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.

Cravaack’s opponent, Rick Nolan, is getting a boost from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in the form of phonebanking. The group has placed 11,108 phone calls to voters on behalf of Nolan, according to a press release.

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 …

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH)

In a debate with his bold progressive opponent Carol Shea-Porter on Friday, Republican congressman Frank Guinta (NH) had a novel solution to global warming: drill for more dirty fuels:

MODERATOR: Are you concerned about greenhouse gases and climate change? If so, what specific action would you take to stem greenhouse gas use. If not, do you feel you’re gambling with our future? […]

GUINTA: One of the bills that I authored and co-sponsored was an “all of the above energy policy.” I think with 19 million barrels of oil that we use today in America, and with seven million production I think we can both increase exploration and production and we can reduce usage through smart conservation programs. […] I think you can have greater exploration of fossil fuels and natural gas.

Watch it (the relevant comments begin about a minute in):

Other than a token reference to conservation, Guinta doesn’t seem to have any solution other than to increase oil drilling.

Needless to say, drilling for more oil isn’t going to resolve our environmental problems. But it is a way for Guinta to fund-raise from the dirty fuels industry. He’s gotten $5,000 each from the Political Action Committees of Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. He not only wants to give the industry expanded drilling, but he also supports $7 billion in oil subsidies every year.

In the past, Guinta actually has gone even further than most of his Republican colleagues in brandishing his anti-environmental stands on behalf of the oil industry. He once called for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency altogether.

We don’t need any more lackeys for Big Oil in Congress. Click here to sign up to make calls for Guinta’s opponent, Carol Shea-Porter.

Last June, Senate Republicans filibusteredAi??and killed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was designed to make sure women can get equal pay for equal work at their jobs.

One of the Senators who joined this filibuster effort was Scott Brown (MA). Brown — who, remember, is running misleading commercials claiming he is a friend to women voters — told the mediaAi??the bill would’ve placed “job-killing burdens on small businesses.”

But what the media didn’t report was that many of the same Big Business front groups and lobbyists that battled the bill behind the scenes have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-elect Brown since he helped kill fair pay for women.

In the days leading up to the Senate vote for the bill, corporate lobbyists from groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) lined up to oppose it. One group, theAi??Society for Human Resource Management, mobilized human resources officers at corporate firms to lobby senators to kill the bill.

The resulting filibuster ended up killing the bill, in a blow to women everywhere who are discriminated against in the workplace. But as is often the case in Washington, the vote was just the beginning. The payoff was what senators like Brown were waiting for.

Before the vote, Brown received $238,028 from interests opposed to the bill. But in his campaign against bold progressive Elizabeth Warren, the real payday arrived. Two weeks ago, Norquist’s ATR dropped $162,000 on mailers attacking Warren on behalf of Brown.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which has in the past been caught taking funding from overseas corporations like the state-owned Bahrain Petroleum Company — spent $300,000 to hire Meridian Strategies, …

Hawaii Republican Senate candidate Linda Lingle

So-called “free trade” agreements — which drop trade barriers that harm the middle class but which protect well-connected corporations — are increasingly unpopular with the American public. A 2010 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 69 percent of Americans believe these agreements cost American jobs and only 18 percent think they create jobs.

But Hawaii Republican Senate candidate Linda Lingle attacked her bold progressive Democratic opponent Mazie Hirono for opposing one of these agreements in a debate last month. Here’s what Lingle said:

“My opponent doesn’t really understand the nature of being globally competitive. She was the only member of the Hawaii delegation that voted against the free trade agreement with South Korea. That made no sense for the people of Hawaii,” said Lingle.

Why would Lingle be boasting of supporting free trade agreements — such as the Korea agreement, which is estimated to cost 159,000 U.S. jobs in the first seven years — that are very unpopular with the public? Because maybe she’s not talking to constituents — she’s talking to out-of-state corporations, lobbyists, and other big donors.

One of the groups that most strongly pushed for the South Korea trade agreement was the Automotive Free International Trade Political Action Committee (AFITPAC), which is funded by certain auto dealers that benefited from the agreement. AFITPAC gave $10,000 to Lingle’s campaign. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the powerful corporate front group that spearheaded the push for the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990’s, gave her $11,250. Her very top donor is megabank Goldman Sachs, which also lobbied for the Korea trade agreement.

End the cycle of pay-to-play. Click here to chip in a few dollars to Lingle’s opponent, bold progressive Mazie Hirono.

Many lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, are coy about their desire to cut Social Security. But Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) — who has in the past called it a “Ponzi Scheme” — is very upfront about his desire to cut the program.

In a debate on Friday with his Democratic opponent Joe Miklosi, Coffman admitted that he wants to cut Social Security by raising the retirement age to 70:

COFFMAN: And on Social Security I do think for people below age 55, we’re gonna have to phase that up gradually to age 70.

