Jimi Hendrix Contest Extended In Honor Of Memorial Day

You're probably aware that we're getting into the final stretch of our Alan Grayson Jimi Hendrix fundraiser. Because of the Memorial Day holiday, we've extended it until Tuesday-- one extra day. You can get in on it here-- and possibly win the rare, collectible Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced? platinum record award.

Do you remember the Blue America-endorsed candidate in Illinois, George Gollin, a particle physicist? Unfortunately, he didn't win his primary against Steve Israel's heavily-funded mystery meat candidate, Ann Callis, who has virtually no chance whatsoever of unseating weak Republican Rodney Davis in IL-13. George, however, hasn't withdrawn form politics. He's still working to make the progressive movement stronger and this is the introduction he wrote urging his supporters to contribute to Grayson's campaign this week:

Howie Klein is a progressive political blogger who writes the DownWithTyranny.blogspot.com blog. He is also helps with BlueAmerica, which raises funds for progressive candidates. Howie passed to me a message asking for help in support of Alan Grayson, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represents a district in central Florida.

I met Mr. Grayson for the first time a few weeks ago in Washington. Grayson is  smart, progressive, quick, and fearless. He has advanced degrees. And he not only speaks truth to power, but willingly mocks the king who comes into the room unclad. I was not surprised that he was kept off the Democratic side of the House panel that will watch the Right make political hay from the deaths in Benghazi.

One of Grayson’s gigs is serving on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. One of the many reasons we need to help him stay in office is to protect us from the Republican crazies on SS&T. Recall that this is the committee which features Paul Broun (R-GA-10) as a subcommittee chair; Broun is the guy who declared that "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell." And before he lost his seat in 2012, Todd Akin (R-MO-02) was also a Republican member of the committee. He’s the yahoo who explained that women who have been raped will not become pregnant because "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

So I encourage you to read Howie’s appeal below, and contribute to Alan Grayson’s campaign fund.

We need better people in office than the Democratic organization will tend to support; most recently, they’ve backed one guy with a fake college degree who isn’t even a Democrat and others who appear to have been laundering campaign contributions from their parents to increase their  cash intake.

I don’t plan to send you very many messages of this sort, and thank you for your indulgence, and your consideration.

best regards,
George Gollin
Champaign, IL
IL13

You can read all about the "contest rules" and contribute to Grayson's campaign here. Any amount goes, even one dollar. And if you don't have any cash on hand at the moment and want a chance to win anyway, just send us a post card to Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027 and you'll have the same chance as anyone else.


Writing to his supporters today, Grayson decided to put the Hendrix context into some context, "so you recognize," he wrote, "just how mind-boggling this opportunity is."

Are You Experienced? was Jimi Hendrix’s first album. Rolling Stone ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time.

In the year that Are You Experienced? was released, the readers of Melody Maker voted Jimi Hendrix the Pop Musician of the Year. The following year, Billboard named him Artist of the Year, and Rolling Stone called him Performer of the Year.

Rolling Stone called Are You Experienced? "epochal," and rated it the 15th greatest album of all time, as well as the third greatest debut album of all time. Rolling Stone also ranked "Purple Haze," the lead song on the album, as the 17th greatest song of all time.

Noe Goldwasser, the founding editor of Guitar World, called it "the album that shook the world." He added that it is "the measure by which everything in rock and roll has been compared since."

The album was distributed by Polydor Records. When the head of Polydor first heard the album, he said, "This is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard."

The album contained several innovative effects, like "amp howl" guitar feedback and backward guitar and drum music. It was so unprecedented that when the recording studio master tapes were sent to Reprise Records for remastering, they wrote on the box "Deliberate distortion. Do not correct."

Are You Experienced? reached the Billboard Top 40-- for 27 weeks.

The Library of Congress chose Are You Experienced? as one of only fifty recordings to be added to the National Recording Registry. The archivist of the Smithsonian Institution called it "a landmark recording," because "it altered the syntax of the music," he explained, "in a way I compare to James Joyce’s Ulysses."

At the insistence of one Paul McCartney, Hendrix was invited to play songs from Are You Experienced? at the Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix closed the set by smashing his guitar, and setting it on fire.

I haven’t done that on the Floor of the House. Yet.

So how special is the RIAA-certified Platinum Album Award for Are You Experienced? Very special. Very, very special.

And thanks to Blue America PAC, if you contribute to our campaign this week, you have a chance to own a special piece of music history and legend, by winning the Jimi Hendrix Platinum Album Award. It’s your chance for Musical Paradise.

Jimi Hendrix released only seven albums in the United States. Six of them went platinum, selling over a million copies. If you have a way to get the RIAA-certified Platinum Album Award for one of those other five albums, go for it. And if you already happen to have one of those other Jimi Hendrix Platinum Album Awards, then by all means, please disregard this offer. But if not, then contributing to our campaign today is the only chance that you’re ever going to have to get one.

Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t blow it.

Plus, we could use your help. Thanks.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson

Will The Republican War On Science Lead To A Paul Broun Victory In Georgia?

Friday, Alan Grayson endorsed particle physicist George Gollin for Congress from Illinois' 13th congressional district. He began his endorsement with a simple statement you can hear all too often from the more educated members of Congress-- Grayson has three graduate degrees from Harvard: "I’m really getting tired of listening to people who don’t know what they’re talking about. One of the dirty little secrets of Congress is that many of us legislate in areas in which we are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of our Members must be deliriously happy." He says it's why he decided to back Gollin.

George Gollin is a physicist. In the 70s, he worked on muon scattering, to test quantum chromodynamics theory. (I’m not making this up.) In the 80s, he studied neutral K meson decay, to test for CP violation. (I swear that this is true.) In the 90s, he measured the production and decay properties of heavy quarks. (I kid you not.) Since then, he has specialized in the design and construction of electron-positron colliding beam facilities. (This is indeed bona fide.)

…I serve on the House Science and Technology Committee. It is bleak, really bleak. A few months ago, one of our Members on the Committee said that evolution is “a lie straight from the pit of hell.” Most of the Members are climate change deniers. I keep encouraging them to transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling. (There is no House Religion Committee, but their eyes light up anyway, when I tell them that.)

I just finishing up, Predisposed a book by 3 academics, John Hibbing, Kevin Smith and John Alford, about how genetics plays into political affinities. They refer to the very well-known Science Magazine article from 2006 by Jon Miller, Eugenie Scott and Shinji Okamoto, Public Acceptance of Evolution which begins, ominously with a warning: "The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States." The chart below comes from that study. From Predisposed:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Actual responses taken from polls conducted in 34 countries between 2001 and 2005 make for a fascinating comparison of attitudes toward evolution. There is little controversy in the most developed countries included in the survey. For example, in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Norway, between 80 and 90 percent of the population agrees that "humans developed from earlier species." On the other hand, in countries with lower levels of development and education agreement sometimes dips below fifty percent. The five countries on the low end of the "support evolution" spectrum include Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, and Turkey, the Turks being the most skeptical: Only 23 percent of them agree with the statement.

