Dissipation Is Actually Much Worse Than Cataclysm-- And There's Even Worse Out There Than Barack Obama

There's a chance Democrats have been so demoralized by Obama's 180 degree turn from Change and Hope that a Republican will win Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election Tuesday. Right-wingers are mobilized and have every right to be excited but Villagers can't talk about anything else. They're more excited than Republicans! They'll have a topic to bloviate on for weeks: the nation turns right, not that they haven't been on that one for as long as I can remember. If Scott Brown wins in blue, blue Massachusetts it means... just wait.

Meanwhile though, not a peep out of any of them about the special election in Virginia this past Tuesday. Apparently it didn't fit into the preferred narrative so... it didn't mean squat. In that one, apparently group-thunk into a meaningless outlier, the most right wing state senator in the history of the commonwealth, Ken Cuccinelli, was replaced in a hopelessly red district with a... ssssshhhhh... Democrat, David Marsden. Totally meaningless; in fact, I'm sure, if anything, it just goes to prove that the GOP will win back the House in November and that Nye and Perriello will both lose because... well, obviously Virginia hates progressives.

And, although I haven't personally seen any reports on Fox identifying him as a "Democrat" yet, when John Shadegg announced his retirement yesterday, it didn't augur nearly as badly for Republicans as retirements by Tennessee Blue Dogs Bart Gordon and John Tanner-- who virtually always vote with Republicans on substantive issues-- did for the Democrats. Yeah, the GOP has it all figured it; all they have to do is shit all over Capitol Hill, refuse to authorize a cleaning lady and then blame the Democrats for the stench and messiness. But don't tell anyone Democratic challengers like John Callahan in Bethlehem, PA, are hauling in immense amounts of contributions by voters eager to see mealy-mouthed obstructionists like Charlie Dent end their political careers.

Yesterday Digby turned me on to a post at The Nation by Chris Hayes, a post every progressive who's feeling that maybe Obama, Emanuel, Summers, Geithner... have been so awful that who the hell should even bother to vote. No Hope, no Change; screw you, right. Not really. Conservative governance is the problem and as much as that has been internalized by Democrats and Obama-- which is what makes progressives so disgusted with them-- it doesn't come close to the real deal, American Republicanism. In looking at what ails us today Hayes says "it's useful to distinguish between two separate categories of problems we face."

The first are the human, economic and ecological disasters that demand immediate action: a grossly inefficient healthcare sector, millions un- or underinsured, 10 percent unemployment, a planet that's warming, soaring personal bankruptcies, 12 million immigrants working in legal limbo, the list goes on. But the deeper problem, the ultimate cause of many of the first-order problems, is the perverse maldistribution of power in the country: too much in too few hands. It didn't happen overnight, of course, and the devolution has been analyzed and decried by a host of writers and thinkers in these very pages... The central and unique paradox of our politics at this moment, however, is that our institutions are so broken, the government so sclerotic and dysfunctional, that in almost all cases, from financial bailouts to health insurance mandates, the easiest means of addressing the first set of problems is to take steps that exacerbate the second.

...the corporatism on display in Washington is itself a symptom of a broader social illness that I noted above, a democracy that is pitched precariously on the tipping point of oligarchy. In an oligarchy, the only way to get change is to convince the oligarchs that it is in their interest-- and increasingly, that's the only kind of change we can get.

In 1911 the German democratic socialist Robert Michels faced a similar problem, and it was the impetus for his classic book Political Parties. He was motivated by a simple question: why were parties of the left, those most ideologically committed to democracy and participation, as oligarchical in their functioning as the self-consciously elitist and aristocratic parties of the right?

Michels's answer was what he called "The Iron Law of Oligarchy." In order for any kind of party or, indeed, any institution with a democratic base to exist, it must have an organization that delegates tasks. As this bureaucratic structure develops, it invests a small group of people with enough power that they can then subvert the very mechanisms by which they can be held to account: the party press, party conventions and delegate votes. "It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors," he wrote, "of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy."

Michels recognized the challenge his work presented to his comrades on the left and viewed the task of democratic socialists as a kind of noble, endless, Sisyphean endeavor, which he described by invoking a German fable. In it, a dying peasant tells his sons that he has buried a treasure in their fields. "After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. But their indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being."

"The treasure in the fable may well symbolize democracy," Michels wrote. "Democracy is a treasure which no one will ever discover by deliberate search. But in continuing our search, in laboring indefatigably to discover the undiscoverable, we shall perform a work which will have fertile results in the democratic sense."

After a rather dispiriting few months, the treasure in this case may seem impossibly remote, but one thing the Obama campaign got right was its faith in America's history of continually and fruitfully tilling the soil of democracy, struggling against odds until, at certain moments of profound progressive change, a new treasure is improbably found.

It was the possibility of such a democratic unearthing that gave Obama for America its moral force. The most inspiring thing about the campaign had nothing to do with the candidate and everything to do with average citizens from Dubuque to Atlanta who were taking the time and energy to search for a small piece of that treasure. Likewise, the message of the Obama campaign was as much about empowerment, reinvigorating democracy and changing the ways of Washington as it was about the central planks of his agenda. It's for this reason that the greatest disappointment of his first year is the White House's abandonment of this small-d democratic impulse in favor of a strategy almost wholly focused on insider politics.

What the country needs more than higher growth and lower unemployment, greater income equality, a new energy economy and drastically reduced carbon emissions is a redistribution of power, a society-wide epidemic of re-democratization. The crucial moments of American reform and progress have achieved this: from the direct election of senators to the National Labor Relations Act, from the breakup of the trusts to the end of Jim Crow.

So in this new year, while the White House focuses on playing within the existing rules, it's our job as citizens and activists to press constantly for changes to those rules: public financing, an end to the filibuster, the breakup of the banks, legalization for undocumented workers and the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, to name just a few of the measures that would alter the balance of power and expand the frontiers of the possible.

If I had to bet, I'd say that not of one of these will be won this year. The White House won't be of much help, and on some issues, like breaking up the banks, it will represent the opposition. Always searching and never quite finding is grueling and often dispiriting work. But there is simply no alternative other than to give in and let the field turn hard and barren.

UPDATE: Vic Snyder Announces His Retirement

There are no shining progressives in Arkansas' political delegation. One is a robotically obstructionist wingnut Republican and two are reactionary Blue Dogs. Vic Snyder is a moderate Democrat who votes with his party as much as he feels he can. On November 7 he voted for the healthcare reform. Anti-family reactionaries Mike Ross (Blue Dog) and John Boozeman (R) both voted against it. Here are the 4 Arkansas House members career-long ProgressivePunch scores on substantive votes:


No Donna Edwardses or Jan Schakowskys or Raul Grijalvas in Arkansas. But just hours after a website working with Republican operative Grover Norquist published a poll purporting to show Snyder would be defeated for voting in favor of healthcare reform, he threw in the towel.

With Shadegg Retiring Again, What Happens To His Arizona House Seat?

Hulburd and Gordon

Last Spring Speaker Pelosi and DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen tried talking Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon into challenging John Shadegg for his increasingly wobbly congressional seat. Though he's term-limited out of the mayoralty in January of 2012, he decided Shadegg was too strong for him. Gordon was first elected mayor, a non-partisan position, in 2003 with 72% of the vote. He was re-elected in 2007 with 77% of the vote. Pelosi and Van Hollen figured that he would have a good shot at beating Shadegg, who is loathed across the aisle in Congress, even though Gordon doesn't live in the 3rd district and even though only a bit of northern Phoenix is in the district. They certainly took into account his ability to raise money-- which is virtually the only consideration the two Inside-the-Beltway party establishments look at when recruiting candidates-- but didn't take into account the fact that he's a business-oriented conservative Democrat likely to vote as badly as Arizona Democratic reactionaries like Harry Mitchell and Ann Kirkpatrick, each of whom has been so demoralizing to their Democratic bases that they are in danger of losing their seats this year. Nor did they take into account that Gordon is the model for the term "disloyal Democrat" as we'll explain in a moment.

