Today, January 21, is the two-year anniversary of the absolute worst and most dangerous Supreme Court decision of our lifetimes, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. We decided it would be the perfect time to reiterate Blue America's enthusiastic support and endorsement of Orlando Democrat Alan Grayson and to invite him here to Crooks and Liars for a question-and-answer session.

Two years ago there were only two Members of Congress at the Supreme Court when the narrow 5-4 decision striking down the provisions of the McCain–Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations' and unions' unrestricted election spending on advertising was read out: Alan and Mitch McConnell. I can imagine McConnell squealing with delight. Grayson had quite a different reaction. He warned later that evening on Countdown that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye." (See video above.) I don't think he actually meant the physical country itself-- just democracy, so loathed by the plutocratic elites, and all the benefits democracy brings with it.

Alan had gotten over 100,000 people to sign a petition to the Justices at SaveDemocracy.net, and he personally delivered the signatures to the Supreme Court. This was a new experience for the Supreme Court.

"Seeing it coming," he told me when discussing the ruling, "and assuming the worst, I had introduced four anti-Citizens United bills the week before, and introduced four more afterward. We called this our Save Democracy Platform. The core of three of these bills made it into the DISCLOSE Act." These were the bills Alan introduced:

The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive government money from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than for promoting their products and services.

The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433): Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.

The End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act (H.R. 4487): This bill requires the approval of a majority of a public company's shareholders for any expenditure by that company to influence public opinion on matters not related to the company's products or services.

Blue America was urging Alan to run again even as the votes were being counted in 2010. And we are determined that this year he's going to be back in Congress-- and this time in a solid Democratic district (the new 27th based in Orlando). Please help us raise him the money he needs to beat back the Kochs and the Roves and the corporate special interests.

He recorded this for us last night:

enlarge

How about electing a frugal yankee with the right priorities to congress?

In the people's corner Ann McLane Kuster

On election night 2010, when progressives around the country were pummeled and defeated, one race kept us all up late, hoping against hope that we'd have a memorable victory among the defeats. As it turned out New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district candidate Ann McLane Kuster lost to Charlie Bass that night by only a few votes, but showed that even in a GOP tsunami she had what it took to compete as a progressive. So naturally she's challenging Bass to a rematch in 2012.

This time there's no doubt about what she's up against. Bass has turned out to be a very typical Republican by voting to end Medicare and then whining about semantics when Democratic groups called him on it. He's collecting money from all the usual suspects, notably energy and insurance companies who have business in front of the energy and commerce committee, along with practically every other lobbyist from tobacco to Walmart. It didn't take him long to put his hand out and start collecting the big bucks from the corporations and the 1 percent.

By contrast Annie has had over 11,000 individual donations, 90% of which are under a hundred dollars. (You can join the crowd, by donating to her campaign here.)

She's running a grassroots campaign with an army of progressives on the ground and around the country who are anxious to see a "frugal yankee" put these priorities to work for the people:

I believe we need to cut wasteful government spending -- like the billions in subsidies for oil companies, the corporate tax breaks for moving jobs overseas, and the billions more spent on redundant weapons systems that our military leaders have identified as wasteful and unneeded. But instead of these cuts, the US House of Representatives is cutting what we need most: education, public safety, and the clean energy research that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It makes no sense. America can do better than this -- so, it's time for all of us to do something about it.

America can do better --- with the help of dedicated, energetic progressives in the House, fighting for the people instead of catering to the special interests.

We are very excited to once again endorse Ann McLane Kuster for the congressional seat in New Hampshire's second district and are pleased that she has accepted our invitation to join us for the first Blue America chat of the 2012 campaign this Saturday at 2pm est and 11am pst at Crooks and Liars. Please join Annie and us for a freewheeling conversation about her campaign, the state of politics and her plans to help us all create a better country for the 99%.

And if you would like to help her with this grassroots endeavor, you can contribute to her campaign here.

We're all in this together,

Digby, for Howie, John and the Blue America team

enlarge

Credit: Adam Fox

I bet you're getting inundated with letters from candidates begging you to meet their phony, basically meaningless deadlines. Blue America is going to ramp up soon with new progressive candidates-- some who we already know, like Darcy Burner (WA), and new ones we've met over the last few months like Franke Wilmer (MT) and Patsy Keever (NC). Meanwhile, we're not going to hustle you for contributions to meet these "deadlines."

We've had a good 2011 but, as you know, 2012 is an election year and in November we'll be electing not just a president but also the entire House and a third of the Senate. As always, we'll leave the presidential race alone and concentrate on Congress, mostly the House-- although we have endorsed outstanding progressives Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin.

Right now we want to send our best wishes for 2012 and say thanks for the help in 2011. If you can handle it today, two of our best House candidates, Ken Aden, who's running in northwest Arkansas, and Joe Miklosi, who's running in suburban Denver, can really use some contributions. As you can see we haven't really been able to make any kind of difference for these two yet. It would be great if we could bring their totals up over $1,000 each.

