The Daily Change

Brown’s latest quip involves fearmongering by touting a “study” by one of his major donors.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) must be getting nervous, with poll after poll showing that bold progressive Elizabeth Warren will likely defeat him tomorrow.

In an election rally yesterday, Brown told the audience that they should “look to the leftAi?? and look to the right,” and one of them may be losing jobs if Warren wins:

BROWN: She wants to raise taxes 3.4 trillion dollars! More regulation, more government interference with your every day lives. With all due respect even the respected the Ernst and Young, they say 17,000 jobs, look t the left and look to the right if it’ll be one of you, maybe not having that job.

Watch it:

Here’s something Brown didn’t tell the audience. Ernst and Young (EY) is not just some accounting firm providing independent and objective analysis. EY has been neck-deep in its ties to corruption on Wall Street. Recall that it was sued in 2010 by then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for its alleged role in assisting fraud at Lehman Brothers.

EY also happens to be a huge political donor. It has given $10,000 to Brown’s campaign and is giving 65 percent of its funds to Republicans this year. Its employees have also given three times as much money to Mitt Romney as they have Barack Obama.

Brown is shamelessly touting far from impartial numbers from one of his major donors to scare voters.

Don’t let Brown get away with it. Click here to sign up to make phone calls to Massachusetts voters to elect Elizabeth Warren.

Can’t make calls? Click here to chip in $3 to Warren’s campaign.

We’ve just released a new video featuring a group of celebrities and political icons who want you to vote for Elizabeth Warren.

“I believe she’ll stand up for the working person, the everyday person, the people who have been taken advantage of by the system,” says Ben Affleck in the video. “I love Elizabeth Warren…She cares about people. Not corporations ‘people.’ People people,” says comedian Sarah Silverman.

“I support Elizabeth warren because she works tirelessly for the people,” says Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead. “She understands that economic issues and women’s issues are one in the same.”

Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis has this to say about if her opponent Sen. Scott Brown (R) wins: “Karl Rove will be running the Senate of the United States. That’s the last thing in the world we need.”

“I know that she’ll work so hard, day in and day out in the Senate, on behalf of working families,” says Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor.

Watch it yourself:

Click here to share this video on Twitter.

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We’re making calls to Massachussetts voters over the next few days asking them to vote for Warren on Tuesday. Click here to join our Call Out The Vote effort.

Can’t make calls? Chip in $3 to help elect Warren to the Senate.

It’s no secret that the right is trying to suppress the vote. In Massachusetts, Democratic voters are getting robo-calls telling them to vote for Elizabeth Warren and President Obama on Wednesday — one day after the election.

Here’s a craigslist ad we found that’s up in Sacramento telling Obama voters to vote on the 7th, not the 6th:

You can access the ad here.

We don’t know yet who exactly is behind these dirty tricks. But we do have our own way to counter them.

Click here to sign up to tell voters to get to the polls on Tuesday to elect bold progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Alan Grayson to Congress.

Help defend Warren against this dirty trick. Sign up to make calls for her.

It appears that somebody in Massachusetts is trying to use dirty tricks to prevent Elizabeth Warren from being elected.

Patch.com’s Susan Manning reports that at least one voter got a robo-call telling them to vote for President Obama and Warren on Wednesday — the day after the election. The calls apparently are claiming the election date has been changed due to Hurricane Sandy:

The call said “Hi, I’m one of your neighbors in Holliston and … I want to urge you to vote for Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama on Wednesday, November 7.” The date, said the call, had been changed because of Hurricane Sandy.

Manning was unable to ascertain the origin of these calls, the caller ID listed it simply as Massachusetts 000-0000.

We don’t know who’s behind this dirty trick, but we do know how to respond. We’re making calls to Massachussetts voters over the next few days asking them to vote for Warren on Tuesday. Click here to join our Call Out The Vote effort.

Josh Mandel

President Obama’s historic endorsement of marriage equality earlier this year is just one indication that America is moving towards giving full rights to its citizens of all sexual orientations.

