considering the number of folks he ticked off this week. Mack represents bondholders owed money by Puero Rico is lobbying against a fiscal rescue plan for Puerto Rico that would allow it to restructure some $70-billion in debt, and he sent a letter to Republican House members listing conservative groups and individuals opposed to the plan.

Unfortunately, a bunch of the people on Mack's list of opponents say they should not have been:

"...NTU has NOT registered opposition to H.R. 4900, nor has NTU announced that it will urge Members to vote against the next draft," Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union wrote House members, correcting the record after Mack's memo.

Politico found quite a few more people accusing Mack of incorrectly invoking their names, including Speaker Paul Ryan's office: “The deceptive efforts to mislead on Puerto Rico have backfired as members understand this is not a bailout,” AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, emailed POLITICO. Ryan has helped push for a deal to help Puerto Rico avert default. “We look forward to moving a solution to protect taxpayers and fulfill our constitutional duties.”

"He's going to come under a lot of fire from people he's misrepresenting," Javier Ortiz, executive director of the Puerto Rico Economic Recovery Initiative, which supports the legislation, said of Mack. "I'm quite dismayed, surprised, speechless that he would stoop so low just for however much money he's being paid."

Needless to say, the DCCC hasn't bothered recruiting a candidate; too busy misleading their donors how Trump is going to help them win back Congress.

Is Trey Radel Really America's Own Rob Ford?

By 39, most normal people stop using recreational drugs

Both are wealthy, opportunistic right-wing extremists who gravitated to politics for a myriad of reasons that did not include public service. And although the demeanor and boorish, loud-mouthed bullying that Rob Ford (and brother Doug) demonstrate on TV daily, reminds people more of Chris Christie, it looks like Trey Radel is what we're stuck with. Born wealthy and privileged, 37 year old Henry Jude Radel III (AKA, Trey) started his own business, Trey Enterprises, to buy and sell domain names.

Starting in 2005, his now-defunct company, Trey Enterprises, registered a number of sexually charged web addresses, many of them in Spanish, according to historical domain name ownership records. Among them is www.cojible.com, a slang term defined by Urban Dictionary as "a woman who doesn't look good, but is good enough to sleep with." There was also www.casadelasputas.com (whorehouse), www.mamadita.com (little blow job *), www.chicasderio.com (girls of Rio). And in English: www.sexguideonline.com.

If you're looking for a bright side of this-- like maybe a conservative who supports comprehensive immigration reform-- don't look towards Radel. A former Hate Talk Radio host, who calls himself a hip hop conservative, Radel is an anti-immigrant bigot when push comes to shove. He's a party-line GOP zombie with an astoundingly dismal ProgressivePunch crucial vote score that includes ZEROES in every major category from Aid to Less Advantaged People, Education, the Enviroment and Health Care to Human and Civil Rights and War and Peace. And, more to the point, in September, just weeks before being arrested in a coke bust, he voted to force food stamp recipients to pee into cups to prove they're not on drugs.

I used to work in radio. I did it for decades. I know how hard it is to talk into a microphone for hour after hour and hour, day after day after day. From Limbaugh and Beck all the way down the food chain, all these right-wing hate talk radio hosts are hopped up on drugs, usually speed or coke. They're all addicts and the drugs feed their ability to spout the kind of sociopathic nonsense that drives up the ratings. The station managers know they have a bunch of mentally unstable drug addicts working for them but… hey, the ratings, the ratings, the ratings.

Radel's politics and Radel's drug addiction-- like Ford, he calls it alcoholism-- go hand in hand. Strung out on coke like deranged Republican extremists Paul Broun (GA) and Steve Stockman (TX) admit they have also been, one's mind almost inevitably wanders into dark, ugly places. Rememeber, Jesus Christ had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Revelations, the book of the Bible Satan (through drug use) inserted and that extreme right "Christian" churches would rather dwell on than anything Jesus ever brought to mankind.

Back to Radel, for a moment. An actor and a comedian before he found Hate Talk Radio, at one time he performed improv at Second City in Chicago. This morning USA Today explained to the mostly elderly residents of FL-19, basically Lee County plus a chunk of Collier in southwest Florida, why their new congressman is all over the TV.

Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., was caught buying drugs as part of a federal investigation into a Washington, D.C., drug ring last month and is being charged with cocaine possession, according to a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said several federal agencies working as part of a task force arrested a dealer who told them one of his cocaine customers was a congressman. The dealer, working with federal agents, set up a buy on Oct. 29, and Radel, a freshman congressman first elected last year, purchased the cocaine, the official said.