What is the country rounding out the bottom five, a country that ranked just above Turkey in its skepticism of evolution? Astonishingly, it is arguably the most educated and economically developed country ion the planet. It is acknowledged as the world leader in scientific accomplishments, it spearheaded the development of nuclear power, is the only country to put people (12 of them) on a celestial body, and boasts 338 Nobel laureates (nearly three times as many as the country with the next most-- the United Kingdom), and year after year attracts undergraduate students from all over the world to study biology and medicine at its world-leading universities. Yet only 40 percent of the citizens of the United States believe humans developed from earlier animals. Significant portions of the remaining 60 percent are convinced that humans burst on the scene in their current form, shape, and size, approximately 6,000 years ago and have not changed since. Any way you slice the numbers, a good chunk of Americans simply do not believe the most basic and rudimentary tenet of modern biological science: the evolution of species.

The situation might be slightly more excusable if Americans actually knew what they are rejecting. Yet the denial of evolution is accompanied by a remarkable level of ignorance concerning evolution's basic principles. Maybe some of this ignorance can be traced to the difficulty K-12 biology teachers and students have concentrating on the topic because of all the screaming from people who believe The Flintstones is an animated documentary series.

When Grayson wrote that he encourages his science denying Science Committee colleagues to "transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling." He's only half joking. Presumably you've watched Georgia Congressman Paul Broun-- the current frontrunner among Republicans for their party's Senate nomination-- talking about his views on science. This is a congressman, an opinion leader, a respected Georgian, a "doctor" and a member of the House Science Committee. Watch:



And it isn't only Paul Broun. Most Republican Members of Congress believe exactly the exact same thing-- or, at the very least, pretend to. And although he's classified as a "conservative Democrat," Arkansas' senior senator, Mark Pryor, can't even fall back on Republican orthodoxy to excuse his idiocy. This is the senator who will fight with his dying breath to protect the ability of the Walton family to exploit working families in his state-- and to make sure you never have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate:

Polls That Leave Out Cell Phone Users Significantly Favor Conservatives

Tuesday is primary day in Illinois and the contest we're concentrating on is the swing district stretching from Champaign to the St. Louis suburbs, IL-13, currently held by weak Republican backbencher Rodney Davis. The Dick Durbin Machine and hapless DCCC chairman Steve Israel picked some mystery meat "moderate," Ann Callis, who refuses to tell anyone where she stands on any issues if, indeed, she stands anywhere on any issues. The grassroots progressive in the race is particle physicist George Gollin, who has been endorsed by Blue America, by every major newspaper and by Alan Grayson.

As of February 26, Gollin had spent $250,450 and was left with $227,112, cash on hand. Callis has spent $378,084 and had $449,496. The only publicly disclosed polling showed Callis's Machine campaign with a wide lead over Gollin's insurgent efforts, 41-25%. How significant are those findings in a district like IL-13, where so many students vote in the Democratic primary and have no landlines, just cell phones? The Blue Dog/New Dem polling firm, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research made the case to their clients last week that polls that ignore cell phone users who have no landlines-- now 40% of voters-- are inaccurate, if not worthless. In reading this analysis, keep in mind that Anzalone polls for Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, conservatives, not real Democrats. Their bias in all things is inside the context of Blue Dogs and New Dems vs Republicans. When reading the opinions below, it is helpful to replace the word "Republican" with "conservative," something they would never do themselves, of course.

More than 60 percent of adults under 45 had only a cellphone in early 2013, while only 13 percent of people 65 and older had only a cellphone… Latinos were far more likely to only have a cellphone (50 percent) than African-Americans (39 percent), Asian-Americans (35 percent), or white people (35 percent)

…It is instantly obvious that these younger, more-Latino cell-only voters are a Democratic-leaning group. In our combined 2012 surveys in battleground states-- tens of thousands of interviews-- we saw that cell-only voters were more Democratic (38 percent Democrat and 27 percent Republican, or +11 Democrat) than people who we reached on their landlines (35 percent Democrat and 33 percent Republican, or +2 Democrat).

…Just replacing cell-only people with someone similar that owns a landline is going to skew polls towards Republicans, so pollsters must reach people on their cells. Finally, there's also a big difference in cell-mostly voters we reached on their cellphones (+16 Democratic) and those on their landlines (+1 Democratic), so some cell-mostly voters must be called on their cellphones too.

Leaving cell-only voters out of polls has biased polls toward Republicans.

Landline-only polling problems went deeper than just Mitt Romney's widely-covered polling problems. For example, in the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Indiana, after Republican Richard Mourdock said that a pregnancy resulting from rape was a gift from God, our late-October poll that included 20 percent cellphones showed Joe Donnelly leading by seven points. Mourdock's pollster showed Mourdock with a two-point lead, and Donnelly won by six. More broadly, Nate Silver in his 2012 after-action report correctly cited polls that "called only landlines or took other methodological shortcuts" as polls that "performed poorly and showed a more Republican-leaning electorate than the one that actually turned out."

Why doesn't everyone just dial cellphones already?

Doing polls right and dialing cellphones is expensive and time-consuming. For starters, a lot of technological advances that have made political phonecalls and telemarketing cheaper (and more annoying) have kept polling costs from ballooning, too. But federal law says cellphones must be dialed by hand, meaning they are more expensive to call. The law also means pollsters who use only cheaper automated-recording calls-- "Press 1 if you are supporting Barack Obama"-- are legally barred from including cellphones in their polls.

A huge number of cellphones are also owned by people under 18, who we must hang up on for voter surveys. And finally, pollsters have to spend time calling (and gracefully hanging up on) people whose area code says they are in one state, but actually live all the way across the country. These and other factors combine to make the cost of a cellphone interview more than double the cost of a landline interview in the worst-case scenarios.

...Cell-mostly populations must be reached via landline and cellphone.

As our 2012 polling showed, cell-mostly voters we reach on cellphones are different than cell-mostly voters we reach on their landline. This means that some cell-mostly people must be called on their cellphones.

To their credit, Republican pollsters including the highly-professional Public Opinion Strategies have now recognized the need to dial cellphones. Including cells, and a lot of them, will not be the only measure of a quality poll in 2014 and 2016. But campaigns, the media and the poll-consuming public should be skeptical of any poll that doesn't include cellphones.

Will Steve Israel Manage To Doom Democratic Hopes In IL-13 With Another Of His Mystery Meat Candidates?