But most of the Republican Party continues to oppose equality. Ohio Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel is one of these Republicans who opposes marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

Eight members of Mandel’s extended family have just written him an open letter condemning his anti-equality views. These family members note that two of Mandel’s cousins are lesbians, and that he is failing to support their rights. Below is the letter in its entirety:

Open Letter to Josh Mandel, Republican Candidate for U.S. Senator from OhioDear Josh,

Four years ago you came into our family. We still remember the excitement surrounding your wedding, and how happy our family members were as they described it afterwards. So we were deeply saddened when you announced during your October 18th debate with Senator Sherrod Brown that you believe only some people should share this right to marry the person they love, while others should not.

Your cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, are among the many wonderful couples whose rights you do not recognize. They were married almost eight years ago in Massachusetts, at a time when it was the only state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. Their wedding, like yours, was a beautiful and happy occasion for all of us in our family. It hurts us that you would embrace discrimination against them and countless other loving couples in Ohio and around the country.

We are equally distressed by your belief that gay men and women should not be allowed to serve openly in the military. Like you, Cholene spent many years in the …

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Senate Republican candidate Tommy Thompson made a lot of money since formally leaving the government. Shortly after leaving the Bush Administration, he went to work for a major lobbying firm advising health care corporations, essentially selling his government connections.
At a recent campaign stop, Thompson offered a condescending explanation for why he decided to pass through the revolving door and sell his government experience to corporations after leaving office:

THOMPSON: I left the government after 4 years after George Bush got elected the first time. And my wife likes to shop. And she said, ‘You know, Tommy, you’ve been in politics for 38 years. Why don’t you go out and see if you can make some decent money so I can go shopping without having to put everything on a credit card.’

Watch it:

It’s offensive for Thompson to blame his wife for his decision to join a powerful lobbying firm after leaving office.

Wisconsin needs a Senator who can own up to their own decisions.

Click here to sign up to make calls for Tammy Baldwin, his bold progressive challenger.

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN)

As millions of Americans continue to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, they expect their government to be there to respond to the effects of the storm. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s solutionto the federal response to the super storms is to simply devolve the Federal Emergency Management Administration and let the states take care of themselves — a disastrous plan that would be particularly destructive to poorer states without the resources to respond to emergencies.

Embattled Republican congressman Chip Cravaack (R-MN) was asked about Romney’s plan during a debate with his bold progressive Democratic opponent Rick Nolan. He

MODERATOR:Where do you stand on Mitt Romney’s stand on turning over FEMA and federal government disaster relief to the individual states?

CRAVAACK: I’d have to take a look at that proposal a little bit more. There’s nothing really hard in stone, what now of course with the Dulluth floods FEMA responded pretty well. […] I’d really have to defer and wait until I see some hard language […]

MODERATOR: Mr. Nolan?

NOLAN: No, I’d be strongly opposed to that. What we’re witnessing here in the northeastern united states, what we witnessed here in northeastern Minnesota, what we witnessed in Louisiana, New Orleans, clearly requires a federal government response.

Watch it:

Minnesotans deserve a congressman who can clearly condemn a radical plan like dismantling FEMA and turning its responsibilities over to individual states.

Click here to sign up to make calls for Rick Nolan.

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson loves the Keystone pipeline. He always promotes it at campaign stops and debates. But what he doesn’t tell you is the D.C. lobbying firm he worked at was quietly paid to lobby for it.

In January of this year, Thompson resigned his position at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP (known in shorthand as “Akin Gump”). While there, his chief duty was to provide public policy advising to health care corporations. Essentially, he was an unregistered lobbyist corresponding with many of the same corporations that he regulated as Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

But Akin Gump is a huge law and lobbying firm. It has many clients in every sector. One of the firm’s clients that signed on one month before Thompson resigned his position was Houston, Texas’s Qanta Services.

Qanta services was selected one month prior (in November) to be Canadian energy company TransCanada’s partner in building the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Qanta’s contract specifically lists the Keystone XL Pipeline as the issue that it hired Akin Gump to lobby on. Here’s a screenshot from the disclosure document (click it to get a larger version):

As we noted earlier, Akin Gump is a huge lobbying firm. It has literally hundreds of clients and many of them that are not asking for registered lobbying do not have to disclose their connection to the firm at all.

