The Daily Blue America Report-- #4

McCaul- to the right of Cheney, about to get some Texas Justice

Lots of great news today. Since we've covered the fortunate news from Alaska, let's go right to some awesome tidings from Oregon. KATU, via SUSA, is reporting that Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from the Wellstone wing of the party, "is pulling away from Gordon Smith in the race for Senate."

Jeff Berkley 49%
Bush rubber stamp Gordon Smith 42%
Dave Brownlow (Constitution Party) 5%
Undecided 4%

Looks like Brownlow is killing Smith's re-election chances. It's fitting Smith leave government at the same time as Bush. But Brownlow isn't the only independent running who has been helpful to a Blue America candidate. David Krikorian, the right-wing xenophobe running in southwest Ohio against Mean Jean Schmidt and Vic Wulsin has been eating into Schmidt's base. That's about to get worse. Another far right zealot, Tom Brinkman (anti-choice, anti-taxes, anti-sanity) just endorsed Krikoran. Polls that include Krikorian are showing a neck and neck race between Vic and Mean. (By the way, if you're thinking about donating to Vic's campaign, today is an especially good day to do it: her birthday. She was born in 1953 and the campaign suggested people send in $19.53.)

Let's skip down to... oops, I'm sworn to secrecy on where this bit came from. But it's a good one. In 2006 the Republican rubber stamp incumbent, a slug of a human being (there's a hint), beat his opponent, a conservative Democrat by 9% in early polling. This year early polling has been far more substantial and the slug is not up by 9%. He's down by 20%-- against a progressive Democrat and a real kick ass fighter. With all those hints, how could any regular DWT reader not figure out who we're talkin' about here?

Let's head north now to the district of one of our favorite incumbents, Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), who has been targeted by GOP front groups and hate organizations like Freedoms Watch. They are flooding her district with the slimiest ad campaign anywhere in the country. But with her polling numbers holding up nicely, that isn't enough. They do not want a fighter for working families in that seat; they want it back in the hands of a corporate shill, Jeb Bradley. And they given Jeb Bradley the cash he needs to hire the criminals who stole the 2002 New Hampshire Senate race that illicitly put John Sununu in office. Bradley has funneled over $90,000 into convicted felon-- now released from prison-- Chuck McGee's election stealing operation.

The huge Texas congressional delegation is a hotbed of the most reactionary vision of America anywhere on Capitol Hill. This year Blue America found only one Texas House race we wanted to get involved with-- Michale McCaul's bid for re-election in a gerrymandered masterpiece that sprawls from a piece of Austin to the suburbs of Houston, designed especially to disenfranchise Austin voters (by splitting the blue city into pieces where their votes could be diluted by red surroundings). But McCaul, whose father-in-law, the chairman of Clear Channel, bought him the seat, has been such a disaster as a congressman that even a red district like TX-10 seems to have had enough of him. His progressive opponent, Larry Joe Doherty has virtually caught up with him in the polling, with 4 points, less than the margin of error, separating them.

Today's Austin Statesman agrees that a defeat for McCaul, a rotten piece of "low hanging fruit," is Texas' best shot at turning a red district blue.

[W]ith the national mood turned fiercely against Republicans, some Democratic operatives believe they can win a seat that they haven't seriously contested since it was drawn in 2003.

The outcome of the 10th Congressional District race will also offer a glimpse of just how Republican Texas still is. Though Democrats have been making gains in the Legislature, Republicans have dominated races for statewide office for 12 years. A Doherty win would show that his party's resurgence, while far from complete, is further along than many would have guessed a few elections ago.

Whether Doherty can win will depend on how well he personally connects with voters, whether McCaul can distinguish himself from President Bush and whether Democrats in the Travis County part of the district can outmuscle Republicans closer to Houston.

..."Republicans are losing on the generic ballot, and polling for right track/wrong direction has never been worse," Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a memo Thursday.

Democratic enthusiasm is up, and that enthusiasm was fueled by unexpectedly high turnout in the party's March presidential primary.

