TMC Blog

One of the very few limitations of an independent expenditure made by a Super PAC under the new rules for campaign finance after the Citizens United is that the Super PACs cannot coordinate their spending with political candidates’ campaigns. This legal barrier has been stretched paper thin by many campaigns, with campaign managers supposedly resigning, only…

The Constitution Caucus of the House of Representatives proclaims itself dedicated to keeping congressional action within the bounds of the United States Constitution: “The Constitution is the guide I will never abandon.” — George Washington Recognizing that the Constitution can only be preserved if it lives in the hearts and minds of the American people, the Constitution…

Republican Representative Spencer Bachus, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come out in strong opposition to the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, giving the new law a grade of F in July of 2011. Why? What’s objectionable about a law that creates an independent consumer protection watchdog agency with the job of making sure Americans receive…

Yesterday, as the American public was distracted by the drama over whether the debt ceiling will be raised, the House Judiciary Committee met to consider H.R. 1981 – a bill that would force private internet service providers to help the government conduct surveillance on the personal Internet activities of the American people. H.R. 1981 would require internet…

A bipartisan group of ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives have jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court today to stop the U.S. involvement in the war in Libya. The group, consisting of 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats, point out that it is clearly illegal for the President to take the United States…

Although Representative Justin Amash was endorsed in 2010 by both Tea Party Express and the self-proclaimed “Tea Party HQ” FreedomWorks, he has not joined the Tea Party Caucus headed by Rep. Michele Bachmann. Instead (to no notice beyond the official registry of the Committee on House Administration), Rep. Amash has formed his own House Liberty Caucus. This is no mere duplication of effort;…

In this week’s brief and superficial hearing in the House of Representatives concerning the renewal of the most abusive surveillance powers of the Patriot Act, there was an elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is required…

Senator Jim Inhofe once infamously declared that global warming is the ” greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. This week, however, Inhofe has signed his name as a cosponsor to S. 228, a Senate bill that acknowledges the reality of climate change, of which global warming is a part. Very quietly, Inhofe has finally admitted that…

Susan Collins isn’t up for re-election again for another four years, but she’s already swimming deep in lobbyist money. While most Americans will have to make do attending holiday parties with a few home-made cookies, Senator Collins is getting ready to party with some of Washington D.C.’s top lobbyists, who are providing her with big wads…

This morning, the website Blue Collar Republican has planted the Soviet symbol of the hammer and the sickle next to a claim that Rep. Steve Cohen is one of the “Congressmen who are members of the American Socialist Party”. The cited source for this claim is Gateway Pundit at the fundamentalist Christian website First Things, who declares: The Socialist Party…

Michigan’s Mike Rogers doesn’t live like you and I do. While we get up and pour ourselves a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, Congressman Rogers goes out to eat his breakfast. Rogers doesn’t go to just any old place for his bacon and eggs either. This morning at 8:15, Representative Rogers is going to a…

This week, Representative Alan Grayson led a bipartisan group within the U.S. House to introduce, H.R. 5353, the War Is Making You Poor Act. The legislation carries one of the more evocative titles seen in the current session of Congress, a title that describes the bill’s premise, though not what the proposed law would actually do.…

As part of a “Down With The Traitors Campaign 2010″ organized by Lyndon LaRouche, candidate Kesha Rogers has gained the Democratic Party nomination for the House of Representatives in the 22nd congressional district in Texas. Rogers won over two other Democratic candidates, gaining 53 percent of the vote. Rogers won the Democratic nomination with the help…

Yesterday, the House of Representatives sneaked through a legislative amendment on a non-related bill to extend the Patriot Act without reforming it at all. In past years, progressive activists might have believed that such votes could never take place in a majority-Democrat Congress. They worked hard to get Democrats elected in the hope that those…

Yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend the Patriot Act, a law that violates the Fourth Amendment right of all people within the USA to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. The Patriot Act grants extraordinary government powers to spy on Americans’ private lives, grabbing records of their communications, commercial activities,…