Now rumors are flying that Gordon is reassessing in light of Shadegg's retirement announcement yesterday. Coincidentally, yesterday the DCCC trumpeted their enthusiasm for John Hulburd, a candidate who just announced raising an unprecedented $315,000 in the fourth quarter. Many think the DCCC would be well advised to stand behind Hulburd and shut Gordon down in a hurry. Besides making Joe Lieberman look like a party loyalist, Gordon has ethical issues swirling around him that render him unelectable in this Republican-leaning district in which the race will be decided by Independent voters who will have no truck with corruption.
 
In 2007 Gordon endorsed John McCain for President, a crass move that tops a long list of self-serving acts that have embittered Democrats across the state. In 2004, he endorsed Andrew Thomas, the Maricopa County attorney who has partnered with Sheriff Joe Arpaio in his endless harassment of immigrants and, more recently, the insane (and groundless) legal attacks on Maricopa County Supervisors and Judges. He also supported Jim Weiers, Republican Speaker of the State House and right-wing whack job, in his 2006 re-election campaign. John Boehner must be delighted at the prospect of having a supporter no matter who wins the race if Gordon is the Democratic nominee.
 
Just last year, Gordon supported ultra-conservative and ethically challenged Councilman Sal DiCiccio in his re-election campaign against labor leader and Democratic Party activist Dana Kennedy. Apparently, DiCiccio’s attempts to steer a new highway next to 75 acres of land he controlled didn’t faze Gordon.
 
Gordon, it appears, may have ethics challenges of his own. As the Phoenix New Times recently reported, Gordon has caused his campaign and political action committee to pay over the top compensation to his girlfriend/fundraiser, Elissa Mullany, often at times when there was little or no need for him to be raising money. And, to help with damage control, Gordon hired long-time Republican hack, Jason Rose as his public relations guy.
 
Gordon, of course, is nothing if not a political opportunist. He passed on the AZ-03 race when Shadegg indicated he was running for re-election. Hulburd, by contrast, had the gumption to take on a tough challenge. Now that the seat is open, Gordon is suddenly trying to orchestrate a draft Gordon groundswell.
 
This is all too reminiscent of Gordon’s actions the last time Shadegg "resigned," in 2008. Back then, Bob Lord had been in the race for a full year, and had worked hard to earn the full support of the DCCC and the Arizona Democratic grassroots. Upon learning of Shadegg’s retirement, word is that Gordon acted as if he did not know who Lord was, then worked behind the scenes to insert his fellow Councilman, Greg Stanton, into the race. The DCCC slammed the door in Gordon’s face in 2008. They should slam it harder this time.

Republicans looking at the opportunity Shadegg's latest retirement offers include his former chief of staff (Sean Noble), State Rep. Sam Crump (who wasted no time in announcing that he'd run for the seat instead of for Attorney General), State Treasurer Dean Martin (who was looking at the governor's race until yesterday), former Arizona State University quarterback and NFL free agent Andrew Walter, state Senator Pamela Gorman, state Senator Jim Waring, and the aforementioned former state House speaker and far right extremist Jim Weiers.

Arizona Republicans Stab Their Own Native American Constituents In The Back

Only 55 Republican bigots cast nay votes against the Native American Business Development Enhancement Act of 2009. H.R. 1834, passed with an overwhelming margin. 343 to 55, every Democrat voting yes and the GOP split 108 for it and 55 against it. Most of the nay votes were from the extreme fringes of the radical right, your Michele Bachmanns, Virginia Foxxes, Paul Brouns, Tom McClintocks and Mike Pences.

The bill "amends the Small Business Act to establish in the Small Business Administration (SBA) the Office of Native American Affairs, administered by a new SBA Associate Administrator, to increase Native American entrepreneurship [and] authorizes the SBA's Administrator (acting through the Assiociate Administrator) to: (1) operate a Tribal Business Information Centers program that provides Native American populations with business training and entrepreneurial development assistance; (2) designate entities as centers; (3) contribute agency personnel and resources to the centers; and (4) make grants to the centers."

The bill was introduced by conservative Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, whose district includes the largest Indian reservation in the U.S. Every single Arizona Democrat voted for it, of course. The dean of the delegation, Raúl Grijalva spoke for them all when he said "I am gratified that the Small Business Administration, through this legislative action, has finally acknowledged the importance of Native Americans and their vital role in the economy. Giving this government-to-government relationship its proper significance is a strong step toward economic empowerment for the Native American community.”

But not a single Republican voted for it, even though most Republicans outside Arizona did. John Shadegg, whose voting record is always very anti-Native American, was a predictable "no." His suburban Phoenix district doesn't have a large Native American population. Trent Franks however, is in a district with a huge Native American population. Although he had been voting all day, he conveniently managed to slip out for this one so he wouldn't have to go on the record. (At 4:29PM Franks voted against increasing the reimbursement rate for Medicare doctors, but at 4:37PM, when Native Americans needed him, he had slipped out to hide in a public toilet-- but that's another story for another day.) Although Jeff Flake wasn't cruising men's rooms, he also slipped out and avoided voting.

Libel And Celebrity Outing From Liberace To Barry Goldwater

Which one didn't seek redress from the courts to save his manly honor?

Last year, one of the most notorious white shoe law firms on K Street, Sidley Austin-- also the sixth largest law firm in the U.S.-- spent a few weeks harassing me over a post I did about one of their shadier clients, right-wing extremist John Shadegg (R-AZ). Shadegg is on constant alert over publicity concerning his illicit affair with the wife of a congressional colleague, Jon Christensen (R-NE), an affair that resulted in either one or two fist fights between the two right-wing imbeciles. Shadegg's lawyers claim everyone involved-- except the former Mrs. Christensen, who refuses to comment on the record-- denies it ever happened. They threatened to sue me if I didn't take down the post. After several months of discussing it with them-- as well as free speech attorneys who said I could be sued-- I took it (basically an excerpt from a book that exposed Shadegg) down. Of course a 3 month old post isn't that big a loss, especially since it had been widely propagated. I then proceeded to get an insurance policy that covers libel.

I wasn't even aware that public figures could successfully sue for libel and slander-- but I was so wrong. This month's Out has a column talking about famous people who have successfully sued to remove the "stain" from their reputation after being outed. Tom Cruise's suit against French porn star Chad Slater is probably the most famous, but Liberace's successful 1959 suit against the Daily Mirror is certainly the most telling of the absurdity of these suits. Liberace "reconstructed his actual emotions with difficulty afterward, he said, but 'plain, simple, ordinary fear is what I think I felt,' he related. 'I had a secret feeling I was about to get clobbered.' As he described it, 'I find it difficult to put into words how I felt that Monday, June 8, 1959, as I sat in an English courtroom, Queen's Bench Number Four, surrounded by black-robed, white-wigged gentlemen, and prepared to hear myself vilified, as well as defended, and waited to find out whether I'd done the right thing or the wrong one in following the insistence of my conscience and the confirmation of my attorney.'"

The way Liberace's attorney defended him against the attacks of U.K. gossip monger William Conner (aka- Cassandra) brings to mind Glenn Beck on Fox News: "a literary assassin who dips his pen in vitriol, hired by this sensational newspaper to murder reputations and hand out sensational articles on which its circulation is built."