FBI agents later went to Radel's apartment, where they detained him, the official said. Radel hired a defense attorney who negotiated charges with a prosecutor, the official said. Law enforcement agents never handcuffed Radel or took him to jail, the official said.

Radel will appear Wednesday in District of Columbia Superior Court to face the misdemeanor cocaine possession charge. Charging documents from the U.S. attorney's office say Radel "unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally" possessed "a quantity of cocaine."

The charge is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum of 180 days in prison and/or a fine of $1,000, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

"I'm profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of Southwest Florida," Radel said in a statement released Tuesday. "I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them."

Radel continued: "Believe me, I am disappointed in myself, and I stand ready to face the consequences of my actions. However, this unfortunate event does have a positive side. It offers me an opportunity to seek treatment and counseling. I know I have a problem and will do whatever is necessary to overcome it, hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease."

...A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the incident is "between Rep. Radel, his family and his constituents."

"Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

I bet mainstream Republican Chauncey Goss, yes Porter's son who the tea partying Radel beat last year, is thinking about a do-over in a primary. All is another bizarre son of wealth and privilege, Cornelius McGillicuddy IV, defeated in a clownish Senate run last year, already thinking about getting his old job back? For the rest of us, though, we need to think how the justice system treats wealthy, privileged white folks caught with cocaine compared to how the lives of black kids caught with the same drug are utterly destroyed forever. He admitted he's a coke addict, agreed to go to "treatment: and got one year probation. That's it-- just probation, no jail time, no resigning from Congress, not even a fine. Joke's on justice!

UPDATE: Many People Not On Coke Are In Bed At 10:30 On A Week Night

Trey Radel called a dramatic press conference in Cape Coral and said he's taking a leave of absence from Congress so he could go into rehab. That works for some people. For others it doesn't.

“I’m sorry. I have no excuse for what I’ve done. ... I’ve let down our constituents, I’ve let down my family,” Radel said in an emotional 10:30 p.m. press conference from one of his offices in Florida. “I’ve let down my wife, and although he doesn’t know it, I’ve let down our two year-old son.”

I Bet You Don't Know Much About Florida's 19th Congressional District, Do You?

If you're following the congressional races by paying attention to the drivel coming from the DCCC or if you get all of your info on House races from the lazy Beltway media types who act as stenographers for the DCCC, you are definitely missing out of some of the most interesting House races this cycle. But, of course, that's what DWT is for. I've been meaning to mention that barely a week goes by when a Democratic candidate doesn't call me and ask for contact info for Rachel or Big Ed or some media folks. I always ask them if they've asked the DCCC and they always say the DCCC fobs them off on local media that they're already in touch with and refuse to share the contact info for national media types. Go team! That's another way how the DCCC protects its turf and tries to monopolize the conversation so that, for example, when the messaging it about how destructive the Ryan budget is, media gets to talk to some schlemiel New Dem or Blue Dog rather than Ryan's opponent, Rob Zerban. And so on. You've heard it all before. But what you haven't heard about, in all likelihood, is the race in FL's 19th CD, the district crazy millionaire teabagger Connie Mack is giving up in order to run for the Senate. The district is in southwest Florida, centered on Fort Myers in Lee County and was the 14th CD before redistricting. The district went strongly for Bush both times with just over 60% but was less friendly to McCain (57%). Last time he ran, Bill Nelson won the district and took Lee County with 56% of the vote against Florida's notorious former Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who garnered 43%. Lee County, which makes up about two-thirds of the district, is no longer a majority Republican county. There's a steep decline from the days when the GOP had a 60% registration edge. Currently only 47% of registered voters are Republicans. Independent voters will determine who he next congressmember is.

There's a good, solid progressive Democrat running, Jim Roach, but what makes this district interesting right now is the August Republican primary, one of the most hilarious clown shows anywhere in the country. There are a half dozen woefully inexperienced candidates beating each other up for their party's nomination, a real pleasure to behold. Only one Republican has ever campaigned before. Two are termed-out State House representatives. The other 4 have never held office. Historically, the Republican primary voter turnout is less than 35%, fewer than 65,000 voters. The primary vote will likely be divided by a factor of four to five leaving the votes required to win below 15,000. The primary has no run-off election. The low number of votes levels the playing field between the Republican candidates who are well funded, party favorites and those who are running strong grassroots campaigns. Given the inexperience of the candidates, costly mistakes have already occurred and are likely to persist. The six clowns in contention are Gary Aubuchon, the candidate of the local realtors; Chauncey Porter Goss, son of the ex-CIA director who represented the district before Connie Mack and the endorsee of Jeb Bush, Agriculture Commissioner Adam "Howdy Doody" Putnam and Paul Ryan, who wants to end Medicare and Social Security for the district's extremely large population of retired seniors; Paige Kreegel, who was endorsed by teabagger Congressmembers Dennis Ross and Sandy Adams and by Florida's controversial Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll; Henry "Trey" Radel, a Hate Talk Radio host who's being backed by Connie III and IV and by Rudy Giuliani; Joe Davidow, who has no support from anyone; and Byron Donalds, a teabagger backed by Herman Cain, Sheriff Mack and the Naples Daily News.