Tuesday is primary day in Illinois and progressive George Gollin's insurgent campaign in IL-13 won two big endorsements yesterday. Early in the morning the biggest local paper, the Champaign News-Gazette came in for him, following the lead of the other two most read newspapers in the district, the Chicago Tribune and Springfield's State Journal-Register. Each of them has included negative comments about Steve Israel's putrid "mystery meat" candidate, Ann Callis, and the DCCC's strategy of all platitudes all the time, while avoiding real issues that voters might be interested in. A couple of hours later, Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson also endorsed Gollin and urged his supporters to contribute to Gollin's grassroots campaign. First, the News-Gazette:

Democratic leaders like U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin believe-- correctly-- that they missed a great chance in 2012 to pick up a U.S. House seat from the state's 13th Congressional District.

Determined to correct that mistake this year, they've painted a bulls-eye on the back of Republican Rep. Rodney Davis and focused all their efforts on defeating the first-term incumbent. Davis, who barely eked out a win over Democrat David Gill, is certainly vulnerable. But the key for Democrats to defeat him is to find the right challenger.

Just as they did in 2012, party leaders have focused on an individual they believe can win, retired Madison County judge Ann Callis, and anointed her as their choice. But just as they did in 2012, they failed to clear the field of party challengers.

In 2012, Gill defeated the establishment's choice in the primary election. This year, two local Democrats, University of Illinois physics Professor Gollin and university policy analyst David Green, hope to knock off Callis in the March 18 Democratic primary.

Of the three Democratic candidates, Gollin is best suited to represent his party in the fall election. A physicist by profession, he has the intelligence to understand complex issues. Now a politician by choice, Gollin has shown that he's both comfortable on the platform and willing to clearly articulate his positions on the issues. Although he's certainly more liberal than the politically divided 13th District, it would be our expectation that Gollin would pursue practical solutions to serious problems rather than fall back on liberal orthodoxy. After all, he condemns what he calls the political orthodoxy of tea party conservatives.

Our enthusiasm for Gollin is heightened by our disappointment in Callis. Gollin has enough respect for the voters to state his positions in a clear and informed manner. She uses her intelligence to shape vague responses to important questions. While he has been forthcoming, she has been willfully nonresponsive.

It's not enough for Callis to fall back on her resume and promise that she'll determine her congressional votes the way she formed her judicial opinions-- by examining all aspects of the issue and then deciding. That's just a dodge, not even a particularly clever one. It's hard to imagine that even Callis' most enthusiastic supporters get excited listening to her non-answers.

Having said all that, it's our clear expectation that Callis would follow the lead of her Democratic patron, Durbin, and be a reliably liberal vote if she is elected. She just won't say; her campaign strategy is to say as little as possible for as long as possible to avoid alienating various groups of voters.

As for the third candidate in the race-- Democrat Green-- he's been entertaining to watch. Like the libertarian candidate in the three-way GOP House primary, Green offers a rigidly ideological point of view that is highly critical of both foreign and domestic policy under Democrats and Republicans. While that extreme left-wing point of view makes him interesting to hear and watch, Green would be hopelessly ineffective as both a party nominee and a member of the U.S. House.

Grayson's endorsement was premised on other priorities-- first and foremost Gollin's expertise. In his endorsement letter of the Illinois particle physicist, Grayson mentioned that Congress is severely lacking in experts about issues they have to legislate on.

I serve on the House Science and Technology Committee. It is bleak, really bleak. A few months ago, one of our Members on the Committee said that evolution is "a lie straight from the pit of hell." Most of the Members are climate change deniers. I keep encouraging them to transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling. (There is no House Religion Committee, but their eyes light up anyway, when I tell them that.)



I need George Gollin's help on the Science Committee, and in Congress. So we should help him get there.



Here's another really good thing about George Gollin-- he's a liberal Democrat, and he's not afraid to say so. In fact, that's exactly what his TV ad says-- that he's a proud progressive Democrat. For that reason alone, he deserves our support. A progressive who is proud to be a progressive-- how refreshing! I hope that this catches on.



By the way, there is another good progressive in this three-way primary, named David Green. I respect Green's stands on the issues, but I don't think that he has a chance to win. Gollin does.



George Gollin is in a tough primary race on Tuesday. It looks like he'll come in ahead of David Green, but his real opponent is a Democrat-in-name-only, the choice of the local political machine, who appears to suffer from issuephobia. She's a lawyer. Maybe Congress always will be crawling with witless lawyers and businessman, like vermin. But if someone like George Gollin can win, then maybe not. Maybe there is hope.

The Establishment Dems, as they always do, have worked hard to confuse voters of all persuasions into thinking that Callis believes whatever they believe. They even have some sensible liberals thinking she's a liberal-- the same way they did last year for Democratic candidates like Kyrsten Sinema, Patrick Murphy, Brad Schneider, Cheri Bustos, and Sean Patrick Maloney, all of whom have voted more frequently to support Boehner and Cantor on crucial issues than progressives. If Callis is elected, there is every reason to believe she'll be another one just like those. If Gollin is elected, something very different is likely to unfold. Last night he told me that "My vision is a more just, more fair America, where EVERYONE has the opportunity to participate and benefit. I am at a loss to tell you Ms. Callis’ vision, because-- as all three endorsements point out-- she hasn’t really presented anything besides cliches and anecdotes."

You can contribute to Gollin's Get Out The Vote effort here on ActBlue.

What A Real Budget Looks Like... When No One Takes Ayn Rand Fairy Tales Into Account

This year's Congressional Progressive Caucus alternative budget, the Better Off Budget, was developed by Mike Honda (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Obviously, it's a complex document. The goal, as far as I can tell so far, is to stimulate the economy with the express purpose of creating 8.8 million new jobs between now and 2017, while shaving $4 trillion from the nation;s deficit. Investing in the American people is the theme. All of that is completely foreign to the Austerity budgets Paul Ryan has been introducing. Madison's Mark Pocan never took his mind off ordinary working families in Wisconsin when he was working on it. When it was released he told me "Unlike past Ryan budgets our Better Off Budget helps ease the pain ordinary working families face every day under the Ryan Budget’s draconian austerity agenda by investing in job creation and training, and proven anti-poverty programs. The day Paul Ryan offers a budget that actually helps lift up Americans out of poverty is the day I’ll join him for a P90X workout." Here's how Grijalva explained the budget to his constituents in Tucson:

During our economy’s best decades, Congress invested in the American workforce and every family was better off for it. But recent years have been dominated by growing inequality and a Republican majority in Congress obsessed with slashing the budget, making it harder for working Americans to find decent jobs and save for the future. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Better Off Budget reverses the damage budget austerity has inflicted on hard-working families and restores our economy to its full potential by creating 8.8 million jobs by 2017.