While the trial took many ducks and turns, one phrase in the article dominated the proceedings from both sides. This was Conner's identification of the pianist as "the summit of sex-- Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. Everything that He, She and It can ever want."... If Conner could smirk about his language, it horrified the pianist. It named the nightmares from his childhood. "I prayed I'd never seen that, never heard it and that I'd never hear it again. That was the passage that decided me to sue. That was the one I was afraid would haunt me all my life."

The trial did rotate on the phrase. The defendants argued that Conner had intended it as a statement of the pianist's sex appeal in general. They calculated all their evidence and witnesses to this end, to prove the "sexiness" of Liberace's act. The plaintiffs countered this strategy by affirming the basis of Liberace's appeal to family and traditional values. They also leapt onto the phrase's challenge to Liberace's masculinity or maleness... "I had put myself on the block of public opinion in defense of one of the three most important things in a man's life ...," he testified, "perhaps all of them. They are Life itself. Manhood. And Freedom." He elaborated: "Naturally my life, as such, was not at stake. But the attack on me had threatened my mother's health and so, her life. And, perhaps the quality of my life had been put in jeopardy. Certainly my manhood had been seriously attacked and with it my freedom... freedom from harassment, freedom from embarrassment and most importantly, freedom to work at my profession."... The idea, of course, was that Liberace was homosexual and that homosexuals were not men-- not real men, not natural men-- not Men. That was the issue for Liberace... Denying one's homosexuality, then, equaled defending one's manly prerogatives of earning a living. Liberace managed it like George Cukor, Anthony Perkins, and Rock Hudson. In denying his homosexuality, he confirmed his career.

During the trial Liberace claimed he was not a homosexual, had never had sex with a male and that he opposed "the practice because it offends convention and it offends society." He was lying his gay ass off but he won the case as well as $22,000, "the largest settlement of any libel case in British history."

All but one of the other gays who sued to clear their good names were entertainers: Jason Donovan and Robbie Williams. The remaining plaintiff was a conservative American politician, who was also a gay rights advocate, Barry Goldwater. Lately news of gay Republican politicians being accused of raping young boys or trying to fellate undercover police in public restrooms is so common as to be nearly passe. But in 1964, claiming a Republican politician was gay was still shocking. Doing his part to bury the Goldwater campaign in 1964, Fact publisher Ralph Ginzburg tarted up a special issue entitled "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater." The goal wasn't so much to prove that Goldwater was homosexual as to prove he was mentally unfit to be president. The Fact articles ran some kind of a poll of the 2,417 psychiatrists (out of 12,356 they had contacted) of which 1,189 said Goldwater was unfit to be president. after his historic defeat, Goldwater sued for libel, winning one dollar from the jury, which also awarded him $75,000 in punitive damages because of the magazine's "recklessness." Although the kooks and fascists on the far right who make up the Republican Party today pay homage to Goldwater as one of their movement's founding fathers, he would clearly be repulsed by what the GOP has degenerated into. Goldwater had a distinctly libertarian bent to his brand of conservatism and certainly defended abortion rights and gay rights and had nothing but contempt for the Elmer Gantry religionists that control so much of the GOP these days.

Now that the history lesson is done, see if you can guess which one is either Jason Donovan or Barry Goldwater, Be sure to stay 'til the end when all is revealed:

Poor Rush Is Going To Have His Hands Full-- His Naughty Congressional Republicans Are Razzing Him Again... And McCain's Mom Hates Him!

Rush just can't his troops in good order. The latest round started with serial adulterer and corruptionist John Shadegg denigrating Limbaugh by pointing out he's just a television personality, implying that he isn't the leader of the Republican congressional delegation. I wonder how long it will take Shadegg, well know in DC as a gutless wonder with no backbone whatsoever, to grovel and apologize for offending his lord and master.

Then the heads of the two GOP congressional incumbent protection committees, two clueless Texas extremists with different agendas, NRSC chair John Cornyn (who has to appeal to whole states, including some that never seceded from the Union) and NRCC chair Pete Sessions (whose strategy is to only appeal to the fringe base in deeply red districts, mostly in the South and Mormon West), started fighting with each other. Sessions has been over the rails lately, bragging his committee's strategy was culled from the Taliban and more recently accusing President Obama of sabotaging the economy so he could grab power. Cornyn implied to the Dallas Morning News that House Republicans should find someone a little more mainstream than Sessions.

The Texan who leads the Senate Republican campaign effort rejected Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions’ allegation that President Barack Obama is intentionally sabotaging the U.S. economy.

“I don’t know where he’s coming from on it,” Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday. “I’d like some sort of clarification about what he meant.”

Democrats mocked Sessions-- a member of the congressional GOP leadership who chairs the party’s House campaign committee-- as paranoid and flirting with conspiracy theories after he was quoted accusing Obama of intentionally destroying American jobs and trying to depress the stock market in order to topple the capitalist system... Cornyn explicitly rejected the idea that Obama wants higher unemployment, lower stock prices and general economic malaise.
“Absolutely not,” Cornyn told Texas reporters.

...Asked whether he is comfortable with his fellow Texans remaining in place as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, despite the gaffe, Cornyn deferred to the judgment of House Republicans, who picked Sessions late last year.

The GOP has brought in another House member to run recruitment, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy who is also an extremist but who understands that to stop hemorrhaging seats the GOP is going to just have to bite the bullet and start recruiting "candidates based less on ideology and more on their chances of winning. The goal, he said, is to seek out prospects who are ethnically diverse, female, less partisan and even supportive of abortion rights. So far, these efforts are more concept than reality." It's doubtful McCarthy cleared this with Limbaugh who is likely to go insane when he hears about it since it violates his vision of narrow-cast conservative politics.

Instead of just taking orders from Limbaugh, the way most of his colleagues do, McCarthy claims he's getting his strategy directly from The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution by Naftali Bendavid. The book, written by an Emanuel toady trumpets his blueprint for recruiting Republicans and reactionary Democrats to run for Congress while knocking actual Democrats out of the primaries. When you look at a list of the dozen Democrats who vote most ffrequently against Democrat values on crucial issues and who most cross the aisle to support the Republican Party's anti-working family agenda, you find 9 of Emanuel's recruits-- from bad to worse: Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ), Zack Space (Blue Dog-OH), Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ), Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA), Heath Shuler (Rahm's greatest hit, Blue Dog-NC), Brad Ellsworth (Blue Dog-IN), Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN) and Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS).

The dozen worst Dems in Congress-- mostly Emanuel recruits

So McCarthy's plan is to recruit a bunch of social moderates-- even pro-Choice Republicans-- that will drive Limbaugh up a wall. He's already started trying to persuade John McKinney, minority leader of the state Senate, to run against Jim Himes. Although McKinney has "repeatedly refused to provide any responses to" Project Vote Smart on his political stands, his voting record shows that he is relatively pro-Choice, relatively pro-environment, and that he was rated an F by the NRA in 2008 and a D in 2006.

McCarthy has also recruited fellow Californian Assemblyman Van Tran to run in Orange County against the very popular moderate, Loretta Sanchez. Tran's voting record in the Assembly would have to be rated as extreme right wing but he's gotten better grades from pro-Choice groups than most Republicans and one year even almost sounded like a moderate when it came to civil rights for Asian-Americans and once got an acceptable rating for a gay organization. In then end, though, Tran is just another garden variety right-wing rubber stamp.

McCarthy said such openness is necessary to rebuild the party, which lost control of Congress and the White House in the past two election cycles. “We’re at 178” seats in the House out of 435, he said. “You get beyond the majority and people can worry about what they want to purify.”

That argument is rankling some Republicans, who said the party must continue to distinguish itself from the Democrats.

“Standing for something is better than standing for nothing,” said consultant Eddie Mahe. “There’s that age-old saying, ‘The reason moderates don’t accomplish much is they don’t believe in anything enough to fight for.”

