Roadblock Blog

Ethics Shmethics, Who Cares? Well, the FEC
Idaho Republican Senate candidate, Jim Risch, is apparently using his law office for a campaign headquarters and his office staff for campaign workers without notifying the FEC of it. The Idaho Democratic Party has filed an ethics complaint with the FEC over the matter.

We wouldn't mind inaccuracy
Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has resorted to outright lying in his new ad about opponent Bruce Lunsford's position on oil drilling.

I want to be on television
Newly minted Louisiana Republican John Neely Kennedy is attacking Senate incumbent Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) for not wanting to debate until October, despite having himself turned down the opportunity to debate this past weekend.

There is no need to be able to back up your claims
Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) has endorsed an ad attacking his opponent, Ronnie Musgrove, for "embarassing ethics violations", but when he was questioned as to what those violations were he didn't have an answer.

They each wear half of a heart-shaped necklace
The DSCC has released a new web ad highlighting John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) and George Bush's BFF relationship.

Norman and Me
The DSCC has produced a great new video called "$600." In the cinema vérité campaign tradition of Paul Wellstone, we see how difficult it is to find a place to live in Washington D.C. and Minnesota for what Norm Coleman calls "fair market value."

Flee The Press
If you're the Senate Minority Leader and your asked your opinion of the performance of the President, a member of your party, by a local tv reporter, shouldn't you have answer?

Unholy unions
A business alliance is running ads against Tom Allen that equate unions and the mafia. Although she's against third party advertising, Susan Collins is okay with that.

If a news department finds an ad misleading, does the station/network have an obligation to pull it?
Sweatshop Bob Schaffer is running an ad claiming that Mark Udall voted to raise taxes "at least 50 times." DENVER NEWS 7 debunks it.

Inhofe doesn't hate the troops, he's just body armor intolerant
James Inhofe's streak of votes against the interests of our service men and woman and veterans continues (now 10 straight).

The Tricky Dick Trick: Don't talk to the press
Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine) is doing something Susan Collins (R-Maine) just won't: He's holding a press conference in Maine with actual reporters covering it.

As Stephen Colbert says, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
A Minnesota CBS affiliate, WCCO, has done a reality check on a new Al Franken ad tying Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) to George W. Bush and found it to be completely accurate. The reality is that Norm Coleman is first and foremost loyal to the President's agenda.

Republican logic doesn't require logic at all
John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) is trying to claim that oil prices will drop immediately from drilling because speculation on oil futures will decrease immediately. It seems that Sununu believes oil speculation artificially inflates the price of oil after voting against a bill at the end of July that would have curbed speculation.

Switching sides is hard to do
Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) has released a new ad highlighting the confusing position changes of Republican opponent, John Neely Kennedy.

Corporate sell-out
Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is being criticized for selling out the American people to big-monied special interests by his Democratic opponent, Bruce Lunsford.

A good Republican desensitizes his constituents to scandal
Scandal-plagued Republican Bob Schaffer of Colorado has to watch his family better. The "family values" candidate's son posted at least two offensive pictures on his public facebook page, including one that says, "Slavery gets (expletive deleted) done." Imagine what values he could instill in your family.

You get a gold star and that's it
Susan Collins (R-Maine) and her associates continue to tout the Senator's ability to reach across the aisle and compromise. However, as a Senator, isn't that really just her job? CollinsWatch wonders why she should get additional credit for doing what she was sent to Washington to do in the first place.

Learning from the worst
More evidence that John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) was being groomed by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). In 2002, within six days of being named one of the "Dirty Dozen," as one of Congress' worst potential polluters, Sununu received $16,000 from Stevens, friends of Stevens, and corrupt VECO execs.

Obama leads in Pearce Poll
New Mexico Republican Senate nominee Steve Pearce recently put up a poll on his website asking people which candidate they will vote for. In a cruel twist of fate, for Pearce, at last check Obama is beating McCain 363 to 11.

