Not Leaving It Alone

Chris Dodd and some colleagues have announced a bill to repeal retroactive immunity from the FISA law:

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that they will introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.

“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles,” said Dodd. “We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen’s privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand.”

Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, “Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration’s decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans’ access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws.”

Let's make it clear up front: This isn't going to pass. Even if you could get 60 votes for it, which you can't, you have an occupant in the White House who voted for immunity, opening the possibility of a veto if it miraculously got through the Congress.

What this does signify is that some members of Congress will not be content to let the past remain in the past, especially if a great wrong was committed. Maybe they get 30 votes for immunity this year. Maybe 35 next year. And so on. But they keep offering it up, because they don't see the justice in allowing companies immunity for perpetrating a great error by aiding and abetting the government in illegal activities that violated the constitution. So they'll continue to push this at the legislative level. Meanwhile, at the judicial level, EFF and other groups continue to sue the government for real civil penalties to this lawbreaking.

It seems to me that, to succeed in politics, you have to be relentless. Introducing bills like this year after year is one example.

Big Bipartisan On Campus

A couple years ago at what was then Yearly Kos, I was quoted in the Washington Post saying that Joe Lieberman was more harmful to progressive policies than, say, Ben Nelson, because Nelson didn't undermine Democrats in the media or borrow Republican talking points.

Let me say that I was wrong, and that Nelson is trying his best to become the new Village darling with a package of cuts to the recovery bill that would negate all of the positive benefits it could possibly offer.

Total Reductions: $80 billion

Eliminations:

Head Start, Education for the Disadvantaged, School improvement, Child Nutrition, Firefighters, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Prisons, COPS Hiring, Violence Against Women, NASA, NSF, Western Area Power Administration, CDC, Food Stamps

*****************************

Reductions:

Public Transit $3.4 billion, School Construction $60 billion

*****************************

Increases:

Defense operations and procurement, STAG Grants, Brownfields, Additional transportation funding

The Axis of Centrism, in addition to all that, wants to cut aid to the states.

By Thursday evening, aides said the group had drafted a list of nearly $90 billion in cuts, including $40 billion in aid for states, more than $14 billion for various education programs, $4.1 billion to make federal buildings energy efficient and $1.5 billion for broadband Internet service in rural areas. But they remained short of a deal.

I'm sorry, but anyone who proposes cutting funding to state and local governments at this point is a complete moron. The fastest stimulus is government purchasing. The jobs most in need of saving are at the state level. With slashed aid to states, millions of teachers, firefighters, and cops will be out of work. And cutting food stamps is just as dumb, considering that poor people are most likely to spend just on their own basic necessities, increasing demand. The money they don't have to spend on food will go elsewhere in the economy.

Good to see as well that funding for the military, which we spend more on that every other country on Earth combined, is getting increases in the plan. That seems fair and balanced.

Harry Reid is trying to hold the line on this nonsense, but I'm sure Nelson and his axis will go lovingly into the arms of their media cohorts and decry all the "wasteful spending" on poor people that just has to go. Sen. Jeff Merkley, who can't get on the teevee because of all that patchouli oil and tie-dye, makes the obvious point: there's nothing wasteful about creating a job. That would be a unique perspective!

One project they're attacking hit close to home. They're calling funding to restore forest health and prevent wildfires in National Forests wasteful. Coming from Southern Oregon, I can tell you firsthand they are dead wrong.

I grew up in Southern Oregon. My father was a sawmill worker and a logger and his job put food on the table. Right now Douglas County, where I was born, has an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent. That's the highest it's been in decades and well above the current national average. Douglas County is home to many of Oregon's timber workers and they need the stability of a good paying job. The money that would be allocated to counties like Douglas to restore forest health and prevent forest fires would put these folks back to work.

Let me explain. Due to federal mismanagement, there are millions of acres of choked and overgrown second-growth forests. These forests are a complete menace. They are diseased and are very little use for strong ecosystems. Moreover, they are a huge fire hazard. Thinning these neglected forests is essential for restoring forest health and generating thousands of rural jobs.

Let me emphasize this: this provision will create thousands of rural jobs. This is a win-win for our rural economies and our ecosystems.

Preventing wildfires is something that desperately needs to be done in any economic condition and now has the added benefit of providing jobs in areas that need them most. How Republicans can call job creation for hardworking millworkers like my dad "wasteful spending" is a mystery to me.

If Nelson and his centrists are choking on the price tag of the bill, they can get rid of the tax cuts they all inserted that will do nothing for anyone.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), one of the four Republicans considered genuinely open to cooperation with Democrats on a workable economic recovery bill, just released a statement saying she was approached by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to come up with a list of trims from the $275 billion-plus tax section of the stimulus.

Pruning the tax section of the stimulus is an idea that could hold promise for liberals, many of whom are concerned about the hits that education and transit would take in the centrist senators' package of cuts. The portion Snowe is looking at contains plenty of cuts, for both businesses and individuals -- some of them added in the hopes of winning GOP support -- but also a number of tax credits that could take money out of government coffers in the short term while increasing economic growth in the long term.