The Better Off Budget reverses harmful cuts that have hit working families the hardest-- starting with repealing across-the-board budget cuts known as the “sequester.” It creates a fairer tax code so that low and middle-income families no longer pay more than they should while the world’s biggest corporations benefit from unnecessary loopholes. Our budget reverses harmful pay freezes, expands benefits for federal retirees and strengthens federal health care and retirement programs Americans rely on.

When the federal budget invests resources wisely, we can meet the needs of working families and shrink the deficit. The Better Off Budget not only creates jobs, it reduces the deficit by $4.08 trillion over the next 10 years. It’s the right budget for the country, for working families and for our future.

Although creating jobs is the top priority, there are several other pieces of the budget that should play well among voters. For example, the budget

• Eliminates the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.

• Enacts a Financial Transaction tax on various financial market transactions.

• Implements Chairman Dave Camp’s financial institution excise tax

• Allows states to transition to single-payer health care systems.

• Closes tax loopholes and ends subsidies provided to oil, gas and coal companies.

• Implements comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship.

• Calls for transparency in national security budgets to bring accountability to bulk data collection programs.

• Funds public financing of campaigns to curb special interest influence in politics.

• Endorses “Scrapping-the-Cap” and expanding Social Security benefits separately from the federal budget process.

Blue America congressional candidates have been calling to tell me they support the new budget. George Gollin, who's primary is Tuesday issued a press release endorsing it. Ann Callis, the DCCC candidate, makes no statements regarding policies so there is no way to tell how she feels about the budget-- or anything else. Gollin: “I have consistently supported the alternative budgets that the Progressive Caucus has put forth under co-chairs Reps. Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison. The Better Off Budget would reverse harmful Republican cuts, create 8.8 million jobs in the next three years and reduce the budget deficit by over $4 trillion over the next 10 years. It is a blueprint for a prosperous and fair America, and I will co-sponsor the plan in Congress.”


Patrick Hope, who's fighting a tough primary in northern Virginia has a similar perspective on the budget proposal. "The Congressional Progressive Caucus budget is full of good ideas. It invests in public workers, repairs the crumbling American infrastructure and makes our tax code more fair. As someone who has worked in health care, I am especially excited to see a public option mandated in the budget, as well as allowing states to try single payer health care if they choose to do so. This budget shows how much progress we have left to make on a number of issues in Congress. In Virginia, I founded our legislative Progressive Caucus in order to push forward new progressive ideas and give them the public attention they deserve. I look forward to working in Congress as a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to do the same with great policy documents like this one."

Stanley Chang, the Blue America candidate running for the Honolulu congressional seat, has also endorsed the new budget proposal. "The Better Off Budget shows that investing in the American people and implementing progressive policies will grow our economy and create jobs. Congress must repeal the sequester, restore unemployment insurance and SNAP benefits, and reverse years of destructive austerity. The Congressional Progressive Caucus proposal includes smart solutions to address our unfair tax system, the climate change crisis, unsustainable defense spending, and many other key issues. I am particularly encouraged by its strong argument for enacting comprehensive immigration reform including a path to citizenship. Sadly, we can count on Congressional Republicans to continue their obstruction of progress and obsession with spending cuts. If they truly cared about creating jobs and shrinking the deficit as they claim, they would take a serious look at the Better Off Budget."

Steve Israel May Have Been Born To Lose, But Why Are The House Democrats Fated To Be Dragged Down By Him?

This afternoon, New Mexico Democrat Leslie Endean-Singh ended her race to be the Democratic nominee against right-wing extremist Stevan Pearce. She graciously left the field to DCCC recruit Rocky Lara, another one of Steve Israel's "mystery meat" candidates who stands for nothing much and will inspire as many voters as Alex Sink did last night. Endean-Singh, running a totally positive campaign, never adequately made the case about why the centrist Lara isn't a winning choice for New Mexico Democrats. Her withdrawal guarantees another term for the anti-Hispanic extremist, Pearce-- in a congressional district where 47% of voters are Hispanic!

This is from Endean-Singh's concession today:

In light of the results at last Saturday’s pre-primary convention, I will be formally withdrawing from the race for the United States Congress. The delegates to our pre-primary convention have made their decision, and, in the spirit of Democratic unity, I believe it is best if we unite behind our party’s nominee, and our next congresswoman, Rocky Lara.

…Rocky Lara will be an excellent representative for all New Mexicans and I know she will be a great advocate for our party’s platform. I trust she will be a strong leader for Democrats all over the second congressional district. I am honored and humbled to have campaigned against a future member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation, and I congratulate her sincerely on her victory… Though my campaign has ended, I will not be ending the fight to bring progressive values to the people of our state.

Fair enough. I know she has a progressive vision for our people. Does Lara? I still honestly don't know what she thinks. And Endean-Signh never made the case that hiding behind DCCC platitudes isn't enough for any candidates for Congress. It's how Alex Sink failed too inspire enough support to propel her to Congress in FL-13 last night. In 6 days, another sad sack DCCC mystery meat candidate, Ann Callis, will face off against grassroots progressive George Gollin. It's a David and Goliath contest and Callis has the entire force of the Machine working for her. But if she does win next week, she'll lose the general election in November for the exact same reasons Sink lost yesterday. Gollin isn't withdrawing, not by any stretch of the imagination. And he has made the case about why he's a better candidate than either of the two Beltway Establishment candidates, Republican Rodney Davis or Democrat Ann Callis. Watch his TV ad up top. And the media has picked up on it.

In recent days, both the Chicago Tribune and the State Journal-Register have found Gollin to be a better candidate than Callis and both have endorsed him-- explicitly rejecting the absurd DCCC "mystery meat" strategy.

When political candidates agree to sit with The State Journal-Register's editorial board ahead of an election and explain where they stand on issues important to voters, it's a unique opportunity for them to do just that-- explain where they stand.

Of the three Democratic candidates for U.S. representative in the 13th Congressional District-- George Gollin, Ann Callis and David Green-- only one embraced the opportunity to offer evidence of being up to the task of going to Congress.

Gollin, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, provided thoughtful, well-researched and understandable support for his positions. Callis, a former judge from Edwardsville who has the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, seemed to lack a deeper understanding of national issues. And Green, a social policy analyst, went too deep and failed to connect.

Gollin has experience in developing higher education policy and has strong interest in fairness and justice. He knows people are concerned about economic issues, job loss, college affordability and dysfunction in Congress. But he has ideas for addressing those problems.

He supports fair trade, fair taxes and enforcement of laws that allow people to unionize. He wants to invest heavily in infrastructure-- roads and bridges, but also Internet access to households and farms. He wants to offer training programs to help people become qualified for a wider range of jobs, and he supports the idea of linking college accreditation to education costs.

