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(I'll have more later on Fred Malek. I took an especial interest in him during the 2008 Presidential race. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Kelly Ayotte and the Washington special interests behind her campaign are getting nervous. They're seeing the same things we are: my campaign is surging in the polls and the Sarah Palin endorsement is backfiring.
So what do they do? Launch an attack ad full of facts and figures so misleading I have a feeling they were taken straight off Glenn Beck's chalkboard. They're attacking me for standing up to the special interests and big oil companies and supporting efforts to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and address climate change.
The special interest group funding the ad, American Action, is headed by Washington insider Fred Malek, a top backer of the Ayotte-Palin team. He's a life-long K-Street Republican from Washington who wants to tell Granite Staters how to vote.
We knew this would happen. Ayotte and her special interest backers see that we're within striking distance of taking a senate seat that has been in Republican hands for the last 30 years. So they're throwing everything they can to stop my momentum. Plus, Republicans can't help themselves. They have nothing to offer this country but the failed policies of the past and nasty attacks.
For years, there's been an express train between Capitol Hill and K Street.
We have former employees of big corporations ending up in the agencies that are supposed to regulate them. We have former public servants securing high-paid jobs in the businesses they used to oversee.
That may be good for K Street, but it's bad for the American people.
Today I am announcing my plan to end the revolving door in Washington between public officials and corporate lobbyists.
I've spent a lot of time on this blog talking about how we need to end business as usual in Washington. Earlier this week, we got another disheartening reminder of what business as usual has become. Rather than stand up for the voices of the people who define and deliver democracy in this country, the Republicans in Washington resorted to political obstructionism and caved to the special interests, once again. They successfully filibustered the DISCLOSE Act, which is a crucial first step in undoing the damage inflicted by the Citizens United Supreme Court case. It would have allowed us to start closing the door on corporations trying to buy our elections.
You know what? I wasn't surprised by their filibuster. I was expecting it. I'm sure you were too.
But I think everyone here can agree - it is one sorry state of affairs that leads us to expect special interest-funded obstructionism from our public servants.
WASHINGTON, DC, April 10, 1865 (FNS)-The Civil War ended yesterday with the surrender of General Lee's Confederate Forces to Ulysses S. Grant, the Union Commander, at Appomattox.
Although most observers are generally happy with the surrender, many of President Obama's most loyal supporters are livid with the Commander-in-Chief because of the concessions he made in order to obtain the future support of the Southern Senators who will rejoin the body when the next Session begins.
At a media event this morning, Press Secretary Dick Timoneous expressed the President's hope that the formerly Confederate Members of Congress are looking forward to changing the political culture and steering the Nation in a better direction:
"It's time for the opposition to realize that what really matters is putting America first. The President is certain that by offering some concessions now, Southern Senators will look beyond their own parochial interests and do their part to move this process forward."
It's been a while since we had to have a real heart-to-heart, the Obama Administration and I, and last time it was because Rahm Emanuel had been a bit snippy toward those of us who are carrying the water for this Administration.
We need to have another one of those conversations today; this time the circumstances are a lot more positive-in fact, if the Administration follows my suggestions here, we have a real chance to put the Democrats on the road to victory, not just this November, but also in 2012.
What I'm proposing will create hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, and it will stimulate millions more as we create a national source of discount electrical power that can be used by business and consumers alike.
Here's the best part: it's no "pie in the sky" promotion I'm offering here; we've already done the same thing before, it's been working out well for almost three quarters of a century...and even better than all that...my idea first pays for itself, and then...it actually makes the Federal Government a profit, forever after.
Brighton, Colorado (FNS)-Attorneys from the Republican Study Group (RSG) descended upon the 17th Judicial District courtroom of Judge John T Bryan today to present an amicus brief and associated oral arguments in order to prevent a settlement in a lawsuit related to an automobile accident in this Colorado city.
The intervening attorneys claim the settlement reached between the two parties to the accident is a "shakedown" because the plaintiff had not yet exhausted all possible legal remedies when the agreement was finalized, and because the agreement was executed in the presence of the plaintiff's brother, a well-known local attorney.
They hope Judge Bryan will decline to approve the settlement in today's hearing, and that he will order the parties to move forward to trial.
"What we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on preexisting laws but on decisions by one man, a car czar", said Crush Mimbaugh, attorney for the RSG, "and we are here today to protect all Americans from this legally sanctioned rape of an innocent driver."
It's part two of our "Netroots Nation Goes To Vegas Piano Bar Extravaganza", and in keeping with tradition that means we are again taking a story request.
This time we won't be talking about energy security or "climate security"; instead, we'll discuss retirement security, keeping your money for yourself instead of paying it out in "mystery fees", and how one of the "usual suspects" is at it again.
Netroots Nation will be in Las Vegas in just a few weeks; with that in mind we are going to play "piano bar" and fulfill a couple of requests, one today and one tomorrow, from folks who would like to bring a couple of things to your attention.
Today's topic: climate change.
As you know, there is a lot of legislation floating around Capitol Hill that would begin to use some sort of market-based mechanism to reduce the amount of carbon we emit.
None of it will move unless it moves through the Senate, and today, that's what we'll be talking about.