If it suits you to make a bunch of phone calls, if there's anything to go to the mats over, it's this: defeating the Nelson-Collins amendment and preserving at least the good parts of the bill. Not to mention making David Broder cry. At least the bulk of the Republicans are honest neo-Hooverists; I respect them more. Ben Nelson and his "very serious" friends deserve to go down.

...by the way, Krugman is absolutely right about this:

Which raises the obvious question: shouldn’t Obama have made a much bigger plan, say $1.3 trillion, his opening gambit? If he had, he could have conceded to the centrists by cutting it to $1.2 trillion, and still have had a plan with a good chance of really controlling this slump. Instead he made preemptive concessions, only to find the centrists demanding another pound of flesh as proof of their centrist power.

Obama negotiated with himself, and this is the result. We can only speculate on what might have been if he didn't pre-compromise the bill.

...Ben Nelson, by the way: for state aid before he was against it.

A Bill Is Not A Handshake

Jeff Merkley visited Daily Kos and explained why he voted to allow Obama to have the 2nd half of the TARP money.

From the moment we were notified of the pending vote, I worked night and day to convince the Obama team to dedicate a large chunk of the funds directly to working families for mortgage relief. Millions of working families have already lost their homes and millions more are behind on their payments. It is time that Congress and the President immerse themselves in assisting these families.

Direct mortgage relief does three things. First, it restores the financial foundation for a family by replacing a scam mortgage with a fixed-interest 30-year loan at a fair rate. Second, if a family is on solid ground and can keep their home, it strengthens the neighborhood; empty foreclosed homes have a terrible effect on communities. Third, when a family is in a better position to make payments, or a loan is paid off, it strengthens the financial institution or pension fund that owns that loan [...]

The Obama team heard us. Mostly. You saw an evolution from the FDIC $25 billion plan to the possibility of doing $40-50 billion to the final commitment in writing to a minimum of $50 billion and up to $100 billion.

In addition, the Obama team committed to support bankruptcy reform, which is extremely important. Currently a judge can adjust the mortgage features for second homes (and yachts and planes and commercial investments) for the rich, but are barred from adjusting the mortgage interest rates or terms for mortgage loans held by working families. That’s outrageously unfair.

Here is Obama’s commitment:

"The Obama Administration will commit substantial resources of $50-$100 billion to a sweeping effort to address the foreclosure crisis. We will implement smart, aggressive policies to reduce the number of preventable foreclosures by helping to reduce mortgage payments for economically stressed but responsible homeowners, while also reforming our bankruptcy laws and strengthening existing housing initiatives like Hope for Homeowners."

That's all great. As I said initially, TARP as stimulus, saving people from foreclosure and removing $250,000 per home from hitting the greater economy, makes a lot of sense. But we shouldn't make policy on the honor system. We could have gotten it in writing. Congress could have fulfilled their obligation as holders of the purse strings to put restrictions on the funds. They shouldn't take anybody's word for it. It's a really bad precedent.

I just received confirmation from a congressional aide that Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd will not introduce legislation in the Senate to mirror House Finance Chair Barney Frank's bill, HR 384, to provide increased conditions, transparency and oversight on the second $350 billion of the Wall Street bailout money (otherwise known as TARP).

All that was necessary to secure a seamless transition from the Bush bailout to the Obama bailout were two letters sent from Larry Summers to members of Congress. This is the same Larry Summers who, just last week, drafted a massive business tax cut for the stimulus package, which even moderate Democratic Senators found abhorrent. That tax cut was removed from the stimulus because, unlike anything that happens with TARP, one chamber of Congress can shoot it down with a simple majority vote. By comparison, for TARP to be stopped, a two-thirds majority was required from both branches of Congress.

Dodd's willingness to just trust the administration is, as Elena Schor noted earlier in the week, similar to the trust many Senate Democrats placed in the Bush administration when granting them authority to use military force in Iraq. Keep in mind that Dodd was one of the Democratic Senators who gave that authority to the Bush administration. While it can be safely said that there are good reasons to trust the Obama administration more than the Bush administration, HOPE and trust were abandoned as systems of government a long time ago.

I really would have liked to see a bill, not a handshake. That said, I'm happy that Merkley decided to engage instead of hide. His TV ads during the campaign railed against the bailout, and then he voted to release the money, and instead of ignoring the disconnect he explained it. That's more than we get from most lawmakers. It's not sufficient, but it's something.

David Sirota has more.

A Few Good Allies

We know that 13 Senators voted to strip Joe Lieberman's committee chair yesterday. Published reports before and after the vote listed Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders as opposed. Now we can add Jeff Merkley:

U.S. Senator-elect Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) spoke up in a Senate Democratic caucus meeting on Tuesday regarding whether U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after he supported former presidential candidate John McCain in the November election [...]