The supposed favorites are the 3 relatively mainstream conservatives, Aubuchon, Goss's son and Kreegel. Aubuchon’s strong area, Cape Coral has a history of very low Republican Primary turnout. Chauncey Goss recently moved to the area and is an outsider. Predictably enough, he's getting strong support from his father and pulling local Republican support from Aubuchon. Chauncey has changed his name on the ballot to include “Porter” as his middle name. It is likely to remind voters of the Mack Dynasty they just got rid of. Connie Mack IV is not well thought of by Republicans locally and was re-elected on his family’s name recognition. Kreegel, the third of the mainstream conservatives leans more to the right and is running a strong ground campaign. Kreegel is not from this area but held the termed-out State House seat in Punta Gorda, just north of the congressional district. He's not well known locally but at least has some experience in running for office. He doesn't live in the district but Florida voters don't seem to care about that. These three candidates are expected to divide the mainstream conservative Republicans between them.

Two of the candidates (Radel and Donalds) have Tea Party support and are dividing the extreme right of the Republican Party. Radel, a former right wing local Fox Radio host, has name recognition. Radel is the “bad boy” of the candidates; he purchased the website names of his opponents and posted negative information on the sites. Unfortunately, this brought his prowess on the internet into discussion and it was discovered that he also registered several pornographic website names. The other teabagger in the race, Donalds, has a large and very active grassroots volunteer base. Donalds has also been selected by the national anti-politician organization, GOOOH, as their candidate. He's described as a gifted speaker and has consistently won all the candidate forums where straw polls were taken. To date a couple thousand people have attended forums, almost all of them sponsored by Tea Party groups. Donalds has unified the various splintered right wing factions and groups, from the Tea Party, the Tea Party Patriots, and the Oath Keepers, to all the various and sundry offshoots of the Religious Right. Donalds' followers are the more activist conservatives and more likely to vote in a primary. These two candidates are expected to divide the far right and extremist vote although Donalds looks to be the stronger in a divisive primary. Davidow has little support from the Republican Party and is expected to be a minimal factor in the primary but will help dilute the GOP vote in a kind of wild card way.

Who will win the Republican primary on August 14th? Who will get a mere 15,000 voters fired up enough to vote in the primary? Based on the inexperience of the Establishment Republicans the likely Republican primary winner is Donalds. The result will be that the Democrat, Jim Roach, running against an “outsider” Tea Party Republican, and making this race analogous to the Christine O’Donnell race in Delaware and the Sharron Angle race in Nevada, will be in real contention for November.

Candidate Forums

There have been 3 major candidate forums attended by most of the candidates. Marco Island, Naples and Cape Coral have hosted over 2000 attendees with 600 straw poll votes (similar to the number of people in official polls). The forums have been held in Baptist Churches and hosted by Republican clubs, GOOOH, the Tea Party, Americans for Prosperity, the Patriots, the Oath keepers, the 9-12 Project and other conservative groups. The forums allowed plenty of time for each candidate to answer the same, mostly conservative questions, providing a good comparison. Straw polls at the end of each forum were conducted fairly with observers watching the votes. Byron Donalds won each of the forums by a large percentage of votes. Surprisingly, Democrat Jim Roach, received the second largest number of votes. Aubuchon, Radel, Goss, Davidow and Kreegel all received fewer votes than Roach. The forums were conducted in the southern, central and northern areas of the 19th CD with little overlap of attendees. With 6 Republican candidates bringing their supporters and conservative sponsorship, the forums were made up of a substantial conservative majority. Jim Roach’s experience and in-depth knowledge of legislation and the issues gained more support than the rhetoric and botched sound byte answers from the Establishment Republicans.

