2010 Senate

Obama's Narrowing Window of Opportunity

dlindorff — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:23:38 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

The way I see it, President Obama has a couple of months to turn his failing administration around.

The war in Afghanistan is going south, and within a couple of weeks,
his General William Westmoreland, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, will be
coming to him asking for more troops. Things are getting hairier in
Iraq too.

His signature health care initiative is foundering, with Republicans working in lockstep to see to it that it fails.

Pressure is mounting for an honest probe into the criminality of the
prior administration in its authorization and promotion of torture
against captives--most of them innocent--in the Bush/Cheney "war" on
terror.

The stock market, which by climbing back 50% from its collapse and
the bottom it hit on March 9, gave the president a breather, is showing
signs of exhaustion, and is likely to start sinking again, as investors
realize that there is no end in sight for the recession in the real
economy.

If all this continues into December, which is after all only a
couple of months away, Congress will go into recess, and when it
returns, it will be an election year, with all House seats up for
grabs, and a third of the Senate also facing re-election. Republicans
will be in an all-out campaign to reduce the Democratic majorities in
both houses, with history on their side (in almost every off-year
election, the party of new presidents lose support both houses of
Congress).

So, what's the president got to do?

First, he needs to announce a bold peace initiative in Afghanistan.
He should reject the call for more troops, and instead call for a
regional peace conference--one that would include all the neighborhing
countries around Afghanistan, and most significantly, the Taliban. At
such a conference, he should arrange for a new government of national
unity that includes the Taliban, and then get the hell out of the
country. Obama can declare victory if he wants, but the main thing is
to get out. Ditto for Iraq, where the US is still viewed as an occupier
and is going to be forced out eventually. There is no reason to stay
another day.

Second, he should declare the disfunctional and industry-polluted
health reform plans in Congress dead and simply announce that by
executive order, he is lowering the age for Medicare to 55, and is
switching all Medicaid patients in the country over to Medicare (with
the intention of lowering that age by five years ever year until all
are covered), and shutting down the Medicaid program. He should then
submit a bill to Congress establishing a government-owned insurance
company, open to all, with no restrictions on its ability to set
pricing and reimbursement rates or to negotiate discounts from
hospitals, doctors and pharmacy companies. Or alternatively, the bill
could enable anyone to simply buy into Medicare. He should tell
Democrats and Republicans alike that any member of Congress who votes
against that bill will not see any bill with her or his name on it get
his signature in his remaining years in office. The government company
would be phased out once Medicare covered everyone.

Finally, the president needs to announce that he is sickened by the
information he has received about the prior administration's torture
program, and that he is encouraging his attorney general to fully
investigate it, and to prosecute to the full extent of the law anyone,
no matter how high up in the military or in government, who authorized
torture or who covered it up.

Congress could be expected to howl at the use of an executive order
to expand Medicare, but the president could declare a national health
emergency as justification, saying the recession had thrown too many
people off of health insurance, and that as well, states were in dire
fiscal shape and laying off workers because of the increased Medicaid
burden.

Removing older workers from employers' health insurance plans would
be a huge shot in the arm for struggling companies, as they are the
biggest users of health care. Lifting the $400 billion cost of Medicare
from state governments would free up money to prevent the layoff of
state and local employees, which is threatening to stifle economic
recovery.

Republicans can be expected to denounce the president for going
after the Bush/Cheney administration on torture, but most Americans at
this point are becoming aware of the damage that the policy has caused
to the country's international reputation, and to the soldiers in the
field.

Many people would also howl about bringing the troops home from
Afghanistan, and Iraq, but the truth is that the vast majority of
Americans are sick of both wars and would welcome an end to them.

