For What It's Worth: Alan Grayson's Email

Some of Alan Grayson's most famous words. (image source)

 

"Boehner is holding his breath until America passes out."

From time to time MeanMesa posts along an email from Freedom Works, a painful, yet perhaps necessary, glimpse into what the tea bags' Central Command is vomiting out to its faithful.  Remarkably, even as the facts of the last election are still attempting to "catch up" with the scoundrels who engineered the disaster, apparently most of the tea bags are still believing.

Even the tea bags deep in the bowels of Freedom Works are warming up for a civil war.  This time, however, they aren't attacking the voters.  This time, they are attacking each other -- perhaps for room "under the bus."

From the looks of what's transpiring on Capitol Hill, there remains some of this "catching up" left to be done.  The Red State Confederacy who dutifully "ate the dog food" and voted for the Mittens presents an electoral waif -- a tragic remnant whisp of 21st Century, two party, "minority-hood."

There's the South -- notably not including Florida -- and the rest are "fly overs" scattered among the corn fields and cattle yards of the rural middle of the nation.  Everywhere one finds any particular population of voting Americans, one also finds "miles of blue."

Shades of Maxwell Smart.

Also notable is the ideological equivalent of the "invisible barrier of silence" which offers poll after poll clearly showing that a sizeable majority of the citizens support the Obama proposals.  The tea bags, ruminating to FOX News behind the shield wall, won't even countenance the majority of Republicans who are now also ready to support the President's plan.

So, who are these tea bags listening to these days?  Certainly not their constituents.

Oh, right.  The lobbyists of the oligarchs, of course.  The tea bag maxim is still in place.  Anyone without a lobbyist bleeds.

Alan Grayson is Returning to the Congress

Representative Alan Grayson (D-Florida) [image source]

MeanMesa hasn't seen any House Member who comes even close to the folksy Florida Democrat.  Have a look at the email from Congressman Grayson to MeanMesa.  This looks like an undeniable case of straight thinking.

The Email

Dear MeanMesa:

Here are what I modestly and humbly refer to as "Grayson's Laws of Legislating": (1) Vote for what you're in favor of. (2) Vote for what you can live with, if you must do that to get what you need. What we've been seeing in the House of Representatives lately have been massive and pervasive violations of Grayson's Laws of Legislating. Instead of "I'll vote for X because it's right," or "You don't like X and I don't like Y, but I'll vote for X and Y if you vote for X and Y," instead it's "If I don't get Z, I ain't votin' on nothin'." And that's the problem.

Let's take one very pertinent example: the impeding tax increases on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. I don't know a single Member of the House, Democratic or Republican, who has said on the record that he or she is in favor of raising taxes, starting next Tuesday, on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Let's suppose that you crafted a one-sentence bill reading as follows: "There shall be no income tax rate increases for the 2013 tax year on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year." Let's suppose that you then administered sodium pentathol to every Member of Congress. Let's suppose that you then had a vote on that bill. Obviously, it would pass the House by 435 to 0, or something close to that. Followed immediately by unanimous passage by the Senate, and the President's signature.

(Here is another entertaining thought experiment: Just for fun, administer sodium pentathol to Rush Limbaugh, too. You'd have three hours of total silence on the airwaves.)

So anyway, in the case of "no income tax rate increases for everyone but the rich," Grayson's First Law of Legislating is sufficient. Everyone's in favor of it, so everyone votes for it. Done.

It turns out that many, many components of the so-called "fiscal cliff" could be resolved quite simply by applying Grayson's First Law of Legislating. I think it's fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are in favor of raising the debt ceiling before the government's borrowing capacity is exhausted. I think it's fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are against a 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors, starting next week. I think it's fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are against an 8% cut in air traffic control on Jan. 1. If you had single votes, up or down, on 90% of the components of the "fiscal cliff," the outcome would not be in doubt.

And as for the remaining 10%, then you've got Grayson's Second Law of Legislating to apply. I really, really don't want to see unemployment insurance benefits cut off for millions of unemployed workers, seven days after Christmas. Maybe Rep. Skullinrear (R-Tea Party) doesn't care. But Rep. Skullinrear really, really doesn't want to see a 12% cut in defense spending from sequestration next week. I may not share Rep. Skullinrear's morbid preoccupation with blowing stuff up. Nevertheless, his morbid preoccupation with blowing stuff up, together with my odd aversion to seeing families living in cars, gives the two of us something to talk about.