We have no idea what other corporate interests Thompson’s former firm may be asking him to advocate for. We just know that he spent all of his time between his service in the Bush administration and now working for various corporate interests, helping …

Linda McMahon

Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon — the wife of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Vince McMahon — has tried over and over to simply buy Connecticut’s Senate seat.

In 2010, she reportedly spent $50 million of her own money trying to win the state’s open Senate seat. In the primary this year, she defeated Chris Shays — one of the national Republican Party’s last supporters of campaign finance reform — by outspending him twelve-to-one.

Now, recently released campaign finance records show that she is outspending her bold progressive opponent, Chris Murphy, five-to-one. She’s reportedly spending $28 million of her own money for the campaign, which means she’s spending around three times all the money that Murphy has accumulated for his campaign altogether.

McMahon is trying once again to do what she failed to do previously — buy a seat in the U.S. Senate.

We don’t have tens of millions of dollars of personal wealth to spend on the race, but we do have all of you. Help us stop McMahon by clicking here to sign up to make calls for bold progressive Chris Murphy.

Mark Pocan

Here’s a special message from Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin State Assembly member and openly-gay bold progressive candidate for Congress:

When Tammy Baldwin became the first openly-gay American elected to Congress as a non-incumbent,Ai??her victory was a historic breakthrough.

It allowed other openly-gay people to seek public office without fear — people like me.

In less than one week, we could make history againAi??with Tammy Baldwin becoming the first openly-gay senator. And if myself and others like Mark Takano get elected, we could send the largest LGBT delegation to Congress in history.

Can you help us achieve history by donating $3 to Tammy Baldwin and Mark Takano’s campaign today? ]

YES! Great progressives in Congress vs. a cup of coffee. Easy choice!

No. But happy to volunteer from home. Show me the call shifts for them later today and this week.

Mark Takano is a friend and has already provided great value to his local California community as a teacher. I’m proud of him for making the decision to run for Congress — he calls himself “openly gay and openly progressive.”

All of us will oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. We want strong government investment in jobs. And we support real accountability for Wall Street.

PCCC members have already made thousands of calls for our campaigns, and today will be a big day.

Please click here to sign up to make calls from home today and this week.Ai??And know that you have our thanks.

(Or, chip in a few dollars to Tammy and Mark’s campaigns.)

Thanks for being a bold progressive.

Tommy Thompson

As bold progressive Elizabeth Warren said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention, “Republicans say they don’t believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.”

Case in point: Wisconsin Republican Senate nominee Tommy Thompson. At a Tea Party rally this past weekend, Thompson addressed the crowd about the virtues of self-reliance and individualism:

THOMPSON: The Constitution says We The People, not We The Government! […] Read the Constitution, Mr. President. We the people! We built it ourselves!

Watch it:

But as Thompson attacked the public sector and preached self-reliance, what he didn’t mention was that he personally has made millions of dollars off of taxpayers.

To start with, practically his entire career has been in government. Shortly after completing law school in 1966, he ran for Wisconsin State Assembly. He won, and cycled between a series of government jobs, ranging from Governor of Wisconsin to George W. Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

After leaving Bush’s cabinet, he joined the private sector — sort of. He worked for the powerful lobbying firm Akin Gump, and worked to advise health care corporations and how they could make as much as possible off of the U.S. government. He became president of the health care form Logistics Health Incorporated, and got an $11 million government contract to manage health care for 9/11 first-responders — which his company bungled.

Given the fact that he’s spent nearly his entire life in government and that his few short years out of it basically consisted of figuring out how to help corporations profit off of the government, Thompson is the last person who should be lecturing anyone on the virtues of the free market and self-reliance.

Tell Thompson he …

A month ago, we reported that Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown has held over thirty Washington, D.C. fundraisers with lobbyists and other elite donors but hasn’t held a single open town hall for all of his constituents to come to.