The key to all these moves, however, is that Obama needs to explain
them not in terms of saving money, but as being the right thing to do.
Health care reform has to be presented as a moral imperative, not as a
money saver (even though covering everyone with Medicare would be a
huge net savings for everyone in the country). Ending America's foreign
wars would be a huge savings, but the real reason to do it is that the
US has no business being a global cop and imperialist occupier. And
prosecuting torture is essential if the US is to be a nation of laws.
You wouldn't know it to listen to the jaded pundits in the corporate
media, but in my experience, most Americans are basically decent
people, and would like to be citizens of a country that did decent
things, not just things that could be justified as making "economic
sense."

I'm not expecting any of this to happen, of course. This president
has shown repeatedly and convincingly that he is a creature of the
Establishment, not given to any bold initiatives or to challenges to
the status quo. I'm just saying that these are steps that could salvage
his presidency--a presidency that is seeming increasingly doomed. The
corollary is that if he doesn't do these things, he will find himself
with a diminished majority in November, 2010, a reinvigorated
Republican opposition, a tanked economy, an angry electorate (including
a lot of pissed off former supporters), and, basically, nothing to show
for his whole presidency come 2012.

And to top it off, for failing to prosecute Bush/Cheney torture, he
could well find himself subject to arrest abroad should he decide to
travel a bit once he is ousted from office in January 2013.
_________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book
is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

A Few More Thoughts About Single-Payer and Medicare

dlindorff — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:31:57 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Some critics have written, in response to my article
calling for extension of the single-payer plan called Medicare to all
Americans, that actually Medicare is a badly flawed program that leaves
America's elderly without coverage for many important health services,
and which requires them to pay for supplemental insurance, or to go on
Medicaid, too.

These critics are correct. Medicare is great as far as it goes. It
is simple for people to use, allows them to go to the doctors of their
choice, covers 80 percent of their care, and is liked by nearly all who
use it. But it doesn't pay for needed tests, only lets seniors buy
mediocre medical devices like hearing aids, and most importantly, it
has been requiring more and more contributions by the elderly year
after year. Today, Americans over 65 and the permanently disabled pay a
greater percentage of their income for medical care than they did in
1964 before Medicare was established!

But having said that, I have to say that it has nothing to do with
whether or not it makes sense to expand Medicare to all Americans as a
way to solve our health care crisis--as Rep. John Conyers' bill, HR
676, would do.

The reason Medicare is inadequate is because the Republicans and the
conservative Democrats--the very "Blue Dog" vermin who, engorged on
health insurance, hospital and pharmacy bribes and campaign donations,
are undermining and destroying the already lousy health care "reform"
plan of President Barack Obama--have been underfunding it, and
performing a slow "privatization" of the program, chipping away at its
benefits, adding increased self-pay requirements, and raising the
Medicare tax on all workers.

They get away with this treachery because their actions only affect the minority of Americans served by Medicare.

If Medicare were expanded to include all Americans, suddenly this
kind of political backsliding would be opposed by everyone who was in
the program. It simply couldn't happen. Rather, the public would, as
one, demand better coverage, fewer self-pay requirements, and an end to
supplemental insurance.

The right knows this, and the health care industry knows this, and
that is why they are all bitterly opposing the expansion of
Medicare--and yet it is so obvious that Medicare is the answer to
America's health crisis--and it's staring us all in the face. It works,
it's cheap, and it could be implemented immediately.

We are being betrayed by President Obama and by the Democratic leadership in Congress, who will not talk about single-payer.

Not one of the committees working on the health reform bill in
Congress allowed any discussion of Rep. Conyers' HR 676. Under pressure
from the public, and groups like Physicians for a National Health
Program (PNHP.org) and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed to allow a floor vote next month on
Conyers' bill, but that is a sop. Floor votes are heavily manipulated
by the leadership and never go anywhere unless a committee has already
held hearings and voted to approve a bill, which was not allowed to
happen in the case of HR 676.

The so-called "reform" bill that is going to emerge from the current
process is going to be the legislative equivalent of road kill, barely
recognizeable either as health care or as a "reform." It will be a
Christmas present for the insurance industry, the hospital industry and
the phramaceutical industry, all three of which struck secret deals
behind closed doors with the White House.