Mick Jagger, that eminent political scholar, had it all figured out more than forty years ago. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find - you just might find -- that you get what you need.

But in the House, that's not what we're seeing at all. Instead, we see what might be called the "Young John McCain" Law of Legislating. Senator John McCain has written that when he was a toddler, he sometimes got so furious that he held his breath until he passed out.

Now John Boehner is doing it. Boehner is holding his breath until America passes out.

It's been ten months since the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board coined the term "fiscal cliff" when he called attention to the "massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases" that will go into effect less than a week from now. Ten months. But in all of that time, there has been nothing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives even remotely resembling a line-by-line vote on whether each one of those spending cuts and tax increases, individually, is good or bad. Just John Boehner holding his breath until the Democrats "agree" to extending tax breaks for the rich, and cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

It's the worst case of legislation constipation that I've ever seen. But that's what happens - what ought to happen -- when the folks in charge say over and over again, "I'm in favor of X, but I won't vote for X, or even allow a vote for X, unless I get Y."

We're going to need some kind of patch to get through this. But I hope that the Powers That Be learn from this mistake. Slice it all into little pieces, and then vote each piece up or down. It works. And it's a lot more practical than hoping that John Boehner, or Barack Obama, pulls a rabbit out of his hat.

Courage,

Alan Grayson
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes,
You just might find, you just might find,
You get what you need.
- The Rolling Stones, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (1969). 

In Case You've Forgotten What A Democrat Sounds Like

Dear MeanMesa:

The movie Green Lantern opened on Friday, to mixed reviews.  Maybe the reviews would have been better if the movie had included this powerful exchange, from Green Lantern #76:

African-American Man: I’ve been readin’ about you . . . How you work for the blue skins . . . and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins . . . and you done considerable for the purple skins!  Only there’s skins you never bother with – the black skins!  I want to know . . . how come?!  Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!

Green Lantern:  I  . . . can’t . . . .

I may never have the chance to talk to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or any of the other Masters of the Universe who led and misled our country for eight long years.  Nor may I ever have the chance to speak to Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, or any of the other savage right-wing loons who want to finish the job that Bush et al. started.  But if I could, I might say:

Me:  I’ve been readin’ about you . . . How you work for multinational corporations like Big Oil. . . .  And how you say you built all those roads and schools and bridges in some country in Asia.   And in some other country in the Middle East someplace you got rid of some dictator.  Only there’s one country you never bother with – America!  I want to know . . . how come?!  Answer me that, Mr. Flag-Waiving Patriot!

Them:  I  . . . can’t . . . .

Well, I can answer that.  For a generation now, we have seen the heartless, callous erosion and destruction of all the things that make you a member of the middle class in America:

A job.

A home.

A car.

The chance to see a doctor when you are sick.

A pension or retirement account.

Social Security and Medicare.

And we’ve seen them replaced by endless war, falling home values, no pensions, lower wages, and now what Karl Marx called a “reserve army of the unemployed” – to keep wages down forever.

Even after only two years in office, as one out of 435 in the House, I can point to a lot of things that I did to preserve, protect and expand the middle class in America, and to help those of us who were falling through the cracks.

I look at our so-called leaders on the other side of the aisle, and I see nothing like that.  Only a perverse delight in eliminating programs that help my fellow Americans in need.  They’ll lead us, all right – they’ll lead us straight to ruin.

The next time you see one of them -- at a town hall meeting, in their plush offices, or just on the street – ask them this:  “What have you done to help the people?  Answer me that!”

If they’re honest, they’ll say what Green Lantern said:  “I can’t.”

Courage,
Alan Grayson

In brightest day, In blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might, Beware my power: Green Lantern’s Light.

Alan Grayson Interviewed on Medicare and Ryan

MeanMesa received the following transcript of the Grayson interview as an email.  The transcript -- and Grayson -- speak for themselves.

Image from the email

Dear MeanMesa,

Alan Grayson was on national TV on Friday night, attacking the Ryan Plan to end Medicare. The MSNBC host, Cenk Uygur, asked Grayson to explain why every Republican Presidential candidate has lined up in favor of the Ryan Plan. This is what Grayson said:

AG: “Listen, only 4 percent of all Americans ever vote in a Republican primary. That’s 4 percent. The other 96 percent are the normal Americans. The 4 percent are people who must never get sick, because they don't want to have Medicare. Now think about that. Every other industrialized country in the entire world not only provides health care for its seniors, but health care for everyone. And the Republican right wing is trying to tell us that somehow we can't afford health care for our seniors. We’ve got 40,000 Americans under the age of 65 who die every year, because they can't afford to see a doctor when they're sick. And now they want to extend that [tragedy] to the most infirmed, most victimized, sickest part of the population, our senior citizens, so that more will die. I honestly believe that if Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck announced one day that they were in favor of the Black Death, you’d see every Republican primary candidate for President go along with it.

