Posted by Congress Watcher on June 2, 2008 at 7:01 am · Filed under House campaigns, Senate campaigns
Most people know that tomorrow, the last two Democratic presidential primaries are taking place, in Montana and South Dakota. What many people are unaware of is that there are congressional primaries tomorrow too, in the following states:
Alabama
California
Iowa
Montana
New Jersey
New Mexico
South Dakota
Next week, the following states will have their congressional primaries
Maine
North Dakota
Virginia
South Carolina
There are 13 more states to go after that.
Congress is coequal with the Presidency. No single congressional leader has the kind of power the President wields, but collectively, members of Congress have just as much heft - if they choose to use it, rather than engaging in the spineless acquiescence of the years under George W. Bush.
The bottom line is that these congressional primaries are every bit as important as the presidential primaries. Pay attention to them.
Posted by Congress Watcher on May 21, 2008 at 6:16 pm · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns
Earlier today, I wrote about the passage of H.R. 1464, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2008. The legislation provides for the financial support of conservation programs around the world that protect endangered wild cats and dogs. In the case of wildcats, every species on Earth is endangered. Half of wild dog species, ranging from the red wolf to the arctic fox, are in danger of going extinct.
The bill was passed in the House of Representatives late yesterday afternoon, but only barely. With just a few more votes against it, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act would have been killed, and programs to conserve these magnificent animals would have been cut off from support.
119 members of Congress voted against this law. Why? Why would anyone vote to deprive conservation programs for endangered species of support?
Could it be money? Could it be that 119 members of Congress decided that, as much as they like the idea of protecting wild cats and canids from extinction, it would be fiscally irresponsible to spend the money?
That explanation doesn’t hold up, if you do the math. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total expense for the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2008 in 2009 would be only 7 million dollars. Compare that to the supplementary war spending Congress is set to approve: 168.9 billion dollars. Remember that, as supplementarywar spending, that 168.9 billion dollars is in addition to the hundreds of billions already in the federal budget to pay for war war.
7 million dollars next to 168.9 billion dollars is like a grain of sand next to an ostrich egg.
It makes no sense for anyone in Congress to deny the seven million dollars in funding for felid and canid conservation, and then to vote in favor of throwing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars away on war.
This was a bipartisan conservation bill, with some Republicans among the co-sponsors, and even more Republicans voting in favor. However, opposition to the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act was not at all bipartisan. Of the 119 members of the House voting against the bill, only one was a Democrat: Bart Gordon of Tennessee.
The following are the members of this out-of-control group of politicians, who might as well be called the Congressional Coalition Against Cats:
Do these politicians expect us to believe their excuses, that their failure to protect endangered great cats and canids is due to conservative principles? That explanation is absurd on the face of it. True conservatives support conservation.
Posted by Congress Watcher on May 15, 2008 at 2:21 pm · Filed under Personalities, Senate campaigns
This morning I found a strong sign that, at long last, the Democratic presidential primary is over. In a few days we’ll have the Oregon and Kentucky primary elections, to be sure, but in effect the Democratic presidential nominee is already chosen.
Here’s my sign: A campaign button promoting presidential candidate Barack Obama and U.S. Senate candidate Tom Allen - together.
Tom Allen, who currently serves as one of the two members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine, appears to already benefit from the substantial coattails of the Obama presidential campaign. If I were a bookie, I’d look at increasing the odds of his victory in November.
Nationally, the news is that Barack Obama has been recognized as the Democratic presidential candidate, and the frontrunner in the general election. Watch for as the links between Barack Obama and other Democratic members of Congress are now made.
With an advantage as strong as the one Obama has, it will be as much his job to come to congressional districts where a Democratic candidate needs as a boost as it will be for him to campaign merely for himself. With Obama far in the lead, 2008 becomes an election that’s congressional in focus.
Get Chris Chocola Out of Congress Button
Posted by Congress Watcher on April 3, 2008 at 5:39 am · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns
Republican Senator Susan Collins likes people to believe that she is somehow a moderate, a centrist, a reasonable sort of Republican. The truth is that Susan Collins is anything but moderate. Senator Collins has supported many of the worst, most extreme policies of George W. Bush - the rushed invasion of Iraq prime among them.
One sad standard in particular exposes the out-of-balance priorities of Senator Collins: For her re-election campaign in 2008, Susan Collins has taken more blood money than any other member of the United States Senate.
 When I say “blood money”, what do I mean? I mean money that comes from war profiteers, the big defense contractors that make money from building and maintaining the weapons of war.