It will set back health reform in America a generation, will require
everyone to buy inadequate and overpriced insurance, overpriced drugs
and to go to overpriced hospitals. And the cost of healthcare to
individuals, businesses, and the nation as a whole (already the highest
in the modern industrial world), will continue to soar.

This is not a case where the right thing to do is push for any bill,
and then try to move on. This is a case where Obama and the Democrats
have whored themselves out to the greedy industry that is causing all
the problems, and are pushing a plan that is worse than nothing.

We should all be working to kill this whole thing and start over, with HR 676.

If Congress won't do it, we need to start working for a new Congress in 2010 that will.

No Democrat running for House or Senate in 2010 who isn't solidly for expanding Medicare to all should get a single vote.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He is author of
“Marketplace Medicine” (Bantam Books, 1992) and more recently, “The
Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available
at www.thiscantbehappening.net

The North Carolina Senate Election on the Social Networks

kkrahel — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:16:52 -0400

Since Twitter and Facebook are being taken down by cyber-attacks today, it seems like a good time to survey the increasing use of social networks by politicians and candidates for political office. Let's use the developing 2010 election for Senator from North Carolina as an example.

The incumbent, Republican Richard Burr, replaced some guy named John Edwards back in 2004. Burr has been rated the 3rd most conservative Senator in a state that voted for President Barack Obama in 2008. He has also become infamous for his actions at the height of the financial collapse: he attended a briefing by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on the freeze in financial markets where he was told that banks had stopped lending to each other. Before the general public were to discover the dire state of the economy, Burr called his wife and told her to take out as much money as possible from their bank account. This reckless incident led to him being nicknamed Richard "Bank Run" Burr. Just recently, he made this statement: "When people ask me if I enjoy what I’m doing, now is the time that I try not to answer the question."

There are many voters in North Carolina who want to relieve Richard Burr of the job he appears to loathe. He has a 36% job approval and hasn't been able to poll above 50% against any challengers. At the moment, the race is focused on who the actual Democratic challenger will be. There is an announced candidate, Kenneth Lewis, and a number of other prospective candidates, most prominent among those being Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham. Since two out of these three candidates haven't announced that they are running yet, it is difficult to gauge the comparative strength of each of them (we don't have fundraising numbers, or organizational strength, etc.). This is where reading the tea leaves of the reach of these politicians on social networks may be helpful.

As a standard, we can take a look at how the incumbent is currently running online. On Burr's website, there is a boilerplate box of different social networks. I have added the number of contacts/friends/followers for each network:

His campaign is on Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, MySpace, Digg, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Flickr. That is an impressive lineup. Taking a closer look reveals it to be somewhat hollow.

The Flickr account has one picture and it is just the same profile image he uses for his Facebook, Digg, and MySpace pages; furthermore, the account has zero "Contacts" (Flickr's equivalent of Friends or Followers).

There are no uploaded videos on his Youtube page and he has 8 "Subscribers".

The Digg profile is barren, with no "Favorites" and no "Friends".

His MySpace has 35 friends, which is less than my sister in high school has...

He does sport a respectable following on Twitter as well as Faceboook. These are the best metrics for social networks generally. Let's now check out the Democratic candidates.

	Face	Twit	Link
Burr	1,639	975	83
Lewis	701		29
Marshall draft	742 259
Cunningham draft	762 997	354	151

Kenneth Lewis is the only prominent candidate who has announced, and he has raised over $100,000. He has a Facebook page with a healthy 701 followers. Unfortunately, he lacks any Twitter account that I could find easily. He does have a LinkedIn profile with 29 connections.

Elaine Marshall is the Secretary of State for North Carolina. She is rumored to be the presumptive front-runner for the nomination and Public Policy Polling (who has been doing most of the heavy lifting polling for the race so far) just put one out in the field this week and sent out a teaser tweet that Marshall was running around five points ahead of the other two Democrats. In addition to a draft Marshall Facebook group with 259 members, her Facebook account has 742 Friends. No Twitter to be found.