CU: (Laughter). You know, it depends. If Obama said, “Hey I’d like to cure the Black Death,” they’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know, the Black Death sounds pretty good.” So, now look, I think they’ve done tremendous damage to themselves. The polls are 70 percent and higher. They’re on your side, Congressman Grayson. They say, “We don’t want you to touch our Medicare.” So what are they doing here? Do they have a plan? You know, is Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, are they doing some sort of strategy that we can't understand? Or are they just plain stupid?

AG: They are tools. It’s that simple. They are tools. You know, George Carlin said it back in 2005, they have made us ignorant, these people who own the country. They have made us ignorant and they have made us poor. And now the next thing they want to do is to take away our Medicare and our Social Security. He said that in 2005, and it's taken six year to make it obvious that that’s true. And God bless them, these Republicans like Ryan, you know, they may be cruel, they may be heartless, but at least they're honest. They’ve told us exactly what they want to do with the power that they have accumulated. They want to take away Social Security and Medicare from our senior citizens.

CU: You know, I think you nailed it. I think what it is, is corporations that have, you know, run amuck. It’s out-of-control greed. Whether it's the banks with all the risks that they're taking, it’s gonna crash our economy again. Whether it's the oil companies at the height of being the most profitable companies in the world, they still want to take billions in subsidies from the American taxpayers. And whether it's these guys trying to cut your Medicare so they can cut taxes for the rich. I think they got the note from the, you know, the richest people in the country, from the corporations who said: “Hit the gas pedal. We don't give a damn. We're going to out-raise these guys. We're gonna get more money, and this is the time to put ‘em away. Just tell ‘em what you’re going to do. It doesn't matter; we're just going to outspend them during the elections.” I think that's what's happening. Now the problem is they are going to outspend the Democrats in elections, so how do you deal with that problem?

AG: Well, it's apparent now that what these owners want is nothing from the rest of us except for cheap labor. And that makes the senior citizens particularly vulnerable to their plans, because the senior citizens don't work. So from the perspective of the owners of this country, they're useless. Their time in the economy is over and therefore they serve no purpose. But senior citizens still do vote and they voted in huge numbers in the last election, because the Republicans lied to them, and they told them that the Democrats wanted to take away their Medicare. Now they see that the Democrats are the only ones protecting their Medicare, and Republicans are out to destroy it. There’s a reason why we call Medicare “an entitlement.” It’s because you're entitled to it. It’s not Medicare any more if you are not entitled to it any more. They want to take away the privilege of Medicare. They want to take away the right to Medicare, and replace it with a piece of paper they know will not be enough to cover the costs of care. And that’s how malevolent they really are. So I will say to senior citizens of this country: “Now you see the truth. You see their true colors. And the only thing you can do about it is turn out and vote for the only people in this country who are actually trying to protect you and your interests: the Democratic Party.”

CU: Alrighty. Former Democratic Congressman from Florida, Alan Grayson, very clear as always. Thank you so much.

AG: Thank you, Cenk.

Alan Grayson, still telling it like it is.

Speeches We'd Like To Hear: Grayson's "State of the Union"

A "Speech Someone Else Would Like to Hear"

MeanMesa has never been bashful about brazen moves to simply put words in the mouths of those who, given outlooks more similar to ours, might have said them in the first place.  It is a great way to express MeanMesa's ideas about just how things might have gone if this were a perfect world.

Of course, such postings should show both great respect and great restraint while still offering a channel of expression which remains uniquely different from the old, hum drum, run-of-the-mill "Short Current Essay."  Some recent  examples of MeanMesa "stepping up the plate" with such commentaries are (links to each):

Speeches We'd Like to Hear: Obama on Politics and Policy  -  December 5, 2010

Speeches We'd Like to Hear: Obama on the Recovery  - August 3, 2010

Speeches We'd Like to Hear: Obama on the Deficit   - July 14, 2010

However, MeanMesa has received the following email from Congressman Alan Grayson -- one of our favorites who was recently "unelected" under a tsunami  flow of extra stinky Citizens United money in Florida -- with his own, very interesting version of "Speeches We'd Like to Hear."  Grayson offers up a few ideas, ten of them, which he hoped would emerge from the State of the Union speech.