While some Republican leaders-- like Eric Cantor-- says the essence of Republicanism is about greed, selfishness and supporting Big Business, others are upset when the GOP ignores the social issues. It's why Huckabee and Cantor are at war for the soul of the Republican Party. As for McCarthy, it sounds like he's gonna get waterboarded by Cheney and Limbaugh. Meanwhile McCain's 97 year old mom took a swipe at Limbaugh for him. Even the pig-man isn't going to a get into a fight with a 97-year old lifelong Republican... well he?

"I belong to the Republican Party," McCain, 97, said during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. "What he represents of the Republican Party has nothing to do with my side of it. I don't know what the man means, I don't know what he's talking about... I think [Steele] was exactly right when he defined this man as an entertainer," she said. "To my horror, the Republican Party made him back up on it."

..."I, myself, can't figure out that type of person who really more or less gets joy out of denigrating people. I'm just not that type of person, I don't have friends like that, and thank God I am not around people like him."

Rush explains his drug addiction by admitting that hillbilly heroin made him "entirely unreasonable and irrational. It is all you care about. Nothing else matters, no matter how important to you otherwise; it doesn't matter as much as the addiction. Feeding it, the fear of no being able to, is what animates your existence everyday." (And he hates bloggers too.)

Gee, I Hope John Shadegg Isn't Planning On Suing Me After He Loses His Congressional Seat In 2 Weeks!

There's a report in today's Politico about John Shadegg that has me a little worried:

Rep. John Shadegg has shelled out $19,698.03  in legal and research fees to a white-shoe Washington law firm to pursue an unspecified libel and slander case, according to a spokesperson for the seven-term conservative Republican from Phoenix.

The white shoe firm is Sidley Austin on K Street. A Shadegg spokesperson would only say "The congressman is considering taking legal action against a party. It has to do with libel and slander." Earlier this year DWT reproduced a page from John L. Jackley's book Below The Beltway. Sidley Austin was all over me, threatening to sue if I didn't take it down. Eventually and very reluctantly-- and after friends of mine at the ACLU and People For the American Way said I had to-- I did.

Page 102 of the book is about how straight arrow Christian Coalition Republican Jon Christensen of Nebraska caught Shadegg, a raging hypocrite, boinking his wife in their marital bed. Ms. Christensen had a reputation in DC for being kind of loose. Fist fights and recriminations followed, according to the book, which can still be purchased. But Sidley Austin contends that they obtained affidavits from Christensen, from Jackley and from right-wing vanity press publisher, Regnery. I laughed and asked them to get me in touch with Mrs. Christensen but they basically said that if I didn't take the post down, they would drag me into court. I never could find Mrs. Christensen, long divorced from the ex-congressman, but rumors abound that she refuses to contradict the story.

I don't know if the story is true or false, I do know that Shadegg has a powerful law firm that jumps on anyone and everyone who writes about the incident. I've gone over the affidavits and they look legitimate from a legalistic point of view. Personally, I don't believe any of them.



A thorough discussion of Shadegg's myriad ethics problems is what is called for-- something he has always been able to head off at the pass.

28 Dangerous Extremists Who Hate Americans Spotted On Capitol Hill Friday

Anyone see John Shadegg? Where's Michele Bachmann hiding?

142 Republicans joined every single Democrat on Friday to pass HR 6867, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008. Even far right lunatic fringe Republicans like Steve Pearce (R-NM), Virgil Goode (R-VA), David Dreier (D-CA), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), and Adam Putnam (R-FL) didn't have the guts to vote against this and reversed themselves on a bill that extends unemployment compensation for an increasing number of working families in dire straits. And, as this morning's NY Times points out more and more economically distressed members of the middle class are starting to understand who the enemy really is.

Here in a swing state of severe economic hurt — a leader in foreclosures where empty offices now litter strip malls — there are signs that Mr. Obama is gaining ground. In interviews and surveys, voters across Florida said the debate in Washington over how to fix the credit crisis had fueled frustration with the Bush administration and pushed them away from the Republican ticket.

The four most recent polls from late September put Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. McCain by three to eight percentage points, a sharp swing from the previous six weeks, when Mr. McCain led by as much as 10 points.

So who would oppose a bill to extend unemployment benefits? 28 far right Republican extremists, the worst of the worst-- and on a day when the newpapers announced gigantic layoffs, overwhelmingly caused by GOP trade and financial policies! Most of the 28 maniacs who voted NO are in safe districts where their constituents are as filled with hatred, fear and ignorance as they are and it is hopeeless to even try to oppose them. But not all. A few are in genuinely moderate districts and can be defeated in November, particularly:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Bill Sali (R-ID)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Shadegg's vote was particularly callous since he had just voted 90 minutes earlier for the $700,000,000,000 Wall Street bailout. His campaign contributors will be well-taken care of. Regular American families thrown out of work through no fault of their own just got the middle finger (once again) from John Shadegg. He has a great opponent this year too-- Bob Lord. If you'd like to give Bob a hand, he's on the DWT ActBlue page.

Shadegg And Bachmann Step In Boehner's Shit Sandwich

Now no one can accuse radical right extremists Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and John Shadegg (yeah, the shady two-timer from Arizona) of not being lockstep rubber stamps. They are widely considered two of the most brain-dead Bush puppets into the entire House and both eagerly voted against the bill and have been crowing about it ever since. But both have also denounced Eric Cantor's and the Republican leadership's extremely lame excuse of blaming their inability to live up to their end of the bargain on Nancy Pelosi's speech that they claim blamed the Republican philosophy of greed and selfishness, deregulation and bottom-line predatory, unfettered capitalism for the meltdown. Of course, neither is saying Pelosi was correct in her analysis-- which she was-- but... well, today Shadegg said it was "a stupid claim."

Shadegg said that he doesn't know of a single GOP vote that shifted because of the speech.

On Monday evening, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a lead opponent of the bailout, told the Crypt that the notion was "nonsense" and mocked the possibility that a Republican would be shocked or offended by the partisan nature of a Democratic speech.

Watch Barney exposing their perfidy:

The Original Maverick? Or Just More Of The Same?

Perhaps you've seen the Texas Tea Party clowns running around Capitol Hill laughing, giggling, twittering and waving toy tire pressure gauges over their heads like a bunch of pre-teen girls. They're an embarrassment to their constituents. Instead of working with Democrats and sane Republicans to come up with a responsible plan for energy independence they are acting like they're being paid by the hour by Big Oil. Of course, most of them are. Big Oil's loudest proponents in Congress have gotten gigantic bribes-- called "campaign contributions" Inside the Beltway-- from Oil interests to make sure policies are in place that have led directly to the obscene profits Big Oil and Gas have been raking in.

Earlier I posted an ad from the shady GOP front operation, Freedom's Watch, run by a bunch of far right billionaires. It's a crafty and misleading attempt to blame environmentally conscious alternative-energy supporters for high gas prices. But the stakes are high: hundreds of billions of dollars Big Oil-- and their well greased, well-paid congressional shills-- intend to keep flowing out of our pockets and into theirs. Look at who the prime movers are behind this latest shenanigan from the GOP-- and look at how much each has gotten from Big Oil:

John Shadegg (R-AZ- $119,495)
Ron Lewis (R-KY- $82,650)
Chris Shays (R-CT- $41,400)
Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO- $182,912)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN- $85,717)
Eric Cantor (R-VA- $159,250)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX- $185,663)
John Kline (R-MN- $118,705)
Mike Pence (R-IN- $150,950)
Lamar Smith (R-TX- $342,897)
John Culberson (R-TX- $301,961)
Tom Cole (R-OK- $277,050)
John Doolittle (R-CA- $127,525)
Patrick "Cheap Date" McHenry (R-NC- $26,000)
Mike McCaul (R-TX- $107,934)
Denny Rehberg (R-MT- $238,901)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ- $66,000)
Frank Wolf (R-VA- $77,682)
Adam Putnam (R-FL- $70,300)

Today Senator Obama was in Elkhart, Indiana taking a more serious and comprehensive look at an energy policy that might help the country, not just the oil billionaires and their political lackeys. I think it's worth reading what he had to say:

...we know that this election could be the most important of our lifetime.  We know that the choices we make in November and over the next few years will shape the next decade, if not the century. And central to each of these challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil. 
 
Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most urgent threats we've ever faced – from the gas prices that are wiping out your paychecks and straining businesses, to the jobs that are disappearing from this state; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East, to the rising oceans, record drought, and spreading famine that could engulf our planet. 
 
How, exactly, did we get to this point?  Well, you won't hear me say this too often, but I couldn't agree more with the explanation that Senator McCain offered a few weeks ago.  He said, "Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been thirty years in the making, and was caused by the failure of politicians in Washington to think long-term about the future of the country."  What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them. 
 
Now, yesterday, Senator McCain started running a TV ad saying that Washington is broken. No kidding. It only took Senator McCain those 26 years in Washington to figure that out. But here's the thing, Elkhart. I'm having a little trouble squaring that statement with Senator McCain's declaration a few months ago that we've made "great progress economically" over the past eight years. Or his boast that he's voted with President Bush over 90% of the time. Or his assertion that overall, the American people are better off now than they were when George W. Bush came into office. 
 
You know from your own lives that we're not better off than we were eight years ago. Back then, you were paying about $1.50 for gas. Today, you're paying around $4 a gallon. Back then, you were paying $875 a year on electric bills. Today, you're paying more than $1,100. Back then, you were paying about $900 for heating oil to get you through the winter. This winter, you're likely to pay nearly $2,500.
 
This didn't happen by accident. It happened because for too long, we haven't had a real energy plan in this country. We've had an oil company plan. We've had a gas company plan. But we haven't had a plan that made sense for the American people.
 
So if Senator McCain wants to talk about why Washington is broken, that's a debate I'm happy to have. Because Senator McCain's energy plan reads like an early Christmas list for oil and gas lobbyists. And it's no wonder – because many of his top advisors are former oil and gas lobbyists.
 
Instead of offering a plan with significant investments in alternative energy, he's offering a gas tax gimmick that will pad oil company profits and save you – at most – a quarter and a nickel a day over the course of an entire summer. That's why Washington is broken.
 
Instead of supporting my plan to use the windfall profits of oil companies to help you pay rising costs, he's offering $4 billion more in tax breaks to oil companies like Exxon that just made the largest quarterly profit in the history of the United States of America.  That's why Washington is broken.
 
Instead of offering a comprehensive plan that will lower gas prices, the centerpiece of his entire energy plan is more drilling. It's a proposal that won't yield a drop of oil for at least seven years, but it's produced a gusher for Senator McCain. Because after he announced his drilling proposal to a room full of oil executives, the industry ponied up nearly a million dollars in contributions. That's the kind of special interest-driven politics that's stopped us from solving our energy crisis. And that's why Washington is broken.
 
So I know Senator McCain likes to call himself a maverick – and the fact is, there are times when he's shown independence from his party in the past. But the price he paid for his party's nomination was to reverse himself on position after position, and now he embraces the failed Bush policies and politics that helped break Washington in the first place – and that doesn't exactly meet my definition of a maverick.
 
By the way, while we're on the subject of Senator McCain contradicting himself, a few days ago someone asked me what they could do to help America save energy. I suggested that we could get better gas mileage in our cars and save oil in the process just by keeping our tires inflated, and experts agreed. But Senator McCain and his party mocked the idea, and they even sent out tire gauges. Well, get this – last night, after all that, Senator McCain actually said that he agreed that keeping our tires inflated was a good idea. We just agreed to a series of debates in the fall, but the most interesting one that's going on these days is the debate between John McCain and John McCain
 
But understand, this isn't just about tire gauges and it isn't just about a single TV ad – no matter how misleading it is. It's about everyone in this room. It's about your lives and your family's future. Because you know that what we've been doing for the past eight years hasn't worked – and that we can't afford another four years of the failed policies that we've had under George W. Bush.
 
And if you needed one more example of what's wrong with our energy policies or the Bush policies in general, there's a new report out saying that Iraq has hit a windfall because of high oil prices. They have a $79 billion budget surplus at a time when were spending $10 billion a month to defend and rebuild that country. Their money is not being invested in services for suffering Iraqis or reconstruction. While some of their money is sitting in American banks, American money is being spent over there. It's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for rebuilding their own country, and it's time for us to address own concerns here at home.
 
That's why earlier this week I laid out a plan to help end the age of oil in our time. Here's how we'll do it. In the short-term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas.  Right now, oil companies have access to 68 million acres where they aren't drilling. So we should start by giving them a choice: use the land you have, or give up your leases to someone who will. 
 
But the truth is, this won't seriously reduce our energy dependence in the long-term.  We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem.  Breaking our oil addiction will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy.  It will take an all-hands-on-deck effort from America – effort from our scientists and entrepreneurs; from businesses and from every American citizen. 
 
We all know that this is the great challenge of our time.  But it's also a great opportunity because if we can seize this moment, we can open the door to a new economy for the 21st century that will bring new energy, new jobs, and new hope to families in places like Elkhart.
 
That's why I voted for an energy bill in the Senate that was far from perfect, and that included tax giveaways to oil companies that I fought to eliminate, but that also represented the single largest investment in renewable energy in history. And that's why if I am President, I will put the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector behind a single, overarching goal – in ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela. To do this, we'll invest $150 billion over the next decade and leverage billions more in private capital to harness American energy and create five million new American jobs – jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced, good union jobs that lift up our families and communities.
 
There are three major steps I'll take to achieve this goal. First, we'll commit ourselves to getting one million 150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrid cars on our roads within six years. And we'll make sure that the cars of tomorrow are built not just in Japan or China, but right here in the United States of America. Second, we'll double the amount of our energy that comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term. That means investing in renewables like wind and solar power, and we'll also invest in the next generation biofuels. Third, I will call on businesses, government, and the American people to meet the goal of reducing our demand for electricity 15% by the end of the next decade.  This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to reduce our energy consumption – and it will save us $130 billion on our energy bills. 
 
In just ten years, these three steps will produce enough renewable energy to replace all the oil we import from the Middle East and Venezuela. I won't pretend these goals aren't ambitious.  They are.  I won't pretend we can achieve them without cost, or without sacrifice, or without the contribution of almost every American citizen.  We can't.
 
But I will say that these goals are possible.  And I will say that achieving them is absolutely necessary if we want to keep America safe and prosperous in the 21st century.  It's necessary if we want our families to thrive again – to have good jobs with good wages that let them get ahead again. 
 
So in this election, we face a choice.  We can keep paying more and more at the pump, and sending our hard-earned dollars to oil company executives and Middle Eastern dictators.  We can watch helplessly as the price of gas rises and falls because of some foreign crisis we have no control over, and uncover every single barrel of oil buried beneath this country only to realize that we don't have enough for a few years, let alone a century.
 
Or we can choose another future. In just a few years, we can watch cars that run on plug-in batteries come off our assembly lines. We can see shuttered factories open their doors to manufacturers that sell wind turbines and solar panels that will power our homes and our businesses. We can watch as millions of new jobs with good pay and good benefits are created for American workers, and we can take pride as the technologies, and discoveries, and industries of the future flourish in the United States of America.  We can lead the world, secure our nation, and leave our children a planet that is safer and cleaner and healthier than the one we inherited.