About 109,000 10th District residents voted in the Democratic primary. Of those, almost 63,000 appear not to have voted in either party's primary in the past 16 years, said Democratic consultant Harold Cook, who offers occasional advice to Doherty's team.

"Never before have we been able to identify such a rich target full of low-hanging fruit," Cook said. "We know that they've already voted for Democrats, so they'll consider it again, and probably lean toward it again."

And we'll leave you with this to ponder: tomorrow morning at 6AM we'll be announcing a major endorsement for one of our East Coast candidates. Wanna take a guess? Hint: think someone with extremely clear vision for American working families.

Let me leave you with an ad from our pals at VoteVets. It's a TV spot that targets one of the worst members of the Senate, Georgia rubber stamp wingnut Saxby Chambliss, who looks like he may lose his seat to Jim Martin next week. It's not a Blue America race but we've got our fingers crossed that a decent Democrat will replace an absolutely odious Republican.

The Daily Blue America Report

Superb Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter

Texas-10- Early voting, increased Democratic voter registration, a lack of enthusiasm for McCain and for Republicans in general looks like it is turning one of Tom Delay's gerrymandered districts-- a big swatch of eastern and central Texas from Austin to the Houston suburbs-- blue. Larry Joe Doherty is doing an incredible job and Bush rubber stamp Michael McCaul' is suddenly waking up to realize he may soon be working for his father-in-law directly. Today's Austin Statesman seems to have detected a bit of the old gloom and doom setting in at McCaul campaign headquarters.

After looking at the early voting turnout-- two to one, Democrat over Repug-- McCaul campaign manager Jack Ladd sent out an e-mail alert to right-wing activists: “This is very bad news. If you think your friends are volunteering, they are not. I know I’m not going to sit down and die, and I know you will not either. There are only 12 days left, and this is not a lifelong commitment, we are asking you just give part of a day or days and help keep CD10 Republican.”

Between the Rick Noriega, Barack Obama and SEIU ground campaigns-- not to mention Larry Joe's own-- McCaul would probably be better off spending the next 12 days in one of the snake-handling churches that support him begging for some of that sky-god intervention Palin is counting on.

New Hampshire-01- None of the freshmen elected in 2006 has been more forthright in battling the special interests and always keeping the interests of working families front and center than Carol Shea-Porter. Unfortunately, Jeb Bradley, the rubber stamp reactionary the voters in eastern New Hampshire decided to replace in 2006, is trying to get his old job back. And there's nothing he won't stoop to to get back to Washington. Right now he's using a poor distraught Gold Star mother to distort Carol's support for the troops and principled opposition to the war. Carol has received the endorsement of the VFW's PAC, and an A+ rating from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. What Bradley is trying to do to her is despicable. 

Carol is a military spouse and has been one of the best friends our fighting men and women have in Congress but Bradley is callously manipulating this woman-- apparently driven insane and filled with partisan rage and hatred-- as an attack dog against Carol.

Bradley's corporately funded campaign includes the most vicious and deceitful ads being run by anyone from either party in New England. His ads are entirely based on distortion and outright lies-- like this ugliness. Fortunately New Hampshire is not Alabama and most of the voters there seem to see right through Bradley's slimefest. The two most recent polls-- both in October-- show Carol ahead of him by an average of 7 points. The problem is that Bradley was a 100% corporate shill before Carol banished him from Congress and K Street wants him back-- and right-wing front groups and hate organizations like Freedom's Watch are flooding the district with ads. Carol can really use our help-- and she's earned it.

Pennsylvania-03- The only independent who Blue America has endorsed this year, Dr. Steven Porter, is running against an anti-choice fanatic/pathetic Democratic hack from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, Kathy Dahlkemper and against one of the most useless and personally corrupt GOP shills in Congress, Phil English. Predictably, the two superficial and unqualified major party candidates have conspired to keep Steven out of the debates. When Edinboro University announced recently that they are including him in a debate next Tuesday, the petrified and tongue-tied Dahlkemper immediately backed out. English isn't saying whether or not he will participate.