Have a look.  (email content posted below)

(image source)

Dear MeanMesa,

January, 24, 2010

President Obama is delivering his State of the Union message tomorrow. This is the speech that I would like to hear:

“My fellow Americans. Two years ago, 69 million of us voted for me to be our President. It was the largest vote for President that any person has ever received. But I understand that you did not support me merely because I have an unusual name. Especially the middle one. No, you supported me because I promised the change we need.

“We have been through two hard years, with many people losing their jobs, and many people losing their homes. You know that I did nothing to cause these problems, and I tried hard to solve them. Although our accomplishments have been substantial, an intransigent Republican minority in the Senate has blocked much of my legislative program.

“But a President is more than a legislative program. Although my title is ‘President,’ you did not elect me to preside. You elected me to lead.

“We are at a fork in the road. The Republican House Leadership demonstrated last week that its highest legislative priority is to prevent 30 million Americans from seeing a doctor when they are sick. We can let Republican control of the House of Representatives doom us to no progress, no change, for the next two years. Or I can exercise my powers under the Constitution and our laws to deliver the change we need.

“I choose the latter. As for the Republican leaders, they can lead, follow, or just get out of the way.

“These are the things that I will do now, to give us the good government that we Americans deserve, and the change we need:

“First, to give the economy an immediate boost, I will direct the executive agencies to accelerate the obligation of federal contracts and grants, rather than waiting until the end of the fiscal year.

“Second, I will recognize the obvious, declare China a ‘currency manipulator,’ and end the forced currency union with China that we never asked for and we don’t want, which has cost us 5 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade. I will institute ‘anti-dumping’ actions to protect American jobs.

“Third, I will direct Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and the VA to include in every home loan that they issue or finance a provision that requires mandatory mediation, at the bank’s expense, before foreclosure. Families who are in danger of losing their homes deserve at least that much.

“Fourth, I will direct both the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department to break up any financial institution that is considered ‘too big to fail.’ Too big to fail should mean too big to exist. There will be no more bailouts, no more Wall Street welfare.

“Fifth, I will ask the FBI to investigate and DOJ to prosecute anyone who committed criminal misconduct in connection with the collapse of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, Countrywide, Merrill Lynch, and all the rest. I will ask the SEC to bar such people from publicly traded companies and the capital markets. In the 18 months before I took office, twenty percent of our national wealth was wiped out, and no one has been punished for that. If we leave the same people doing the same things, then those same disasters may well happen again. We can’t take that chance.

“Sixth, because corporate income tax revenues have dropped by half in the past decade, while Big Business is enjoying record profits, I will ask the IRS to audit every one of the Fortune 500. This will ensure that they are paying the taxes that are due, rather than evading taxes through transfer pricing and offshore tax havens. And I will ask FASB and the SEC to mandate that public companies keep one set of books, rather than one set for investors and a different one for the IRS.

“Seventh, I will direct the EPA to exercise its authority to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant. I expect to be able to reduce our emissions and pollution as much as other countries do. If they can do it, then so can we.

“Eighth,

“Ninth, I ask the NLRB to take all available steps to ensure that the right of employees to organize, which is rooted in the Constitution’s ‘freedom of association,’ be defended – including the promulgation of ‘card check’ by regulation under the National Labor Relations Act.

“Finally, as Commander in Chief, I will bring all of our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of this year, if not sooner. After a decade of war, it’s time for peace.

“Many of you heard me for the first time six years ago, when I said that I believe not in a Blue America or a Red America, but rather, I believe in America. I still do. Americans deserve a good government, which delivers public services effectively and economically. America also deserves leadership that recognizes our problems, attacks them, and solves them. That’s the change we need, and the change we deserve. I won’t settle for less.”

After the Election - A Note From Alan Grayson

MeanMesa received the following email from Alan Grayson, the recently "unelected" Democratic Congressman from Florida.  As usual, Mr. Grayson's comments expose a commonly "unserviced" side of the Congressional political world.

For MeanMesa visitors unaccustomed to the views of a staunchly pure, unrepentant liberal, take a minute to read the email and the New York Times article.  It may be interesting to note that Mr. Grayson's campaign continues, and that he is still accepting campaign contributions.