Since then, Brown has yet to hold any town hall events, even as he’s campaigning against bold progressive Elizabeth Warren, who has steadily overtaken him in the polls. That means Brown has been in office a whopping 1,000 days and he hasn’t held any open town hall events for his constituents.

In his last campaign for office, Brown said that he was running for “the people’s seat.” But he consistently refuses to meet with the people.

Take action. Sign up to make calls for his bold progressive opponent Elizabeth Warren.

A NASA image of Hurricane Sandy

The people of the northeast coast of the United States are facing down one of the worst storms in years, as Hurricane Sandy barrels towards New York City. This serves as a stark reminder of the importance of having a government that has the capacity to decently take care of its people.

In order for the government to have that capacity, it needs funding. Last June, House Democrats proposed an amendment to increase funding for the government’s ability to respond to mass flooding, with a $31.6 million appropriation for “flood control and coastal emergencies so we can train and plan for natural disasters, respond to hurricanes, fight floods, and repair storm damage reduction projects.”

Republicans overwhelmingly voted down the amendment in a 233-185 vote. Only two Republicans supported the measure — Rep. Steve King (IA) and Rep. Tom Latham (IA).

It’s important to remember this not to politicize this tragedy — Americans of all political stripes are dealing with the ramifications of the storm, and they all deserve our thoughts and efforts — but to remember that politics has consequences.

Please contribute to our Hurricane Preparedness Fund so that we can pay for generators to power our election headquarters. With your backing, we can continue to call voters on behalf of great progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Alan Grayson. We can also help defeat Republicans who tried to hold disaster relief funds hostage, like Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH).

A NASA image of Hurricane Sandy

The right has made a religion out of bashing the federal government’s ability to help ordinary people and make America prosperous. But the oncoming “Frankenstorm” Hurricane Sandyshows that the ability for the government to have the funding it needs to tackle challenges like a major natural disaster is crucial.

Americans who live in the northeast of all political stripes are bracing for the storm’s impact, but it was one political party in particular who decided to repeatedly threaten the government’s ability to respond to hurricanes.

In March 2011, the House Republicans passed a continuing resolution that included a cut of $450.3 million to the NOAA as compared to President Obamaai??i??s requested budget. It also cut the National Weather Service by $126 million and reduced ai???funding for FEMA management by $24.3 million off of the FY2010 budget, and [reduced] that appropriation by $783.3 million for FEMA state and local programs.ai??? House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) also famously threatened to delay disaster relief for Hurricane Irene until certain budget cuts were put in place.

The budget pressure resulting from wrangling over funding for FEMA has taken a real toll on the agency. Last August, FEMA cut back on tornado assistance to Alabama, for instance, which was hit by a spree of killer storms the previous April.

On ai???state and local levels, these are devastating, to-the-bone cuts that erode the basic capacity of communities to fulfill their basic responsibilities when disaster strikes,ai??? wrote Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia Universityai??i??s Mailman School of Public Health, in response to the cuts that disaster detection, preparedness, and recovery have faced over the past few years.

Demonizing the governmentai??i??s ability to assist ordinary Americans has become …

Last night, bold progressive Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)Ai?? faced off with his right-wing challenger Josh Mandel.

At one point, the debate host Chuck Todd asked both candidates if they would be open to raising the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare, which would amount to a huge cut to benefits for both programs.

Mandel tried to weasel out of answering the question, saying that he was open to making changes to the programs for younger people but would not specify whether he would make these exact changes.

When it came time for Brown to answer, he didn’t waver. He blasted the idea of raising the retirement age and eloquently explained that working-class people can’t work any longer:

BROWN: Here’s why I wouldn’t raise the retirement age, the age for Medicare eligibility. I met a woman in Youngstown a few months ago. Who said, ‘I’m 63 years old I don’t have health insurance, I just want to stay alive until I turn 65 so I can get health insurance.’ If you raise the retirement age…maybe if you dress like this, if you’re the state treasurer, you’re a U.S. Senator maybe it works, but for a whole lot of working Americans it doesn’t.