Cal Cunningham's campaign has been boosted by a robust draft Facebook group with 997 members and his personal Facebook account has 762 Friends. While he doesn't maintain a personal Twitter account, there is a draft Twitter account with 354 Followers. He also has a LinkedIn profile with 151 Connections, though it seems to be more of a professional networking tool for his legal practice than a political organizing tool. All in all, Cal seems to be the leader among the Democrats here, not a bad present for his birthday.

That's the basic picture of where things stand in North Carolina at the moment on the social networks. Richard Burr obviously has an advantage, but that is too be expected of an incumbent. All three of the Democratic challengers are making a decent showing, hopefully portending a very strong presence once the race heats up and candidates formally jump in. At that point, we can take another look and see how far each of them has come in organizing online.

Thune Deserves A Challenger

kkrahel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:38:02 -0400

In 2010, John Thune will face his first re-election campaign since unseating Tom Daschle in 2004. His seat is considered one of the safest of all incumbent Republicans. This is helped along by the fact that he has no challenger in sight.

The most competitive Democrat in South Dakota, Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, has decided to run for re-election to the At-Large House seat. State Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem is another well-known Democrat (who ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1986), but with Rep. Herseth Sandlin's pass on the 2010 Governor's race, he is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination there. And forget about any resurrection of Tom Daschle.

That leaves us without a clear challenger for Senator Thune. There is hope(TM): a rising South Dakota Democrat named Ben Nesselhuf from Vermillion. At only 34, Ben Nesselhuf is already serving a third term in the State Senate (after having served twice in the state House of Representatives) and is the Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman. He recently led the fights that defeated a bill that would have let guns onto state college campuses and another that would have changed the South Dakota constitution to prevent any language other than English to be used by the state or any local governments (South Dakota has the third highest proportion of American Indians in the country). You can check him out on Facebook here.

Another prospective challenger for Senator Thune is Nancy Turbak Berry. Turbak Berry is serving her second term in the South Dakota State Senate, where she is one of only seven female Senators. She graduated cum laude from Harvard and has her law degree from Berkeley. Like myself, she is one of six kids and shares one of the most valuable lessons of that kind of upbringing, "In a big family, you learn that everyone can get along, even if they don’t all share the same opinion." She is also on Facebook.

It is important we get a progressive to challenge Senator Thune. He is moving up fast in the national GOP, having just succeeded mama's boy John Ensign as chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee making him the fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate. He is quickly becoming one of the top contenders for the GOP nomination for President in 2012. He was recently feted with a $500-a-head fundraiser by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Every 2 out of every 3 dollars he has raised has been from out of state. Senator Thune is also celebrating more than a decade in Washington, arriving there as a Representative back in the 1990s and working as a lobbyist from 2003-2004.

Thune is in a strong position, he has a 57% favorability rating and he already has $4 million in cash on hand. However, Republican voter registration dropped two points in South Dakota from 2006-2008 to 45% and Thune polls worst among young people, which could work against him if the youthful State Senator Ben Nesselhuf challenges him. Furthermore, statewide races tend to be close in South Dakota: the margin between Thune and Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002 was only 500 votes, Thune beat Daschle by less than 5,000 votes, and Rep. Herseth Sandlin got elected with about 3,000 votes.

The Senate race in South Dakota won't be easy. However, if we want to win more competitive races in places like Ohio and New Hampshire, we need to keep the GOP fighting in places like this. No matter what, John Thune deserves a challenger.

Jan Schakowsky, a Progressive's Progressive, Gears Up Her 2010 Bid for Obama's Senate Seat

davidswanson — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:27:03 -0400

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

She has represented Illinois' liberal 9th District on Chicago's north side in Congress since 1999. She has been a bold, outspoken Progressive Caucus member and is vice chair of the bipartisan Women's Caucus. Jan Schakowsky serves in the House leadership as Chief Deputy Democratic Whip and serves on the Steering and Policy Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, the Subcommittee on Health, and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Should she give up all that to run for Obama's, and now Roland Burris', Senate seat?

