The Worst Republican? Yes, There's A Worst

This morning I saw a tweet by Noam Scheiber that got my attention: "The worst Republican in America may be about to lose office." The worst? Forget for a minute that whoever it is may lose, how does anyone sort out the racists, fascists, corporate whores and psychopaths who are the core of GOP officialdom to come up with just one "worst Republican?" Ted Cruz isn't up for reelection. That rapist doctor is Tennessee, Scott DesJarlais already won his seat. Deranged sociopath Paul Broun isn't running again and his off-the-shelf replacement, Hate Talk radio host Jody Hice hasn't been elected yet-- neither has similar crackpot Mark Walker in North Carolina. I had no choice but to click the link-- which led to a an excellent article by John Judis in the New Republic, crowning Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, Miss America's Evil Twin.

In the video up top, Rachel Maddow summarized the latest events in the unlikely horserace the Kansas Senate race has turned into. That's the background to Judis' story on Kobach's inept, hyper-partisan handling of his job as Secretary of State. But the big story isn't just about Pat Roberts losing his Senate seat to Independent Greg Orman. Kobach himself, a notorious racist and Know Nothing zealot, is also on the ballot.

Kobach is running for re-election against Republican-turned-Democrat Jean Schodorf. Ordinarily, a race like this would be irrelevant in national politics, but Kobach is a crusader against illegal immigrants—and, by extension, most immigrants not of European extraction—and has used a minor state office to rewrite Kansas’s voting laws. He has long been associated with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization founded by a proponent of eugenics and population control and funded in part by the Pioneer Fund, an organization founded to promote “race betterment.” He is also quite effective, and even brilliant, at what he does.

Kobach, who is now 48, grew up in Topeka. He went to Harvard, where he studied under Samuel Huntington, who at the end of a long and glorious career, had become obsessed himself with the threat that immigrants from the south posed to American civilization. Kobach wrote a prize-winning senior thesis on the efforts during the apartheid era of South African business to evade the effects of sanctions. He got a law degree from Yale and returned to Kansas where he practiced law in Kansas City and taught law at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

In 2001, he joined the Bush administration, first as a White House fellow and then as an aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft, where he helped devise the national security visa system that required Muslims and Middle Easterners to register and be finger-printed. (It was suspended in 2011 because it had proved both ineffective and discriminatory.) In 2003, he returned to Kansas City, where he ran for Congress against Democratic incumbent Dennis Moore. He called for keeping out illegal immigrants and making English America’s official language. He lost, but six years later ran for secretary of state on a platform of preventing immigrant voter fraud.

In the meantime, Kobach had become the senior counsel for FAIR’s legal arm, the Immigration Reform Law Institute. He remains today their senior counsel. With FAIR, Kobach helped write Arizona’s highly discriminatory immigration law, which required police to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally and advised other states, including Alabama, that have passed similar legislation. He also filed suit to prevent Kansas, Nebraska, and California from offering in-state college tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants, and he has defended laws in Nebraska, Texas, and Pennsylvania that would make it illegal to rent to undocumented immigrants.

In his 2010 campaign for secretary of state, he promised to stamp out voter fraud. (Kobach has been able to come up with one case-- from 1997-- that involved fraud by an undocumented immigrant.) After Kobach was elected, he got the Kansas legislature to pass and Governor Sam Brownback to sign a law that allowed him to rewrite the state’s election registration laws. Kobach adopted rules requiring all new registrants to show documented proof of citizenship to obtain Kansas registration. At the polls, all registered voters had to show photo identification.

In the run-up to this year’s election, Kobach was able to disqualify almost 20,000 new registrants because they hadn’t proven their citizenship. These had to include many people (including a 92-year-old woman who appealed her denial) who for one reason or another didn’t have passports or birth certificates on hand. Kobach’s ruling created a weird two-tier system, where Kansans who had national voter registration, which only requires a registrant to swear that he or she is a citizen, could vote in congressional or senate selections, but unless they had a Kansas voter registration, which requires proof of citizenship, could not vote in a state or local race.

There are, of course, anti-immigration nuts who don’t care about any other issues or about politics in general, but Kobach is also an avid partisan who was chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. His rulings on voter registration appear equally designed to help Republicans and to eliminate an alien presence in American life. His attempt to keep Taylor on the ballot-- and his subsequent threat to force the Democrats to replace him on the ballot-- reflects a diehard partisanship that shows little concern for legal niceties. In 2012, he even justified an attempt to keep Obama off the Kansas ballot on the grounds he had not proved his citizenship. And he is also a hardline rightwinger on the welfare state (he wants to remove Kansas entirely from the purview of the Affordable Care Act) and on guns, championing a law that has made guns produced in Kansas not subject to federal regulation. (He is a shareholder in a new Kansas gun firm aptly called Minuteman Defense.)

Kobach is running again on his attempt to stamp out voter fraud, and enjoys the enthusiastic support of anti-Obama stalwart Ted Nugent. “The Leftists and commies are working overtime to defeat him in this year’s election,” Nugent warned. Kobach’s opponent, Schodorf, is a former Republican state senator who was ousted in the 2010 primary by a more conservative challenger backed by Brownback and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and Kansas Chamber of Commerce. She switched parties to run against Kobach.  Schodorf has never run statewide before, and faces a two-to-one Republican edge in registration in a race that voters don't normally pay attention to, but she has been running even in the polls and could benefit from the snafu over keeping Taylor on the ballot.