Saying health care is a basic human right, Gollin also supports a single payer system, “in which fees to health-care providers are based on outcomes rather than a list of individual medical procedures.”

On immigration, he supports a path to citizenship, keeping undocumented families together and assigning more responsibility to employers for not hiring undocumented workers in the first place.

He also indicated compassion for the less fortunate, explaining he did not appreciate how rough some people have it until he began volunteering at a soup kitchen in Champaign. He supports “livable” wages for all.

“I would be out front serving people and see a mom with a couple little kids, and they're on food stamps and they need us to keep from starving. Holy cow,” he said. “These are not people who are coasting. These are folks who are scared. They are putting tremendous care into maintaining self respect, and they are very much in danger of having to choose between food, being able to feed themselves and being able to pay the rent.”

Gollin, who is accustomed to identifying problems and collaborating with others to fix them, is prepared for the partisan environment in Washington, D.C., saying his plan is to find potential allies across the aisle to work with on specific legislative matters and build from there. That's how you get things done. Gollin is endorsed.

The Chicago Tribune was even more explicit about Callis'-- and the mystery meat strategy's-- shortcomings. As part of their endorsement of Gollin, they said that "in the Democratic primary… Sen. Dick Durbin's chosen candidate is carefully insulated from anyone who might ask her a tough question. Former Madison County chief judge Ann Callis sticks to safe talking points, occasionally name-checking Durbin. Her answers to our survey are carefully scripted, heavy on promises to protect seniors and middle-class families without explaining what she'd actually do. She would not agree to be interviewed by the Tribune." The conservative-leaning newspaper went on to say "Our pick is George Gollin… We disagree with many of his positions, but at least we know where he stands."

And don't American voters deserve that? Let me predict again, if Nancy Pelosi doesn't fire Steve Israel as DCCC Chair November will see lots of repetitions on what we all watched last night in FL-13. You can still contribute to Gollin's grassroots primary campaign here. Get out the vote election day volunteers need pizza!

A Week From Tuesday-- George Gollin Goes Up Against The Machine In Illinois

Earlier this month we introduced our newest House candidate, Illinois particle physicist George Gollin. Above is the TV ad he's trying to get up on stations across the sprawling district that goes from Bloomington and Champaign, straight through the Illinois farm belt to the northern suburbs of St. Louis. The election is a week from Tuesday, March 18, enough time to show this ad to the undecided voters who will cast the decisive ballots in this hotly contested race.

Even before scientist/Congressman Rush Holt announced his retirement from Congress, a friend of mine put together this explanation of why it's important to help Gollin win this race. He was making an argument that was the exact opposite of the argument for confirming Nixon failed Supreme Court nominee G. Harrold Carswell-- later arrested for trying to have sex with random men in public toilets in Tallahassee and Atlanta-- that was made by Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska. Hruska, no rocket scientist himself, is remembered for this one statement he uttered in his 22 years in the Senate, this one about Carswell: "Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos." Well, I think we can try. We certainly have a very, very long way to go.

Thoughtful people in the House are really getting tired of listening to people who don’t know what they’re talking about.


One of the dirty little secrets of Congress is that many of them legislate in areas in which they are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of the Members must be deliriously happy. (No wonder Sen. Ted Cruz is always smiling!)


Seriously, we have Members on the Agriculture Committee who couldn’t tell a plow from a harvester. We have Members on the Science Committee who couldn’t tell a proton from a photon.  We have Members on the Foreign Affairs Committee who couldn’t locate Indonesia on a globe if their lives were at stake. And we have Members on the Intelligence Committee who are as dumb as...


Well, you get the idea. And don’t even ask me about the Ethics Committee.

So that’s why we're supporting George Gollin for Congress, and why you should support him, too. He actually knows stuff. Lots of stuff.


Even worse, to the extent that Members of Congress know any stuff at all, it’s always the same stuff. According to Roll Call, out of the 435 Members of the House, we have 187 businessmen, 156 lawyers, and 77 educators. Do the math. That leaves 15 Members.


For four years, Alan Grayson worked as an economist. As far as we know, he's the only Member of Congress who can make that claim. Roll Call did not uncover anyone else. And believe me, whenever he starts to talk economics in a Congressional hearing, the eyes glaze over. Quickly.


But don’t worry. Whenever we need an expert opinion on something, we can turn to the three former talk radio hosts in the House. (It was four, until one got caught snorting-- possibly selling-- cocaine.) Or perhaps we can benefit from the expertise of the former professional football player-- whenever it’s third and nine on the Floor of the House.


This is why we need George Gollin in the House. The man actually knows what he’s talking about.


George Gollin is a physicist. In the 70s, he worked on muon scattering, to test quantum chromodynamics theory. (We're not making this up.) In the 80s, he studied neutral K meson decay, to test for CP violation. (I swear that this is true.) In the 90s, he measured the production and decay properties of heavy quarks. (I kid you not.) Since then, he has specialized in the design and construction of electron-positron colliding beam facilities. (This is indeed bona fide.)


So we can elect George Gollin to Congress, or settle for yet another lawyer/businessman tool. What do you think? And as you consider that question, also consider that the U.S. Department of Energy spends roughly $10 billion a year in taxpayer dollars on physics research, with no one in Congress qualified to do oversight on that effort.


Members who serve on the House Science and Technology Committee tell me it's bleak, really bleak. A few months ago, one of the Members on the Committee said that evolution is “a lie straight from the pit of hell.” Most of the Members are climate change deniers. One friend of our on the committee keeps encouraging them to transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling. (There is no House Religion Committee, but their eyes light up anyway.) 
The progressives on that committee need George Gollin’s help there-- and in Congress. So we should help him get there.


Here’s another really good thing about George Gollin-- he’s a liberal Democrat, and he’s not afraid to say so. In fact, that’s exactly what his TV ad says-- that he’s a proud progressive Democrat. For that reason alone, he deserves our support. A progressive who is proud to be a progressive-- how refreshing! I hope that this catches on.


Maybe Congress always will be crawling with witless lawyers and businessman, like vermin. But if someone like George Gollin can win, then maybe not. Maybe there is hope.


…Help George Gollin win his primary next month… because George Gollin has both a head and a heart. Last week the Chicago Tribune endorsed Gollin, emphasizing that Ann Callis refuses to answer any questions or do substantive media interviews. This morning the State Journal Register did the same. They rejected Steve Israel's and Dick Durbin's attempt to bum-rush some "mystery meat" garden variety Democrat on the ballot.

When political candidates agree to sit with the State Journal-Register's editorial board ahead of an election and explain where they stand on issues important to voters, it's a unique opportunity for them to do just that-- explain where they stand.