“Jeff Merkley did speak at the meeting, and he expressed how profoundly disappointed he was with Lieberman’s actions,” Edwards said, adding that Merkley said he had been a big supporter of the Connecticut Senator when he was a vice presidential candidate in 2000, and that thousands of Oregon Democratic volunteers worked tirelessly on his behalf. “He also believes that the chairmanship is not an entitlement, it’s a privilege.”

And Barbara Boxer:

The resolution that passed today did not reflect Senator Boxer's belief that Senator Lieberman should remain in the Democratic caucus but not retain his full Committee Chairmanship- she voted accordingly.

Good votes by both of them. In a Senate where one member holds a tremendous amount of influence, it's going to be important in the future to cultivate these relationships.

...also important to note that President-elect Obama clearly wanted Lieberman to remain in the caucus and by proxy in the committee chair, so these two were willing to buck the leader of their party on this vote. That kind of independence is frankly needed from the legislative branch.

OR-Sen: Jeff Merkley Shares Our Values

Just finished up a blogger conference call with Jeff Merkley, Oregon's next US Senator. I met Merkley during the campaign and found him to be a solid progressive advocate with a background in international relations and diplomacy, so I think he'll be a good voice for our views in the Senate. Matt Stoller has a write-up, but I should mention that the very first thing Merkley said was that he wanted to do something about renewing our moral standing in the world, by dealing with illegal wiretapping, Guantanamo, torture and secret prisons. You just don't see many politicians willing to foreground that in such a way, and it impressed me.

Specifically, I asked Merkley about what he'd want to see in a second stimulus package if it's not finished during a lame-duck session, and he immediately said "I don't want to mail people $300 checks." He discussed the need for infrastructure and green energy projects immediately, which would create millions of jobs and stimulate the manufacturing side of the economy. He also would like to fold President-Elect Obama's proposals for middle class tax relief and eliminating tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas into whatever immediate stimulus emerges. And he said, "ending the war in Iraq will enable us to free up some money for these programs at home." That was very solid as well. In addition, when I saw him in LA during the campaign, he remarked that he would lose his health insurance provided by the state of Oregon (he was House speaker) if he lost the election - so I congratulated him on staying out of the ranks of the uninsured. Chris Rock said that it's good to elect leaders who can "see broke... they don't have to be broke, but they should be able to see broke." Merkley hasn't lost touch with where he's come from. And health care reform is definitely on his agenda.

I don't think we'll have much trouble holding Merkley to these promises. He wants to remain engaged with the netroots, and I think he'll be very approachable in the future.

Senator Jeff Merkley

This is fabulous news. The Oregonian is calling the Senate race for Jeff Merkley. Most of the outstanding ballots are in heavily Democratic areas, and Merkley had just taken the lead over Gordon Smith. Smith ran a dishonest and at times vicious campaign and I'm happy to see that cousin of Tom and Mark Udall not join his colleagues.

I met Merkley at a fundraiser this year and was very impressed with him. I think he will bring a fighting spirit to Washington not unlike Sheldon Whitehouse did in 2006. We need leaders willing to be unashamed progressives in the Senate.

So that's +6 for the Dems in the Senate, something like +20 in the House, with several seats yet to be called, the Franken-Coleman recount, whatever the heck is going on in Alaska, and the Martin-Chambliss runoff. With some luck, maybe the Democrats will capitalize on the wave atop their ticket, after all.

I think I'm just bitter about it because I'm in California.

NC-Sen: Residual Effects

North Carolina is a dead toss-up at the Presidential level this year, but nobody has high hopes for the incumbent.

A poll out Friday shows Sen. Norm Coleman could now easily lose his Minnesota seat to comedian-turned-candidate Al Franken. A Colorado race that initially looked like a nail-biter has now broken decisively for the Democrats. A top official in the McCain camp told us Sen. Elizabeth Dole is virtually certain to lose in conservative North Carolina [...]

Top Republicans say they have no hope for Dole in North Carolina. “There’s no point in even counting the votes,” said a top McCain official.

North Carolina is being lumped into the same column as Alaska, New Hampshire and Oregon in the second tier of winnable Democratic seats (Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico are in the first tier and are pretty safe to flip to the Dems). Why? Ed Cone explains why Elizabeth Dole's days are numbered.

--Dole has disappointed North Carolinians, including those of us who disagree with her positions on many issues, who expected her to be a star in the Senate.

--Dole has been an absentee Senator. We all knew it, but recent reports that she spent a total of 33 days in NC over the course of two years in her term resounded like coffin nails.

--Dole is closely identified with Bush.

--The DSCC has pumped a ton of money into NC to get the message out on all of the above, and the ads have been good.

--Hagan, a powerful member of the state senate, got immediate buy-in from party leaders and was able to raise money early.

--Hagan has run a steady campaign, criss-crossing the state in the style of her uncle, Walkin' Lawton Chiles. She's an appealing, centrist Democrat who plays well across North Carolina.

--Dole doesn't seem to be trying very hard. Her public appearances have been limited, and her ads have been lame. National support for her seems desultory, perhaps a result of her leadership role in the disastrous 2006 GOP Senate effort.