UPDATE FROM HOWIE:
This letter was sent out yesterday afternoon to our donor email list. We had 20 people who responded to the letter before midnight and and we want to thank them very much. Now--

We're very close to some goals I set for the end of the year for our candidates:

Blue America has met several of it's end of year goals already (Chris Donovan, Nick Ruiz, Ilya Sheyman) and we're tantalizing close to most of the others. We're $199 away from what we hoped to raise for John Waltz, $193 away from Norman Solomon's, $109 for Alan Grayson, only $39 away from Joe Miklosi's, $61 from Mary Jo Kilroy's, only $18 for Eric Griego, $220 for Ken Aden & a slightly more daunting $490 for Ed Potosnak. Can you help with anyone? Here's the link: http://is.gd/dbWDHu

Again, thanks to everyone who contributed and to those who make the phone calls, use Twitter and Facebook to get the word out about these fantastic Progressives and help get more of them elected to Congress.

We are all in this together,
Howie, for Digby, John, and the Blue America team

We're going to do something a little different today here at DownWithTyranny. In honor of Thanksgiving we're going to dedicate the entire day to explaining why we're thankful to one candidate for Congress, Alan Grayson. Last week, Blue America sponsored an intimate, free-ranging chat with Alan and we've cut it up into bite-sized pieces. All during the day we'll be posting short clips from that chat. Hopefully, at least one will encourage and animate you to contribute to Alan's campaign on our Blue America ActBlue page. Last time Allen ran Blue America raised over $100,000 for him, and the average contribution was around $43. There were lots of $5 and $10 contributions as well. They all add up. Right-wing front groups-- many funded by the Koch brothers-- poured more cash into attack ads against Allen than any other Member of Congress. They hate him; and he doesn't run from their hatred.

I'd like to start with a short clip where Alan neatly defines his politics and explains in 3 words why he's running for Congress and what his governing philosophy is. I found this very powerful when he said it. What do you think?

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.- Jesus Christ from Matthew 19;24

Watch that video above of Colorado state Rep Joe Miklosi announcing his candidacy for the congressional seat passed from Tom Tancredo to an even further right crackpot, Mike Coffman. When he ends it with "God bless you," he means it. The first time I spoke with him, we spent more time talking about Jesus' message than I've talked about with every other candidate Blue America has ever endorsed-- not because we endorse people who don't embrace Jesus' message... just because it isn't a topic progressives usually talk about publicly. But Joe isn't "usual." As his campaign motto says, "not your ordinary Joe." Before I tell you what his favorite Bible verse is (the one above is one of mine), let me tell you how I met Joe.

Gloria Totten heads up Progressive Majority, an organization that does on the state legislature level what Blue America does on the congressional level. She told me about Joe months ago when he was considering running. "Joe is an outstanding progressive who has stood firm on the progressive issues we care most about," she told me. "He is a proven leader who is committed to building our movement for the future-- as Progressive Majority's Colorado state director, Joe helped 60 progressives win state and local office. We were proud to support Joe in his bid for the State House and I'm thrilled to back his campaign for the U.S. Congress. Trust me, Washington, DC needs more public servants like Joe-- smart, energetic, committed and passionate for the people."

For the people... and more. This is one of Joe's favorite Bible verses. It comes from the prophet Micah who Christ quoted when asked what does the Lord require of you? You probably don't hear many on the "religious" right espousing this one:

To love justice, to seek mercy, and to walk humbly with the Lord.

Joe is perfectly comfortable talking about messages from Jesus like that-- even if conservatives (see my favorite Bible verse up top) have tried to coopt Jesus for their ideology of selfishness and bigotry, greed and hatred. "This theme," Joe told me this week, "has motivated me to pursue public policy that is more fair and just for every person. It clarifies, for example, my stance to repeal the unjust ‘Don’t Ask, Don't Tell’ law because all people should be able to serve in the United States military regardless of how they were born. The aspiration toward these goals helped to inspire my sponsorship of the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act beneficiaries are good kids, who play by the rules, earn good grades point averages and want to contribute to our society. By creating educational and workforce development opportunities for students we can energize and empower individuals and families and grow our economy for all Americans."

Who would Jesus kill? Joe doesn't seem to find Jesus wanting to kill anyone. "I oppose the death penalty because we can do better as a society," he said. "We have killed innocent people as DNA testing has verified. We disproportionately kill people from communities of color, as the U.S. Supreme Court recently confirmed. A person rightfully convicted of murder or heinous act should spend the rest of their life in prison."

Prison is pretty horrible. But our business elites have behaved (badly) knowing full well that the chances that they-- regardless of what they do-- aren't likely to spend much time there. So what about Wall Street? What about OccupyWallStreet. I asked Joe what he thinks about the whole movement. His response:

"In regard to Wall Street and economic reform, I respect those that take peaceful action to advocate for an economy that rewards hard work, encourages innovation and investment in education, retools Americans, and produces livable wages.

"We can not allow Wall Street elitists to break the rules, change the rules, and keep moving the goalpost, away from hard working families. Because of Wall Street greed and arrogance in 2008, millions of families were robbed of the dreams they worked and saved for, our nation was hobbled, and the Wall Street crowd sauntered into Washington to rewrite the rules again-- to give themselves a bailout. That’s not thrift, it’s theft.

"It is amazing to see so many inspired people-- from and for various points of view-- advocating for change and a fair financial system."

We're going to have Joe over in the comments section (below) today at noon (Mountain Time, 11am here in L.A.) to talk about his campaign and why he's running for Congress. I hope you'll join us. And I hope I've presented Joe attractively enough so that you'd like to help him beat that crackpot Coffman. You can do that here on the Blue America page.