READ THE REST AT BUZZFLASH

(UPI Photo/Roger L. Wollenberg)

Obama is Cutting Sen. Specter Too Much Slack

dlindorff — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:41:22 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

President Barack Obama was so obviously pleased to have five-term
Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announce that he was
switching party affiliation and joining the Democratic Party that the
president missed an opportunity to make sure that his new BFF in the
Senate was also a backer of the issues that Obama ran on in the
presidential campaign.

Indeed, while President Obama was quick to offer Sen. Specter his
backing and even to offer to help him with fund-raising in his quest
for re-election in 2010, he said nothing at all about any quid-pro-quo.

This is not only unfortunate. It is irresponsible.

Sen. Specter, for all his claims to be an independent thinker, has
over the years voted at lease 65% of the time with his Republican
colleagues in the Senate—a support level for Republican positions that
exceeds that of two of his Republican colleagues from Maine, Sen.
Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins.

Sen. Specter, notably, had actually reversed himself in recent
months, on the issue of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill, which
would make it easier for workers to establish labor unions in their
workplaces, and to win a first contract with management. At one time,
Sen. Specter had voted in favor of letting such a bill go to a vote in
the Senate, but lately, as he was contemplating a tough primary battle
against a conservative challenger, he had changed his tune, saying that
he would not vote to block a planned Republican filibuster of this
legislation.

The EFCA is a key legislative goal of the US labor movement, which
has seen its ranks dwindle over 50 years of successful corporate
lobbying efforts to whittle away labor law protections for the right to
organize. Where once nearly a third of all workers were in labor unions
back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, today, fewer than 9 percent of
workers in the private sector belong to unions, a figure that only
rises to about 12.5 percent when public employees are added in. This
despite the fact that 58 percent of Americans say that they would like
to have a union if they could get one.

Today, labor laws are violated with impunity to the point that one
lawyer from a prominent labor-busting law firm, faced with a unfair
labor practices filing and hearing by a union currently in its 10th
month of trying to negotiate a new contract with management, said to
union leaders, “Why are you bothering to file a ULP? You know there are
no real penalties for violating labor laws.”

The problem is that the National Labor Relations Act is so weak,
with no real penalties for management violations, and the Labor
Relations Boards that hear and rule on labor law violations are so
infested with pro-management members, that it is nearly impossible to
unionize new workplaces today. Corporate managements know that they can
fire union organizers at will with little consequence, that they can
stall off union elections for years and use the intervening time to
intimidate or replace pro-union employees, and that even if workers
ultimately get to hold a union election and do vote in favor of
unionization, they can safely stonewall negotiations for a first
contract.

The EFCA would address this problem in two ways. Firstly, it would
eliminate the cumbersome and easily delayed requirement for a secret
ballot election to establish a union. All union organizers would have
to do would be to collect cards of support for a union from a majority
of the workers at a workplace, and once those signatures were verified,
the company would have to recognize the union. Then the union and
management would get 90 days to negotiate an initial contract. If they
failed to reach an agreement, an initial contract would be established
through arbitration.

The House last year, under Democratic control, passed the EFCA,
only to have the bill die in the Senate, where Democrats held only a
one-vote edge. Republicans managed to prevent the measure from even
coming to a vote.

Last fall, the vast majority of Democrats running for reelection
said they backed EFCA, as did Barack Obama on the campaign trail. But
now that the new Congress is in session, support for the measure is
softening, under the pressure of a massive multi-million-dollar
lobbying campaign by such organizations as the US Chamber of Commerce
and the National Association of Manufacturers. A key player in the
campaign against EFCA has been Wal-Mart.

Sen. Specter, as a Republican facing a conservative challenger,
clearly felt he needed to oppose EFCA. But now Specter is claiming to
be a Democrat, in a state with significant union representation. Even
so, union activists report that when they went to his main office in
Pennsylvania to deliver tens of thousands of petitions calling on him
to support the reform measure, they were told by a staffer that their
hard work would just “go in the trash” when they left the office.