--Hagan has Obama's strong ground game, and the tech-smart, energized NCDP behind her (watch party chair Jerry Meek -- he's a star).

I would add that Dole is clearly a corporate Republican, who was pushing for more deregulation in the banking industry as recently as March of this year, right before the Bear Stearns collapse.

There's a common thread here, and that is the lengths to which swing states where Obama is contesting strongly have impacted those Senate races. Virginia (Mark Warner) and New Mexico (Tom Udall) have been out of reach for a while, but a state like North Carolina, with the impact of the Obama ground fame, gives Hagan a real leg up.

I think Cone is absolutely right calling Hagan a centrist. She is not going to put a lot of smiles on progressive faces with her votes, although her transit policies are first rate. Hagan refused to say whether or not she'd vote for FISA, and she'll be a moderate vote that at best will approach maybe Blanche Lincoln, and at worst Mary Landrieu. I'll be happy to see Liddy Dole out the door, but Hagan is a lesser priority for me, although I think an energized electorate in fast-changing North Carolina might pressure her into some better votes.

My hopes are with Jeff Merkley in Oregon and, to a lesser extent, Al Franken in Minnesota. By the way, this is an affecting ad:

No Deal

Jeff Merkley says this pretty well:



But given my sensibilities, Sam Seder and Marc Maron put it better.



Won't you please help?

I think the public opinion on this is becoming more toxic than the threat to the economy.

OR-Sen: Smith Freaks Out

Gordon Smith had a problem last week. Jeff Merkley's campaign released an internal poll showing him with a small lead, and there was a stirring controversy over his frozen foods plant hiring illegal workers. So, he decided to charge that his opponent is soft on rape.

In Smith's despicable ad, he enlists Tiffany Edens, a well-known rape victim in Oregon, "to appear in an emotional TV ad" that falsely accuses Merkley of "failing to crack down on serious sex offenders."

Here is the ad Gordon Smith approves:

Tiffany Edens is seen speaking on camera: "I was just 13 when he broke into our house, attacked and raped me. Later he confessed to raping eight others. But Oregon's time limits for prosecuting the rapes ran out. Jeff Merkley voted against changing that law. That's why I'm speaking out. Jeff Merkley, you should have voted to protect women, not rapists."

You won't be surprised to learn that the charge is false. But often, this kind of campaigning works.

The facts: Edens and Smith campaign officials acknowledge that Merkley's vote on the bill in 2005 had no impact on the Gillmore case, which was prosecuted many years before. The ad could leave voters believing it could affect the Gillmore case. Edens said she hoped toughening the law would help protect potential future victims.

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter says Merkley supported lengthening the statute of limitations for rape and several other serious crimes, and he pointed to his vote in favor of another bill -- House Bill 2015 -- that would have done exactly that. Canter said Merkley voted against the measure cited in the Smith ad -- HB 2316 -- as a protest against the "backroom deals" made by legislative leaders at the end of the session to determine which bills would go forward. At the time, Merkley headed the Democratic caucus, which was in the minority, and he was excluded from the negotiations. Canter says Merkley voted against the bill knowing it had enough votes to pass.

Merkley's returned fire with an ad calling out the lies, but of course, he's not a trusted source.

There's not much difference between political election season and Somalia. No rules, no laws, no arbiters.

Senate Campaign Report

Let's see what's happening in the races to move into that august body.

• VA - Mark Warner, who's all but assured of beating Jim Gilmore to become the next Senator from Virginia, will be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in two weeks. There are two virtual locks for pickups on the Democratic side this year - Warner, a centrist, and Tom Udall, a progressive from New Mexico. Picking the former to deliver the keynote isn't exactly surprising, but it's a little depressing.

• MN - I really liked this YouTube debate - a real YouTube debate, where the questions and answers come from Web video - between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. I thought Franken made some excellent points and the issues were handled with an appropriate amount of seriousness. But this election in Minnesota has been more about silliness than seriousness, with allegations of improper payments of taxes and untoward language in jokes among the smears being lobbed at Franken. Now Coleman is getting a taste of this, as his sweetheart lease at a lobbyist friend's house in DC is being questioned.

Sen. Norm Coleman didn't have a lease for the first year he rented a garden-level bedroom in an upper-bracket Capitol Hill row house owned by a longtime friend and Republican operative.

In addition, Coleman didn't make a payment for utilities for the living space until last month, under a verbal agreement he had with his landlord -- St. Paul businessman Jeff Larson -- to settle up after a year in residence, Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said.

Coleman's Washington living arrangements, first reported in a National Journal article in June, have been a target of criticism by DFL officials and DFL election opponent Al Franken.

I'd rather stay on the issues in a perfect world, but when you're slimed like this you have to fight back. Good for Al Franken.

• AK - You know things are going bad for Ted Stevens when the governore who appointed him to the seat thinks his career is over.