In the most recent straw poll, hosted by the Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce, where the Establishment Republicans were the majority, Roach received more than double the straw poll votes that Donalds got, who scares mainstream crowds, even mainstream Republican crowds! That's good news for Roach's campaign, which understands that if Donalds wins the primary, he'll have an excellent chance to win in November. And Donalds does have the advantage among the ultra conservative crowd that comes out to vote in obscure congressional primaries. In the November, it will be independents who decide the race and there's some reason to believe that Donalds is unpalatable even for mainstream Republicans.

So... who's Jim Roach? Glad you asked. He was the Democratic candidate against Connie IV in 2010 and did respectably well against an entrenched incumbent in a murderous year for Democrats. He certainly gained some experience-- and name recognition-- in the process and has become a regular on local talk radio stations. A combat decorated veteran, family man, and small businessman, he's a good fit for the district and has already received endorsements from national and local unions and from the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans. He goes to Tea Party meetings and to Occupy meetings and doesn't change his message for either, emphasizing how both sides agree on an astounding number of issues. His goal is to cut through the rhetoric and sound bytes with calm determination and a reservoir of facts on economic justice issues like jobs and health care, and on "hot button" issues like LGBT equality, immigration reform and women’s rights. His knowledge of the issues and his practical solutions helps him to defuse the rhetoric that, at minimum, earns respect even from the Tea Party crowd.

OFA is targeting the 19th CD for a big registration drive and for a massive get out the vote effort. Both Obama and Nelson need Lee County votes to win. Romney isn't well thought of by Republicans in the area and GOP turnout isn't expected to be very high. The demographics of southwest Florida hasn't produced a wealthy Republican district. About a third of the voters don't have health care, 44% are on Social Security and unemployment is still above 10%.

Should the Establishment pull its shit together and nominate either of the faves, Aubuchon or Goss' son there are a couple of damaging facts that have been seeping out recently. Aubuchon’s construction company built homes with cheap poorly-made drywall from China. He then was appointed to a State House seat and was a leader in passing one bill-- to limit the liability of builders who used Chinese drywall. Goss' son, who doesn't know the district very well, kicks off all his campaign speeches with how he worked on the Ryan budget plan in D.C. and knows why Medicare and Social Security need to be privatized. This is not a good way to win in a 44% Social Security and Medicare crowd.

Cornelius MacGillicuddy IV Might Not Understand What Right-Wing Social Engineering Is, Nor What Social Darwinism Is About, But He Knows What A Joke Is

A friend of mine in Congress, a Democrat who serves alongside Florida Republican Cornelius MacGillicuddy IV (AKA- Connie Mack) tells me Connie-- and his wife Mary Bono-- are very pleasant people. "They're the best dressed couple in Congress and they're very polite, well-mannered people. They may not have a brain wave between them but... I think Connie learned his lesson since he used to get drunk and pick barroom fights. These are two people who go out of their way to dress nicely and behave pleasantly." Before inheriting his father's seat in Congress-- his father was Cornelius MacGillicuddy III and was also known as Connie Mack; almost no one knows they're not the same person-- IV was a special events coordinator for Hooters.

But now Connie, one of the hereditary multimillionaires in Congress embracing Tea Party politics, would like to assume his father's old seat in the U.S. Senate. Polls show him with virtually no chance of defeating moderate incumbent Bill Nelson. His tactic to draw attention to himself, at least in front of the Republican primary, is to go so far right that he makes Paul Ryan look like a leftist-- literally.

Rep. Connie Mack (Fla.) called the House Republican budget plan “a joke” over the weekend, providing a public face for the discontent by some members of his party with a GOP proposal that President Obama has called "nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism."
 
“I was here in Florida campaigning," Mack said when asked about missing the budget vote, which passed the House in a party-line vote last week. "You know that budget was a joke, doesn’t balance the budget for years.” 

The conservative Florida Political Press website first reported the comment, made at a Tea Party forum for three Senate candidates in Orlando last Saturday.
 
The plan, proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), would cut about $5 trillion and would create a “premium support” option to help future Medicare recipients obtain private insurance.

Mack voted for Ryan's budget in 2011, although the 2012 plan made some changes, particularly to the Medicare component of the budget.

Most of his colleagues will admit, at least off the record, that Connie's a little simple-minded. Lately, he's been all over the place on the Ryan budget-- criticizing it vaguely from the left for some audiences and from the right for other audiences... and, of course just making whatever excuse he can for missing the vote while he was at a fundraiser with Jeb Bush, Jr. (not even the real Jeb Bush-- but then, he's not the real Connie Mack either, so what does it matter?).

Where's Home For Mary Bono Mack?