Specter’s continued opposition to EFCA stands as an insult and an
affront to all the workers in his home state, and the local labor
movement should withhold any support from him until he comes out
strongly and unambiguously for passage of EFCA.

President Obama too should be demanding that Specter promise to
support EFCA passage before he commits himself to backing the senator’s
re-election bid.

The same should be said for health reform. It’s not clear at this
point whether Specter even backs Obama’s health reform plan. In truth
though, particularly given the number of uninsured people living in
Pennsylvania, Specter should be pressed to back the single-payer bill
being put forward in the Senate by his colleague Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-VT). Specter, after all, just went through a tough battle with
cancer, which he seems to have beaten thanks to his extraordinarily
generous Congressionally offered and taxpayer funded health insurance
plan, and his access to the finest doctors and hospitals the country
has to offer. He is not in any position, ethically, at this point to
oppose making healthcare available to and affordable for every resident
of his state.

Right now, Specter is at his most vulnerable. Many of his long-time
Republican and independent backers are angry at him for quitting the
party, and at the same time, many Democrats, who have voted against him
for years as a Republican, are skeptical about his sudden change of
party registration.

Now is the time that President Obama should be demanding that
Specter back the key elements of his program. Now is also the time that
progressives and labor activists in Pennsylvania should be letting Sen.
Specter know that if he wants their support in 2010, he will have to
support our issues. That means full-throated backing for EFCA, and for
a single-payer health plan for America.

If Specter weasels on these key issues, progressives and labor
should withhold their backing and throw themselves behind a more
progressive candidate, should one choose to run against him for the
Democratic nomination next spring.
____________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is
“The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is
available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Jim Bunning Lunacy Continues....

RDillon — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:08:29 -0500

Jim Bunning is a daily laugh-fest. Man, I sure hope the Republicans don't shove him out with a primary!! It is going to be so much fun running against Kentucky's "Crazy Uncle". It seems every time this man opens his mouth, his foot is inserted within.

Now the latest, as reported by Ben Carter at Bluegrass Roots seems to be that Mr. Bunning, and one of his potential replacements, Sleepy the Dwarf David Williams may have violated campaign financing laws to help hold on to state Senate seats last year. And of course, most eccentric Jim Bunning may have let the cat out of the bag by what he does best, a slip of the tongue. From Ben's post at Bluegrassroots:

Bunning shot back Tuesday, accusing Williams of failing to repay $30,000 that his campaign provided to help state Sens. Ken Winters, R-Murray, and Jack Westwood, R-Crescent Springs, retain their seats in the fall election.

Williams "owes me $30,000 and he said he'll repay me," Bunning said. "I was short in my FEC money and he asked me if I would help save two state Senate seats. ... I told him if I did it, I would have to have it replaced at the first of the year. So far, he has not."

Ben then states what seems to have happened:

It kind of sounds like Jim Bunning and David Williams had a conversation about helping Winters and Westwood get reelected. One which contemplated Bunning giving money to the Republican Party of Kentucky.

He then continues with more quoted material:

A Federal Election Commission report for Bunning's campaign committee, Citizens for Bunning, shows a $25,000 contribution to the Republican Party of Kentucky on Oct. 20, 2008. Bunning said his political action committee donated an additional $5,000.

http://www.bluegrassroots.org/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9462E2B3EAD9BE018D...

Ben goes on to point out some of the legal aspects of this loan:

Federal elected officials routinely donate money to their state party. That's pretty commonplace. What is not commonplace is having an elected official state that the money was specifically for a certain race. This is less common probably because transferring a bunch of federal money to a state campaign, even especially if it's laundered through a party, is a violation of campaign finance laws.

Check the whole article from Ben Carter here, and decide for yourself:

http://www.bluegrassroots.org/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9462E2B3EAD9BE018D...

Ah, but in more glorious Jim Bunning news, it seems as if his illegal money is good enough for state Republicans, but their money is too good for him:

Republicans have a new strategy for dealing with the wildly unpredictable Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.): keep their distance and hope he implodes.