"Dahlkemper’s refusal," Steve told us, "is evidence of a fatal flaw in the character of a legislator:  the lack of courage. When the choice before the electorate is limited to one between clever thieves and shallow puppets, the only results possible are disastrous. We are experiencing those kinds of results now in our land and across our planet. And still, things can get worse. Recessions can collapse into depressions. Terrorist conflagrations can escalate into nuclear war. The greed of international business can result in ecological holocaust. To stave off such calamities, legislative leaders around the world will need the courage to speak the truth and act accordingly. The cowardice of Mrs. Dahlkemper (and a very corrupt political system which supports her) in both driving independent voices off the ballot and refusing to face them in open debate signals her complete unpreparedness for the office which she seeks. It is a warning sign of unmistakable dimensions."

And English, as usual, has problems of his own. One of the misguided labor unions that has backed him preciously, AFSCME, has finally woken up and seen the light, launching a half million dollar campaign against him for his consistent support of Bush's anti-working family economic agenda. The AFSCME campaign may not be enough to defeat English. Steve has virtually no money to mount a campaign and Dahlkemper is such an abysmal candidate that no self-respecting progressive could possibly vote for her. On top of the corporate pals who English has sold his soul to are coming through for him with last minute mega-donations, especially mutual fund firms, mortgage bankers and other authors of the economic collapse he has helped preside over. Needless to say Big Oil and every big corporation that opposes labor unions, especially Wal-Mart, is donating to English.

Tonight's last item: in a move that surprised most people, Oklahoma's fourth largest newspaper, the Muskogee Phoenix endorsed one of the best candidates running for Senate anywhere, Andrew Rice.

There is no doubt that Inhofe maintains a conservative attitude that reflects the position of his constituent base, but the extremist statements he has made throughout his career on many subjects hurts his credibility and the state's image despite whatever positive contributions he has made while in Congress. And extremism, whether to the right or left, does not promote good government policies or government that benefits everyone.

That is why Andrew Rice is a better candidate in the U.S. Senate race.

Rice has a more even-handed and rational approach to the issues and problems we are experiencing. He has gained a experiential world view as a missionary, working with rural development projects in Asia, that would serve him well in the Senate.

And another great Blue America candidate for Senate, Jeff Merkley, had a pretty special endorsement today too:



Meanwhile, I want to remind everyone to be sure to wander over and check out Digby's Blue America fundraiser.

Vicious Republican Civil War In New Hampshire Making Carol Shea-Porter's Race For Re-election Less Arduous

Clueless 1 and Cluesless 2 slug it out in New Hampshire

When Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe defeated extremist Republican rubber stamp David Davis in the Tennessee GOP primary earlier this month, it sent shockwaves-- if not paroxysms of fear-- through the House Republican caucus. If Davis, who had taken just seven thousand dollars in donations from Big Oil, was vulnerable to the charge that he was doing Big Oil's bidding and allowing them to drive up the price of gasoline in return for their contributions (or bribes), then what did that say to the Republican incumbents who have been faithfully serving Big Oil and taking 10 times that amount-- like Adam Putnam (R-FL- $70,300), Charlie Dent (R-PA- $75,831) and Frank Wolf (R-VA- $77,682)-- or more than 100 times that amount, like Don Young (R-AK- $957,263), James Inhofe (R-OK- $1,090,023) and... John McCain (R-AZ- $1,642,810)?

Well, after Roe's Tennessee victory, the insurgent Republican in New Hampshire, John Stephen, went on the warpath against GOP ex-Congressman Jeb Bradley, who is trying to win the September 9th primary so he can challenge Carol Shea-Porter to a re-match of the 2006 race where she kicked his ass. Stephen has been attacking Bradley, a dependable rubber stamp and the Republican Establishment candidate, viciously tormenting him with ads about how he represents more of the same and how he was one of Congress' most notorious earmark supporters. It's hard to pin down exactly how much money Bradley has taken in from Big Oil, but it is easy to see that he voted for billions of dollars in giveaways to them in the form of unfair tax breaks. Stephen didn't wait. He's begun filling the New Hampshire airwaves with ads attacking Bradley (see below).