Mary & Cornelius IV

Does it matter? Once most of these people get to Washington and get sucked into that Inside-the-Beltway/Inside-the-Bubble world, they completely lose whatever connection they ever had to their districts anyway. Bono Mack, of course, keeps a home in Palm Springs and forces one of her kids to live in it-- nope, it isn't Chastity Chaz Bono-- but, obviously, she lives in D.C. And when she's not in D.C., she shares a home with ex-Congressman Connie Mack III's retarded (but just the way Rush uses it, not the way Rahm uses it) son, current Congressman Connie Mack IV, in lovely Ft Myers, Florida. Connie's district has the distinction of having the most foreclosures of any CD in the nation-- projected to rise to 116,979 in 3 years-- while the Inland Empire district the little wifey's still holding onto will "only" have 51,033 by then (one of the half dozen worst in California). Both of them voted against the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009, though few districts' families anywhere in the nation needed that law to pass as badly as Mary's and Connie's.

Ensconced as they are in their palatial Beltway or Ft Myers digs, neither knows anything about what ordinary working families they supposedly "represent" need. I caught an innocuous post in Politico on Saturday about what DC power couples were doing for Valentine's Day. We found out that pathetic Illinois closet queen Aaron Schock spent the day recuperating from being publicly humiliated as a Ken Doll sputtering hypocrite by Rachel Maddow on MTP. GOP operative Grover Norquist is going to Disney on Ice with "my three lady valentines": his wife, Samah, and two daughters, Grace and Giselle. Though he asks: "Do they sell beer at such shows?" Not sure if that's in Orlando or Anaheim but Newt and his 8th or 9th wife were definitely in Florida, trading DC snow for Florida golf and sunshine. But the part that captured my imagination was about the Macks:

The favorite husband-and-wife congressional team, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) and Connie Mack (R-Fla.), plan to have a "quiet Valentine's Day," according to Bono Mack's office, "spending time together at home with their family."

Hard-pressed residents of Riverside County, California may be wondering why "their" representative calls her home Ft Myers, Florida. Most people would rate Palm Springs at least as desirable a place to live. Why do they have to take a back seat to Ft Myers? They only get one representative in the House. It ought to be someone who calls the district home. And it isn't just Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet who's hoping to give Bono-Mack the opportunity to live in her adopted homes permanently. There isn't a member of Congress teabaggers out here are more eager to defeat than Wall Street shill Mary Bono Mack. In fact, they hate her so much that they're vowing revenge on poor doltish Connie as well!

When Mary lived in California, she hung out with way cooler people

Right-wingers Vow Revenge Against Mary Bono Mack AND Her Husband

I never thought I'd step up to defend Mary Bono Mack, a very mediocre absentee representative from California's High Desert (Riverside County)-- and don't worry, I won't. She inherited her increasingly blue congressional district based in Palm Springs from her then-husband Sonny Bono after his fatal skiing accident. Since then she's married one of the most far right extremists in Congress-- a lunatic fringe kook named Connie Mack IV from Florida-- while managing to stay in office by voting 2 or 3 times a year with the Democrats, especially on gay issues, not because her marriage to Connie is a lesbian match but because Palm Springs is almost as gay as San Francisco, NYC, Miami Beach or West Hollywood. In a district that embraced Obama, Progressive Punch shows her lifetime voting record on crucial, substantive issues to be more mainstream conservative than radical right, but by no means moderate.

There are 33 Republicans-- including dependable rightists like Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Jimmy Duncan (R-TN), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Ed Royce (R-CA), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and even full-fledged-no-foolin'-around fascist stooge Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)-- who vote more frequently across the aisle than Bono-Mack. When it comes to economic issues facing ordinary American families-- like fair taxation, labor rights, equal justice, and corporate subsidies-- you'd have to search pretty hard to find many Republicans in Congress more reactionary and anti-family than Bono-Mack.

So it was probably a bit of a shock to her when she saw the headline above that I captured in a screen shot from the Republican Party blog, Red State: Mary Bono Mack Should Be Burned In Effigy And Voted out Of Office. It was written by Georgia Republican Party operative Erick Erickson and something tells me Erickson isn't about to endorse Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, who's not just gay, but married (to another man) and happily raising their two children! Too far a stretch for Republicans who seem to always be involved with "opposite marriages," or whatever they call the degrading situations traditional marriage sanctity defenders like Mark Sanford, David Diapers Vitter, Larry Craig and John Ensign are in.

Erickson and the fringe loons on the furthest reaches of the non-criminal right are so upset with Bono Mack that they are threatening to not just defeat her but to go after the right-wing extremist husband to boot! He demands that she vote against health care reform and against the energy bill when it comes back from the Senate-- where it will probably be watered down and look more acceptable to mainstream conservatives!!!-- or face the consequences.