That means little fundraising help from top Republicans in Washington, little to no engagement with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a cold shoulder from Kentucky political strategists. And if you’re Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the NRSC chairman, no cross words about Bunning.

“The easiest way to get rid of him is not give him any money,” said one Washington-based Republican fundraiser.

Cutting off Bunning from the big money — while ignoring his outbursts on the campaign trail — may be the only hope for Republicans whose behind-the-scenes effort to force Bunning to retire have backfired. Calls for him to retire, and any recruitment of a primary challenger, will only embolden Bunning, Republicans say.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19528.html

And Bunning is making a most wonderful mess for the GOP in Kentucky whether they can shed themselves of his antics or not:

But the most delicate challenge ahead is how to recruit a potential GOP challenger in Kentucky. Bunning still has enough of a base among Kentucky’s conservative activists that he could win the primary in May of next year. State Senate President David Williams, a Republican who is close to McConnell, is considering a bid and had a courtesy meeting with NRSC staff last week. But he has not publicly announced a primary challenge. A second potential GOP candidate, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, has said he won’t run if Bunning’s in the race.

Even Kentucky's most toothless Senator Mitch McConnell scuttled away from a reporter inquiring on Bunning's status:

Publicly, McConnell has been quiet on the Bunning situation. He avoided questions last week about the race, walking in silence as a reporter trailed him, asking if he wanted Bunning to run for reelection.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19528_Page2.html

And for once, Bunning himself had not a crazy remark to make when asked of his own status as the most embarrassing member of the lunatic fringe that the Kentucky Republican Party has become:

Asked for comment about GOP concerns, Bunning refused, saying, “I’m not talking to you.”

But Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, the one Democrat that has thusfar announced to run against Bunning or his replacement, who himself was a victim of one of Bunning's erratic remarks had a solution for everyone:

In his 2004 race, Bunning said his Democratic challenger Daniel Mongiardo looked like “one of Saddam Hussein’s sons.” He won that race, but only by 1 percentage point in a big GOP year.

Mongiardo, who is now the state’s lieutenant governor, plans to run for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat, and he called on Bunning last week to bow out of the race, something that may only encourage Bunning to dig in.

Yes, lets hope Sen. Bunning digs in and runs in 2010!! Even if not lets enjoy watching the Kentucky Republican Party rip itself to shreds!! It is never too early to help win this race and give Democrats the most coveted 60th vote:

http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/331

http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/21924

Jim Bunning's Charity Profits..... Bunning!!!!

RDillon — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:55:10 -0500

Ah, those wonderful Kentucky Republican Christian Values!! We all know that the Kentucky Republican Party represents the most greedy and least patriotic among us, but this story takes the cake. Not being merely content during Christmastime to try and cost millions of middle-class jobs American workers have fought for, it seems that former pitcher, and slightly deranged Senator Jim Bunning has set up a Non-Profit charity to avoid taxes that profits, well Jim Bunning!! You gotta love the Republican spirit of giving!!

The Lexington Herald-Leader has this charming story of the selflessness of Kentucky Republicans:

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., set up a charitable foundation in 1996, the year he entered baseball's Hall of Fame. Every year since, he has been the fund's biggest recipient.

The non-profit Jim Bunning Foundation, which collects the money the former pitcher gets from autographing baseball memorabilia, has taken in more than $504,000, Senate and tax records show.

Of that, Bunning has earned $180,000 in salary for working a reported hour a week.

By contrast, the foundation has given $136,435, or about one-fourth of its income, to churches and charitable groups around Northern Kentucky. The largest sums went to local Catholic churches Bunning has attended.

Records show that Bunning is the foundation's sole employee and the only person to draw a paycheck from it.

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/630621.html

So, let me get this straight. A man who decries and seeks to demonize Union workers for wanting wages and benefits which would create an American middle-class has been working an hour a week for a sweet, $180,000 in profits??