Alan Grayson in Congress (image source)

Dear MeanMesa,

Last night, at 10:38 pm, a woman called my home. She said that she had just read the article below, and she had never heard of me before, but I had said just what she had been thinking.

What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

He Entered Congress Swinging, and Exits That Way

By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: January 2, 2011

He derides the Tea Party’s successes as “bought and paid for by the enormously rich and the selfish.”

And he can barely contain distaste for his Republican successor, whose views he sums up as “bizarre fundamentalist.”

Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida’s Eighth Congressional District, is leaving office on Wednesday much as he entered it two years ago — as the pugnaciously partisan, verbal-bomb-tossing, liberal folk hero of the 111th Congress.

But in a wide-ranging interview as his term drew to a close, he repeatedly aimed his artillery in an unexpected direction: toward his own party.

Not for overreaching, in this age of hand-wringing over big government and creeping “socialism,” or for ideological purism. Instead, while surveying the wreckage of the November elections that cost him his seat and looking to the Congressional term ahead, Mr. Grayson posits that many Democrats have not been acting Democratic enough.

Judging by the results of the midterm elections, it does not exactly seem to be a widespread sentiment.

But at a moment when centrism seems to be the party’s antidote to a redrawn political landscape, Mr. Grayson is setting forth a radically different playbook of sharp elbows and unapologetic liberalism.

During the long conversation, Mr. Grayson, a 52-year-old father of five, faulted Democrats for failing to deliver for some of their most potent constituencies, among them labor unions and antiwar voters.

“What did the environmentalists see over the last two years?” he asked. “A proposed monumental increase in subsidies for nuclear power industry and offshore drilling.” As for gay voters, he said: “What they got to see was a judge order that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ no longer be enforced and a Democratic president appeal that decision. That is what that constituency saw before Nov. 2.” (The law was repealed in the final hours of the 111th Congress.) By Election Day, Democratic voters in many districts felt that they had no real choice, Mr. Grayson said.

“If you want people to support you, then you have to support them,” he said. “You have to think long about what you did for people who voted for you, made phone calls for you, who went door to door for you.”

Mr. Grayson, of course, finds much to like within the Democratic Party. He offered a glowing assessment of the departing speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, giving her an A “without reservation.”

And he considers the political right to be intolerable. He called the Republicans “a hopeless sellout party that will never do anything constructive for ordinary people in this country.” “I don’t have to speculate about it anymore,” he said. “I worked with them for two years.”

But hanging over the interview was a lingering frustration with the Democratic Party.

He is annoyed with Democratic senators for waiting until now to challenge the procedural rules that, he said, allowed a determined group of Republicans to use filibusters to stymie much of the president’s agenda.

And he bemoaned what he said was President Obama’s reversal on a campaign pledge to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire.

“I try to keep my promises,” he said, adding that Mr. Obama’s evolving views on the matter “will not help his credibility.”

The remarks carry special weight because Mr. Grayson has become a darling of many on the left. A Bronx native with a fondness for steel-toed cowboy boots (the better to kick Republicans with, he jokes), Mr. Grayson rose to prominence as a lawyer by successfully suing wayward military contractors who profited from the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

After losing his first bid for the House, he jolted Florida’s political establishment in 2008 by capturing a seat that had been held by Republicans for three decades.

In office, he quickly earned renown for colorful floor speeches and elaborate props. During the health care debate, he declared that the Republican plan was for Americans to “die quickly.” To fight the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he produced cardboard posters detailing how the richest 1 percent of Americans could spend their tax savings. “Buy 20,000 jars of their favorite mustard, Grey Poupon,” was one suggestion.

He even gave his legislation provocative names, like the “The War Is Making You Poor Act,” which sought to reduce taxes by requiring the Defense Department to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan within its relatively small annual budget. (It did not pass.) Outside of politics, much about the congressman is also unorthodox. He bought a used white limousine to shuttle his young children around. “You can’t change a diaper in a van,” he explained at his home.

Republicans called him incendiary and over the top, or worse. When Mr. Grayson set up a Web site for himself called Congressman With Guts, a local Republican operative countered with a site called My Congressman Is Nuts.

Mr. Grayson said he had simply tried to put complex issues into accessible — and, yes, memorable — terms. “People say the same thing to me over and over again: ‘You say what I am thinking but nobody else will say,’ ” he said. He likes to boast that his YouTube channel is the most popular of any House member’s.

He would not rule out running for Congress again “if that’s what people want.”