If Schodorf does win, it will be a victory for American democracy and not simply the Democratic Party. Kobach is that bad. To be sure, there has always been a case to be made for better controlling American borders and for discouraging entry by undocumented workers, but Kobach’s position, like that of FAIR, edges into the dark corners of nativism. And his attempt to manipulate state election laws is quite simply an attempt to subvert the democratic process. Here’s to his defeat and banishment from elected office.

And… Maddow's weird Kobach update from last night (in which, among other things, she compared Kobach to a "Family Values" GOP hypocrite who gets caught in bed with a  goat-- "a boy goat":

Could November Prove To Be A Wipeout For Kansas Republican Extremists?

Kansas has been nearly a one party state for a very long time. Ravaged by the Republican Party's Great Depression, Kansans voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 (against Hoover) and in 1936 (against Alf Landon, their former governor). After that they went back to their innate conservatism, backing Wendell Willkie against Roosevelt in 1940 and Thomas Dewey against Roosevelt in 1944. There have been 17 presidential elections since then and the only time Kansas voted for a Democrats was in 1964 when they backed LBJ over Goldwater 54.09- 45.06. In 2012 Kansas was one of the only states that failed to give President Obama even 40% of the vote, the rest being primarily bastions of vicious and sick racism. Since 1900 Kansas has elected exactly two Democrats, William Thompson in 1913 (one term) and George McGill in a 1930 special election to replace a Republican. who died in office. Chances are, the only Kansas senators you've ever known of were Republican James Pearson (1962-1978), Republican Bob Dole (1969-1996), Republican Nancy Kassebaum (1978-1997), Republican Sam Brownback (1996-2011), Republican Pat Roberts (current) and Republican Jerry Moran (current). No one imagined that in what's shaping up to be a very Republican year, Kansas might throw out the current Republican, a very senile 78 year old Pat Roberts. And not just Roberts. Kansans may not be ready to embrace Obama but the Koch-owned state has come to realize that the GOP has been absolutely toxic for them.

The state has a lopsided Republican legislature-- 31 Republicans and 9 Democrats in the state Senate and 90 Republicans and 35 Democrats in the House. And it's not all gerrymandering. 790,345 (44.6%) of the voters are registered Republicans and only 446,237 (25.2%) are Democrats-- significantly less than Independents. But then along came Governor Brownback to turn the state into a laboratory for crackpot, extreme right-wing theories.

Brownback's tax cut proposal came as Kansas's revenues were on an upswing. Spending cuts and a one-cent sales tax passed by Brownback's Democratic predecessor had combined with economic growth to give Kansas a surplus. Now, Brownback argued, his tax cuts would lead to even more success. "I firmly believe these reforms will set the stage for strong economic growth in Kansas," he said. The governor proposed to cut income taxes on the state's highest earners from 6.45 percent to 4.9 percent, to simplify tax brackets, and to eliminate state income taxes on most small business income entirely. In a nod to fiscal responsibility, though, he proposed to end several tax deductions and exemptions, including the well-liked home mortgage interest deduction. This would help pay for the cuts. Yet as the bill went through the state Senate, these deductions proved too popular, and legislators voted to keep them all. The bill's estimated price tag rose from about $105 million to $800 million, but Brownback kept supporting it anyway. "I'm gonna sign this bill, I'm excited about the prospects for it, and I'm very thankful for how God has blessed our state," he said.

Democrats, and some Republicans, weren't buying it. "It bankrupts the state within two years," said Rochelle Chronister, a former state GOP chair who helped organize moderate Republicans against Brownback's agenda. And the House Democratic leader, Paul Davis, laid down a marker. "There is no feasible way that private-sector growth can accommodate the price tag of this tax cut," he said. "Our $600 million surplus will become a $2.5 billion deficit within just five years." In return, Brownback's administration claimed the bill would create 23,000 jobs by 2020, and would lead 35,000 more people to move to Kansas.

After the cuts became law, it was undisputed that Kansas's revenue collections would fall. But some supply-side analysts, like economist Arthur Laffer, argued that increased economic growth would deliver more revenue that would help cushion this impact.

Yet it's now clear that the revenue shortfalls are much worse than expected. "State general fund revenue is down over $700 million from last year," Duane Goossen, a former state budget director, told me. "That's a bigger drop than the state had in the whole three years of the recession," he said-- and it's a huge chunk of the state's $6 billion budget. Goossen added that the Kansas's surplus, which had been replenished since the recession, "is now being spent at an alarming, amazing rate."

Kansas has to balance its budget every year, so when that surplus runs out, further spending cuts will be necessary. The declining revenues have necessitated extensive cuts in state education funding, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Moody's cut of the state's bond rating this May was another embarrassment. And the economic benefits Brownback promised haven't materialized either. Chris Ingraham wrote at Wonkblog that Kansas's job growth has lagged behind the rest of the country, "especially in the years following the first round of Brownback tax cuts."

…Brownback's approval rating has plummeted-- in a recent poll by PPP, his 33 percent was actually lower than Barack Obama's 34 percent approval. This is good news for state House Democratic leader Paul Davis, who announced his run for governor last September. "I'm profoundly troubled by the direction our state has been heading over the past three years," he said in his first campaign email. "The wealthiest and well connected have gotten all the breaks, and the Kansas economy feels broken." In the most recent poll of the race, Davis leads Brownback by 6 points.