Of the three Democratic candidates for U.S. representative in the 13th Congressional District-- George Gollin, Ann Callis and David Green-- only one embraced the opportunity to offer evidence of being up to the task of going to Congress.

Gollin, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, provided thoughtful, well-researched and understandable support for his positions. Callis, a former judge from Edwardsville who has the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, seemed to lack a deeper understanding of national issues. And Green, a social policy analyst, went too deep and failed to connect.

Gollin has experience in developing higher education policy and has strong interest in fairness and justice. He knows people are concerned about economic issues, job loss, college affordability and dysfunction in Congress. But he has ideas for addressing those problems.

He supports fair trade, fair taxes and enforcement of laws that allow people to unionize. He wants to invest heavily in infrastructure-- roads and bridges, but also Internet access to households and farms. He wants to offer training programs to help people become qualified for a wider range of jobs, and he supports the idea of linking college accreditation to education costs.

Saying health care is a basic human right, Gollin also supports a single payer system, “in which fees to health-care providers are based on outcomes rather than a list of individual medical procedures.”

On immigration, he supports a path to citizenship, keeping undocumented families together and assigning more responsibility to employers for not hiring undocumented workers in the first place.

He also indicated compassion for the less fortunate, explaining he did not appreciate how rough some people have it until he began volunteering at a soup kitchen in Champaign. He supports “livable” wages for all.

“I would be out front serving people and see a mom with a couple little kids, and they're on food stamps and they need us to keep from starving. Holy cow,” he said. “These are not people who are coasting. These are folks who are scared. They are putting tremendous care into maintaining self respect, and they are very much in danger of having to choose between food, being able to feed themselves and being able to pay the rent.”

Gollin, who is accustomed to identifying problems and collaborating with others to fix them, is prepared for the partisan environment in Washington, D.C., saying his plan is to find potential allies across the aisle to work with on specific legislative matters and build from there. That's how you get things done. Gollin is endorsed.

You can contribute to Gollin's campaign on the Blue America Act Blue page. Please do.

Democrats Need 17 Pickups To Take Back The House-- So The DCCC Endorses 16 Red To Blue Candidates

I don't expect lazy Beltway reporters to dig this deep, but the real story of yesterday's DCCC Red-to-Blue announcement was less about a bunch of lame recruits like Blue Dog Gwen Graham (FL) and "mystery meat" no issues candidates like Domenic Recchia (NY) and Ann Callis (IL), than it was about which candidates and which districts got left out again. As we mentioned yesterday, Israel downgraded incredibly bad Jump Start recruits Pete Aguilar (CA-31) and Kevin Strouse (PA-08) into "emerging races," meaning the DCCC has backed away from interfering in the primaries in those districts. That's something Israel should have thought of before he tried slipping in his inferior, conservative recruits. But he's still doing it in other districts, like IL-13, where he's backing Ann Callis against progressive George Gollin and in VA-10, NY-04, NM-03, NJ-03 and several other races with contested primaries.

The best news was that heavy pressure from his colleagues got Israel to add progressives Michael Wager (OH-14) and Lee Rogers (CA-25) to the Emerging Races List, even though it's hard to understand why Rogers and Wager didn't rate full-on Red-to-Blue endorsements. It may be a start-- although, having watched the DCCC in action over the years, it's more likely a dead end. To be fair, Israel mouthed some kind of half-assed endorsement for each. Regarding Rogers, he said, "As a nationally renowned doctor who is dedicated to patients’ rights, Lee Rogers has a proven track record of working hard for average families. Lee can put this competitive seat in play because he is committed to fighting for opportunity and good jobs for all, unlike House Republicans who are stacking the deck for special interests."

So what races did Israel leave out that could possibly get the Democrats to 17? This is a list of winnable seats, far more winnable than many of Israel's pie-in-the-sky districts with R+15 and R+8 PVIs. Each of these districts either has a solid progressive running against a vulnerable Republican or has no candidate running because local Democrats have just given up after years of abuse at the hands of the DCCC-- and each has been studiously avoided by Israel. PVI's are in parenthesis:

• NY-02, Peter King- R+1 (Obama won in 2008 and 2012)
• MI-06, Fred Upton- R+1 (Obama won in 2008)
• WA-08, Dave Reichert- R+1 (Obama won in 2008 and 2012)
• FL-27, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen- R+2 (Obama won in 2012)
• WI-07, Sean Duffy- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• WI-08, Reid Ribble- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• MN-03, Erik Paulsen- R+2 (Obama won in 2008 and 2012)
• PA-07, Patrick Meehan- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• MN-02, John Kline- R+2 (Obama won in 2008 and 2012)
• PA-15, Charlie Dent- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• MI-08, Mike Rogers- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• WA-03, Jaime Herrera Beutler- R+2 (Obama won in 2008)
• WI-01, Paul Ryan- R+3 (Obama won in 2008)
• IL-06, Peter Roskam- R+4 (Obama won in 2008)
• PA-16, Joseph Pitts- R+4 (Obama won in 2008)
• CA-49, Darrell Issa- R+4 (Obama won in 2008)
• IL-16, Adam Kinzinger- R+4 (Obama won in 2008)

17 districts the DCCC is refusing to contest-- all of which Obama won in either 2008 and/or 2010. It's the exact number that would make Nancy Pelosi Speaker again instead of Boehner. And some of them have outstanding candidates, like Paul Clements against Upton, Jason Ritchie against Reichert, Kelly Westlund against Duffy, Rob Zerban against Ryan, and Mike Obermueller against Kline, most of whom have been endorsed by Blue America and other progressive groups like PCCC, MoveOn and DFA. Israel will never win back the House. He's lame and corrupt and has a self-serving, disastrous deal with the NRCC. If we want to take the House back from the Republicans we need to do it ourselves by directly contributing to strong progressives in winnable districts, like these men and women.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune recommended voters ignore Israel's recruit, Ann Callis, and vote for progressive George Gollin instead. In their endorsement they said that "in the Democratic primary… Sen. Dick Durbin's chosen candidate is carefully insulated from anyone who might ask her a tough question. Former Madison County chief judge Ann Callis sticks to safe talking points, occasionally name-checking Durbin. Her answers to our survey are carefully scripted, heavy on promises to protect seniors and middle-class families without explaining what she'd actually do. She would not agree to be interviewed by the Tribune.

Our pick is George Gollin, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He's a good fit for a district that is home to nine colleges and universities, including U. of I., Illinois State University and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He has experience writing and advocating for federal legislation on higher education and made headlines in 2008 for helping to expose and shut down diploma mills across the country. We disagree with many of his positions, but at least we know where he stands.