Susan Collins gets more of this money from war profiteers than anybody else running for election to the Senate in 2008. Senator Collins doesn’t just have blood on her hands. She has blood in her bank account too.
Susan Collins is wrong for the Senate. Susan Collins is wrong for Maine.
Posted by Congress Watcher on April 1, 2008 at 7:54 pm · Filed under All Articles, Personalities, Senate campaigns
You may have heard that today was Fossil Fools Day, a day of protest and civil disobedience against the dirty influence of the crude oil economy, with demonstrations held all around the world. As the organizers of the international event described it, the idea was to have people “Pull a prank that packs a punch”, wherever they may be.
Was it ever successful! Hundreds of events in places big and small around the world took place, and the entire system that keeps crude oil flowing and burning felt the effects.
I wanted, in recognition of this tremendous activist occasion, to give a special award to a special fossil fool. I hereby grant Republican Senator John Cornyn the title of The Grand High Fossil Fool Of The United State Senate
Why does John Cornyn get this distinction? It all comes down to dirty money - soaked in crude oil.
In the 2008 election cycle so far, the campaign to re-elect John Cornyn has received more money from polluting big oil and gas corporations than any other Senate campaign. Senator Cornyn has received $349,780 so far, and there’s a lot of time for even more big checks from the grubby hands of oil company executives.
It’s a distinction that John Cornyn ought to be ashamed of. Yet, Cornyn shows no sense of shame at all. That’s all the more reason for voters to reject the Cornyn Fossil Fool agenda.
Posted by Congress Watcher on March 16, 2008 at 8:40 am · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns
Arkansas lawyer Rebekah Kennedy is challenging Democratic Senator Mark Pryor in the 2008 general election, but she isn’t a Republican. Rather, Kennedy is confronting Senator Pryor from a progressive candidate, exposing Pryor’s work to help the agenda of the Republican Party. Kennedy is running as the Green Party candidate for United States Senate.
Recently, Irregular Times spoke to Rebekah Kennedy about her campaign for the Senate, and asked her where Mark Pryor fits in the system of Arkansas politics as she sees it. The following is a portion of that interview:
Rebekah Kennedy: We have a large category of Rockefeller Republicans in Arkansas, which is a term that may sound odd to people in some places, but they’re sort of liberal in the sense of being forward looking and in favor of education and science. In some cases that kind of Republican has been the only alternative to the back-slapping, good old boy Democratic politics.
Irregular Times: Where in particular does Mark Pryor stand in that system, as you see it?
Rebekah Kennedy:Mark Pryor is the worst of both worlds - the Democratic and Republican Party in Arkansas. On the one hand, he’s part of a status quo, good old boy, our favors and their favors system. At the same time, he is much less pragmatic and moderate than most of those Democratic politicians, and much more right wing.
He is a politician who, although he occasionally gives lip service to issues like education. He’s primarily a conservative politician who most people recognize as having a Republican agenda. He has strongly supported Bush legislation that even some Republicans didn’t support, including particular issues in relation to the Patriot Act, and including the Military Commissions Act.
In fact, that brings me to the second half of your first question, which is why I got involved in this race. We’re looking at a situation where the people of Arkansas are facing the possibility of having no choice on the ballot whatsoever, having a U.S. Senator walk into the U.S. Senate unopposed, and not because he’s a great senator who inspires and leads and has done a good job in his first term. Rather, we’re talking about a senator who voted to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and allowed the President to arbitrarily imprison people for life without trial.
We’re talking about a senator who rarely puts forward any idea for legislation of any ideological stripe of any kind, someone who’s a voter in the Senate, but not a leader in the Senate. The only thing he has led on has been compromising the Democratic strategic position with things like the Gang of Eight, or other different gangs of different numbers, when the Republicans threatened to destroy the filibuster back when they didn’t need it. He became the broker for the compromise on that and allowing the conservative nominees to get through the nominating process even though they don’t have the votes. He was on the Democratic Party committee that was supposed to support the election of Democratic Senators, and yet he supported Joe Lieberman over the Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont. So, his only leadership role in the Senate has been to lead those who want to compromise the narrow position of power the Democrats have in favor of getting Republican agendas through the Senate.