Yesterday, the first public poll in Kansas was reported since Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race, leaving Roberts to face Independent Greg Orman. The top 3 Republicans on the ballot, Pat Roberts, Sam Brownback and the neo-fascist Secretary of State Chris Kobach are all losing.

As of today, 09/08/14, about 7 in 10 Kansas likely voters are aware that Democrat Chad Taylor has withdrawn from the race, with a formal request that his name be taken off the ballot. About 6 in 10 Kansas likely voters are aware that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican in his own tight-fight for re-election (more on that in a moment), has inserted himself into the fray and refuses to remove Democrat Taylor from the ballot. That creates a nightmare for state and national party officials, for Kansas voters, and for public opinion pollsters. At this hour, subject to possible lawsuits and back-room bargains which could further upend the race, Independent Greg Orman and Roberts are effectively tied, 37% for Orman, 36% for Roberts, 10% for Taylor, 6% for Libertarian Randall Batson. The exact wording of the question that SurveyUSA asked respondents is: "If there were an election for US Senate today, and Democrat Chad Taylor's name still appeared on the ballot even though he no longer wants to run, and the other names on the ballot were Republican Pat Roberts, Independent Greg Orman, and Libertarian Randall Batson, who would you vote for?" Orman gets 52% of the Democratic vote, 42% of the independent vote, and 26% of the Republican vote. Roberts holds 59% of the Republican base, and is backed by 11% of Democrats, and 16% of independents. Orman leads among the most educated voters and among the most affluent voters. The contest is effectively tied in Greater Wichita, and effectively tied in greater Kansas City KS. Orman has a slight lead in greater Topeka. Voters focused on the economy back Orman over Roberts 3:2. Voters focused on Obamacare back Roberts over Orman 2:1.

…Kobach's insertion into the Senate contest did nothing, at first blush, to help his own campaign for re-election. 2 weeks ago, KSN-TV and SurveyUSA had Kobach tied with Democratic challenger Jean Schodorf. Today, the contest is still within the theoretical margin of sampling error, but Schodorf now has a nominal 3-point advantage, 46% to 43%. Men don't take kindly to Kobach's interference. 2 weeks ago, Kobach had led by 10 among male likely voters, now by 3. And residents of greater Kansas City KS don't take kindly to Kobach either. In that part of the state, Kobach had been tied with Schodorf, but today the Democrat Schodorf leads by 7.

…Sitting on the sidelines, ostensibly minding his own business, is incumbent Republican Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback could fairly be accused of being, in a "wave-election" year when Republicans are expected to win statehouse and congressional contests coast-to-coast, the falling tide that is sinking all Kansas Republican boats. Brownback was already in trouble long before anyone was worried about Roberts and long before anyone outside of Kansas knew Kobach's name. Now, Brownback is staring at basically the same "upside-down" numbers that he howled about when SurveyUSA released them 2 weeks ago. Today, Brownback is down 7 points to Democratic challenger Paul Davis. The Democratic ticket of Davis and Jill Docking gets 47% today, the Republican ticket of Brownback and Lt. Gov Jeff Colyer gets 40%… Brownback holds 66% of the Republican base and 74% of the conservative vote. Brownback is down 22 points among independents and down 47 points among moderates.

Can Students Save The Democrats' Asses In November? Should They Bother?

The 26th Amendment to the Constitution is a simple one: "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age." After being ratified by the 38th state legislature, North Carolina's, on July 1, 1971, it became part of the Constitution 4 days later on July 5. It has passed the Senate on March 10, 1971, 94-0, and the House March 23, 401-19. The same day it passed the House, it was ratified by the state legislatures of Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington. Hawaii and Massachusetts jumped in the next day. (Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Utah still haven't ratified it.)

1972 saw a turnout of 55.4% for newly eligible votes between the ages of 18 and 21. But that didn't help anti-war presidential candidate George McGovern, who was walloped by Nixon 47,168,710 (60.7%) to 29,173,222 (37.5%). McGovern won Massachusetts and DC and was competitive in Minnesota, Rhode Island and his native South Dakota. The Democrats lost 13 House seats and gained and net of 2 Senate seats-- winning 6 (one of which was Joe Biden) and losing 4 to Republicans (one of whom was Jesse Helms. Youth vote diminished significantly after that initial enthusiasm. By 1988-- the election pitting George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis-- young voters were so non-plussed by politics that the turnout was a dismal 36%. The only time young voters even came close to the 1972 high-water mark was in 2008-- Obama's first election-- when the turnout was 49%. It stayed relatively high in 2012 and both years the youth vote went overwhelmingly for Obama.

The midterms look like the Democrats are going to take a major shellacking. They're certainly not going to take the House back and there's a chance they could lose control of the Senate. One of the constituencies that is expected to sit this one out are young voters under the age of 25. The Democrats in general have little to offer them. Enthusiasm is almost nonexistent and many young people have lost faith that electoral politics is a path to change. Plenty of them have come to the conclusion that the system is rigged against them. Income inequality is as bad as it was in the 1920s-- when it was easy to blame it on the rash of failed, reactionary Republican presidents who followed Woodrow Wilson: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover (1921-1932).

This week Rolling Stone ran the antidote to this kind of malaise, something-- was the Beltway Democratic Establishment to figure out how to run on it-- could turn the trajectory of the midterms right around. Elizabeth Warren is working diligently to eliminate unconscionable student debt. Other progressives are following her. Establishment figures are either ongoing her, hostile to her or giving her lip service.