• OR - Gordon Smith, in his time-honored tradition of painting himself as a moderate despite voting strongly with Republicans for the last six years, has dropped his state co-chairmanship for John McCain's election campaign. Very convenient, coming at a time when Smith is featuring Barack Obama and John Kerry in TV ads.

By the way, I've been remiss in mentioning that I had the chance to meet Jeff Merkley, Smith's opponent in Oregon, at an event last week. Merkley's an impressive guy - a former exchange student in the poorest parts of Ghana, a nuclear freeze activist who eventually worked in the Defense Department, the Democratic leader in the Oregon House who led them back into the majority and worked hard to pass a solid progressive agenda. Merkley and his family will have no health care after January - his wife went part-time during the election campaign and lost her coverage, and Merkley's coverage with the state will run out after he is replaced in the state House. This is someone who's really running for health care, and I found him to be intelligent, engaging and progressive on the issues. Oregon is really the tipping point - it will make the difference between a potential 5-seat Democratic pickup and something much larger.

• NC - The DSCC is pouring money into this race, attacking Elizabeth Dole in her battle against State Sen. Kay Hagan. I confess to not being Hagan's biggest fan, but Dole is a rubber stamp and a terrible legislator.

• NJ - The Republicans are bugging out of this race, pitting Sen. Frank Lautenberg against Dick Zimmer. Practically every year, Republicans pour money into New Jersey and come out with nothing. They appear to have learned their lesson. Republicans literally have only one pickup opportunity this cycle, in Louisiana.

...Senate Guru is always the best source for Senate campaign news.

Priceless

OK, so check this out. Arnold signs the executive order slashing state employee salaries to $6.55 an hour, the federal minimum wage.

At the same time, he's agreed to host a fundraiser in three weeks with Oregon Senator Gordon Smith (R). Here's the invite, courtesy his Democratic opponent Jeff Merkley:



The bottom of the invite says "Host and Photo Opportunities at $10,000 give/raise."

The annual salary for a state worker under the federal, based on a 40-hour work week and a 50-week year, is $13,100.

So Arnold thinks the cost of getting a picture with him is roughly equivalent to the cost of working for an entire year running his state government.

Priceless.

And the Denounce and Reject Game Begins...

Good to see Democratic challengers jumping on this Ted Stevens thing today. He's been around 50 years and has distributed a lot of cash to his fellow Senators over that time. Now, by the rules of politics, that money is tainted. And so Jeff Merkley has begun by asking his opponent Gordon Smith to return that money or donate it to charity. In a pre-emptive strike, Elizabeth Dole has already dumped the money.

Campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley just told Election Central that the campaign has written a $10,000 check -- the amount Dole has received this cycle from Stevens' leadership PAC -- to the Society of St. Andrew.

Stevens' PAC has donated to every incumbent GOP Senator seeking re-election this year. That's one down. Will others follow?

It's one of those great little moves to put your opponent on the defensive. Go Democratic challengers!

...meanwhile, Stevens has resigned from his leadership positions on two committees.

...ooh, Norm Coleman took Veco money. Get on it, Al Franken!

...Mark Begich has released a statement.

"The indictment of Senator Ted Stevens is a sad day for Alaska and for the senator after his 40 years of service to our state. The people of Alaska are resilient and strong.

I have great faith in our state and our people, and we will continue to move forward."

...And now John Sununu has dumped Hulk-Smash's money.

...Andrew Rice is calling on James Inhofe to return Stevens' money, too.

Putting The "Better" In More And Better Democrats

In 2006 we had a crop of Congressional challengers that was poised to win in tough districts and take back the House and Sente. It was a cautious list, at times a moderate list, and while there have been some excellent progressive lawmakers from that group (Steve Cohen, John Hall, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown come to mind), overall it was a list full of more Democrats instead of better ones. You never know what you're really going to get from a candidate until they're in office, but this year there are some promising signs that the class of 2008 is substantively better on several issues.

For one, there's the great news that every single Democratic Senate challenger with more than $500,000 in cash on hand has fully endorsed net neutrality. This was not necessarily a mainstream Democratic position just a few years ago, and now it's become standard. That's very positive. Furthermore, almost no telecom or cable money is going to the wide majority of these candidates, suggesting that they may not be as beholden to those interests as the current Congress. You can read the candidate statements at the link.

One of those candidates is Jeff Merkley, and he is unafraid to challenge his own Democratic leadership even while in the midst of a Senate campaign where he will probably need their help. We need less Democratic automatons and more lawmakers willing to speak their minds and even criticize their party when it betrays its own values and steps out of line.

But the majority of Merkley's interview with the Huffngton Post this past weekend was spent pinpointing areas in need of political improvement, even calling to task the Democratic-controlled Senate for not showing the requisite backbone.

"A major mistake has been not to force the Republicans to filibuster day and night on these issues," he said. "The public does not see that obstruction because they don't see on their televisions a senator on the floor of the senate going through the night reading out of a thick tomb of law, if you will, in order to block bills from being considered. We have to put that on show to the American public and show that it's unacceptable... And I am [prepared to start standing up]. FISA is a good example right there. I was proud of Senator Dodd and others for what they did. They lost the vote, but I'm proud of them." [...]