Maybe it is time for old "Screwball" Jim to demand a renegotiating of his own contract!!

Of course, Bunning's partners in greed which includes a lobbyist and his wife are quick to defend him:

Friends defend Bunning's salary. There couldn't be a Jim Bunning Foundation unless there was a Jim Bunning, said Rick Robinson, a Washington lobbyist who handles the foundation's records.

"The foundation is a charity that hired Jim Bunning to work for it," said Robinson. "Without hiring him to do this, the charity wouldn't have any income."

The foundation is overseen by a three-member board: the senator's wife, Mary Bunning; an old friend, Cincinnati tire dealer Bob Sumerel, whose family has given about $25,000 to Bunning's campaigns; and Robinson, a former congressional aide to Bunning whose lobbying clients in recent years have received budget earmarks from the senator.

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/630621.html

There is nothing like a few lucrative earmarks to get one in the Christmas spirit indeed!!!

Watchdog groups weren't buying it:

Watchdog groups this week said the foundation blurs a number of Senate ethics and Internal Revenue Service rules regarding outside income for members of Congress, legitimate uses for tax-exempt charities and whether Bunning — as a paid employee — improperly dominates the foundation's board.

"For him to be taking more for himself than he gives to the charities just doesn't look good, no matter how you cut it," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago.

"The IRS doesn't want people to just set up their weekend hobbies as nonprofit foundations so they can take advantage of the tax-protection rules," Borochoff said.

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/630621.html

Of course, they have much reason to be skeptical:

Charity watchdogs said it's admirable to start a foundation. But they question the $20,000 salary that Bunning, 77, takes every year, while the foundation gives an average $13,600 a year to charities.

Bunning's salary alone — not counting payroll taxes, legal expenses and other administrative costs — has consumed 36 percent of the money his foundation has collected, the largest share. Only 27 percent has gone to charitable work.

A legitimate charity's administrative costs should be between 20 to 30 percent of its expenses, with most of its money going to charitable work, said Claire Gaudiani, professor at the New York University Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising.

Referring to the numbers at the Jim Bunning Foundation, Gaudiani said: "These are the wrong percentages. This is backwards."

Because the foundation takes in more than it spends, it keeps a growing savings account — $146,342 as of last Jan. 1 — invested in a mutual fund

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/630621.html

The former lobbyist then proceeds to tell how they hope to give more money in the future, as long as their precious profits are protected:

At some point in the future, Robinson said, the foundation hopes it might build up enough excess cash to distribute the interest income to charities without diminishing the principal. That would give local charities an additional shot at foundation money.

But the foundation has no plan for when this might happen, he added.

Of course, one begins to understand when you see the staggering amounts given to charity last year:

In 2007, the foundation divided $18,200 among 25 recipients. Bunning's current church, St. Therese Catholic Church in Southgate, received $5,250, by far the largest single donation. In previous years, when St. Catherine of Siena Church in Fort Thomas was his church, St. Catherine got the largest donations.

The donations are large enough for the Jim Bunning Foundation to be credited by name in the charities' promotional materials released throughout the community.

The three-member board that runs the foundation decides which charities to support and how much to give, not Bunning, Robinson said. But he could not explain how the choices are made.

"There's no real method to the madness," he said.

Senator Bunning and his lobbyist friend should be ashamed of themselves. Using non-profit status to protect profits from baseball signings all while fighting to destroy unions and middle-class wages??

How very Christian!!!

The good news is that folks in Michigan who stand to lose their jobs and see their economy further crushed aren't buying Bunning's for profit non-profit garbage:

Bunning was to appear today at the Gibraltar Trade Center. But he was kicked off the schedule after helping derail the loan package in the Senate on Thursday night.

''I simply cannot support anyone who, in my opinion, votes against the economic well-being of our great state,'' said trade center owner James Koester.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1330917,CST-NWS-bunning14.article

Couldn't have happened to a better tax dodger!!!

It is never too early to begin the work on ousting this guy:

http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/331

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