Rectangular Iowa Democrat Sticker
Posted by Congress Watcher on February 17, 2008 at 7:34 am · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns, Senate legislation
Will 2008 be the year that Senator Jay Rockefeller loses power? If some Democrats back in West Virginia have anything to say about it, yes.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Democratic voters who have a say in the matter. Big corporations are trying to help Senator Rockefeller spend his way to re-election. Money flows to Jay Rockefeller from corporate executives who love the way that Rockefeller does special favors for them.
Oh, and what nasty favors those are. One of them is the FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush White House to spy against you, without any search warrant or oversight, through electronic communication networks like the Internet, cell phones, and telephone landlines. What a lot of people don’t realize, is that the FISA Amendments Act also gives the power to physically search your home or office without a warrant.
What’s important to the big corporations, however, is that the FISA Amendments Act gives legal immunity for any corporation that helped the Bush White House spy against American citizens, even though it was illegal. Any self-respecting Democrat would never vote for such a thing.
Jay Rockefeller, however, doesn’t seem to have much need for self-respect. He’ll take the money instead. After receiving huge amounts of money from executives in telecommunications corporations, Jay Rockefeller announced that he would support the FISA Amendments Act.
That was a betrayal of Rockefeller’s oath of office. It was also a betrayal against the Democratic voters of West Virginia. It wasn’t the first time.
Jay Rockefeller has a long history of betraying Democratic voters.
Think back to 2002, with Rockefeller’s vote in favor of starting the Iraq War. Or consider the Patriot Act, which Jay Rockefeller voted for without even reading. Then there’s the Military Commissions Act, which revoked the power of habeas corpus, and legalized torture.
Over and over again, when time came for Democrats in Congress to show some backbone and stand up for the Constitution’s guarantees of freedom, Senator Jay Rockefeller left his backbone at home.
The Democratic congressional primary for West Virginia is on May 13. If you’re a West Virginia Democrat, show up, and vote for anybody but Jay Rockefeller.
Posted by Congress Watcher on February 13, 2008 at 12:24 am · Filed under All Articles, Personalities, Senate campaigns, Senate legislation
Montana’s U.S. Senator Max Baucus may have thought that he was going to be able to cruise to re-election this year, but his once smooth sailing has started to encounter some very choppy waters.
With a Progressive Patriots legislative rating of only 27, it’s no wonder the Senator Baucus re-election campaign has begun to show a distinct limp. You can only knock around Montana Democrats for so long before they’ll take things into their own hands.
It seems that some progressives have begun a lens on Squidoo focused on the problems that Max Baucus is having convincing Montana Democrats to support his re-election bid in spite of the fact that he votes more like a Bush Republican than like a genuine Democrat.
Today’s vote by Max Baucus to support the new spy powers for George W. Bush was the tipping point for many. It seems that progressives are in no mood these days to give Democrats a blank check.
It’s understandable, given all the promises of 2006, that many progressives feel let down, or even lied to. If the Democratic majority in the Senate can’t block unchecked electronic espionage powers for the President, the feeling seems to be that the right wing Democrats in Congress are as much to blame as the Republicans.
Max Baucus, that means you. Watch out. Your name has been named.
Posted by Congress Watcher on February 8, 2008 at 5:20 pm · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns, Senate legislation
Yesterday, I got a pathetic, pleading email from Barbara Boxer about the need to get a 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate in 2008, so that finally, the Democrats in the Senate will be able to get a backbone and stand up to the Republicans… eight years too late.
Senator Boxer gives the tired old argument that the reason Democrats in Congress have been acting like Republicans is that they don’t have a filibuster-proof majority. The suggestion is that, if only the Democrats could get more than 60 Senate seats, then the Democratic Senators would actually start representing the progressive values of the Democratic rank and file.
A vote that took place yesterday in the Senate shows how tragically bogus Boxer’s argument really is. The vote was on an attempt by Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to amend the FISA Amendments Act to prohibit electronic surveillance against American citizens through an underhanded technique called reverse targeting.
Here’s how reverse targeting works: American government spies want to start spying on an American citizen wiretapping their phones, reading their mail, etc., without even asking for a search warrant to do it. That’s blatantly against the Constitution, but never mind that. The Bush White House claims the right to spy on any foreigner, and on anybody who has ever spoken to a foreign suspect, and on anybody who has every spoken to anybody who has ever spoken to a foreign suspect, and on and on… and so, functionally, the Bush White House claims the right to spy against any American citizen.