Warren: "Rising student-loan debt is an economic emergency. Forty million people are dealing with $1.2 trillion in outstanding student debt. It's stopping young people from buying homes, from buying cars and from starting small businesses. We need to take action." Speaking for conservatives and for his own reactionary political party, Mitch McConnell says that it's time to admit that a traditional college education has become a luxury good. "Not every­body needs to go to Yale," he lisped menacingly.

"McConnell's idea that people should dream a little smaller is deeply flawed," said Warren. "And let me add: The problem is not limited to private universities. States used to pick up about three out of every four dollars it cost to educate someone at a public university. Now it's about one in four. In America today, a young person needs more education after high school just to have a chance to make it in the middle class. Not a guarantee, just a chance to make it."

Warren's bills range from pie-in-the-sky progressive-- she called for college loans to be issued at the same, nearly free, interest rates that Wall Street banks receive from the Fed-- to soberly bipartisan. Her proposal to refinance outstanding student-loan debt at less than four percent interest (financed by a new minimum tax on America's top earners) nearly cleared the Senate in June, and will return to the Senate floor for a new vote this fall. "This country invests in tax loopholes for billionaires," she says. "And forces college students to pay for them through higher interest rates on their loans. That makes no sense at all."

…The major thrust of your work hasn't been in trying to lower tuitions, but in making college cheaper to finance. Why is that the right approach?


Just the little slice of loans that were issued between 2007 and 2012 are projected to produce $66 billion in profits to the federal government. Think about that. The role of government has to be helping young people, instead of taxing them for making the effort. I would like [to set student loans] at the same rate that the government currently charges the financial institutions. I tried that last year [laughs].

Your latest proposal is to let people with outstanding student debt refinance loans at the same rate currently being offered to students.


Homeowners refinance their loans when interest rates go down. Businesses refinance their loans. But right now, there's no way for students to be able to do that. I've proposed that we reduce the interest rate on the outstanding loan debt to the same rate Republicans and Democrats came together last year to set on new loans [3.86 percent]. For millions of borrowers, that would cut interest rates in half or more. Unfortunately, the federal government can't just reduce the interest rate. It has already built those expected profits into the budget. So we propose stitching up tax loopholes that are available only to millionaires and billionaires, and requiring them to pay taxes at the same rate most American families pay. That would more than pay for the cost of reducing the interest rate on student loans.

What's the status of that bill?


Every single Democrat supported it. Both Independents supported the bill. And even three Republicans voted to move it forward. But the rest of the Republicans filibustered.

We will be voting on it again in September. As a country, we can either invest in tax loopholes for billionaires or lower-cost student loans for young people who are trying to build a future. Billionaires or students: It's a pretty stark choice.

Republicans are killing this legislation. Democrats should run on it. Republicans filibustered it and, although it garnered 56 votes, it was still needed 4. Among the filibusterers were two who could actually lose their seats in November: Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Pat Roberts (R-KS). McConnell's Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes has already hosted Warren in Kentucky where they both campaigned on student loans. The Kansas situation is more nuanced-- but could still spell doom for Roberts' overly long, out of touch career.

The GOP's saving grace is that the senator's opponents—businessman Greg Orman, an independent, and Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor, a Democrat—are "pretty much splitting the anti-Roberts vote evenly," according to PPP. But if one of them were to drop out, "Roberts would really be in trouble." In head-to-head match ups, the Republican leads Mr. Taylor by four points and trails Mr. Orman by 10. The independent would "take 30% of the Republican vote while losing only 11% of Democrats to Roberts." Of course, the senator's numbers may improve once he steps up his campaign attacks. As it stands, 64% of likely voters don't have an opinion of Mr. Orman, while Mr. Taylor boasts a 29% name recognition.

Yet using the boilerplate Republican strategy of linking the Democratic candidate with President Obama may not work in Kansas. Mr. Roberts's 27% approval rating in the state is even worse than the president's 33% support. And the senator's more formidable opponent appears to be the young and charismatic Mr. Orman, who manages a private-equity firm and will have a major financial edge over Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Orman is also running on a populist platform that includes term limits for lawmakers, ending Congressional pensions and banning lobbying by former congressmen. Although he briefly campaigned for Senate in 2008 as a Democrat, he's running as an independent this year because "I didn't feel like either party fit me well as someone who is fiscally responsible and socially tolerant." Which is true of many of the state's independents and young Republicans.

If Mr. Orman continues to gain momentum, national Democratic leaders may pressure Mr. Taylor to pull out and back the independent. In turn, Mr. Orman may be persuaded to caucus with the Democrats like independent Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

In order to hold the seat, Republicans will need to unite around Mr. Roberts. It's a troubling sign for the senator that they didn't do that after this month's primary.

Meanwhile, over in the House, it's not likely anyone will be able to fix the catastrophe Steve Israel's incompetent DCCC is dragging the Democrats into. Hoever, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman, John Kline (R-MN), has bottled up the House version of Senator Warren's bill, H.R. 4582, he and House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Dave Camp (R-MI) refusing to even schedule hearings. Israel's strategy isn't going to help anyone-- except John Boehner-- but progressive challengers like Paul Clements (D-MI), Pat Murphy (D-IA), Kelly Westlund (D-WI), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Ted Lieu (D-CA) are running hard on the proposals to held students and their middle class families caught in the bind conservatives have placed them in. It's a winning issue.