 
And, by the way, McCain-- in the on-going debate pitting John McCain against John McCain, undercut the foolish little joke the Texas Tea Party ladies were twittering about all week. “Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,” McCain said. Well ole Newt might not agree. It might not have worked out that well for Gingrich last time but... one of the most widely loathed men to have ever sat in the Speaker's chair was back on Capitol Hill today to give a pep talk to the flagging Texas Tea Party kooks still running around waving their pitiful toy tire gauges. Newt, who has apparently forgotten what happened last time the Repuglies pulled this stunt, is threatening to shut down the government again.

Big Oil, The Price of Gas, And The Republican Party

Shadegg's pal McCain on the new Boston Tea Party-- mixing oil & water

We made such a fuss over the VECO money that Ted Stevens was laundering into the NRSC and into the campaigns of dozens of Republicans senators and Senate candidates (and a handful of corrupt House members like Scott Garrett in New Jersey). Most of them-- although not including Wyoming's crooked Republican John Barrasso, and certainly not the NRSC-- have donated the tainted bribe money to charities. Of course senators like Pat Roberts (R-KS), Susan Collins (R-ME), James Inhofe (R-OK), Norm Coleman (R-MN), John Sununu (R-NH), Miss McConnell (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), and, of course, Gordon Smith (R-OR) had already voted over and over for the agenda Stevens and his VECO paymasters had demanded. But Gordon Smith and the rest of these corrupt Republicans don't need to depend on Ted Stevens to collect their bribes from Big Oil for them. Here's what Big Oil & Gas have paid out to some of the most corrupt Republican senators:

John Cornyn (R-TX)- $1,313,825
John McCain (R-AZ)- $1,259,645
James Inhofe (R-OK)- $1,076,573, his #1 source of funds
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)- $649,011
Ted Stevens (R-AK)- $469,440
Lamar Alexander (R-TN)- $364,675
Pat Roberts (R-KS)- $324,900
Gordon Smith (R-OR)- $293,325
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)- $266,456
Norm Coleman (R-MN)- $244,900
John Sununu (R-NH)- $232,030
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)- $199,242
Susan Collins (R-ME)- $124,943
John Barrasso (R-WY)- $104,150

And they're not writing those kinds of checks out of civic duty. They are buying the votes they need to achieve exactly what they have achieved: a massive transfer of wealth from the middle and working class to the very rich-- and the politicians who enable them.

There's a new 30-second TV ad from the DSCC that I want to ask you to take a look at. The only thing that's wrong with it is that it isn't being run every day on every channel in every state-- only the names need to be changed to expose the guilty:



Apparently House Republicans think Big Oil is paying them by the hour because after Congress adjourned they staged another gimmick to try to take the onus off their party for giving Big Oil every single thing it has ever asked for-- which of course, led directly to the current price of gas. So they're on the floor with no lights, trying to provoke the Capitol police to arrest them. Big Oil stooge John Shadegg (R-AZ- $119,495) was giggling like a little girl and declared that this prank is a "new Boston Tea Party." Another Big Oil butt-boy, Mike Pence (R-IN- $150,950) swore he was "not leaving until we call this Congress back into session and vote for energy independence." Another promise he will be breaking.


HOWDY DOODY'S OPPONENT DID NOT APPROVE OF HIS STUNT TODAY

Unless Mike Pence chained himself to his desk and is panting for water in a darkened House chamber, he broke his promise-- surprise!!!!-- and left for vacation after get his 5 minutes of fame on Fox TV. Adam Putnam, one of the two dozen imbeciles who thought this clownish approach would trick voters into thinking Republicans fight for ordinary Americans instead of Big Oil and the other special interests that pay them off, also left. He might not be too happy with what he finds waiting for him back in Florida. His progressive Democratic opponent, Doug Tudor, issued this statement to supporters in Hillsborough and Polk Counties:

As they do every August, the House of Representatives adjourned today for a five-week period. This allows the members to go home to reconnect with their constituents and to campaign. The House does this every August, including each of the eight Augusts that Adam Putnam has been in office, including the six years he was in the majority.

To try to make a political point, Congressman Putnam and 24 other Republicans stayed in the Chamber after adjournment making speeches to an empty chamber. In his own words, he said "This band of brothers here is staying late to make a point to the American people: We want to work.”

Maybe I'm just too close to this campaign right now, but I take issue with this non-veteran using military terms-- Band of Brothers-- while pulling a political stunt. As I said in my previous post, the Republicans were the majority in the House for 12 years, and Congressman Putnam was in office for 6 of those years. They did not have an energy policy during that period, with the exception of ensuring billions of dollars in tax give-aways was routed to Big Oil. Big Oil returned the favor, though, having given Mr. Putnam $70,000 throughout his career.

Band of Brothers??? Hardly! Instead of that misnomer, I believe a better name is "Gallery of Rogues." 

Hurry home, Congressman!  You're in the race of your career, and you don't even realize it!

McCAIN AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS DESPERATELY TRYING TO SAVE THEMSELVES FROM WHAT LOOKS INEVITABLE

The fighters: if they can't fight Iranians or Koreans, they'll fight each other

Instead of appealing to mainstream American voters, McCain is still trying to convince the extreme right wing of the GOP that he's an acceptable replacement for their hero, George W. Bush. Yesterday he was in Ohio begging religious fanatics with bizarre views for their votes, and ignoring the independent and moderate voters who will decide the 2008 election. He's paying attention to extremists like Grover Norquist-- who referred to Senator Obama as "John Kerry with a tan," and to the snake-handlers and warmongers that make up the rest of what's left of Ronald Reagan's frayed and disintegrating GOP coalition.

“He needs to find his voice a little better in Ohio,” said Mike Gonidakis, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, one of several leaders who met with McCain for more than an hour. “He pledged to us we’d hear a lot more from him and that he’d be speaking his voice on these issues.”

The officials said they walked away impressed with McCain’s positions, and said they believed the “ship is turning” in conservative support for the Republican presidential candidate.

The group spoke about McCain’s pro-life voting record, as well as his support for state amendments banning gay marriage (though he did not support a federal one). They urged him to highlight these stances, especially in events in their swing state.

The problem for McCain, of course, is that if the ship is turning on the fringes of GOP extremism, the ship is all but sunk for the three-quarters of Americans who have had enough of the kind of divisive and hate-filled politics that excites these kooks. And if it's bad for McCain, it's even worse for the rubber stamps who have posed as members of Congress for the past few years. Karen Hanretty is the communications director for the panic-stricken NRCC and the message she communicated to Republican House incumbents isn't the message anyone was looking for: "This is a challenging environment. Any Republican running for office has to run basically on an independent platform, localize the race and not take anything for granted. There are no safe Republican seats in this election." That probably accounts for why they haven't been able to recruit any top tier candidates, not even in traditionally Republican districts. Instead they're stuck with a gaggle of clueless self-funding millionaires who can't relate to ordinary Americans.

This would also account for why Boehner and Blunt have lost control of the Republican congressional caucus. Members have been deserting them and their hated and destructive policies in greater and greater numbers. Every day more Republicans are crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats, leaving Boehner, Blunt and Doody isolated with a shrinking band of far right extremists and Bush dead-enders. Yesterday's Hill:

House Republican leaders' embarrassing failure to hold the line against a Medicare-related bill this week raised new questions about whether the rank and file will adopt an every-man-for-himself strategy as the election draws near.

The 355-59 drubbing came despite a personal plea from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to rally his caucus against Democratic attempts to shove the so-called Medicare "doc fix" down the GOP's throat.

While some argue that the bill was a special case, the vote also symbolized a potential turning point in the GOP leadership's ability to hold its troops in line, even on politically difficult votes.

It remains to be seen what it could mean for votes on children's health care legislation and other measures, with Democrats looking to pad the remainder of the House legislative calendar with issues that could reverberate at the polls.