Dozens of good progressives from around the country have told me they wouldn't run while Israel is in charge of the DCCC. "That backstabber?" one declared. "He's not a man of his word-- and everyone knows it. Other Members have told me to wait 'til 2016 when he's out of there." One decent, first-time candidate who didn't wait and who agreed to speak on the record is Jason Ritchie, the progressive running against GOP incumbent Dave Reichert in a suburban Seattle district that Israel is ignoring. Here's what he told me yesterday after the DCCC endorsements came out: "Rep. Reichert is by far the most vulnerable of all the House GOP in Washington State this cycle. He has turned hard to the right; slashing SNAP, voting to shutdown the government over the ACA and ignoring middle class demands to rise the minimum wage. I am standing to challenge him but the DCCC refuses to consider this race competitive. If the Democratic party ever wants to retake the House, we must demand they cultivate and stand with small business owners who are willing to fight for progressive ideals and opposes GOP impediments to progress. I am willing to stand and fight but the DCCC must stand with me."

Lies Our Political Elites Tell Us As They Rip Us Off

Last week, U.S. Trade Rep Mike Froman made corporate America's case on behalf of the Obama Administration for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the hated fast track legislation to ramrod it through Congress. Almost all House Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, and even some Republican corporate whores oppose fast track authority. Progressive candidates are all running against it in their campaigns. This month George Gollin is in a primary with a DCCC garden variety no-substance candidate to determine which will take on GOP corporate shill, Rodney Davis (IL-13). Early this morning, Gollin told us that "it's time national sovereignty gets unlinked from corporate sovereignty and linked to the advancement of American workers." That's pretty much what all the progressives are saying.

Pennsylvania state Senator Daylin Leach, also facing a congressional primary-- and also against a bunch of garden variety corporate shills-- spoke out against the trade agreement as forcefully as Gollin. "It should be the policy of the American government to protect American workers. Too often these free trade agreements are designed to benefit huge corporations and foreign countries at the expense of the American worker. This is what my mother used to call 'ass-backwards.' It's time to start having a trade policy that is good for the 'job doers' who work so hard and are struggling so much."

This morning AFV released the compelling video above about how the last mega-trade deal corporate elites and their political handmaidens had sold the American people, NAFTA, was a beautifully-packaged barrel of lies. Froman is uncomfortable and highly defensive when confronted with the analogy. There's no doubt why. Public Citizen took apart Froman's litany of lies and half-truths point by point:

1. Access to affordable medicines

• Froman: “[In TPP] we’re working to find better ways to foster affordable access to medicines…”

• Fact: This is one of the bigger whoppers to escape Froman’s mouth during the speech. Leaked negotiating texts reveal that U.S. proposals for the TPP go beyond prior U.S. pacts in handing large pharmaceutical corporations unprecedented monopoly patent protections that would restrict the availability of life-saving generic medicines and raise healthcare costs in TPP countries. The U.S. TPP proposals would empower pharmaceutical firms to extend medicine patents beyond what the World Trade Organization allows, to patent even the methods for treating patients, and to re-patent existing medicines without actually inventing anything new. A broad array of public health groups have condemned the overreaching U.S. TPP proposals, warning that they would “jeopardize many, if not millions, of lives.”

2. Income inequality

• Froman: “Our trade policy is a major lever for encouraging investment here at home in manufacturing, agriculture and services, creating more high-paying jobs and combating wage stagnation and income inequality.”

• Fact: First, study after study has shown no correlation between a country’s willingness to sign on to TPP-style pacts and its ability to attract foreign investment, casting doubt on Froman’s promise of a job-creating investment influx. But more importantly, Froman opted to ignore a big part of why U.S. workers are currently enduring such acute levels of “wage stagnation and income inequality.” He did not mention the academic consensus that status quo U.S. trade policy, which the TPP would expand, has contributed significantly to the historic rise in U.S. income inequality. The only debate has been the extent of trade’s inequality-exacerbating impact. A recent study estimates that trade flows have been responsible for more than 90% of the rise in income inequality occurring since 1995, a period characterized by trade pacts that have incentivized the offshoring of decently-paid U.S. jobs and forced U.S. workers to compete with poorly-paid workers abroad. How can the TPP, a proposed expansion of the trade policies that have exacerbated inequality, now be expected to ameliorate inequality?

3. Internet freedom

• Froman: “I’ve heard some critics suggest that TPP is in some way related to SOPA [the Stop Online Piracy Act]. Don’t believe it. It just isn’t true….”

• Fact: Froman’s attempt to assuage fears of a TPP-provided backdoor to SOPA-like limits on Internet freedom would be more convincing if a) he offered details beyond “it just isn’t true,” or b) if his statement didn’t directly contradict leaked TPP texts. A November leak of the draft TPP intellectual property chapter revealed, for example, that the U.S. is proposing draconian copyright liability rules for Internet service providers that, like SOPA, threaten to curtail Internet users’ free speech. Indeed, while nearly all other TPP countries have agreed to a proposed provision to limit Internet service providers’ liability, the United States is one of two countries to oppose such flexibility.

4. Corporate trade advisors

• Froman: “Our cleared advisors do include representatives from the private sector… [but] they [also] include representatives from every major labor union, public health groups…environmental groups…as well as development NGOs...”

• Fact: About 90% of the members of the official U.S. trade advisory system explicitly represent industry interests. These “advisors” are granted privileged access to U.S. negotiators and secretive trade negotiating texts. Less than 9% of the advisors represent the union, public health, consumer, or development organizations that Froman touts. And most of those non-industry representatives are cloistered into just two of the advisory system’s 28 committees, while 16 of the committees have zero non-business representatives. These industry-only committees meet with administration representatives three times as often as the system’s single labor committee, as highlighted by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka in a recent letter criticizing the lack of TPP consultation with union representatives who ostensibly serve as “advisors.”

• Froman: “I’m pleased to announce that we are upgrading our advisory system to provide a new forum for experts on issues like public health, development and consumer safety. A new Public Interest Trade Advisory Committee, or PTAC, will join the Labor Advisory Committee and the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committees to provide cross-cutting platforms for input in the negotiations.”

• Fact:  Froman’s announcement of a new “public interest” committee-- a response to the outcry over the vast imbalance of this corporate-dominated advisory system-- offers too little, too late. Amid a slew of advisory committees exclusively devoted to narrow industry interests, the “public interest” now gets a single committee?  And how much influence will this committee have in changing the many core TPP provisions that threaten the public interest, now that the administration hopes to conclude TPP negotiations, which have been going on for four years, in the coming months? Proposed as a TPP afterthought, this new committee comes across as window-dressing, not a genuine restructuring of a system that gives corporations insider access to an otherwise closed trade negotiation process.