It's funny to watch because Bradley is just a hapless old-line conservative. Stephen is a radical right extremist. He goes after Bradley on energy... but not too much, because Stephen, of course, buys into all the worst of the GOP stay-the-course agenda: more tax breaks for Big Oil, Drill Here Now, and fake free market nostrums that have doubled and tripled the price of gas and heating oil. Watch:



The far right Union-Leader has endorsed Stephen over Bradley. But neither New Hampshire nor the U.S. can afford either one of these clueless kooks. As we've said before, Carol Shea-Porter has lived up to all the commitments she made to New Hampshire voters when they elected her in 2006-- far more than most incumbents. She's been an exemplary representative for New Hampshire and if anyone deserves re-election, it's Carol. She's been endorsed by Blue America and we urge all DWT readers to kick in and help combat the immense sums GOP front groups like "Freedom's Watch" are pouring into the district in the form of misleading, if not slanderous, radio and TV spots against Carol.

Carol Shea-Porter Under Attack By Republican Front Organization, Freedom's Watch

Carol Shea-Porter is one of the few members of Congress who doesn't take special interests money and wind up in the pockets of industries whose only goal-- only goal-- is to get more of our money into their hands. This isn't a Republican or a Democratic position. It's a clean government position and it's one of the reasons we admire Carol so much. Remember, for every corrupt, bribe taking Republican in Congress, there's a corrupt, bribe-taking Democrat. You can put Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer up against any Republican if you want to find corruption taken to ghastly extremes. If you're wondering why Democrats aren't going on a jihad against Republicans who have filled up on Big Oil bribes and then voted for policies that are making it harder and harder for regular American families to fill up their tanks... well, granted 75% of the $220,438,183 Big Oil has given federal candidates since 1990 has gone to Republicans but let's not forget that even if Democrats haven't gotten pay-offs like Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX- $2,126,025), Phil Gramm (R-TX- $1,679,314), John Cornyn (R-TX- $1,313,825), John McCain (R-AZ- $1,259,645), Joe Barton (R-TX-$1,246,411), James Inhofe (R-OK- $1,076,573), Don Young (R-AK-$954,013), Tom DeLay (R-TX-$698,840), Steve Pearce (R-NM- $596,324), Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $649,011), Democratic Big Oil shills Mary Landrieu (D-LA- $612,244), Dan Boren (D-OK- $363,210) and Nick Lampson (D-TX- $174,942) have been happy to slurp up the leftovers and vote with the Republicans to give big oil billions of dollars in tax cuts. Whose side are they on?

I think you know whose side they're on. And it isn't ours. Even virulently anti-union Wal-Mart is now giving as much money to congressional Democrats as it is to congressional Republicans making it "more difficult for the company’s critics to demonize the corporate giant."

In an age where taking money is synonymous with doing someone’s bidding, more and more Democrats, including party leadership, are cashing Wal-Mart’s PAC checks. Apparently Wal-Mart is not the devil it once was.

Through June, Wal-Mart’s PAC had contributed to 86 House Democrats this cycle, amounting to just more than one-third of the Caucus. That’s more than the 77 House Democrats Wal-Mart supported in 2006 and the 62 that received PAC money in 2004.

Since 2004, Wal-Mart has given $27,500 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), $22,500 to House Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.), $12,000 to Chief Deputy Whip Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), and $20,500 to House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (N.Y.).

But you're not going to find Carol Shea-Porter on the lists of congressmembers who take special interests money and then vote for them instead of for her constituents. Her predecessor, Jeb Bradley, always did-- and now those same big special interests are back shoveling money into his campaign, trying to help him reclaim his old-- their old-- seat. Carol's voting record is clear as a bell; she votes in the interests of her constituents. Period. She doesn't have millions of dollars in corporate money hanging over her head as an incentive-- or a threat-- to vote for special deals for corporations.

The down side of that is that she is being targeted by Republican front organizations like Freedom's Watch, which is running tens of thousands of dollars in radio ads against her every week or so, distorting her positions and filling the airwaves with lies. As you know, I'm not the biggest DCCC cheerleader in the world but I applaud their efforts to set the record straight today for Carol by running this ad on New Hampshire radio:


 
If you can afford to help out, please donate to Carol's all grassroots re-election campaign on her Blue America page. We sent her to Congress to work for regular folks-- and that's what she's been doing. Let's keep her there.