Boehner made an aggressive push to persuade Members to oppose the doc fix bill during Tuesday morning's weekly GOP Conference meeting-- including telling one Member to vote no on the bill if he wanted a choice committee assignment. While aides said later that the comment was made in jest, not everyone in the room took it that way.

Boehner also employed the term "dead asses" in making his pitch, a phrase he used previously when imploring Members to step up their fundraising for the party.

But hours later, 129 Republicans joined with all 226 Democrats present to pass the bill, which would prevent cuts in physician fees under Medicare. Many Republicans switched their vote to yes after it became clear the bill was going to pass overwhelmingly. By that point, Republicans had given up efforts to whip the bill and accepted that they weren't able to hold their troops in line.

One Republican Congressman, Wayne Gilchrist of Maryland says the vote was just more evidence that Republican members of Congress are putting their own diminishing chances of re-election ahead of party discipline. "The ship is sinking and somebody yelled 'every man for himself,'" explained the veteran legislator.

The fear and smear tactics and the reactionary policies helped Republicans lose 3 recent special elections in deeply red districts. The internal Republican memo circulating around Washington says its going to get much, much worse. The review says the coming catastrophe for Republicans is a combination of hatred for Bush's policies, which they have all rubber stamped, and out-of-touch extremist candidates running bad campaigns. A vicious war between Tom Cole of the NRCC and Minority Leader John Boehner is exacerbating the Republicans' dismal outlook. What you hear over and over in GOP circles these days is about the "negative brand" the Republican Party has become.

And for those wondering just who the last of the Bush Cheney dead-enders are still left rubber stamping and obstructing progress in the House are... well the full vote is here but I would like to highlight some names of the worst of the worst I don't think there will be any surprises here:

Michelle Bachmann R-MN)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Charles Boustany (R-LA)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Steny Hoyer-supported Kay Granger (R-TX)
Steve King (R-IA)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)

Since, as usual, John Shadegg was at the bottom of the barrel, we called his progressive Democratic opponent, Bob Lord for a comment. He told us that this week "John Shadegg said that he thinks all Americans have health care. When 9 million children and 47 million Americans don't have health care coverage, it is hard to imagine a more careless and uninformed statement coming from a member of the House Subcommittee on Health. Unfortunately for Arizona, this is a continuing pattern for Shadegg. He voted against SCHIP 3 times and even wants to do away with Head Start and the Department of Education. He is a Washington extremist and Arizona's families deserve better."

John Shadegg's And Rick Renzi's Game Of Telephone-- The FBI Was Listening In

Arizona extremist John Shadegg has a hearing problem

The last time I posted a big story about extremist Arizona Republican kook John Shadegg I was immediately called by his attorneys threatening to sue me if I didn't take down a page from the book, Below The Beltway which accused him of bonking the then wife of then-Congressman Jon Christensen, Meredith Stewart Maxfield. The lawyers said they have sworn affidavits from the publisher, author and from poor Christenson claiming it never happened. I hope I don't hear from them again but it looks like Shadegg could be in trouble again.



He and recently indicted GOP congressman Rick Renzi have been engaging in some interesting phone connversations. And their game of telephone hasn't ended yet. I don't know what they were gabbing about but whatever it is the FBI haven't released the transcripts of the wiretaps yet.

Renzi, Shadegg's fellow Arizona Congressman, is accused of promising to support legislation authorizing a land deal that netted him more than $700,000. He was indicted in February on 35 criminal counts. He is not running for reelection and Blue America has endorsed progressive conservation activist Howard Shanker as his replacement.

Whatever Shadegg and Renzi chatted about, we know they weren't debating who would pay for a pork pizza after a hard day's "work"-- smoking cigars with the oil industry, Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists, corrupt land developers and money launderers.

We may never know now that Renzi is trying to toss 50 of the wiretapped phone conversation transcripts out of court. It's unknown who all the wiretaps covered, except that they covered Shadegg, who admitted to receiving an FBI wiretap notice as part of the Renzi investigation earlier this year.

Shadegg is the only member of Congress (so far) to admit being wiretapped by the FBI, a valiant effort to showboat innocence, but those walls of PR Jericho came tumbling down last week when The Hill reported that Renzi wants to exclude those phone calls from the trial.

What could be so important in that conversation to possibly exclude it from trial?

Perhaps Shadegg told Renzi not to worry, that he had been through similar ordeals; he was just better at masking them:

• He funneled money through his own Political Action Committee to get around campaign contribution limits and is facing a pending FEC complaint
• He funneled tens of thousands of dollars into his campaign from convicted money launderer Thomas Stewart and never gave it back
• He accepted campaign "donations" from SunCor and Steven Betts, a company and its owner, who has raised more than $100,000 for the McCain campaign in exchange for an Arizona land swap.
• He took $400,000 from the oil, gas, and energy sector in campaign "contributions" and blindly supports their corrupt agenda in Congress

Maybe Shadegg was involved in some business operations with Renzi? No idea. Maybe they were planning a fundraiser in Jack Abramoff's house? Who knows?

Oh yeah, the FBI knows and has a transcript. And Renzi is trying to exclude it from his trial. During an election year when Shadegg is facing a tough challenge from Democrat Bob Lord.

There may be even more to this tale.

On Feb. 12, 2008, Shadegg announced his retirement-- that he would not run for re-election.

On February 15th, he paid thousands of dollars to a researcher, Red Sky Group. It is common to pay researchers after receipt of the research. This was likely research on himself. He likely saw something in there that he did not want to face during re-election, which may explain the retirement just 72 hours before.

On February 20th, Shadegg was still retired, and he returned over $20,000 to some of his fat cat donors.

But then on February 22nd, he gets back into the race, after staging a dramatic charade attempting to make it appear that he was being dragged back into it by concerned citizens and colleagues.

So what did he find? Shady connections to Renzi? Something horrible connected to the money he returned quietly while he was retired? Another scandal like the one he threatened to sue me over if I mention again?

It could well be all of these, but none of it will matter. He's so out of touch with his own district and clearly not wanting to serve. Stick a fork in Shadegg. He's done. And what about McCain? He was asked to turn over documents regarding some of these shady land swaps in Arizona too. Marcy has the details at Emptywheel today.

CONGRESS TAKES A MAKE BELIEVE LOOK INTO THE BUSH REGIME'S CRONIES AT BIG OIL

Old picture/same story

I always feel envious when I read that the average price of a gallon of gas is $3.28 or something like that. (That actually is the national average today.) Here in L.A. I pay nearly $4.00 a gallon. When Bush first stole the election I used to fill up for around a $20 bills and a couple of singles. Now it's crept over $55. Only an idiot didn't see that coming when two "oil men" took over the Executive Branch. Still, I don't know what will come out of hauling a bunch of oil executives in front of a congressional committee. A fire-squad might have some effect. A congressional committee? They were probably having a rough time keeping straight faces.

Nancy Pelosi cut off Congress' balls when she took impeachment off the table. It meant, in effect, that the Regime-- and its cronies-- could get away with everything and anything-- as they have-- without having to worry much. Way to go, Nancy! The media helped Congress deceive voters back home into thinking this was a serious "grilling" and that something could come of it.

Anyway, frustrated congressmen played it like it meant something demanding the execs from the top 5 oil companies "explain the soaring fuel prices amid huge industry profits and why they weren't investing more to develop renewable energy source such as wind and solar." They said their profits ($123 billion in 2007) weren't out of line. Nor, as I suggested, would be a firing squad (after a trial).

"On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said as his committee began hearing from the oil company executives.

..."The anger level is rising significantly," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., relating what he had heard in his district during the recent two-week congressional recess.