5. Fast Track

• Froman: Fast Track is “the mechanism by which Congress has worked with every administration since 1974 to define its marching orders on what to negotiate…” We can use Fast Track to “require[] future administrations to require labor, environmental and innovation and access to medicines [standards]…”

• Fact: Under Fast Track, Congress has not given the administration “marching orders” so much as marching suggestions. Though Congress inserted non-binding “negotiating objectives” for U.S. pacts into past Fast Track bills-- a model replicated in the unpopular current legislation to revive Fast Track for the TPP and TAFTA-- Democratic and GOP presidents alike have historically ignored negotiating objectives included in Fast Track. For example, Froman stated that Fast Track could be used to require particular labor standards. But while the 1988 Fast Track used for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) included a negotiating objective on labor standards, neither pact included such terms. The history shows that Fast-Tracked pacts that ignore Congress’ priorities can still be signed by the president (locking in the agreements’ contents) before being sent to Congress for an expedited, ex-post vote in which amendments are prohibited and debate is restricted.

6. Currency manipulation

• Froman: In response to a question of whether currency manipulation is being addressed in the TPP: “We take the issue of exchange rates or currency manipulation very seriously as a matter of policy…”

• Fact: U.S. TPP negotiators have not even initiated negotiations on the inclusion of binding disciplines on currency manipulation, much less secured other countries’ commitment to those disciplines. The U.S. inaction on currency in the TPP contrasts with letters signed by 230 Representatives (a majority) and 60 Senators (a supermajority) demanding the inclusion of currency manipulation disciplines in the TPP. Unless U.S. negotiators take currency manipulation more “seriously,” the TPP may be dead on arrival in the U.S. Congress.

7. Labor rights

• Froman: “In TPP we’re seeking to include disciplines requiring adherence to fundamental labor rights, including the right to organize and to collectively bargain, protections from child and forced labor and employment discrimination.”

• Fact: The TPP includes Vietnam, a country that bans independent unions. And Vietnam was recently red-listed by the Department of Labor as one of just four countries that use both child labor and forced labor in apparel production. While Froman acknowledged such “serious challenges,” he did not explain how they would be resolved. Is Vietnam going to change its fundamental labor laws so as to allow independent unions? Is the government going to revamp its enforcement mechanisms so as to eliminate the country’s widespread child and forced labor? Barring such sweeping changes, will the U.S. still sign on to a TPP that includes Vietnam?

8. Environmental protection

• Froman: “We’re asking our trading partners to commit to effectively enforce environmental laws…”

• Fact: While Froman touted several provisions in the draft TPP environment chapter as requiring enforcement of domestic environmental laws, he didn’t mention the draft TPP investment chapter that would empower foreign corporations to directly challenge those laws before international tribunals if they felt the laws undermined their expected future profits. Corporations have been increasingly using these extreme “investor-state” provisions under existing U.S. “free trade” agreements (FTAs) to attack domestic environmental policies, including a moratorium on fracking, renewable energy programs, and requirements to clean up oil pollution and industrial toxins. Tribunals comprised of three private attorneys have already ordered taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions to foreign firms for such safeguards, arguing that they violate sweeping FTA-granted investor privileges. Froman’s call for countries to enforce their environmental laws sounds hollow under a TPP that would simultaneously empower corporations to “sue” countries for said enforcement.

9. TPP secrecy

• Froman: “Let me make one thing absolutely clear: any member of Congress can see the negotiating text anytime they request it.”

• Fact: For three full years negotiations, members of Congress were not able to see the bracketed negotiating text of the TPP, a deal that would rewrite broad swaths of domestic U.S. policies. Only after mounting outcry among members of Congress and the public about this astounding degree of secrecy did the administration begin sharing the negotiating text with members of Congress last June. Even so, the administration still only provides TPP text access under restrictive terms for many members of Congress, such as requiring that technical staff not be present and forbidding the member of Congress from taking detailed notes or keeping a copy of the text. Meanwhile, the U.S. public remains shut out, with the Obama administration refusing to make public any part of the TPP negotiating text. Such secrecy falls short of the standard of transparency exhibited by the Bush administration, which published online the full negotiating text of the last similarly sweeping U.S. pact (the Free Trade Area of the Americas).

10. Exports under FTAs

• Froman:  “Under President Obama, U.S. exports have increased by 50%...”  “Today the post-crisis surge in exports we experienced over the last few years is beginning to recede.  And that’s why we’re working to open markets in the Asia-Pacific and in Europe...”

• Fact:  U.S. exports grew by a grand total of 0% last year under the current “trade” pact model. The year before that, they grew by 2%. Most of the export growth Froman cites came early in Obama’s tenure as a predictable rebound from the global recession that followed the 2007-2008 financial crisis. At the abysmal export growth rate seen since then, we will not reach Obama’s stated goal to double 2009’s exports until 2054, 40 years behind schedule. Froman ironically uses this export growth drop-off to argue for more-of-the-same trade policy (e.g. the TPP and TAFTA). The data simply does not support the oft-parroted pitch that we need TPP-style FTAs to boost exports. Indeed, the overall growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not FTA partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 30 percent over the last decade. That’s not a solid basis from which to argue, in the name of exports, for yet another FTA.

Mike Obermueller, the Democrat taking on John Kline in the suburbs south of the Twin Cities (MN-02) is no fan of fast tracking-- or any legislation that will ship American jobs overseas to low wage hellholes. "The Trans Pacific Partnership has many faults-- one of which is the secrecy upon which it’s been discussed and developed. I am also deeply concerned with the potential it has to deregulate many important environmental and labor standards. I will not support any piece of legislation that I’m not able to read in its entirety, especially one that could cost Minnesota jobs. I strongly oppose any effort to fast track such a hugely encompassing piece of legislation." Paul Clements, the progressive Democrat taking on "Free Trade" fanatic Fred Upton in southwest Michigan this cycle, has a similar perspective: "The current process being used to negotiate the TPP isn't transparent or in our best interests," he told us. "The public shouldn't be able to learn about what our government is doing only through leaked documents. We need a robust dialogue about this process to ensure proper protections for our environment and America's middle class."

Stanley Chang, the Blue America-endorsed progressive for the Honolulu-based open seat in Hawaii is also in a contested primary-- and also running in a field of corporate shills and conservatives. He told us that he views the Trans Pacific Partnership as "a bad deal for America that will cost us jobs at a time when too many families still search for good paying careers and struggle to make ends meet.

"The last thing American workers and middle-class families need is another secret sweetheart deal for huge multinational corporations. This is the time when we need to be fighting for greater protections and more opportunities for American working class families by investing in jobs that will grow our clean energy sector, welcome labor organizations to the table, and ensure that consumer and human rights are protected.

"The fact that these negotiations have occurred entirely in secret is proof enough that this is a raw deal for our middle-class and everyone trying to join it.

"A new, far-reaching, sweetheart deal for major corporations is not going to help strengthen and grow our middle class."