TODD: But does it work for anybody?

BROWN: No, you don’t! You don’t. … On Social Security, I would not raise the retirement age, because working people, construction people, people who work in diners can’t work until they’re 70! … I would think of raising the [payroll tax] cap.

Watch it:

Brown’s answer hit the nail on the head: raising the retirement age would hit working-class people the most, whose life expectancy actually hasn’t increased very much in recent years. Lifting the payroll tax cap and making the wealthy pay a little bit more would keep Social …

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Senate Republican candidate and health care profiteer Tommy Thompson is getting desperate. He has launched a new television ad attacking his bold progressive opponent Tammy Baldwin as unpatriotic because she voted against a resolution commemorating the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2006.

But in criticizing Baldwin, Thompson is obscuring an important fact about the resolution Baldwin voted against. The resolution didn’t just honor 9/11’s victims and commemorate the attacks, it was heavily politicized and included support for Republican legislation that harmed civil liberties. Here’s a portion of the resolution that Republicans inserted and that had nothing to do with honoring 9/11’s victims:

Whereas Congress passed, and the President signed, numerous laws to assist victims, combat the forces of terrorism, protect the Homeland and support the members of the Armed Forces who defend American interests at home and abroad, including the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and its 2006 reauthorization, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004;

As you can see, the resolution included support for the highly controversial USA PATRIOT Act, which many people across the political spectrum view as an attack on American civil liberties. It also included support for various immigration bills that were hotly-debated at the time.

The insertion of this section into the bill had nothing to do with remembering those America lost on 9/11. They simply served to politicize the legislation and make it supportive of Republican priorities.

Furthermore, Baldwin has voted repeatedly for bills that honored 9/11’s victims. For example, last year she voted to “award three Congressional Gold Medals in honor of the victims …

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH)

Republican Members of Congress love to bash the stimulus bill and then ask for stimulus dollars and tout its projects back home. In 2010, over 110 Republican lawmakers who voted against the stimulus bill simultaneously tried to take credit for stimulus projects in their districts and/or asked for more money.

On Wednesday, Republican congressman Frank Guinta (NH) got called out by his bold progressive Democratic opponent Carol Shea-Porter over his own stimulus hypocrisy. Shea-Porter pointed out that Guinta criticizes the stimulus but that as the mayor of Manchester in 2009 and 2010 he requested stimulus funding for airport projects and other programs.

“You actually loved the stimulus, when you were mayor and asked for money from me!” Shea-Porter said.

Should employees feel like their jobs are threatened if they vote for Obama?

There is a wave of corporate intimidation going on across the country, where CEOs are telling their employees not to vote for President Obama or other Democrats.

Take this example from Milwaukee today:

Mike White, the chairman and owner of Rite-Hite, a major Milwaukee manufacturer of industrial equipment, told employees in an email this week that all employees “should understand the personal consequences to them of having our tax rates increase dramatically if President Obama is re-elected, forcing taxpayers to fund President Obama’s future deficits and social programs (including Obamacare), which require bigger government.”

The email stunned some employees. One employee said he felt threatened by the email. “It’s a good company, but for this to come out, it’s absurd,” the employee said.

Needless to say, employers should not be intimidating their employees or unfairly making them feel like they will face repercussions in the workplace if they vote the way they want.

It’s time to reclaim our democracy from Corporate America. Click here to join our “Take Back Democracy” campaign.

Rodney Davis drew laughs from the audience last night when he claimed he’d protect Medicare and Social Security.

When Rodney Davis — the Republican running for Congress in Illinois’s 13th congressional district — was asked if he supported Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare and gut the social safety net, he said that while he’d like to tweak certain details, Ryan was “in concept…right on.”

So when Davis debated with his bold progressive Democratic opponent Dr. David Gill last night, he had a hard time convincing the audience that he wanted to protect Medicare and Social Security. “I’m the only candidate on the stage who will preserve and protect Social Security and Medicare,” he thundered. But the audience didn’t buy it — it responded with laughter. Watch it:

Watch it:

Davis’s opponent Gill not only opposes privatizing Medicare — he has pledged to be a blocking vote to the Ryan plan — he wants to strengthen and expand it to all Americans.