Otherwise, we beat her and her husband at the polls.

Yes, you heard me. We can get at Mary Bono Mack in two ways-- her district and that of her husband. He should feel the heat just as much as her.

I bet they're trembling in their boots.

Two Very Ugly Faces Of Mindless Republican Obstructionism: Connie Mack & Michele Bachmann

An unholy triad: Connie, Mary & Michele

This morning, CNN had Florida reactionary Connie Mack on to spew some venom about Tim Geithner after the announcement of how to get rid of the toxic assets that had accumulated on the books of American banks while George Bush's hand was steering the ship and while Connie Mack and his Republican colleagues were merrily rubber stamping every venal scheme the Bush Regime came up with to impoverish the middle class and further enrich and empower the top one percent of wealth holders. As Mack droned on and on with his partisan talking points-- basically about how no one has any confidence in Geithner and he should resign-- the Wall Street ticker under him kept rising and rising, indicating, I assume, that everyone has every confidence that no one cares what Connie Mack has to say about anything. Nor should they.

Cornelius McGillicuddy IV, commonly known as Connie Mack, represents the same southwest Florida area once represented by Cornelius McGillicuddy III, the grandson of Philadelphia Athletics owner of the same name. McGillicuddy III also served two undistinguished terms in the U.S. Senate. The overwhelmingly Republican 14th district (PVI is R+10) is currently best known for being ground-zero in the home foreclosure mess, with the most foreclosures-- 35,134-- of any congressional district in America, about 9,000 more than the runner-up. Needless to say, Mack voted against the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, which passed 234-191, 3 slightly less dogmatic Florida Republicans joining the Democrats to try to help keep families in their homes. This is nothing new for Mack, who is one of the most reactionary Republicans in the state, this year sporting a 1.32 Progressive Punch score (out of 100), far more extremist than any other member of the Florida delegation. If you want to point to the 10 most rabid obstructionists in Congress, you can't do it without including former marketing consultant McGillicuddy IV. And, yes, this Banking Committee member (who has snorted up $727,518 in legalized bribes from the finance/insurance/real estate sector and repaid the favor by voting for every single deregulatory bill that has ever come before the House), stuck with his A.I.G. pals last week and was one of only 93 members of Congress voting for them to keep the bonuses he expects taxpayers to reach deep for.

And, by the way, you can't draw up that list of the most rabid obstructionists without including another lunatic fringe Republican who's in the news today, Michele Bachmann (MN-06). Bachmann made her debut on the national stage when she got drunk at a congressional St Patrick's Day party in 2007 and puked in the woman's restroom, sneaking out without cleaning up, only to have poor Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH) slip in it and get covered in vomit, ruining her lovely American flag dress and the rest of her celebration. As for Bachmann, it's been straight downhill since then.

She gained even more fame when she hysterically demanded, McCarthy style, that members of Congress, especially then-Senator Barack Obama, be investigated for being "anti-American," causing her own party's congressional leaders to wince and roll their eyes but making her very popular among late night comedians. Well, she was at it again this weekend.

During a Saturday afternoon interview on WWTC 1280 AM with The Northern Alliance’s John Hinderaker and Brian Ward, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann discussed her staunch opposition to several Democratic-led efforts on Capitol Hill this session – such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the recently passed HR 1586 tax on bonuses for TARP recipients, and President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan to reduce greenhouse gases.

Bachmann then began to talk about her role as Representative at the nation’s Capitol. Explaining the resources available at her U.S. House website which enable her to communicate what is happening in D.C. to the public, such as her Bachmann Bulletin, Bachmann Blog, and links to her Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages, the Congresswoman said, "I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington."

Previously best known as a local kook running around and demanding that her bizarre religious beliefs be taught in public schools in place of, or along side, science, she has, since being elected to Congress, been in a neck and neck struggle with half a dozen other far right extremists to see which could have the most "perfect" neo-fascist voting record. Currently she's winning, beating out Paul Broun (GA), Adrian Smith (NE), Patty McHenry (NC), her old nemesis Mean Jean (OH), and Eric Cantor (VA). She is also widely considered to be the most clueless member of the House Financial Services Committee, where she ineptly always defends corporate banksters and special interests. She received basically the same in bribes that McGillicuddy IV got ($756,740), although a lot faster, and, like him, was one of the 93 who thinks the taxpayers should be paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to the executives who have financed their political careers. Although she ran into some problems because of her crazy and well-publicized extremism and because she favors abolishing Social Security and the minimum wage and adamantly opposes allowing Medicare to negotiate lower pharmaceutical prices, her district is so gerrymandered to elect Republicans that even a reactionary Blue Dog, Elwyn Tinklenberg, wasn't taken seriously by the benighted voters last November. After Minnesota loses a seat in the 2010 census the consensus, on both sides of the aisle, is that the state will be far better off without the unhinged Bachmann in Congress. You don't believe me? Watch:

Obama Taking The Argument For Stimulus To Hard Hit Florida

Alan Grayson wants to help Obama fix the problems Connie Mack helped Bush cause

Today President Obama visited Elkhart, Indiana to explain the benefits of his Stimulus Plan and how it would help rescue the economy from a deadly and catastrophic Republican policy agenda that has driven the economy of the nation-- and of millions of working families-- off the cliff. Indiana is a traditionally Republican state, one of several Obama won in November. Another is Florida-- and it's there, in hard hit Ft. Meyers-- that the president will be delivering a similar message tomorrow morning. Yesterday's NY Times featured a poignant story set in the Ft Meyers area, In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures.

Welcome to the American dream in high reverse. Lehigh Acres is one of countless sprawling exurbs that the housing boom drastically reshaped, and now the bust is testing whether the experience of shared struggle will pull people together or tear them apart.

The changes in these mostly unincorporated areas outside cities like Charlotte, N.C., Las Vegas and Sacramento have been swift and vivid. Their best economic times have been immediately followed by their worst, as they have generally been the last to crest and the first to crash.

In Lehigh Acres, homes are selling at 80 percent off their peak prices. Only two years after there were more jobs than people to work them, fast-food restaurants are laying people off or closing. Crime is up, school enrollment is down, and one in four residents received food stamps in December, nearly a fourfold increase since 2006... [I]n 2007, it all went quiet. Houses stopped selling. Foreclosures multiplied. The median home price in the Fort Myers area dropped to $215,200 in December 2007, from a peak of $322,300 in December 2005. It had fallen to $106,900 two months ago.

9.8% of the adults in Lee County (Ft. Meyers) are getting unemployment insurance. Many more are unemployed or underemployed. And things are getting much worse there, as in most of the country. As MSNBC reported yesterday, the unemployment benefits safety net is fraying. Republican members of Congress are screaming bloody murder that unemployed workers have gotten too much already and shouldn't get more but almost half of the 11.6 million jobless workers nationwide are no longer receiving benefits. The first thing the Republicans wanted to cut from the Stimulus Package was aid for these people. Anyone in a tough spot and not working is a bum according to GOP ideology-- even if that same ideology is what caused the economic disaster that has the economy in a shambles.

The shortcomings are fueling the recession as an increasing number of workers fall through the cracks and curtail spending. The trend highlights what economists say is a growing need for a 21st century makeover of a program started in the depths of the Great Depression.

...Jobless benefits are essentially mini-financial stimulus packages for struggling American families. Helping laid-off breadwinners continue to purchase goods and services until they find new jobs ultimately bolsters the economy and makes further layoffs less likely.

The Republican Party attitude was summed up by Heritage Foundation loon James Sherk, from the outfit that drew up all the Bush economic policies for the past 8 years and has been helping the Obstructionist Caucus nuts like DeMint, Isakson, Vitter and Burr come up with the harebrained arguments they keep making in their attempt to further destroy the economy with failed and discredited GOP dogma. "It does reduce the pressure and incentive to go out and search for a new job," is his-- and their-- attitude about unemployment insurance.

This is the area represented by one of Florida's most extreme right-wing congressman, Connie Mack, a doctrinaire Bush rubber stamp and unyielding enemy to working families. Last year he sucked up almost $90,000 from the real estate industry in legalized bribes-- and also took in $58,588 from Wall Street, $27,293 from lobbyists and $23,800 from Big Oil and Gas. And its their interests, rather than his constituents', that he has always represented in Congress. He raised over $1,290,000 for his re-election campaign last year, against a Democrat, Burt Saunders, who only spent $165,327. His next race probably won't be that kind of cakewalk. That's because part of the extremist base of the Florida Republican Party wants him to run for the Senate seat being abandoned by Mel Martinez. The progressive Democrat in that race, state Senator Dan Gelber was an early supporter of Barack Obama's and he is standing with him on the need for a major Stimulus effort. He thinks Ft. Meyers is the perfect place for President Obama to come to tomorrow. "Florida is losing jobs faster than any other state and has the second highest foreclosure rate in the nation," Dan told us. " With 800,000 Floridians now jobless Floridians will have no appetite for the right wing political opportunism rearing its head in Washington. The severity of Florida's economic crisis stems from its previous unflinching and unthinking allegiance to far right conservative orthodoxy. We have made our state 'tax friendly' but failed to invest adequately in public education and work force development.  So our wages are low, job security is precarious and now people are really worried what tomorrow will bring."