Like shooting pork in a barrel
Senators Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), and Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) have added $27 million in pork to a $133 million homeland security bill for the Southeast Region Research Initiative. The project, which has been operating since at least 2007, has yet to produce any publishable research or white papers.

What rhymes with "Mitch" and what might it imply?
Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) was caught on tape at a fundraiser calling Barack Obama, "Iraq Obama." What connection could Mr. McConnell be implying about the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate? That he's got the right stance on Iraq?

Wicker puts negative spin on Musgrove being 35 times better than Barbour
Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) is falling back on the same old tactics used to defeat Ronnie Musgrove in his re-election campaign for governor -- saying he's bad for jobs. Unfortunately, it seems Haley Barbour, the star Republican who is now Governor, has allowed around 35 times the number of Mississippi jobs to disappear under his watch. So is Ronnie Musgrove really bad for jobs or is Mississippi just following the national trend?

It takes one to know one
Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) continues to unfairly attack Al Franken on issues that have already been resolved, trying to paint the man who wishes to hold corrupt CEOs accountable as a hypocrite.

A little Haldol might clear things up
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) is blaming Democrats for not passing a bill, which actually did pass the House, which Bachmann herself voted against, and which the Republicans in the Senate are currently obstructing.

Discrediting the messenger
Saxby Chambliss (R-Shameless) is toughening up his criticism of a whistleblower at a sugar refinery in Georgia. The whistleblower is claiming that the plant was not safe and that the owners knew this before 13 people died in a recent accident. Chambliss thinks it is, in fact, the whistleblower's fault because he should have tried harder to get executives to shut down the plant.

Norm Coleman couldn't stand on his record
Al Franken's campaign has released a new website putting Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) and his record of support for Bush Administration policies online, where everyone can see it.

Why would our troops need good healthcare?
More Republican obstructionism from Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), who voted at the end of last week against pay raises and better healthcare for our troops.

He's fiscally conservative, except that he's not
Sen. John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) bills himself as a strong fiscal conservative, but he never stood up or tried to block the more than $3 billion in Ted Stevens' pork for Alaska.

Like global warming, this is all just a left-wing conspiracy
James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) may be involved in a scandal at Oral Roberts University, where the University broke IRS rules by forcing a government class to help get a Tulsa mayor elected.

Not hot
For the third year in a row, Gordon Smith (R-Gordon Smith) did not make The Hill's 50 Most Beautiful People in Washington, D.C. list. It seems Gordon might be a little self-conscious about this too, as he is using footage from 1996 in his new television ads.

Coleman chief of staff romantically linked to indicted Senator Ted Steven's chief of staff
In fact they're married! TPM wonders if sparing Stevens further embarrassment accounted for Coleman's initial resistance to making charitable donations in the amount of 2008 campaign contributions from Stevens. Coleman has a bi-ethical standard for "returning" contributions from shifty donors. He's keeping contributions made by Steven's for his 2002 race as money he cannot unspend, although he got rid of (retroactively laundered) money he received from Jack Abramoff for the same election cycle. Coleman is also keeping money from DCI Partners who lobbied on behalf of the government of Myanmar. Ties to DCI cost two McCain staffers their jobs in May.

Will Smith claim support from FDR, JFK next?
Republican Gordon Smith (R-Gordon Smith) would like you to forget that he's a Republican. Republican Gordon Smith (R-Gordon Smith) recently released a campaign ad falsely suggesting that he, Republican Gordon Smith (R), enjoyed the support of Barack Obama. Republican Gordon Smith's latest ad features not only Obama, but Democratic Senator and 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry. Obama and Kerry support Democrat Jeff Merkley, not Republican Gordon Smith (R) who is a Republican.