Click here to chip in a few dollars to Gill’s campaign and to keep Davis out of Washington.

Josh Mandel

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock made headlines when he offensively said that pregnancies that result from rape are a “gift from God.” Many in his party immediately moved to condemn him, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

But Ohio Senate Republican candidate Josh Mandel is refusing to take the same step. Asked by an Ohio reporter about Mourdock’s comments, Mandel simply would not condemn the offensive remarks.

REPORTER: He said that even when life begins in a horrible situation of rape that is something that God intended, is that something that you’d denounce?

MANDEL: I think I’d want to see his comments. Is there a video of it?
REPORTER: It was in a debate last night.

MANDEL: I think I’d want to see the debate or the video before I comment on that.

REPORTER: It’s true that you do not have an exception when it comes to abortion. You’re pro-life in all cases, even —

MANDEL: I think it’s important to protect the life of hte mother, and I’m proud to be pro-life.

REPORTER: Even in the possibility of rape?

MANDEL: That’s true.

Watch it:

Ohio deserves a Senator who condemns such offensive remarks. Click here to sign up to make calls for Mandel’s opponent, bold progressive Sen. Sherrod Brown (D).

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the tragic death of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. Wellstone was one of the Senate’s top progressive champions — an advocate for universal health care, children, the middle class, and the poor.

He stood against his own party’s leadership by voting against authorizing the Iraq war. When fighting the Wall Street banks, he said he could use ten more progressives in the Senate “or one Elizabeth Warren.”

The Daily Kos community is invited to join the Progressive Change Campaign Committee tonight for a national conference call with Senator Paul Wellstone’s son David and other special guests. Together, progressives will honor Paul Wellstone’s life, share memories, and discuss continuing his legacy.

Can you join us by phone or online at 9:30pm Eastern? RSVP here.

Here’s what PCCC members around the country felt 10 years ago when Wellstone passed:

ai???I was completely overwhelmed by grief.ai??? ai??i?? Michael Donnelly, Minnesotaai???I’m a former Wellstone staffer. His death was devastating, and still is. I’ll never get over it.ai??? ai??i?? Roger Wolfson, California

ai???I cried. I’m 76 and in the struggle a long time. He was a beacon for us.ai??? ai??i?? Ann Dellert, Florida

ai???Devastated. Even though I live in California, I always felt that he represented me. It was so encouraging that someone with strong principles could win elections and maintain his values.ai??? ai??i?? Lorraine Priceman, California

ai???I felt devastated. My first political contribution ever was to Paul Wellstone.ai??? ai??i?? Anita Jackson, California

ai???I could not believe it, it made be sick, I called everyone I knew. I said a prayer for his family.ai??? ai??i?? Nancy Wilson, Minnesota

Please join the PCCC, David Wellstone, and others tonight as we remember Paul Wellstone together. Join us by phone or online at 9:30pm Eastern — RSVP here.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Brian Harrington Spier)

Last week, we told you how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — perhaps the most powerful corporate lobbying group in all of Washington — is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch mailers in Massachusetts attacking Elizabeth Warren.

It’s important to remember that even though the Chamber has “U.S.” in front of it’s name, it has been caught in the past taking funding from foreign entities like the state-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company.

Because it refuses to disclose its donors, we don’t know who all of the group’s corporate sponsors are. But an alarming bit of news from the Wall Street Journal suggests that they may be even more corrupt than we imagine. The paper reports that the Chamber is suing to stop regulations that require companies to disclose whether they use blood diamonds:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers filed a challenge late Friday toAi??rules requiring U.S.-listed companies to disclose whether their products contain minerals blamed for fueling violence in central Africa.

The Chamber works on behalf of its donors, and this bit of news suggests that companies involved in the blood diamond trade in Africa are likely Chamber donors.