So, with reverse targeting, the American government intends from the start to use the massive electronic spying powers it’s gotten through the Protect America Act, to be made permanent through the innocuous-sounding FISA Amendments Act, against an American citizen. But, in order to justify that blatantly unconstitutional spying, it puts on the facade of saying that it’s just spying against some foreigner who knows some American, who knows another American, who knows the person that the government has been intending to spy against from the start. Reverse targeting is the act of intentionally following the social network of an American target of spying backwards to some foreigner it claims the right to spy against.
Reverse targeting makes every American a potential target of electronic surveillance by the government - done without any search warrant to prove probable cause to suspect the American of connection to any crime. That’s the kind of government abuse that the Democratic Party is supposed to stand against.
The good news is that Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold and several other good Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders did stand against reverse targeting - through the Feingold amendment, which would have made reverse targeting clearly illegal. Every Republican who was present in the Senate voted against the Feingold amendment, and so it was defeated.
However, the Feingold amendment was not defeated because of those Republicans. It was defeated because seven Democratic senators voted to kill it. Those Democratic senators actually voted in favor of reverse targeting of Americans by US government spies! These Democratic traitors were
Dianne Feinstein of California
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Tim Johnson of South Dakota
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia
Ken Salazar of Colorado
These Democrats’ betrayal of their constituents’ constitutional rights was made even worse by Democratic senators who were pathetically absent. The following Democratic senators didn’t even bother to show up for the vote:
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Barack Obama of Illinois
Hillary Clinton of New York
Yes, that’s Obama and Clinton, falling down on the job. I’m a progressive, and I hate to put down the Democratic candidates for President, but do you know what I hate even more than that? I hate it when Democratic leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fail to stand up to the Republicans and defend our American freedoms.
That’s a total of eleven Democrats who voted against the simple progressive idea that the Bill of Rights means something, and the government shouldn’t have the ability to conduct searches and seizures against us without a search warrant. So, let’s do the math. In order to overcome the damage done by these Republican-leaning or Republican-enabling Democratic senators, we’d need to have yet another eleven genuine progressive Democratic senators.
So, at a minimum, in order to have a Democratic majority in the Senate that actually did the work that Democratic voters want it to do, we would need to have 71 Democrats in the Senate.
That’s pathetic. Senator Boxer, I respect the work that you do in the Senate, but please don’t ask me to give money to the Democratic cause in the Senate when the Democratic majority in the Senate is so thoroughly infiltrated by Democratic politicians who are either too apathetic to show up to vote or little more than Republicans in donkey’s clothing.
Proud Ohio Democrat Sticker (Bumper)
Posted by Congress Watcher on January 29, 2008 at 11:32 am · Filed under All Articles, Senate campaigns, Senate legislation
Yesterday in the Senate, four Democrats voted to help Senate Republicans push through a law that would make permanent changes to allow the government to conduct massive electronic dragnet espionage operations against the American people - involving American citizens even when they aren’t suspected of any crime.
The law, called the FISA Amendments Act, would thwart privacy agreements between businesses and their customers, forcing corporations to help government agents spy against law-abiding American citizens.
The law also allows electronic spying to take place against American citizens without any reason given, without judicial review, and without real congressional oversight. No one outside of two people appointed by the President of the United States would have the ability to stop the spying, or even to know what the spying really is. The President would have the power to read your emails, listen to your telephone calls, and watch everything that you do on the Internet - and nobody could stand in his way.
That’s the sort of absolute government power that belonged in the Soviet Union. It does not belong in the United States of America - the Constitution forbids it. Yet, President Bush doesn’t seem to care about that.
Neither do four Democrats seem to care about the Constitution, or the privacy of American citizens from government spies. The following four Democratic senators joined George W. Bush and the Senate Republicans to support the push for uncontrollable electronic spying against you by the government:
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
These four Democrats deserve to be turned out of office in shame by activists of their own party. They all have a disgraceful history of voting for right wing Republican interests, and against Democratic values over and over again.
It just so happens that Mark Pryor has a progressive rival, not within the Green Party, but from the Green Party: Rebekah Kennedy. It’s time to send a message to the Arkansas Democratic Party that they cannot continue sending Republicans in donkey’s clothing to Washington D.C. Rebekah Kennedy deserves the support, not just of Arkansas Greens, but of rank-and-file Arkansas Democrats as well.
Mary Landrieu is also up for re-election, but there’s no progressive rival standing against her yet. If no one stands against Landrieu for the 2008 Senate election, then the best option for Louisiana Democrats of good conscience is to show up on Election Day this November, but refuse to cast a vote in the Senate election for either Landrieu or her Republican challenger, John Kennedy. Both are unfit for office.
Next entries »
| | | 