Is There Such A Thing As Too Extreme On The Right-- Or Does It Always Have To End In An Orgy Of Blood?

If you want to find out which Senate Republicans have the most reactionary and extreme right voting records, you can access that information at ProgressivePunch. You just scroll down past the most conservative Democrats-- like Joe Donnelly, Joe Manchin, Mark Warner and Mark Pryor-- and past then garden variety conservative Republicans who are getting primaries by teabaggers, like Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, Thad Cochran and Lindsey Graham, and you get to a land of make-believe. Past right-wing sociopaths like Ron Johnson, Richard Burr, Marco Rubio, Richard Shelby, you find the 17 GOP Senators with "perfect" scores for 2013-- zero. None of the 17 extremists voted for anything that could be viewed as progressive. The gerbil caucus or lemming caucus or whatever you call it. Isn't just Ted Cruz (R-TX), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Tim Scott (R-SC), Deb Fischer (R-NE), John Boozman (R-AR) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Oh, no. Joining them in the ranks of zeroes are radical right lunatics who would rather see America suffer than go against their narrow ideological and partisan predispositions. Just what the Tea Party is looking for, right? I mean, you can't get more radical than a zero voting record… like Ted Cruz, right? Well, aside from zero voting records, what do these 4 Republicans all have in common?

• John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Pat Roberts (R-KS)

Of course, they are all being viciously challenging for reelection this cycle… from the right. How you get to the right of zero without committing crimes against humanity is something we may learn over the next few months. The twitter attacks against that notorious "liberal," John Cornyn by a former speed freak and street person who has been implicated in the Oklahoma City domestic terror bombing, Steve Stockman, is the most aggressive assault on a sitting senator I have ever seen. People constantly ask if his verified official twitter feed is a hoax or a parody by some liberal jokester.

A few days ago, one of the most radical right iof the crackpot Republican front groups, the Madison Project, led by a neo-fascist ex-Congressman from Kansas, Jim Ryun, endorsed a teabagger running against another zero-- Pat Roberts. They're joining Jim DeMint's old PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, in a jihad against Roberts. This is Pat Robert's voting record broken down by issue. How do you get more deranged and out of touch with reality than that? Ryun thinks they found the fringe loon who can do it-- a distant cousin of President Obama, presumably not from the Kenyan side of the family. Milton Wolf's complaint about Roberts is that he's a career politician and that Roberts is against Obamacare but not loudly enough.

A far right blogger from Georgia also endorsed Wolf against Roberts. He explained it in a post on Wednesday. Is his world, everything is divided between the allies and enemies of Ted Cruz, who American neo-Nazis worship as some kind of reincarnation of their fuehrer.

In the past six months, Senator Pat Roberts has been a rock ribbed, small government conservative. He has stood with Ted Cruz. He has fought the fight. He’s done in the sixth year of his term everything conservatives have wanted. And that’s pretty unusual because in the last five years Pat Roberts has stood with his leadership even against conservatives.

We have seen this before. Orrin Hatch, bless his heart, went through 2012 pounding his chest and throwing red meat to the crowd. To heck with plans for amnesty, said Hatch. Shut down the government if that’s what it takes to stop Obamacare, campaigned Hatch. No more debt increases, no more spending, no more big government-- Hatch was a reformed and repentant Senator.

Conservatives decided they could forgive him the prior five years of his record and his kissy face with Ted Kennedy. They re-elected him.

He immediately went back to amnesty. He gave up fighting Obamacare. He’s cool with raising taxes in the Murray-Ryan budget plan. He’s okay with growing government. Secure with another six year term unaccountable to voters, Hatch went back to his old ways.

Conservatives need to stop being played the fool by incumbent Senators who find religion in their election year. We can do better in Kansas. We can support Dr. Milton Wolf.

Dr. Wolf, a cousin to Barack Obama, has consistently been a conservative. I don’t worry that he will somehow turn wobbly in office. Dr. Wolf understands that an ‘R’ is not enough and, as he wrote yesterday, “The letter “R” did not save America.” It takes more than that. It takes principle and it takes conviction.

We can move Kansas to the right of Pat Roberts and we can do so with Dr. Milton Wolf in the United States Senate. I’m proud to support him and look forward to sending Ted Cruz reinforcements.

It was this kind of thinking that got another zero-- Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss-- to decide to call it quits after his term ends next year. There's some chance that that will lead to the election of a moderate Democrat, Michelle Nunn, is a dependably red state. The far right's skewering of McConnell will help exactly one candidate-- and it's not Matt Bevin-- Alison Lundergan Grimes. It's a shame the DSCC is so badly led that they didn't both recruiting a plausible candidate just in case Republican primary voters decide to go over the cliff with Steve Stockman.

Ted Stevens Was Sharing His Bribes With Most Of The Republicans In The Senate And Most Of Them Are Refusing To Give The Tainted Money Back

If they weren't so venal-- and so adapt at taking very good care of themselves-- you might feel sorry for Republican members of Congress. Here they have been spending all month worrying if voters are going to connect the dots between massive campaign "contributions" from Big Oil (almost a quarter billion dollars since 1990-- 75% of it to Republicans, most of the rest to the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) and the policies that brought on, at least in part, the high gasoline prices. But with the threat still looming that the Democrats might actually expose them by helping voters connect those dots, suddenly there's a new challenge facing them: massive donations of VECO bribes that Stevens spread around the Republican caucus. So far none only a few of the GOP senators who took the tainted money have agreed to give it back.

