tommy thompson

Tommy Thompson

Bold progressive Tammy Baldwin is on the cusp of history — she may soon be the first openly-gay Senator in American history.

Her opponent Tommy Thompson — who spent the past few years getting rich working at a D.C. lobbying firm — made a crass joke last night on the eve of the election. He joked that a deer one of his campaign cars hit was “named Tammy Baldwin”:

Thompson joked while talking to workers at the La Crosse steel fabricator that he got a deer even before the season opener. Actually it was one of his campaign cars; he said he was riding in the bus behind it when the crash happened early Sunday near Shawano. ai???Nobody was hurt,ai??? he said. ai???It did a lot of damage. I think the deer was named Tammy Baldwin, but Iai??i??m not sure.ai???

Are you voting in Wisconsin today? If you witness any election irregularities or voter suppression, send us a tip about it at tips@boldprogressives.org. Or tweet it at us @boldprogressive.

We’re making final phone calls to voters to elect bold progressives like Elizabeth Warren. Click here to sign up.

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Tommy Thompson’s health “reforms” are ones we already have.

Last night, bold progressive Tammy Baldwin and Tommy Thompson held a debate over the race for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seat. At one point, Baldwin called out Thompson for signing a pledge that he would never vote for a tax increase ai??i?? even on the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

Thompson responded by saying “that’s just a falsehood” and denied ever signing the pledge. Watch it:

The pledge being referenced is Washington lobbyist Grover Norquist’s so-called “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” which he uses his organization Americans for Tax Reform to enforce (ATR).

Here’s a page from ATR’s website boasting that Thompson had signed the pledge, one that even his tea party primary opponent Eric Hovde had refused to sign.

A quick tip for Thompson: stop deceiving voters about your record. A few days ago, Thompson claimed to not even remember a speech he gave where he said that as a state legislator he would adopt legislation from corporate front group ALEC word for word. Lies like that just aren’t going to withstand scrutiny.

Send Thompson a message. Click here to pitch in a few dollars to support Baldwin.

Tommy Thompson’s health “reforms” are ones we already have.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a powerful corporate-funded group that works to secretly pass Big Business-friendly legislation in state legislatures around the country. It is the same group that is responsible for the proliferation of voter suppression and “Shoot First” laws.

Here’s how powerful the group is. Former Wisconsin governor and state legislator Tommy Thompson — who’s currently running for a Senate seat in the state — once told an ALEC conference that he’d “loved going to these meetings because I always found new ideas. Then Iai??i??d take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that ai???Itai??i??s mine.” With that sentence Thompson basically admitted that he’d take corporate-written ALEC bills and work to pass them without anyone ever knowing their origin.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s watchdog blogger Dan Bice recently attended a Thompson campaign event and asked him about his remarks about ALEC. Thompson, clearly not knowing how to answer, shook his head and claimed he didn’t remember the words. Watch it:

It’s shameful that Thompson is refusing to talk about his servitude to ALEC and its corporate agenda. The voters of Wisconsin need a senator who will be honest about where the legislation he or she is advocating for comes from.

ALEC doesn’t need its own Senator. Click here to sign up to make calls for his bold progressive opponent Tammy Baldwin.

Tammy Baldwin is raising more money than her corporate-friendly challenger, and she’s doing it all through the grassroots

Earlier today, we reported that bold progressive Elizabeth Warren has out-raised incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) by over $4 million. And she’s doing it with the power of grassroots donors, as opposed to Brown, who is relying on the financial industry for his support.

Now, numbers are out in the Wisconsin Senate race and they show that fellow progressive Tammy Baldwin is leading her right-wing challenger Tommy Thompson:

Based on statements released by Republican Tommy Thompsonai??i??s and Democrat Tammy Baldwinai??i??s campaigns Monday, the congresswoman from Madison has the lead.

Baldwin raised $4.5 million from July 1 through Sept. 30 and had $3.4 million to spend at the beginning of October, according to her campaign. Thompson raised $3.6 million during the third quarter of 2012, with more than $2.2 million of it collected since he won the Aug. 14 Republican primary. He had nearly $2 million, his camp said, to begin the final push.

Let’s dig into the numbers a little bit. Baldwin’s top donors are the members of EMILY’s List. Thompson’s top donor is Centene Corporation, a medical firm where Thompson served as a board member. More than a quarter of his top twenty donors are health care corporations and pharmaceutical giants, while not a single health care profiteer ranks as a top donor to Baldwin.

Baldwin is winning the fundraising race by tapping the grassroots, while Thompson is calling on the very same donors who he worked for as Bush’s Health and Human Services Secretary, when he cut a sweetheart deal with Big Pharma that cost Americans $20 billion year.

Help Baldwin across the finish line. Chip in a few dollars to her campaign by …

Tommy Thompson’s has some really odd corporate donors.

As we told you this weekend, Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson is a health care profiteer. While serving as the Bush Administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary, he cut a sweetheart deal with Big Pharma that cost taxpayers $20 billion a year, and then left to go profit off of a variety of health care interests.