FISA BATTLE TAKES FRONT AND CENTER IN CONGRESSIONAL RACES

Standing up for principle, standing up for America

This morning I spoke to a reporter for the Savannah Morning News, the biggest newspaper in John Barrow's district. He mentioned to me, and he seemed surprised, that Regina Thomas has been making warrantless wiretaps an issue in a race where Regina's own best issues, employment and high gas prices have been front and center. But Regina remembers when the government wiretapped Martin Luther King and she finds it deplorable that the congressman from GA-12 should support Bush doing the same thing to untold millions of American citizens without legal warrants. The same reporter asked Barrow, who has been one of Bush's most dependable allies on this, and Regina about warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity in their Savannah debate last night. It was obvious that Barrow-- for all his touting of his Harvard education-- has no understanding of the Constitution, separation of powers or the oath of office he took. Although Regina is just a state Senator, her intuitive understanding of Justice and the respect with which Americans hold the Rule of Law, puts her light years ahead of Mr. Smarty Pants. But Georgia's 12th CD isn't the only race where a progressive facing a reactionary has seen the FISA issue come to the fore.

Every single incumbent on the Blue America list, like the majority of Democrats in the House, voted against the Bush-Hoyer FISA bill. It's becoming an issue as reactionaries try smearing them for defending the Constitution. An excellent example is in New Hampshire, where progressive, grassroots icon Carol Shea-Porter, has been an outspoken defender of the rule of law. She penned an OpEd in the Union Leader explaining the bill and the principles she stood up for when voting against it. Her summation was particularly powerful:

The foundation of democracy is individual freedom from government interference. I am willing to compromise on many issues -- but not on the Constitution. Being forced to choose between protecting our national security or protecting our Constitution is a false choice; we do not have to sacrifice one for the other. It is our responsibility as Americans to protect both.

Jeb Bradley lost his seat to Carol is 2006 because New Hampshire voters recognized him as a Bush yes-man with no opinions of his own. Whatever the special interests wanted, Bradley was there for them. Now as a candidate he was taken $1,200 from the Telecoms and yesterday he wrote his own distorted OpEd for the Union Leader, accusing Carol of being unwilling to stand up for "national security," as though trawling through the phone calls and e-mails of millions of random Americans is related to national security. This is why hacks like Bradley get defeated. People are sick and tired of the lies and distortions and fear-mongering. His partisan summation is less than compelling:

Carol-Shea Porter's vote means she believes it's more important to punish the telecommunications companies that protected us than to assist the intelligence community, which is also trying to protect us. Is this naive or negligent?

Even her own party leadership, which she has been so beholden to in her voting record, disagrees. When your politics are too liberal for Nancy Pelosi, you are definitely too liberal to represent the interests of New Hampshire.

At the same time Bradley was trying to poison the air in New Hampshire with his vicious partisan attacks, Senator Chris Dodd was speaking for most Democrats and most Americans-- although not the ones who get bribed by the Telecoms-- when he wrote that

A brief overview: we learned after September 11, 2001 that giant telecom companies worked with this Administration to compile Americans’ private, domestic communications records into a database of enormous scale and scope. The Bush Administration appears to have convinced those corporations to spy on Americans for five years, in secret and without a warrant.

That we know this happened is not because the government told us-– they say the matter is classified. And it is not because one of the telecoms told us. We may not have known any of this at all were it not for serious investigative journalists. And we wouldn't know how deep the problem really went without an Internet technician by the name of Mark Klein, a 22-year veteran of AT&T who one day at work found a switch that channeled Internet traffic culled from millions of living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and offices across the nation to a secret room operated by the National Security Agency. Mr. Klein [a cousin of a DWT writer] was old enough to remember when a law was passed to prevent this sort of unchecked spying operation from happening:

FISA-- a law written back in 1978 in the wake of Watergate that ensured the government had both the tools it needed to defend the country and a process in place for judicial review to put checks on
executive authority. Most agree that this law needs to be modernized, as it has been many times over the years. But this time, the President is asking Congress to do something much more: to shield the telecoms from any judicial review of their actions. He wants Congress to declare spying without
a warrant both constitutional and necessary to defend this country.