Smith donates Stevens contributions to his favorite charity, himself
Like all the other Republican candidates hoping in vain to defend their Senate seats, Gordon Smith has donated to charity in the amount of contributions from indicted colleague Ted Stevens, at least contributions from this year. Smith accepted $10,000 from Stevens in 2005-2006 to retire debt from his 1996 campaign, money he owed himself! Now that's a charity Gordon Smith (R-Gordon Smith) can support!

NRSC (Not Returning Stevens Contributions?)
And while we're on the subject, what charity will receive the windfall of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to which indicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens has contributed $725,000?

His cookie recipe is also oddly similar to Cindy McCain's
When party-swapper John Neely Kennedy isn't misrepresenting the voting record of Mary Landrieu, he's displaying his encyclopedic knowledge of the chemical processes involved in the recovery of oil from shale on WIST radio, verbatim, from wikipedia.com. If this weren't part of the GOP plot to suggest that Democrats are responsible for higher gas prices (even as Republicans scuttled a Democratic plan to reduce the price of oil by limiting speculation) it would be as funny as it is pathetic.

Woo-hoo! The Roadblock Republicans have reached a new feat in obstructionism, filibustering five bills in five days. It's time to break out the party hats and donate to Ted Stevens' legal defense fund.

Some of the legislative accomplishments these brave men and women have managed to circumvent in less than a week are as follows:

• Renewable energy credits and tax incentives for renewable energy.
  
• Energy efficiency deductions.
  
• Tuition tax deductions for students.
  
• Lowering taxes for teachers.
  
• Tax breaks for working-class families.
  
• Federal protection for journalists from being forced to reveal sources, in essence, keeping the press free.
  
• Carbon emission mitigation.
  
• Paralysis, ALS, postpartum depression, and stroke research.
  
• Solving murders from the civil rights era.
  
• More effective child pornography prosecution.
  
• Rescuing drug endangered children from their environments.
  
• Reauthorization of acts protecting coral reefs and rainforests from destruction.
  
• Relief for torture victims.
  
• National infrastructure repairs.
  
• Pre-disaster hazard mitigation.
  
• Increase in aid for poorer families buying heating oil this winter.

Norm Coleman, now 55% cleaner
Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) has received $36,000 from indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and corrupt VECO oil execs over the past two election cycles, but has only committed to getting rid of $20,000. The rest of this dirty money is apparently clean by Coleman standards.

Shameless Chambliss
Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) is helping to block legislation that would lower taxes for the middle-class and would provide incentives for developing renewable energy, which would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Good thing he's blaming the Democrats for rising gas prices.

Finally, someone else is doing the dirty work
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) can't possibly stand on his obstructionist record. Thankfully, his Democratic opponent, Jim Slattery, has released a new website dispelling the myths which Roberts has created around himself.

Filibustering for the fun of it
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) have helped the rest of the Republicans in the Senate block legislation that would protect the press from revealing their sources. The thing is, Graham and Dole both co-sponsored the bill.

The Stevens plague
Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) gave $10,000 to Ted Stevens' campaign twenty days after the news broke that he was under investigation by the FBI. Another Republican campaign infected by the fallout of the Alaskan Senator's misbehavior.

Pants on fire
Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) has been caught telling a number of half-truths and outright lies in the month of July.

Jedi mind tricks don't work on me
Sen. John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) is blaming Democrats for not allowing legislation to go through that would allow for increased heating aid to poorer families. In fact, this legislation was obstructed by Roadblock Republicans.

Like letting a dingo guard your baby
Republican Senate candidate from New Mexico, Steve Pearce, thinks we should allow oil companies to set energy policy.

Gordon Smith has never had to worry about paying the bills
Gordon Smith's (R-Gordon Smith) record on health care is abysmal. He has voted to increase the profits of insurance and pharmaceutical companies while decreasing the care received by women and children, not to mention everyone else.

A paltry offering
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has outraised his opponent by $8 million, but has only donated $250,000 of his campaign funds to the cash-strapped NRSC. It seems the Republican strategy for 2008 is every man for himself.