He even weighed in on one of the thornier issues facing Democrats today: what to do about Sen. Joseph Lieberman, whose surrogacy on behalf of McCain has been infuriating to many elements of the party.

"It is very disturbing," Merkley said. "I was there in 2000 as a delegate when he was our vice presidential nominee. I remember losing my voice for him and Sen. Gore and I am really disappointed in some of the stances he is taking and I understand he is addressing the Republican convention. Essentially we need him as a clear member of the team and I hope that we see it that way after the election."

He even criticized Sen. Obama for his FISA vote, as well he should. At a time when the progressive community is seeking to hold lawmakers accountable on FISA and civil liberties, it's great to have candidates with the same frame of mind.

In the House, Blue America candidate Joe Garcia is going up against an entrenched anti-Castro Cuban Republican in South Florida. He has no problem in this video calling out one of the top anti-Castro Cuban groups for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds. And Congress actually managed to act on this by freezing payments to these right-wing groups. And also in Florida, Alan Grayson is a man possessed.

Alan Grayson: I'm Alan Grayson, and I'm the Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida's district eight. And I'm the attorney of record in every single case now pending in Federal court involving war profiteers in Iraq. These are cases in which I represent whistleblowers. The Florida civil rights association named me Humanitarian of the Year for my work in this regard, taxpayers against fraud named me lawyer of the year, and I've been featured in Vanity Fair magazine, in media like CBS evening news, 60 minutes, and even Dailykos, imagine that.

I'm running because I'm fed up with the government mismanagement, the Bush administration's shameless pandering to war profiteers. I think they set out on a deliberate course to make this war good for the people who were their friends. And I want to try to hold them accountable when I'm in Congress. When I'm in Congress... the Bush administration's worst nightmare is going to be me with subpoena power because I know everything that they've done, and I'm going to hold them accountable for it.

Right on. Here's a guy who is no-nonsense, unabashed and a great conduit for American anger and frustration at the military contractor feeding frenzy. This ad is pretty awesome, too.



Put this guy on the Oversight Committee, give him a staff, wind him up and watch him go.

Between Merkley, Grayson, Garcia and a host of other reform-minded, tough progressive Democrats, I think we can actually vote our consciences this year, and donate to candidates who will defend our principles.

Liberal Wedge Issues, Part X

The far-right effort by the Bush Administration to define contraception as abortion is getting a lot of scrutiny. This is one of those wedge issues that I think works for liberals - it makes perfectly clear the radical right's project for a Dominionist America. Reasonable Americans see a law seeking to effectively ban birth control for low-income women as abhorrent.

Today a lot of Democrats are hitting this hard. Sens. Clinton and Murray have written the HHS Department to voice their displeasure with the proposed ruling. An excerpt:

"It is outrageous that the Bush administration is once again putting ideology over women's health. Instead of undercutting access to contraception and family planning services, the Bush Administration should put prevention first," said Senator Clinton.

"On the first day of his administration, the President reinstated the Mexico City global gag clause, a harsh, anti-family planning policy that hurt the world's poorest women and children. Now, on his way out the door it appears that he is trying to limit women's health care options here at home," Murray said. "This misguided attempt to restrict health care services and limit access to contraceptives defeats our common goal of reducing the number of abortions in this country."

And Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, who has surged ahead of Gordon Smith in recent polling, has reached out to his supporters:

Bush would deny critical HHS funding to any health care institution that refuses to abide by the new rule. This is the last thing the Bush Administration should be doing when so many Americans are struggling to afford health care.

Sign a petition to oppose George Bush's efforts to roll back a woman's right to choose and deny access to health care.

George Bush wants to allow individuals with personal and political agendas to influence the information women receive from their health care providers.

There's a reason politicians are jumping on this. It's a core value and it's an issue on which the radical right can be defined. This is about a daddy party telling you how to manage your health care and your private life. It will be rejected.

UPDATE: There's evidence for this, via Matt Yglesias, in the latest WaPo poll which shows voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain on "Social issues, such as abortion and gay civil unions" by 56-32. The wedge issues ain't what they used to be. Terri Schiavo was the turning point.

OR-Sen, AK-Sen: Glimmers of Hope

I mentioned Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley in the last post, and I have a very good feeling about him. Not just from the standpoint of him being possibly one of the few reliable progressives we can elect to the Senate (Tom Allen and Tom Udall and maybe Mark Begich being the others, IMO) - but Gordon Smith, the fake moderate Republican who every election year tries to wipe away the memory of his past far-right votes, is clearly frightened enough about his chances that he's running ads tying himself to Barack Obama.



It's pretty clear how popular Obama is in Oregon once you see that ad - no wonder they're not really competing up there for now. Obama, for his part, responded in this fashion.