It is neither.

Not many local papers are paying attention to this crucial, crucial issue. I was heartened to see that the Savannah Morning News is and I noticed that the Connecticut Post in Dodd's home state is as up in arms over this as Dodd is-- and as every patriotic American should be. The Post tries-- though they won't succeed-- to shame Lieberman into supporting Dodd's position-- and to goad Obama into showing us he has some cajones:

For months, Congress has been debating a bill that would legitimize illegal spying on Americans. It remains just as bad an idea today as ever.

...[T]his bill would put to lie the notion, deeply rooted in American history, that this is a nation of laws, and not people. It simply won't do to argue that people or companies can knowingly break the law just because the government said it was allowed. If the suits are baseless, and the companies did not break the law, there is nothing to lose by allowing them to proceed. If there was no lawbreaking, surely these firms can prove that in court. That Congress is pushing for such extreme action as providing retroactive immunity surely implies there were darker motives at work.

Connecticut's Sen. Christopher J. Dodd has led the fight against this bill, and continues to do his constituents proud in this matter. It's too much to hope that his colleague, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, would join him, but likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama can make a decisive stand. What is to be lost by standing up for the Constitution? He, more than anyone else, can put an end to this
disaster.

America will never know the extent to which their rights have been violated if those lawsuits are thrown out. And, if this bill passes, the next time anyone talks about such quaint notions as equal
protection under the law, try not to laugh too hard.

Someone who has shown-- over and over-- that he does have cajones, and is willing to put them on the line for important principles. Watch him addressing the Senate on this today:



Another Democratic candidate for Congress, Ashwin Madia (MN-03) is an Iraq War vet who is offended that a bunch of politicians in Washington are getting ready to do violence to the Constitution he has put his life on the line to defend. "I am troubled by the House passage of HR 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. There is much we can do to prevent terrorism, but such measures do not require the sacrifice of fundamental constitutional freedoms which our country was founded upon. This legislation demonstrates the need for leaders in Congress who have experience in the military and in Iraq, and who value the rule of law as we fight the War on Terror."

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, LIVE AT C&L TODAY

Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) is one of the seven incumbents endorsed by Blue America. Like the 6 other candidates on our list, Rep. Shea-Porter opposed continued funding for the occupation of Iraq on Thursday and split with the Democratic leaders on Thursday over FISA's retroactive immunity clause. She voted with most House Democrats in standing up to the leadership on both issues, knowing full well that New Hampshire voters are eager to see the war in Iraq come to a speedy, responsible end and that the "Live Free Or Die" motto is something they take seriously there-- and that it doesn't include warrantless wiretaps. She's joining us for questions for an hour today at Crooks and Liars.

Congresswoman Shea-Porter serves on the House Armed Services Committee and few members have worked as tirelessly as she to help veterans and the men and women serving in our armed forces. "What the Bush Administration has done to veterans and to the troops," she told me last week, "was to send troops off to war while cutting benefits... they did not support the troops or the veterans. Looking at the backlog in cases, the number of people who were turned away for traumatic brain injuries, for post traumatic stress syndrome, and because of all of the problems they got because they were sent to war is outrageous. Veterans are suffering from Bush's misguided war and we will be paying-- trying to fix these problems-- for many years to come. We simply must honor our commitments to these men and women by being there for them and providing them with veterans' benefits. The real cost of this war isn't simply the money that we're seeing right now, which is horrific: a billion dollars every other day and the deaths and casualties on the battlefield. It isn't just that; it is also caring for these men and women and their families for decades to come... The real cost hasn't even been calculated yet.

The ineffectual right-wing kook she beat in 2006, Jeb Bradley, is challenging her again. If you'd like to help keep a real progressive in Congress, you can volunteer here and donate here.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT SOMEONE RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE?