I just wanted to take a minute to say hello and to see how things have been for you lately, and to maybe bring you up to date on a bit of news from here.
Well, right off the bat, we hear you have a new Conservative Prime Minister and that his Party and Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are in partnership, which I'm sure will be interesting; you probably heard that us Colonials are again having Tea Parties, which has also been very interesting.
I have a Godson who's getting married this September, so we're all talking about that, and I hear Graham Norton was even better than last year at hosting Eurovision, despite the fact that it's...frankly, it's Eurovision.
Oh, yeah...we also had a bit of an oil spill recently that you may have heard about-and hoo, boy; you should see how the Company that spilled the oil has been acting.
We don't have a lot of time for a big discussion today, but I wanted to take a second and talk about basic Federal Government economics as they apply to Rand Paul.
It is his stated vision to reduce the size of Government...and it is an undeniable reality that the vast majority of the Federal Budget is focused on only a few areas of spending.
Today, we'll quickly run through that economic reality, and we'll challenge Dr. Paul to tell us where he stands.
Washington (FNS)-An exclusive investigation by FNS reporting staff has identified and confirmed, through a second source, the Obama Administration's secret plans for resolving issues with certain residents of Arizona that has been in the news over the past week, known as "Operation Terraform".
The plan depends upon American authorities cooperating with the Canadian, Mexican, and North American Governments, and the plan will require one of the largest transport efforts since D-Day.
Until today, no one outside the involved agencies had been aware of the existence of the plan, much less its details, and as of today, no official will admit, on the record, that the plan is already in effect.
Baton Rouge (FNS)-Facing both a massive oil slick from a sunken offshore drilling platform and a second year of declining tourism revenues along the Louisiana Gulf Coast caused by high gas prices, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today introduced a new tourism promotion that he reports is going to "...make lemons into lemonade".
Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the "All The Oil You Can Carry Festival" would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May.
It wasn't but a couple of days ago that we had a conversation about The Fear and the emails that are used to spread it, and I figured with that out of the way we had dealt with the topic, and that we'd move on to new things.
Well, we would be moving on, Gentle Reader, if it wasn't for the fact that an email came in today that was so ugly, so disturbing, and so indicative of what we are about to see as the battle over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) begins to heat up (ENDA being possibly the next "big contentious thing" that this Administration hopes to accomplish), that I had to interrupt my story schedule to bring it to your attention.
It seems that many of those who are regular guests of this space are committed to a worldview based on some degree of reason and rationality.
That's a handy thing if the "Covert Alarm Locator Apparatus" in your Isaac Daniel® Compass Global 1000 GPS sneakers should happen to fail and you need to find your way back to where the rest of us are; sadly, not all voters are equipped with such a helpful worldview.
Luckily for them, there are lots of conservative "mouth organs" ready to fill the "information gap".
They send out lots of emails every day, spreading their Word, and as a public service I receive several of them; this to help keep track of just what's out there, exactly.
If you ever wondered why otherwise normal people believe some of the craziest things about "Obama's Secret Death Care And National Virgin Sacrifice Program", have a look at some of the things I get every single day, and it might all make a bit more sense.
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone's trying to spread...The Fear.
All around us...in every town...on every corner...a massive Army Of Fear is standing by, according to the Messengers, ready at a moment's notice to obey the dictates of some unappointed Czar or another.
Just ask Glenn Beck: concentration camps for the white people, jackbooted stormtroopers ready to snatch the guns from your cold dead fingers...Socialist Government-Controlled Healthcare That Threatens Your Not Socialist Medicare...it's all coming, my friends-and unless we organize, as a community, to return to the values of the Founding Fathers, The Government, meaning that awful Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George Soros and all the other Evil Community Organizers, will win.
There's no government, we're told, like no government.
You know who would find all of this fear of self-government just entirely bizarre?
The Founding Fathers.
In today's conversation we'll consider the fundamentals of American patriotism, we'll ask one of those Founding Fathers how he saw the role of Government-and we'll toss in a few words from Abraham Lincoln, just for good measure.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
Gentle Reader, you have been officially...warned.
With that in mind, if you take offense when confronted with language strong enough to knock a fuckin' buzzard off a shitwagon, please stop reading now.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
.... where I'm spending a few days of vacation. And seeing endless attack ads on TV between Rick "Goodhair" Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Be grateful we don't have that in the Granite State (more after the jump).
As most of you are well aware, last week was a snow week in Washington, DC, and the odds are pretty good that there's something like that going on for you as well.
Our good friends in the conservative community have seized upon the moment as proof that this whole "global warming" thing is just a big scam perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore and his Legion Of Weather Nazis; their mission being only to deprive the American people of their Constitutional right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Ford Super Duty F-450 King Ranch Edition with the Heavy Service Suspension Package, Snow Plow Prep Package, Transmission Power Take-Off Provision, dual alternators, and supplemental cab heater.
To drive the point home, last week Senator James Inhofe's family went to the time and trouble to build a little igloo on the National Mall for our amusement.
But here's a question: just what has the weather been like in other places-for example, in my part of the world...or in the Senator's home State of Oklahoma?
It's a good question-and the Senator won't like the answer.