And Stevens has been quite the little money launderer. He's donated a cool $725,000 directly to the NRSC so they'd be able to pay for their little operations, like stealing the 2002 New Hampshire Senate race for John Sununu. But he's also been handing out VECO and other tainted funds all across the corrupt party. This year alone some of the beneficiaries of Stevens' shady Northern Lights PAC have included:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN- $10,000)
John Barrasso (R-WY- $10,000)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA- $10,000)
Norm Coleman (R-MN- $10,000)
Susan Collins (R-ME- $10,000)
John Cornyn (R-TX- $5,000)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC- $10,000)
James Inhofe (R-OK- $9,000)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $20,000)
Pat Roberts (R-KS- $10,000) + $5,000 more to Roberts' Preserving America's Tradition's PAC
Gordon Smith (R-OR- $10,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $10,000)
Roger Wicker (R-MS- $5,000)
Don Young (R-AK- $10,000)

Over the years, Stevens has redistributed immense sums of money-- bribes-- to Republicans. Now they don't want to give the money back, of course. Yeseterday, Tom Allen's campaign let Maine newspapers know that $20,000 has gone into Susan Collins' coffers, although she kicked back $5,000 to Stevens. That seems to be a pattern with him. He gives some of his ill-gotten gains to other Republicans and then they give part of it back to him. In guess this is perfectly acceptable in Washington, where these crooks make their own incredibly lax rules.

Yesterday afternoon Jeff Merkley pointed out that over the years Stevens has doled out $39,000 to Gordon Smith. Merkley isn't asking Smith to return the tainted money to Stevens (who needs it for his legal defense team); he's asking him "to donate the money to charities to help provide health insurance to Oregon children." Smith refused at first but when Merkley pounding him he finally agreed to turn over a small portion of the tainted dough. Meanwhile Smith has taken more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, while delivering $18 billion in tax giveaways for oil companies and opposing measures to end excessive speculation on oil prices. I doubt he'll give any of that back.

And what about Collins, Sununu, Cornyn, Coleman and the rest of the crooks? Yesterday Jim Slattery pointed out that Stevens and his crooked PAC "donated $19,785 to Kansas Senator Pat Roberts. In 2005, Roberts voted in favor of Steven's wasteful $230 million 'Bridge to Nowhere' in Alaska.

"This is precisely the reason why so many people are sick and tired of old Washington politics," Slattery said. "After 40 years in Washington, Roberts is willing to take money from a friend and then vote in favor of that friend's pet project.

"Kansans deserve better," Slattery said. "Kansans deserve a senator who will put their needs ahead of those in Alaska."

Slattery called for Roberts to donate the money to charity.

"As chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, Roberts should immediately donate an amount equal to the contributions he received from Stevens to a local charity."

Roberts has refused to give up a dime. Ditto for James Inhofe, who has also been part of this money laundering scheme and won't divest himself of any of it.



UPDATE: VECO DIDN'T ONLY BRIBE STEVENS-- THEY SPREAD THE MONEY AROUND

In fact, Stevens wasn't even the biggest VECO bribe taker; Alaska's one House member, Don Young, was. He's also under investigation. And #3 was Senator Lisa Murkowski, also of Alaska, who is from a notoriously corrupt political family. #4 was Bush and #5 is Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the only Democrat aggressively defending Stevens and shrilly and hysterically insisting that Stevens is innocent. Here's the whole list of who took what (of donations of at least $1,000):

Don Young (R-AK- $190,530)
Ted Stevens (R-AK- $102,500)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK- $42,250)
George W. Bush (R- $20,050)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI- $13,000)
Norm Coleman (D-MN- $7,000)
Richard Burr (R-NC- $6,000)
Tom Coburn (R-OK- $6,000)
Jim DeMint (R-SC- $6,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $6,000)
John Thune (R-SD- $6,000)
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA- $6,000)
Kit Bond (R-MO- $4,516)
Arlen Specter (R-PA- $4,000)
George Voinovich (R-OH- $3,750)
John Ensign (R-NV- $2,000)
Steve Pearce (R-NM- $1,000)
Jon Porter (R-NV- $1,000)
Dennis Rehberg (R-MT- $1,000)

THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE SYSTEM IS DESTROYING DEMOCRACY

No wild fans of Kansas Democratic Senate candidate Jim Slattery around here; don't look for him on the Blue America endorsement page, even if each of us hopes he beats craven and useless incumbent, Bush rubber stamp Pat Roberts. And speaking of craven... Roberts must be plenty worried about this race because he's already launched a costly negative ad campaign slamming Slattery as a lobbyist. And Slattery is a lobbyist, a shameful and repulsive profession, which in my opinion, makes someone unfit for public trust. But not as unfit as someone who already has public trust-- an elected official, like Pat Roberts-- who takes bribes (AKA- "contributions") from lobbyists and votes for special interests rather than for the interests of his constituents.