Members of Congress work on behalf of their donors, too. The Chamber opposes the Affordable Care Act and equal pay for women. So does Warren’s opponent, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

If Brown is re-elected with the Chamber’s dollars, we may see him, too, fighting regulations requiring the disclosure of blood diamonds.

We don’t have to let that happen. Click here to sign up make calls to voters for Warren.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY)

Outsourcing is a huge problem in the United States, and that’sAi??due to government policies like so-called free trade agreements. New York congressman Tom Reed (R-NY) has been a proponent of these job-killing deals, and voted for new agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.Ai??Those agreements are expected to cost AmericaAi??at least 214,000 jobs.

One of the corporate lobbying groups that pushes for these agreements is the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Yesterday, NAM honored Reed with an award for voting at least 70 percent of the time with the group. Watch a local news report about the Ai??award:

Reed told the press that NAM is a “great organization that stands up for manufacturing jobs.” But NAM doesn’t represent manufacturing workers, it represents manufacturing corporations, who have been sending jobs overseas to poorly-paid foreign workers.

NAM calls itself the “strongest and most aggressive voice here at home and internationally for…free trade agreements.” It lobbied aggressively to pass the three recent agreements that Reed voted for.

It’s sad that Reed would associate himself with such a vociferously anti-jobs organization.

Click here to pitch in a few dollars for his bold progressive opponent, Nate Shinigawa.

Josh Mandel

Josh Mandel — the Republican is running against bold progressive Senator Sherrod Brown (D-MA) — released his “ten point” plan for health care yesterday. The two most specific and major ideas in Mandel’s plan are the following: re-instating $716 billion in wasteful and inefficient subsidies for private insurance companies in Medicare while repealing the Affordable Care Act, and block-granting Medicaid.

The first is self-explanatory. The Affordable Care Act reduced subsidies to private insurance companies under Medicare Advantage, which saves taxpayers money and does nothing to reduce Medicare benefits. Republicans have seized on this to misleadingly claim that Obama cut Medicare, and are serving their insurance company paymasters by trying to repeal this reform.

The second idea, however, is both newer and incredibly dangerous. Block-granting Medicaid would eliminate the current financing structure where the federal government picks up 50 to 75 percent of each state’s Medicaid costs. Instead, it would dramatically decrease the amount of money that the federal government spends on the program and would give states flexibility to drop more Medicaid-eligible patients altogether.

The non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation analyzed possible state responses to transforming Medicaid into a block grant program and repealing the Affordable Care Act and predicted that between 31 and 44 million Americans would lose their health coverage altogether if this change were to be enacted.

Don’t let Mandel enact his radical health care plan. Go here to chip in a few dollars to Sherrod Browns campaign.

Tommy Thompson

Wisconsin Republican Senate Tommy Thompson has been caught on tape saying he wants to “do away with Medicare and Medicaid.” To accomplish this assault on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — which he supported privatizing in 2004 — he has to try to convince the public that they are going broke.

So maybe that explains this bizarre statement by Thompson. At a recent Republican Party event in Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson ludicrously claimed that China is paying for a portion of every Social Security and Medicare check mailed to seniors:

THOMPSON: I look at the fact that 40 cents out of every dollar, ladies and gentleman, is borrowed mainly from the Chinese. Every Social Security check, every Medicare check 40 cents is borrowed from the Chinese. Does that make you comfortable?

Watch it:

Thompson is trying to claim that 40 cents out of every dollar in our Social Security and Medicare checks comes from the Chinese. The truth is actually the opposite. Social Security is fully financed through payroll contributions, taxes on higher income beneficiaries, and the interest on its own surplus. In fact, it is actually one of the largest holders of U.S. debt — meaning that not only do we not borrow from the Chinese to finance it, but it actually keeps us from borrowing more from the Chinese and other foreign debt holders.

With respect to Medicare, it is also largely funded by its own dedicated revenue stream of payroll taxes, although half of Medicare Part A is funded by general revenue.

And by the way, China only owns 10 percent of U.S. treasuries.

This leaves one of two possibilities. Either Thompson is too ignorant to realize that American taxpayers, not Chinese debt holders, pay for …