"Barack Obama has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment and we appreciate that it is respected by his Democratic and Republican colleagues in the Senate. But in this race, Oregonians should know that Barack Obama supports Jeff Merkley for Senate. Merkley will help Obama bring about the fundamental change we need in Washington," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

I am not particularly happy with Obama for his FISA el foldo, but he is paying attention to electing Democrats across the country, which gives us an opportunity to try and change the balance between reactionaries, conservatives and actual progressives in the Congress.

As for the aforementioned Mark Begich, I thought this was a strong statement in the wake of the Supreme Court stepping in (activist judges!) to limit the damage awards to Exxon in the Valdez spill:

“The thousands of Alaskans whose lives were devastated by this disaster are hurt, once again, by this ruling," Begich said. "What we’re seeing today is another example of how Washington is out of touch with real people. The justices have sided with corporate America rather than with Alaska families who have suffered for nearly 20 years.”

Begich added that while the livelihoods of thousands of Alaska fishermen and others were destroyed by the spill, Sen. Ted Stevens has continued to work to serve the interests of big business, rather than put pressure on Exxon to settle the lawsuit or drop its appeals.

“Sen. Stevens continues to show he works hard for special interests, but where has he been when it comes to doing what’s right for Alaskans?” Begich said.

This is yet another shitty day for the country, but there are a few candidates with integrity and a commitment to serve the people. You just have to search for them.

Down, Down, Down

They actually went ahead and called a vote on the motion to proceed to a debate on the FISA bill.

It passed 80-15.

There are now 30 hours of debate available on FISA and I'm sure Sen. Dodd and Sen. Feingold are going to use every scrap of that, but realistically, I don't see how we stop this freight train. Delay is the only option.

From the "better Democrats" front, two Senate candidates weigh in on FISA. Jeff Merkley:

The bill will force federal district courts to immediately dismiss any cases against telecommunications companies that participated in illegal surveillance. This is unacceptable. The Constitution of the United States was violated. Over several years telecommunications companies turned over the records of millions of innocent Americans to the federal government without proper oversight and without a warrant.

The Bush Administration disregarded the Fourth Amendment when it authorized this surveillance and now Congress may provide the Administration and these companies a free pass. This is a mistake. The Senate is set to vote on the FISA bill this week. For the sake of our constitution and the foundation of our democracy, I urge all Senators to unite in opposition to this bill.

And Rick Noriega.

On Christmas Day in 2004, when I was deployed to Afghanistan, a group of buddies and I drove down to Jalalabad road to get to an outpost so that we could wake up our children and our families on that Christmas Day through
the internet.

As we approached that outpost, we encountered what we thought was perhaps a near-ambush. When we got on the computers to wake up our families on that Christmas Day, I suspect that the government probably listened in on my and Melissa's conversation because it was communication between two countries. And I know that whoever did, probably didn't notice a little change in my voice or the tone. But Melissa knew - she understood.

I went to Afghanistan and fought for this country, and to protect the Constitution of the United States, and I believe it's wrong that there's sweeping amnesty to those who have violated privacy laws that are protected by the Constitution.

That's great, but of course we have a Senate afflicted with DC disease and weighed down with telecom cash.

As I said, I'm not hopeful. 30 hours may just be enough if the other bills are foregrounded to delay this. But that's about it, and it may be delaying the inevitable.

UPDATE: Here are the 15 who stood up for the Constitution today.

Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)

...no Obama on that list, he was campaigning. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway. He's el foldo on this issue.

"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

A few weasel words from there, but Obama is totally cool with the precedent of the government giving a slip of paper to a corporation allowing them to break the law. He's cool with the premise of "we were just following orders" that was shot down at Nuremberg being revived. He's cool with if the President does it, then it isn't illegal. He's cool with a bunch of the other really dangerous aspects of the bill, including the vacuuming up of every communication that leaves or enters the United States without even the caveat that they be related to terrorism. He's cool with a national surveillance state.

Just plain cool with it.

Change I can't believe in.

Responsible Plan Update

If a candidate running in Idaho and a candidate running statewide in Montana, can support this supposedly dirty fuckin' hippie plan to end the war, then really anyone can. This is a common-sense document that recognizes the fundamental transition we need to make in foreign policy and national security.

Larry Grant, Democratic candidate for Congress in Idaho's 1st District, today joined a dozen other congressional candidates in backing a plan to end the War in Iraq.

"Given my feelings on the war, I have decided to join these congressional candidates to support the plan," Grant said.

"The plan incorporates many of the recommendations made over a year ago by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission. Most of those recommendations were never implemented.

"The plan may not be perfect but it's a good start to changing the current administration's disastrous policy on the war," Grant said. "It opens up discussion and provides a forum for debate. I applaud and support Darcy for her effort."