Has Senator Pat been doing that? Let's take a look. A member of the Agriculture Committee, Roberts has been the recipient of over a million dollars from the agricultural industry in their attempts-- usually successful-- to get him to represent their special interests over the interests of non-industrialized family farmers, not to mention consumers. You name the industry: Commercial Banks ($422,424)-- he's also a deregulation fanatic on the Senate Finance Committee-- Oil & Gas ($324,900), Securities & Investments ($251,862), Insurance ($230,192), Big Pharma ($165,477)... Roberts always has his hand out and is always, always, always voting to wreck the regulatory system that protects workers and consumers and investors from the corporate predators who hire the lobbyists who pay him off. Otherwise it's a lovely ad. (Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Big Telecom giants lavished Roberts with $14,250 this year alone and he dutifully voted to shred the U.S. Constitution for them this week-- permitting warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity for corporate criminals. Go lobbyists!)

Roberts is hardly the only member of Congress who accepts massive bribes from lobbyists and corporate donors and then votes for their special interests. That's the way the obscenely wealth have rigged the political system to work for them-- and against the great unwashed masses (the rest of us). And Congress writes its own rules, carefully defining its members' crude criminal practices as permissible. Bribery is only bribery if... a masked man give sit to you in small denominations in cash... and you hide it in your refrigerator.

Just today the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that Mitch McConnell (R-Big Business) raised over $3 million dollars in the last 3 months for his campaign, for a total of $15 million so far. As of April 30. McConnell had scooped up over $27,000,000 in contributions, much of it from special interests with business before the Senate. The Finace/Insurance and Real Estate sector-- which has gotten, with McConnell's toxic leadership, the deregulation they've been so lusting after for since FDR reined them in after they caused the Great Depression-- has given him $4,147,334. And in return we have a severe Recession-- according to out of touch Republicans only in our minds-- heading straight towards a Depression, with runaway inflation, spiraling unemployment, a gutted out middle class, rampant outsourcing (a McConnell hallmark), a collapsing housing market impacting the rest of the economy, and a health care system that has gone from the envy of the planet to decidedly third rate... for non-millionaires and members of Congress. McConnell's contributors have certainly gotten their money's worth from him.

Of course, McConnell's bribers know full well that his corrupt and reactionary Democratic opponent would be no less of a willing servant to their whims and demands. Right now he doesn't need their money because he's already put $2.1 million of his own bread into the campaign. One of Lunsford's spokespersons pointed out that it's "easy to rake in special-interest cash when you've been doing their bidding for 24 years in the Senate. The big oil companies alone have given McConnell over $650,000 in campaign contributions over the years. Kentucky cannot afford another six years of McConnell's misplaced loyalties. He is not on our side. It's time for change."

Change meaning what? Going from a corrupt Republic taking corporate bribes to a corrupt Democrat taking corporate bribes. That isn't change. Change would be no corporate bribes... period. Anyone who wants to donate to a candidate should be allowed to donate... anonymously.

Would McConnell have been so eager to sell out the Constitution and allow the Telecoms to get away with their criminal activities if they hadn't paid him off with hefty donations totaling over $20,000 this year alone? Or would have Susan Collins if they didn't give her $35,850? Ted Stevens, who raked in $41,400? Gordon Smith, who sold us out for $27,750? Would Rahm Emanuel have joined the Republicans and dragged dozens of Democrats along with him for this disgraceful piece of infamy if the Telecoms hadn't bought him off with $49,950 this year?

And what about Norm Coleman? This Bush rubber stamp has scooped up nearly as much as McConnell from corporate interests. Since he began his miserable political career in the late 80s, he's taken in over $23,000,000 in "donations." Today's Star Tribune reports that Coleman and his Democratic opponent, Al Franken, are running neck-and-neck in the fundraising race, each having taken in over $2 million in the last quarter. The first comment on the story summed up the real issue, one left untouched by the Star Tribune:

Coleman gets his money from rich donors across the country at exclusive events. Al Franken gets the majority of his money from Minnesotans who contribute 10 dollars at a time. Sure, Franken does have some supporters that come from out of state, but not like the ones Norm Coleman has. Coleman works for big oil, the pharmaceutical companies, and special interest groups. Al works for the people.

Is it true? Of the over $13 million Coleman has hoovered up in the current cycle, he's taken the lion's share from special interests with business before the Senate: Real Estate ($610,137), Securities & Investments ($567,750), Insurance ($288,324), Commercial Banks ($226,400), Big Pharma ($203,717), Big Oil ($88,550). Is it just a coincidence that Coleman always votes for what these industries want, regardless of how detrimental it is to working families back in Minnesota? Do you think Minnesotans want the government wiretapping citizens at will without a court order? Coleman does-- or doesn't care-- but this year alone the Big Telecoms gave him $7,700.

When he was in the House, Bob Schaffer was known as someone who would accept money from anyone and sell his vote cheap for any corporate special interest. Now that he's trying to get into the Senate, Big Business is rallying to his banner. Big Oil has given him more money this year than any other candidate who is not currently in Congress, $114.15, more than almost all sitting members of the Senate. He's their boy. And Sam Stein's story at Huff Po today goes a long way towards explaining why:

At the same time that he was officially a candidate for the United States Senate, Colorado Republican Bob Schaffer was helping to arrange a major oil deal in the Kurdish region of Iraq that government officials said would damage U.S. interests in that country.

Schaffer has claimed that he was unaware that the company he was aiding, Aspect Energy, was undermining American policy by pursuing an oil contract in Kurdistan. But a review of press reports from that time period suggests that such an explanation is either highly unlikely or downright disingenuous.