Watch it (the relevant comments are at 12:50):

Raising the retirement age would not only amount to a large reduction in benefits, but it would disproportionately hurt working-class people. White collar workers — like, say, Members of Congress like Coffman — have had remarkable gains in life expectancy in recent decades. But blue-collar workers are barely living longer at all.

We don’t have to let Coffman cut our Social Security. Click here to chip in a few dollars to his opponent, Joe Miklosi.

New York City’s billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg last year shocked the world when he ignored a court order and moved to crush the nascent Occupy Wall Street movement. He famously deployed the New York Police Department to jettison protesters from Zuccotti Park, whose owners paid his girlfriend $109,954 in 2009.

Bloomberg is apparently not done with attacking the 99 percent. He has launched a new Super PAC to boost candidates who share his plutocratic vision for America. In an interview with the New York Times, Bloomberg threw his support to embattled incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) while absurdly invoking the Soviet Union to blast his bold progressive challenger Elizabeth Warren:

In the Senate, Scott Brown, who single-handedly stopped the right-to-carry bill. You can question whether heai??i??s too conservative. You can question, in my mind, whether sheai??i??s Godai??i??s gift to regulation, close the banks and get rid of corporate profits, and weai??i??d all bring socialism back, or the U.S.S.R.

It’s unlikely that Bloomberg is truly fearful that Warren will unleash Communism on America. Rather, Bloomberg has been one of Wall Street’s biggest defenders. In 2011, he famously claimed that it wasn’t “the banks that created the mortgage crisis.” The banks, of course, are all against Warren, and half of Brown’s top twenty donors come from the financial industry.

It’s sad that, torn between his desire to defend Wall Street and to desperately seek attention in light of his own failed national aspirations, Bloomberg would engage in such extreme rhetoric to smear Warren.

Stand up to billionaires and their Super PACs. Click here to sign up to make calls to voters for Elizabeth Warren.

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH)

In 2009, bold progressive Alan Grayson famously made headlines when he mocked Republicans by saying their health care plan consists of “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”

New Hampshire Republican congressman Frank Guinta — who is locked in a heated re-election battle with bold progressive Carol Shea-Porter — is apparently determined on making that plan a reality.

At a recent debate recorded by ThinkProgress’s Scott Keyes, Guinta told a moderator that it “shouldn’t be the case,” that 25 year-olds without insurance can get health care at the emergency room:

MODERATOR: Iai??i??m 25 years old. Thereai??i??s no mandate for me to purchase insurance. The emergency room at Memorial Hospital by law must treat me when I walk in the door, whether I have any money, whether I have any intent to pay or not, I have to be treated. Isnai??i??t it a good Republican principle to say everybody ought to pay for their own medical insurance if weai??i??re going to require hospitals to treat them? […]

GUINTA: If you guy purchase a good or service, youai??i??re supposed to pay for it. Yes, if you are 25 years old and you are choosing not to purchase insurance with the expectation of trying to get it free from the ER at Memorial, that shouldnai??i??t be the case. But for those people who are in a situation who truly canai??i??t afford health insurance, those are the people that we really want to focus on and figure out how to provide them care.

Watch it:

Don’t let Guinta succeed in his nihilist health care agenda. Chip in a few dollars to his opponent Carol Shea-Porter.

Paying decent wages would actually cost Wal-Mart and its shoppers next to nothing. So why don’t they do it?

Wal-Mart is facing some of the most aggressive labor action’s in the company’s history, as it has been hit with a wave of walk-outs and many workers are threatening to walk offthe job on the busiest day of the year, Black Friday.

Wal-Mart claims that it pays its workers well, despite the fact that its CEO earns 1,167 times as much as an average worker at the company and its workers earn “12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 13% less than large retail workers in general.”

Over at The Guardian, Paul Harris reports on the sad state of workers at a Wal-Mart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois, the site of some of the first strikes. Harris interviews one worker who says some employees have resorted to sleeping in tents to get by, while others slept in abandoned homes:

Phillip Bailey knows there are people worse off than him working inside the gigantic WalmartAi??warehouse that dominates the small town of Elwood in rural Illinois.

He sleeps at a Catholic hostel in nearby Joliet and so has a solid roof over his head after a day of helping the endless flow of consumer goods supplying Walmart stores across America. Not all his colleagues can say that. One squatted in abandoned houses. Another lived rough in the woods in between work shifts. “He just set up a tent in there for a few weeks,” Bailey said.

This is not the sign of a company that treats its workers well.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on the historic labor actions that are holding Wal-Mart accountable.

This woman is outraged at being featured in Scott Brown’s ad that is trying to appeal to women.

Here’s the latest critical misstep by Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in his re-election campaign.

In a new ad that is supposed to appeal to women, Brown is seen smiling and talking to a woman on the street. Watch it:

Here’s the problem. That woman, Carol Gorman, doesn’t support Brown. In fact, she’s outraged that he featured her in the ad even though she made clear she doesn’t support him. “He tried to exploit my presence. He knew what my position was. And yet he chose to put that on TV, to put me on TV as a supporter,” Gorman said.