Alluding to the fact that congressmen often don't rate very high in opinion polls, Cleaver told the executives: "Your approval rating is lower than ours and that means your down low."

"I heard what you are hearing. Americans are very worried about the rising price of energy," said John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., echoing remarks by the other four executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhillips.

...Markey challenged the executives to pledge to invest 10 percent of their profits to develop renewable energy and give up $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years so money could be funneled to support other energy and conservation.

The executives were more polite than Cheney was to Pat Leahy but the message was the same. Meanwhile GOP shills on the committee, like John Shadegg (R-AZ), defended the oil executives and their business practices. If you can't understand why an ambitious congressman-- Shadegg is hoping to replace John McCain as an Arizona senator when he dies or retires-- would so blatantly fly in the face of his constituents' best interests, just take a look at who donates to his campaigns. $447,092 is a lot of money-- and the big energy companies don't hand that out because they like playing golf with you.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR ARIZONA'S MOST EXTREMIST WINGNUT: SHADEGG GETS A WELL-LIKED PRIMARY OPPONENT

John Shadegg's political life has been a mess lately. Unable to raise money for re-election legitimately, he allegedly got involved with a money laundering scheme to funnel large sums, above the legal limits, from wealthy Republicans into his campaign coffers. First he denied it and blamed his bad press on bloggers. Eventually the evidence was so overwhelming that he decided to apologize... and blame it on a bookkeeper! When no one accepted that excuse he pouted and declared he was retiring-- which he followed a few days later with a laughably engineered and transparent scheme to get his House colleagues and far right media pundits to beg him to stay. He dramatically announced he was unretiring... and asked for campaign contributions.

He has been embarrassed by the publication of a book that talks about an extramarital affair with another congressman's wife, something he claims has been disavowed by the publisher and is untrue-- and is threatening to sue people who repeat it.

So, badly damaged by all the scandals and facing the toughest Democratic opposition of his life in the person of Bob Lord, Shadegg's childish scheme to announce and rescind his retirement in the course of a few days may have backfired, at least in one regard. Highly respected and very popular former state Representative Steve May has filed to run against Shadegg in the Republican primary. May, a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican, who fits the district far better than Shadegg-- who is, across the board, an extremist kook-- is also wealthy enough to spend a million dollars of his own money to take on Shadegg. The Tuscon Citizen speculates that May can't beat him but could damage him so severely that it could give another leg up to Bob Lord.

Interestingly, May, who is openly gay, is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, and was instrumental in helping defeat Proposition 107, the anti-gay marriage amendment on the Arizona ballot in 2006, when he served as co-chair of Arizona Together, the lead group in opposition to the ballot measure. The measure did even worse in AZ-03 than in Arizona overall. Patrick Sammon, national president of the Log Cabin Republicans, seems to be delighted to take on the viciously homophobic Shadegg and says his group will endorse May. "[W]e’re going to support him and do all we can to help him win."

May is the only Republican among the 4 who had decided to run when Shadegg briefly announced he was resigning, to stay in the race. Shadegg's media allies claim May's candidacy is a vanity campaign, "which can only serve to play the spoiler, soften Shadegg up for what looks like a potentially tough general election challenge... If May runs, it won't be to advance conservative principles."

May has an interesting lifestory. He is a former chapter president of the extremist right-wing lunatic fringe group, Club For Growth but was kicked out when they figured out he is gay. His record in the Arizona legislature was very conservative, although not bigoted. From his campaign website:

From 1999 until 2003 Steve served as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives.  He was chairman of the Ways & Means committee, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Commerce and Economic Development Committee and the Banking and Insurance Committee.  A lifelong Republican, Steve was widely acknowledged during his legislative service as an expert on budget and tax issues.

Steve also served in the US Army’s First Infantry Division as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Officer.  He is a qualified nuclear submariner (Silver Dolphins, 1990) and paratrooper (Airborne, 1992).  In 1999 Steve was involuntarily recalled into reserve service and served as the executive officer of a fuel transportation company until April 2001.

On July of 1999 the US Army began proceedings against Lieutenant May under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that forbids members from disclosing their homosexuality.  Though his sexual orientation had been public record and widely reported in the media since 1996, the Army ordered him into reserve service and immediately began discharge proceedings.  Steve fought the attempted discharge for two years until President Clinton and the Secretary of the Army unexpectedly intervened and allowed him to complete the duty to which he was called.

JOHN SHADEGG (AZ-03) PLAYING POLITICAL GAMES WITH GOP HOUSE LEADERS-- HE DEMANDS A PLACE IN THE LEADERSHIP OR HE'LL WALK AWAY FROM CONGRESS

John Shadegg's congressional district changed while he was fighting for extreme right wing ideological purity in Congress's vicious internecine partisan wars-- the ones inside the cut throat Republican caucus. While Shadegg-- a hated and mistrusted member because of his alleged seduction of a fellow right-winger's wife-- was trying to prove he was even more extremist than Blunt and Boehner, the northern suburbs of Phoenix were turning into typical moderate suburbs. AZ-03 may still lean Republican but it's residents are definitely for stem cell research, against persecuting gay people and ready to vote for better Democrats when they show up on the ballot. This is a problem for someone who's political career has been fashioned around proving that he's the biggest crackpot in town.

Some of the craziest far right bloggers are begging Shadegg to not leave Congress, tantamount to giving up his seat to moderate, well-financed and much-liked Democrat Bob Lord.

A Republican friend of mine in Phoenix, who has been right before when he warned me Shadegg would pull out of his re-election bid before anyone knew, tells me Shadegg now plans to play out the guessing game indefinitely about whether he has allowed himself to be convinced by his congressional colleagues and the nutcase extremists to stay on. I don't know that this is helping the folks in Paradise Valley with their drinking water situation-- but constituent services has never been what the Trotsky of Arizona Republicanism has ever been about. What he's about is amassing personal power and augmenting his career. He thinking that by making Republicans beg him to stay he can force them to give him what he has never been able to win straight-up-- a position in the GOP leadership.

Shadegg says he's pondering. He better ponder fast; his constituents are getting tired of his lack of service and his prima dona games... and Democrats all over Arizona are on the move. In 2006, not only did Janet Napolitano roll over her GOP opponent with a 28% margin of victory, 2 red congressional seats flipped. Two more could go blue this year-- the first, where Rick Renzi's corruption scandal forced him to retire and the third, where Shadegg is playing games, while mired in his own money-laundering charges, and facing the strongest political opposition of his career.


UPDATE: STOP THE WORLD-- SHADEGG ISN'T DONE BLACKMAILING BOEHNER YET

Although Shadegg had promised to make his intentions clear today-- their are half a dozen Republicans in AZ-03 champing at the bit, and chomping their fingers off, to jump into the race if he's really out-- he's "still pondering." He's trying to blackmail Boehner and Blunt into giving him a leadership role-- a leadership role he failed, and failed miserably, to get democratically. The reason he has to depend on this tactics is because another conservative congressman, Jon Christensen, caught Shadegg in bed with his wife and they had two fistfights over it-- one in the House cloak room. Shadegg's Republican colleagues like his extreme right positions but they loathe his personal ethics and have been reluctant-- actually unwilling-- to vote him a position of trust. I mean, they picked Boehner and Blunt over him; think about that for a moment. So what are the supposed to do now? Throw Howdy Doody under the bus?


UPDATE: LOOKS LIKE SHADEGG GETS HIS WAY

When Shadegg first ran for Congress he signed a contract with America promising to leave office after 3 terms. Of course that was a boldfaced lie and he's turned into a career politician. Last week he said he was leaving office "to spend more time with his family." His Inside the Beltway family seems to have more pull on him this week than his actual family. Now he says he's staying in Washington. Bob Lord is going to decimate this clown in November.