Ultimately, we should see hundreds of Democratic candidates supporting this view. So far, two Congressional candidates in New Jersey and both of Oregon's Senate challengers, Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick have endorsed as well. Goldy at Horse's Ass has a good roundup, but I want to circle back to Juan Melli's post to give an understanding of how courageous it was for Darcy Burner and her team to work on this:

This is not a press release that was cranked out in a few hours. It's a real plan that has been thoughtfully considered and developed over a period of months in consultation with respected military experts. It's the type of thing that eats into valuable fundraising time, which is why candidates are so strongly discouraged from doing it. Further, I can't speak for Darcy Burner specifically, but EMILY's list has a history of knee-capping female candidates on the issue of Iraq and military policy in general by insisting that they "talk tough." This counterproductive strategy sometimes leads candidates to end up fighting from weak defensive positions.

Darcy has sacrificed valuable fundraising time and probably overcome significant pressure to create this plan. She and the other 9 candidates who are endorsing the effort deserve our support to show that we value thoughtful, meaningful and substantive leadership. They are trying to build a caucus of challengers who will sweep into Congress with a mandate to change the course in Iraq.

Quite right. This is the definition of leadership, and I would hope my Democratic friends in California can see that endorsing this document will take a big step in that direction. There's no need to be timid about this.

Candidate Watch

Perhaps a semi-regular feature. Now that we're firmly ensconced in 2008, it's time to look at the candidates and the races that will determine the spread of the Democratic majority in the Congress.

• For the first time, Al Franken has a lead in a poll against incumbent Norm Coleman. He leads 43%-40%, which this far out is a very good sign.

• Earlier I mentioned Oregon Senate candidate Steve Novick's great ad. Something's in the water in Oregon this year, because this ad, playing off a scary incident where Novick's primary opponent Jeff Merkley flipped his car while campaigning, is pretty funny, too.



• I like these candidates that are true fighters, up against incredible odds. Marshall Adame, a candidate in NC-03 against Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones, is such a figure.

Despite running as a Democrat in a strongly Republican district, Adame has the sort of military past that is appreciated in these parts. "I am a retired United States Marine," he tells me. "I'm a Vietnam veteran. I spent nine months in Kuwait right after we kicked Saddam out, helping to rebuild the Kuwaiti air force. I spent four years in Egypt with Kaman Aerospace"—a military contractor—"as their logistics leader in that country." More recently, he spent three years in Iraq working on reconstruction projects, ultimately rising to a senior position with the State Department's National Coordination Team in Baghdad, where he oversaw the work of roughly ten Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Two of his sons have served in the U.S. Army in Iraq—one was seriously wounded in an IED attack and is still undergoing reconstructive surgeries; the other is currently on his second 15-month tour, stationed in Tikrit. Now back in North Carolina, Adame has even opened his home to a family of Iraqi refugees.

Yet Adame's recent public criticism of the private security industry's role in Iraq has caused him to become the target of a political attack from Blackwater. It all began in mid-January when Adame participated in a live question-and-answer forum on a North Carolina progressive blog called BlueNC. "People were writing in, and I was answering the questions," he says. "It just so happened that the first one was about Blackwater." He didn't mince words. "There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries," he wrote on the blog. "They are guns for hire; No more, no less… Private Armies represent the very things we despise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one." [...]

Adame's comments about the company have enraged Blackwater employees, including executive vice president Bill Mathews. In an internal corporate email, Mathews encouraged his colleagues to barrage Adame with mail ("he was too cowardly to put a phone number on the web," Mathews noted in the message). "[H]e wants this company and all of us to cease to exist," Mathews wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Raleigh News & Observer and posted to the newspaper's web site. "Do you like your jobs? Are you sick and tired of the slanderous bullshit going on in DC? If so, would you all mind joining me in reminding Mr. Adame that he is running for office in our backyard…. Let's run this goof out of Dodge...!"

Since then, Adame has been on the receiving end of "some pretty rough stuff,” he says. "I received all kinds of hate mail from Blackwater people. They use a lot of vulgarity. They tell me how Blackwater is defending America's rights, and that we're free because Blackwater is fighting for us. Give me a break! That is so erroneous and misleading. It's just totally dishonest, but those people really believe it. Blackwater is a large organization, and they have a great way of propagandizing their product."

This is the kind of honorable American who will get my support. Anyone who scares the bejeebus out of Blackwater is well worth it.

UPDATE: See also this big-picture story about Republican difficulties at even keeping their numbers in the Congress, let alone regaining the majority.

A swelling exodus of senior Republican incumbents from the House, worsened by a persistent disadvantage in campaign money, threatens to cripple Republican efforts to topple the Democratic majority in November.

Representative Tom Davis, a moderate from Northern Virginia, on Wednesday became the fifth House Republican in the last week to announce that he would not seek re-election.

That puts the roster of retirees at 28, one of the highest numbers recorded for the party in the House.

Politicians have the numbers. They're not just retiring because they want to sit on their front porch. They see no way to continue in an even weaker minority position.

A Fairly Awesome Ad

I like Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley. Either of them are going to slaughter Gordon Smith in November.

But the take-away here is that you have to do more than just messaging in your ads. Be daring. Be funny. Pop out.