Please help DWT keep America moving forward on the right track, by keeping another lunatic fringe rightist like Mack out of the Senate and instead electing a stalwart proven progressive like Dan. We've opened an ActBlue page for his campaign. If you wonder if supporting progressive candidates like Dan does any good, I hope you've been watching another Florida progressive, Alan Grayson, holding Republican evil doers' feet to the fire now that he's been elected. His analysis of why southwest Florida's economy is in such dire straits applies to areas all over the state and all over the U.S.

We are witnessing the results of 28 years of conservative rule: foreclosures, unemployment, inflation, war, poverty, hunger, desperation and despair. Government has been disabled. Ordinary people feel dispossessed, despised and damned.
 
But the solution is painfully obvious: we have to help ourselves. Not the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds. Not Big Business.  Not Wall Street. Not the rich. Us. We need to stop wasting our tax money on nonsense, and spend it on the things that we need and use: roads, health care, housing, schools and so on. Then the economy will heal itself.
 
In 1798 Congressman Robert Harper (SC) said, "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." The Republicans today are saying, "trillions for Wall Street, but not one cent to help people keep their homes." But that is exactly the thinking that created this mess. That's the failed, weak thinking that we have to put behind us, to have any hope of making things better.

And that's exactly what President Obama wants to leave behind-- and he needs support from people willing to stand up with him for working families, the way Alan Grayson and Dan Gelber are. Back in Lee County, Randy Burns the 50 year old owner of Lehigh Discount Furniture is getting mostly calls from people wanting to sell their furniture so they can move. “Until there’s jobs and foreclosures stop,” he said, “nothing’s going to change.” Yep, and that's what President Obama needs Americans to tell David Vitter and Jim DeMint and John Cornyn and Richard Burr and the rest of the clowns who would rather see America fail than see Obama succeed. By the way, if you are in Florida, please let Senator Mel Martinez know you want him to vote for the Stimulus Package. Governor Crist has asked him to and he's... up in the air about it. He needs to hear from voters. His phone numbers in DC are (202) 224-3041 and (866) 630-7106 and you can also reach him with this e-mail form (for Florida residents only). And, please, don't forget Dan Gelber.

Part 1 of President Obama's speech today in Elkhart:



Part 2 is here.


UPDATE: Democrats Shut Down Obstructionist Filibuster Of Obama's Stimulus Plan

Every Democrat plus 3 Republicans-- Arlen Specter, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe-- and the Senate's freak of nature, Joe Lieberman, shut down the GOP attempt to kill the Stimulus Bill with a filibuster. Cloture passed 61-36-- with Judd Gregg (R-NH) abstaining and John Cornyn (R-TX) accidentally locking himself in a restroom stall and missing the vote. Next step: a conference committee with the more working families-oriented House Democrats to iron out some very serious differences between the 2 bills.

The Senate bill-- the one crafted by Collins, Nelson, and Lieberman-- costs between $7 billion and $20 billion more than the House bill and creates far fewer jobs (around half a million less than the House bill). Here's a chart that shows how many fewer jobs per state, although I might add that it means between 1,831-2,316 fewer jobs in Maine, 1,931-2,543 fewer jobs in Nebraska, and between 2,116 and 3,465 fewer jobs in Connecticut. Nice of these three clowns to sacrifice their constituents for... lower taxes for rich people. (Florida loses between 29,607 and 35,706 new jobs.)


UPDATE: CONNIE MACK'S NOT GOING TO FT MEYERS

Yesterday I noticed that President Obama brought area congressmen from both sides of the aisle with him to Elkhart. Although Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist will be with him in Ft Meyers today, he isn't bringing obstructionist wingnut Connie Mack with him. Mack was on Morning Joe today claiming-- falsely-- that he opposed all the Bush policies that have caused the economy to tank. Mack, in fact, was a reflexive rubber stamp throughout the Bush era, and his voting record shows him, along with fellow extremists Jeff Miller, John Mica, Howdy Doody and Ander Crenshaw, in complete lockstep with every aspect of the Bush-Cheney assault on America's working families. As you can see, the brain trust at Morning Joe weren't aware of that.