For now, though, Mr. Grayson is committed to making up for lost family time — and maybe catching up on a bit of television. It was switched off during his bruising re-election campaign to avoid having his children glimpse advertisements that portrayed him as a bumbling clown.

“At least,” he recalled dryly, “we had Netflix.”

Alan Grayson and Citizens United -- Again!

MeanMesa has said it before.  Lots of Supreme Court rulings are so embedded in legalese that most Americans are stranded with only the pundits' descriptions of what they mean.  This, of course, definitely includes MeanMesa.  With all the responsibilities of blogging, dog walking and doing dishes, who has time to painfully thread through pages and pages of a ruling?

However, the scandalous Citizens United decision of a couple of months back (see previous Short Current Essays on the same topic:   link one -  link two -  link three -  link four ) is one so nasty that it is worth fully understanding.  The neo-fascist "conservatives" controlling the majority vote in the now utterly dysfunctional Supreme Court simply out did themselves with this stinker.

The maximum clarity of the outrage becomes even more startlingly clear when translated into actual events "on the ground."  The knuckle dragging billionaires are testing their "wet dream" with progressive House candidate Alan Grayson (D - Florida).  They want to see if they can -- once equipped with the Constitutional treason of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling -- actually purchase an election victory in race race they wish.

Grayson's email follows:

Dear MeanMesa,

Say what you want about those right-wingers, but they keep their promises.

Tax cuts for the rich? Check.

Endless war? Check.

Destroying worker protections and the environment? Check.

And last year, they made a promise about me. The Executive Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) said that I am the Republicans' Number One Target for 2010. That they would do whatever it takes to defeat me.

I took it as a compliment.

But here we are, six weeks before the election, and they're going all-out to keep that promise. They've already thrown $1 million in "independent" expenditure TV ads (a/k/a corporate-funded lies) at us. And now the NRCC says that it try to trash me with $817,000 of its own money (which, at the current exchange rate, is exactly equal to thirty pieces of silver). They're throwing everything at us but the kitchen sink, and then they're throwing the kitchen sink.

Will you help?

This is not spring training. This is not the trial run. This is not batting practice. This is not dress rehearsal.

It's show time.

They're hitting us with $250,000 of Big Oil lies, $600,000 of Big Pill lies, $100,000 of Big Business lies, and now $800,000 of Republican lies. All these lies, just to keep that promise to get rid of me.

If you'd like to help - or help again - now would be a good time. Click here to help.

Remember: In elections, there are no do-overs.

Truth,

Alan Grayson

More from CITIZENS UNITED, DAVID KOCH and ALAN GRAYSON

Wondering just who all these players actually are and why they are appearing together on a MeanMesa post?  Well, read it and weep.

Citizens United were the plaintiffs in the now infamous Roberts court ruling that corporations were people, had a "Constitutional right" to contribute  "assistance" campaign material to support their neo-con candidates and didn't have to reveal who was paying.  If that set-up sounds snakey, you're right on the money.

David Koch is a fun-loving billionaire who thinks he should be able to swing any election anywhere in the country to "vote in" his favorites.  Although New Mexico hasn't "pricked his fancy" yet, MeanMesa has no interest whatsoever in having this freak set up our state government.  For the time being, "rich boy" has decided that Florida will his game room for this week.

Alan Grayson is the Florida Representative that Koch is aiming to defeat in the November election.  Grayson was the outspoken House member who said that "the Republican 'Health Care Plan' was simply 'Don't Get Sick,' and, if you do, die quickly."

Grayson's email to MeanMesa follows:

Dear MeanMesa,

I was elected to Congress because 171,000 people chose me to represent them. But suppose that only one person got to choose all the Members of the House and the Senate. And the President, too.

That man would be a king.

So meet David Koch, the man who would be king. King of America. The one who is spending $250,000 on attack ads this week, to defeat me. The one who wants to choose all of our so-called "elected representatives."
Shouldn't "We, the People" be choosing our leaders? If so, please contribute to our campaign, and help beat back Koch's attacks.
As we told you yesterday, Koch inherited his $17 billion fortune from his father. Who helped to industrialize and arm America's then-enemy, the Soviet Union.

And we told you that New Yorker magazine has documented Koch's relentless and unscrupulous attack on the Obama Administration, which has grown so many tentacles that insiders refer to it as the "Kochtopus."

What we didn't tell you is that Koch's company, Koch Industries, is one of the Top 10 Air Polluters in the United States. Koch has caused over 300 oil spills. Koch has paid $35 million in pollution fines.
So now you know where Dirty Dan Webster's support comes from. Dirty money. Literally.