One of the — let’s say, creepier — clients that Thompson had was the Verichip Corporation (which is now known as PositiveID). This corporation — which was a subsidiary of Applied Digital, which installed Thompson on its board shortly after he left government — specialized in producing microchips that are implanted into humans for various reasons.

Here’s a 2007 CNBC clip where Thompson went on TV to shill for Verichip and the benefits of implanting human beings with microchips. He even promised to get one himself (to our knowledge, he never followed through):

The makers of these human microchips are paying Thompson back for his propaganda work. Verichip is actually Thompson’s eleventh-biggest single donor.

Thompson’s bold progressive opponent Tammy Baldwin could use your support. Chip in a few dollars to help Baldwin get elected.

Tommy Thompson personally cost taxpayers $20 billion a year.

Wisconsin’s Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson has been in hot water since video surfacedof him admitting that he wants to “do away with Medicare” and Medicaid. This shocking clip has gone viral, but what is less known about Thompson is how he helped Big Pharma rip off Medicare and how he later tried to help insurers get a piece of Medicaid, too.

In 2003, the Bush administration aggressively pushed for the creation of Medicare Part D, a subsidized drug benefit. Thompson was the “point man” for the administration during these negotations, serving as Bush’s Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.

While helping seniors afford prescription drugs was a laudable goal, the Bush administration, via Thompson, pushed for a specialAi??carve-outAi??for the pharmaceutical industry. The part D bill specifically barred Medicare from negotiating drug prices with Big Pharma, meaning that it essentially told the government it can’t even ask for a good deal.

This made the new law wildly more expensive than it should be, and most Democrats in the House voted against it. After the benefit was passed, Big Pharma rewarded its most fervent congressional supporter, Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin, with a $2 million-a-year lobbying job.

But while Tauzin was getting a payoff, taxpayers were losing out. Authoritative studies on the issue estimate that drug negotiation could save as much as $20 billion a year for Medicare.

Thompson, having negotiated this great deal for the industry, soon left his role in the Bush administration. He became a partner atAi??Ai??Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a leading lobbying firm, where the firm’s clients included leading bio-tech and pharmaceutical companies. He even went on television to shill for one company that was …

Tommy Thompson’s health “reforms” are ones we already have.

On Monday, Wisconsin Republican Tommy Thompson and bold progressive Tammy Baldwin debated about their competing visions for the country as they both run for the state’s Senate seat.

As Thompson continued to rail on the Affordable Care Act, one moderator asked him about his own vision for health care. The candidate went on to the normal Republican proverbs about the need for tort reform and other non-reforms, but also bizarrely mentioned that we need to be able to buy health insurance online:

THOMPSON: What I want Bob is I want a health care system that’s affordable…let’s base it on quality. Number 2, let’s allow individuals be able to purchase health insurance over the Internet. Be able to put in what they want in there. Number three let’s do away with the liability problems.

Watch Thompson’s response (it begins at 24:38):

It’d be interesting to know why exactly Thompson thinks purchasing health insurance over the Internet will make health care cheaper (is he confusing health insurance with Amazon.com deals on consumer products?), but what’s even more important to point out is that consumers are already getting that option. There are already websites where you can shop for quotes and then purchase insurance online and one of the main features of the Affordable Care Act that Thompson opposes is the provision of health insurance exchanges where people will be able to directly shop for insurance online.

As for tort reform, a number of states have already enacted it. When Texas did, it did absolutely nothing to reduce overall health care costs.

Tammy Baldwin has an actual solution — and not just gimmicks about online purchasing and tort reform — to the health care crisis. She …

In response to Tommy Thompson’s promise to end Medicare and Medicaid as we know them, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has gotten involved in the U.S. Senate race backing Democratic candidate Tammy Baldwin. The PCCC, which has nearly 27,500 members in Wisconsin, was very active in the 2011 recall elections here in Wisconsin as one of the leading groups running TV ads and mobilizing voters in the state.

Membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — Ai??a powerful corporate front group that writes and passes bills in state legislatures on behalf of Big Business — is a gift that keeps on giving.

The Center for Media and Democracy’s Brendan Fischer notes today that the American Chemistry Council (ACC) — a group of chemical lobbyists who are members of ALEC — is spending big on behalf of Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson, who was an ALEC member as a legislator in the 70’s and 80’s.

So far, ACC has spent $648,600 to promote Thompson. Watch the following ad they’re airing in support of his candidacy. Note that it doesn’t mention any issues that ACC actually deals with in its lobbying and advocacy efforts:

Remember that Thompson said the following during a 2002 ALEC conference: “I always loved going to [ALEC] meetings because I always found new ideas. Then I’d take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that it’s mine.”

ACC has bitterly fought against regulating the plastic additiveAi??bisphenol A (BPA), whichAi??independentAi??studies show can prove a real health risk to children. It’s likely that if Thompson is elected, he will be paying ACC back by helping it avoid regulation of dangerous chemicals like BPA.