"Mr. President, I'd like you to read some legislation Congresswoman Shea-Porter wrote"

If you're a regular DWT reader it would be next to impossible for you to be unaware that DWT, along with our pals at Crooks & Liars and Firedoglake operate an Act Blue fundraising effort for progressive candidates. Last year we raised over half a million dollars in mostly $5 and $10 and $20 contributions at our 3 blogs and helped elect 9 new members of the House and 3 new Senators. This year we've got the backs of progressive members of Congress who are taking tough stands against the pernicious Bush Regime and we're also trying to get more progressives elected by taking on reactionary Democrats like Al Wynn in Maryland and Dan Lipinski in Illinois and by helping some of our candidates who almost made it last time finish the job this time, particularly Victoria Wulsin (OH), Charlie Brown (CA), Angie Paccione (CO), Eric Massa (NY), John Laesch (IL), and Larry Kissell (NC). You can see all of our current candidates here at Blue America

When one of the men or women we help does something especially powerful in Congress, we like to recognize him or her (and sort of pat ourselves on the back a little). Today that person is Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). Of the 163 online donations that have come in to New Hampshire Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's re-election campaign so far this year from 11 blogs, 132 have come via our Blue America page. As I mentioned yesterday, the rubber stamp Republican she beat last year, Jeb Bradley, is trying to make a come back against her-- and he's cranking up a nortoriously vicious Republican assault on Carol. But Bradley's threat hasn't made Carol turn into some Republican-lite wimp. She knows eactly why the voters in New Hampshire elected her (and rejected him) and she's staying completely true to her ideals and values.

Yesterday she demonstrated those ideals when she introduced HR 3045, the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007. It can be summed up in one line that Carol told her colleagues in the House: "Bush has trampled on the constitutional separation of powers through his abuse of signing statements." Her bill, like the one offered by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) would prohibit the courts from considering signing statements when interpreting federal laws.

Carol explains that Bush has "attempted to usurp power that was given to the Congress, not the president, and has severely bruised the system of checks and balances. This is an insult to the founders of this country and to the American people, and it cannot be allowed to continue."

This morning Carol's office sent us some background material on the history of signing statements:

Although signing statements have been around since Andrew Jackson, their use has increased dramatically in recent years. As of April of this year, President Bush had issued 127 separate signing statements containing challenges to over 700 specific provisions of various bills. There have also been a number of high profile cases, including the McCain anti-torture amendment and the Patriot Act reauthorization, in which the President has used signing statements to ignore laws passed by Congress.

Some of the most prominent signing statements in which President Bush asserted that he would not follow the law involved:
Congressional requirements to report back to Congress on the use of Patriot Act authority to secretly search homes and seize private papers;
• The McCain amendment forbidding any U.S. officials to use torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment on prisoners (the President said in his statement that as Commander in Chief he could waive any such requirement if necessary to prevent terrorist attacks);
• A requirement that government scientists transmit their findings to Congress uncensored, along with a guarantee that whistleblower employees at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not be punished for providing information to Congress about safety issues in the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain

Some additional examples of signing statements in which President Bush has indicated he will not follow the law are:
• Bills banning the use of U.S. troops in combat against rebels in Colombia;
• Bills requiring reports to Congress when money from regular appropriations is diverted to secret operations;
• Two bills forbidding the use in military intelligence of materials "not lawfully collected" violation of the Fourth Amendment; a post-Abu Ghraib bill mandating new regulations for military prisons in which military lawyers were permitted to advise commanders on the legality of certain kinds of treatment even if the Department of Justice lawyers did not agree;
• Bills requiring retraining of prison guards in humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions, requiring background checks for civilian contractors in Iraq and banning contractors from performing security, law enforcement, intelligence and criminal justice functions.

This is why it is so important to elect courageous and progressive men and women like Carol-- and to help them defeat reactionaries and Bush cronies like Bradley. Carol isn't taking any DCCC money and is committed to running another grassroots campaign. Take a look at her voting record, one of the ten best in the entire House. I guarantee you that Jeb Bradley's voting record for this session would have been very, very different. Let's keep Carol in the House. Please consider joining me and giving what you can afford.