..."Four years before Bob Schaffer went to Kurdistan, he voted to authorize the Iraq War where he had to have learned about the conflict between the Kurds and the Iraqi central government," said Tara Trujillo, spokeswoman for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall. "Two months before Bob Schaffer went to Kurdistan to negotiate an oil contract, the Kurds threatened to separate from Iraq because of oil... One month before Aspect Energy signed the deal, the U.S. State Department officials also told the press that these types of oil deals would counter our national security interests. How could Bob Schaffer not know? It's not that Bob Schaffer didn't know his actions would undermine the fragile situation in Iraq, it's that he didn't care."

I don't especially mean to single out corrupt politicians like Bob Schaffer (R-CO), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Bruce Lunsford (D-KY), Norm Coleman (R-MN)-- although I once ran against him for class secretary and although we tied and served as co-secretaries of our elementary school class in Brooklyn, he was a dirty little cheat even back then-- Pat Roberts (R-KS), or even Rahm Emanuel (D-IL). Instead I want to point out that the system is hopelessly corrupt-- by design-- and that democracy is impossible with the billions of corporate dollars being shoveled into political pockets on behalf of special interests.

These days members of Congress not only use the "donations" to buy ads and pay for lawn signs. They hire their wives and children and pay them large sums of money, in effect taking money from donors and putting it directly into their personal living conditions. They spend millions of campaign donations for defending themselves in court against corruption charges, as Ted Stevens (R-AK), Don Young (R-AK), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), John Doolittle (R-CA) and dozens of others have done. Congress has proven that it cannot regulate itself. A nonpartisan commission should have the job, not Nancy Pelosi, not Rahm Emanuel, not Steny Hoyer, not Tom DeLay, not John Boehner, not Roy Blunt... This is too important to be left to politicians.

WHO WILL BE THE ELEVENTH DEMOCRATIC SENATOR IN NOVEMBER?

Jim Slattery could take them both out in one shot

I don't foresee-- not this year-- a 1936-type scenario that saw just 16 Republicans left in the Senate after the elections. But we're headed in that direction. Many progressive groups talk about a net gain of 10 seats-- which, they say, would make it impossible for the GOP to obstruct legislation with filibusters like they did for the past 2 years. It looks likely that there will be new Democratic senators in Virginia, New Hampshire, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon (where desperate Republican incumbent Gordon Smith is running ads claiming he works well with his pal Barack Obama), Colorado, Minnesota, Alaska with possibilities in Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina, Idaho, Mississippi and Nebraska. And now there is even talk about... Kansas, where former Congressman Jim Slattery is starting to gain on incumbent Pat Roberts. Kansas hasn't elected a Democratic senator since McCain was a young child riding around on a burro in his native Panama.

The latest Rasmussen poll reports that Roberts led Slattery 48% to 39%. Every single Republican incumbent polling less than 55% in June of 2006 lost in November. In May, Roberts held 52%, The newest SUSA poll (May) shows Roberts with a 50% approval, another sign of coming defeat. Will Slattery be the man to allow the Democrats to relieve Lieberman of his chairman ship and tell him to go sit somewhere else?


UPDATE: MANY THINK WE SHOULDN'T WAIT FOR SLATTERY TO WIN BEFORE DEMOCRATS DUMP LIEBERMAN

Watch the video:



And sign the petition.

DISINTEGRATING GOP EVEN RUNNING INTO TROUBLE IN KANSAS

Even Kansas could be in play this year

It has been hard to miss all the Republican doomsaying and hand-ringing lately-- from Newt Gingrich to the hapless congressional jerkoffs-- who still insist that they disastrous and repeatedly failed, racist strategy of trying to tie Democrats to Jeremiah Wright is the only way to go (Go! Go! Go!)-- to the hack Republican pundits like John Fund and Peggy Noonan:

The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

The headline Wednesday on Drudge, from Politico, said, "Republicans Stunned by Loss in Mississippi." It was about the eight-point drubbing the Democrat gave the Republican in the special House election. My first thought was: You have to be stupid to be stunned by that. Second thought: Most party leaders in Washington are stupid-- detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in '78 or '82 or '94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Richard Nixon, everything came back to Alger Hiss.

But even with all this I had to laugh today when I read that even the Kansas Senate seat held by ultimate Bush rubber stamp extraordinaire, Pat Roberts, could be in jeopardy. Lately we've been looking at the 1936 election that left 88 Republicans in the House and only 16 in the U.S. Senate. Of the 16 left in the Senate, one was Arthur Cropper (an ex-Kansas governor who served 5 senate terms starting in 1918), who won re-election against Democrat Omar Ketchum. Cropper won re-election as one of the few Republicans who refused to participate in obstructing FDR's New Deal and, in fact, supported FDR over and over. Roberts, on the other hand, can claim to have enthusiastically participated in every McConnell obstructionist initiative since the voters defeated half a dozen of his fellow Republicans in 2006.

But even if Slattery, an ex-congressman, can't beat evolution-denier Roberts, red states that look ready to elect Democrats in November include Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky-- on top of rcrllrnt shots for Democrats in less red states, like Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. If you want to help the Democrats pick up not just generic Democrats but Democrats who will not be representing corporate interests over our interests, please consider making a donation to the campaigns of Tom Allen (D-ME), Andrew Rice (D-OK), Greg Fischer (D-KY), and Rick Noriega (D-TX) today at our Blue America ActBlue page.