Watch Gorman’s interview with a local news station:

This is only the latest campaign snafu by Brown. Earlier this week, he offensively suggested that family members of asbestos victims in Elizabeth Warren’s campaign commercials were actors.

Hold Brown accountable. Click here to sign up to make calls for his bold progressive opponent Elizabeth Warren.

If there’s one group of people that love the Simpson-Bowles plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate, it’s billionaires and corporate CEO’s.

Take JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon. He told a recent meeting of Washington elites at the Council on Foreign Relations that the economy “would be booming” if President Obama had enacted the Simpson-Bowles plan.

Recall that the Simpson-Bowles plan would reduce corporate tax rates to 26 percent. As Nobel economist Paul Krugman notes, there is a “complete absence of evidence” that doing this would grow the economy in any way. And hiking the Social Security retirement age, as Simpson-Bowles suggests, would make it more difficult for those 65 and over to get jobs due to age discrimination, and wouldn’t have the positive effect of opening up more employment that lowering the age would.

Dimon should just be honest. He likes the Simpson-Bowles plan because it would reduce his megabank’s tax rate even further, and would cut important social insurance programs in a way that would allow banks and other corporations to step in and offer private services that are much more expensive. The public should not be fooled.

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles want to cut your Social Security and Medicare benefits. They’ve assembled a $30 million warchest and have promised lawmakers that support their austerity plan will get “financial support.”

But Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine dealt a blow to their hopes last night during his debate with his Republican opponent George Allen. Both Allen and Kaine rejected the plan “as is,” and Kaine went further by specifically stating that he would not support its changes to Social Security because “it isn’t contributing to the deficit.” Watch it:

Remember, Social Security is not going broke. It is fully funded through 2037, and it would be solvent for many decades into the future past that if we simply raised the payroll tax cap and required wealthier Americans to pay a tiny fraction of their income more into the system.

We need more lawmakers in office to reject any cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits. Click here to make phone calls for our endorsed candidates like Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warren who have pledged to reject any cuts to these vital programs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is America’s most powerful corporate front group. It is bankrolled by powerful corporations here in the United States and by foreign entities like the Bahrain Petroleum Company, which is owned by the dictatorship of that oil-rich country.

It just dropped a mailer inAi??Massachusetts claiming that the “Warren Agenda Threatens Families and Businesses.” The mailer also features a claimAi??Ai??from Matt Bennett, an official at the Third Way think tank, that calls Warren’s message “catastrophically antibusiness”:

Voters should not be fooled by this deceptive mailer. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce does not reveal its donors, but we know that it is funded by big banks like Citigroup and and New York Private Bank & Trust that want to see Warren taken down. Its true fear is not that Warren is against American businesses, but that she wants to hold powerful corporations — like bailed out Wall Street banks — accountable to the American public.

The quote from Bennett identifies him as working for a “centrist Democratic group,” but the reality is that his organization Third Way, like the Chamber of Commerce, serves as a conduit for corporate America. Third Way’s Board of Trustees is largely composed of hedge fund managers and bankers, and like the Chamber, it does not openly disclose its donors.

The way to stop organized money represented by corporate front groups like the Chamber and Third Way is with organized people. Click here to sign up to make calls for Warren and help her win her race.

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.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is up with a new ad in New Hampshire’s 2nd District for Dem Carol Shea-Porter that provides a good example of how progressives should message around Medicare and the safety net in general.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Adam Glanzman)

Today, Mitt Romney announced a “Military Advisory Council” of retired military officers who support his campaign.Ai??ai???I am deeply honored to have the support of so many of our most accomplished military leaders,ai??? said Romney during the announcement.

While many of those on the Council are clearly decorated veterans, one curious aspect of the list is how many of these military figures left the government only to become highly paid consultants and board members to major weapons makers. Given that Romney wants to increase the military budget by $2 trillion, these military officials who later became part of the defense industry have a monetary incentive to back Romney that has nothing to do with whether they approve of his wider foreign policy philosophy or not.

Here’s a list of some members of the Military Advisory Council who are also profiting from the defense industry:

Retired General James Conway: Conway is a retired four-star general. Last year, he was named to the Board of Directors of Textron, which manufactures helicopters and other aircraft and products for the military.
Retired Navy Admiral James B. Busey: Busey served in the Navy until 1989. After leaving the federal government in 1992, he joined the Board of Directors of defense contractor Curtiss-Wright and left in 2008.
Retired former commander of United States Strategic Command James O. Ellis:Ai??After serving his country, Ellis decided to make a fortune by working for the defense industry. He serves in the leadership of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and also has a board position at Lockheed Martin.
Retired Air Force General Ronald Fogleman:Ai??Fogleman serves on the boards ofAi??Alliant Techsystems,Ai??AAR Corporation,Ai??Mesa Air Group, Inc., andAi??