And now you know why Koch is so anti-government. For him, no government would mean no fines for dumping his toxic waste wherever he feels like it.

Donate $25, $50 or more to our campaign, and help stop "Big Dirty" from taking over America.

If David Koch chooses all our leaders in November, how long will it be before we have any chance to take back our government from him? Years? Decades? Ever?

We'll tell you more about King David of Koch tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you can help us fight back, please do.

Truth,
Alan Grayson

The links for contributing to Grayson's campaign are left in this post for a reason.  Have you got $5 to tease the plutocrat with an "out-of-state" contribution?

Let's let these losers know that there is also "clean money" out there, ready to protect our democracy!  It may come in much smaller amounts, but dream sweet knowing that every penny freaks the hell out of people like Koch!

In this dawn's early light, our flag is still there.

"Citizens United Disaster" Isn't Just Theoretical

 Hey Voters, just do as you're told.  

Or else.

MeanMesa knows how easy it was to read the headlines and listen to a few complaining progressives rant about the recent Roberts Supreme Court's Citizens United Ruling before returning to the comics page.  After all, lots of the Roberts Court decisions haven't had so much as faint whimper of meaning to America's middle class -- they were mostly for billionaires and corporations.

Well, the Citizens United Ruling is landing on the middle class like an out of control school bus on its way to a John Birch Society hate rally.  MeanMesa's favorite Congressman, Alan Grayson (D-Florida), is finding out all about this first hand.  An especially stinky clutch of East Coast Billionaires have decided that they will determine who will represent Florida in the next Congress.

Florida voters be damned.

Ooops.  Haven't we seen something tragically similar to this before?  In fact, wasn't that previous perfidy also a product of the Roberts Supreme Court?

These guys are bad news.  Really bad news!  Not just for the voters in Florida but for our democracy!

First, a quick, short "Who's who."

The Roberts Supreme Court (531 U.S. 70) ordered the Florida vote recount to cease so it wouldn't "cause irreparable damage to George W. Bush" in 2000.

Alan Grayson was the brave Congressman who said the Republican "Health Care Plan" was simply "Don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly."

Grampa' Koch founded the John Birch Society.

MeanMesa is forwarding the email from Grayson below:

MeanMesa,

A couple of weeks ago, we suggested that Republican Dan Webster isn't the real opponent in this campaign. He hasn't been on the ballot in a quarter of a century. Dan Webster couldn't beat a pair of fives with a full house.

I said that someone else would be the real opponent. Now we know who that is.

His name is David Koch. He has $17 billion. And he is spending $250,000 of that in attack ads against me this week.

Will you help us fight back against David Koch, by contributing $25 or $50 to our campaign? Every dollar counts.

David Koch is the owner of the second largest private company in America. He made his money the old-fashioned way: he inherited it. Incredibly, his father got rich helping to industrialize and arm the Soviet Union.

Koch lives in New York. He often attends the theater. As far as we know, he has never been to Orlando. But he wants to choose who represents Orlando in Congress. And it isn't Alan Grayson.

For many years, David Koch was a member of the Libertarian Party. He serves on the board of directors of the right-wing Cato Institute. He is a reclusive billionaire whose political dirty tricks are exposed in the current issue of the New Yorker Magazine. The title of that New Yorker article is "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging war against Obama."

Why does David Koch support Dan Webster? Because Koch wants to cut Social Security. And so does Dan Webster. 

David Koch is waging war on President Obama and on us. Will you help to launch our counterattack?

What it comes down to is this: who is going to choose our leaders? Us, or a crackpot billionaire like David Koch?

More on this tomorrow. In the meantime, if you can help, please do. Because if we don't, then David Koch will buy the House, the Senate and, in 2012, the White House.

Truth,

Alan Grayson

BTW, all the Grayson Campaign's invitations to contribute have been left in the content on purpose.  If you have a fiver laying around with no where to go, why not join the fray?  Maybe even small out-of-state contributions can give this plutocrat billionaire heartburn.

Our democracy is depending on us more than ever before.

Most Recent Email from Congressman Alan Grayson

MeanMesa is pleased to "pass along" this recent email from our favorite Congressman, Alan Grayson (D-Florida).  Not much more need be added.

Sometimes we progressives begin to simply accept the mushy words of Democrats as inevitable -- "Well, that's just the way it is.  That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it always will be.  Grumble.  Grumble, grubs again."

Get over it.  Find $5 bucks to send -- protect the Constitution and reinvigorate the country.

Dear MeanMesa,

Today is the final day of our moneybomb, at www.CongressmanWithGuts.com. Tomorrow, the attacks from the Republicans begin, because tomorrow is when the Republicans choose their candidate to run against us.

It's a good time to reflect. I have five young children, and they range in age from 5 to 15. A while back, my youngest asked me, 'what does tomorrow mean?' I've always found that question hard to answer. I think that if a five year old could understand this, I'd explain that tomorrow means the place where our hopes live. It's the place where we imagine a better world, and try to make it happen.

That's what courage means, too. Being audacious enough to dream, and tenacious enough to make those dreams come true.

Will you join me and 5000 other donors, on our final day of our moneybomb at www.CongressmanWithGuts.com, and demonstrate our audacity and tenacity by contributing to our cause?

The fundamental choice we face today is about what tomorrow we want to have. There are two groups in this country right now. I call those groups Us, and Them.

We want more jobs, better schools, better health, better pensions, and we want to keep our homes. We want not just jobs but jobs that mean something, jobs that pay a decent wage. We want to live a good life.

And then there's them. They simply have one goal and one goal only. And that is to destroy the government. They're not conservatives. They're anarchists.

 I don't know why they want anarchy. In fact, they don't know, either. Even they don't know what kind of inner darkness causes them to seek wars without end, to burn the planet, to welcome poverty for so many, to leave the old and the sick helpless, to cheer oil in the Gulf. I've spoken to enough of them to be able to tell you that they themselves don't know why.

But that's what they want. So, now we have to decide who is going to run this country. Is it Us, or is it Them? And what's at stake is the future. The future in a country that my five children will live in, that your children will live in, that you'll live in for the rest of your life.

Are we going to have a country with a decent middle class life for everyone - jobs, health care, roads, schools? Or, are we going to have poverty, cheap labor, helplessness and hopelessness? The choice is yours.

Come to www.CongressmanWithGuts.com, and help make that choice, with a donation of $25, $50, or more. Every dollar counts.

The only way to make everyone better off is to make everyone better off. Not just a few, but everyone. Each day, I fight for a good life for all; I fight for the common good. I have a tough race in November because of that. Not in spite of that, but because of that.

This is our fight. And I'm grateful that you're a part of it.

Truth,

Alan Grayson

Politico? - Call the Sewer Man, it stinks!

MeanMesa received the following email from one of our favorite Congressmen, Alan Grayson (D-Florida).  It seems as if the Politico cess pool finally got a check from some patriotic American ($?$) to trash another Democrat.

Oh well, that's nothing new for this bunch.  Of course, they disguise themselves under a heavily soiled, 1/16 inch layer of neo-con flatulence, but their true colors just keep seeping through.  There isn't a ship large enough to carry away the garbage.

By the way, Grayson was the young fellow who characterized the GOP's "health plan" as "Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly!"

The email:

Dear MeanMesa,

The media follows the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.

With that in mind, let's ask a question. What do Boeing, AT&T, America's Natural Gas Alliance, CTIA, McDonald's, and Goldman Sachs have in common?

They are all advertisers in Friday's issue of the Politico, the insider political magazine that controls much of the dialogue in Washington, DC. And that's just one day's issue. In fact, for the last year, the back page of the Politico has been occupied by a full-page Goldman Sachs advertisement. That's a direct revenue flow of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs to the magazine most politicians in DC rely on for political gossip.

Interestingly enough, here are the last six headlines from the Politico on me.

• Dems accused of tea party tampering
   
• GOP foe sues Grayson over DVD
   
• Kelly: Grayson may want troops to die
   
• Who's not on the DCCC list
   
• The Age of Rage
   
• No repeat blockbuster for Grayson

Every single headline is meant to damage me, to gin up pseudo-scandals or keep them going. We recognize this. It's what the media did to Bill Clinton, to Barack Obama, to Al Gore, to Michael Moore, and really, to anyone who is either a Democrat or puts forward the concept that America should be run for the benefit of the people and not the corporations.

On August 23, we're going to show them what people power can do -- my campaign is launching a moneybomb, and I need you to be a part of it.

Please contribute $25 or more now for the moneybomb.

Truth,

Alan Grayson

In case you thought it was an oversight, MeanMesa left the "money bomb" invitation in this posting on purpose.  Got $5 bucks to defend the Constitution?