Alaska Senate candidate Mark Begich qualified as a finalist in Senator Russ Feingold's "Pick a Progressive Patriot" contest. The winner of the contest will receive a $5,000 contribution.
The contest is a great opportunity for Begich supporters to Senator Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund has done to build the Democratic Party and support challengers across the country. Now is the time to set our sites on Alaska and work to retire Ted Stevens.
Above is video of US Senate candidate Mark Begich speaking to the Alaska Democratic Convention at the Palmer Fair Grounds last night. It was a great event with about 1,000 Democrats coming together from across Democrats
Yesterday Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich unveiled a government ethics reform plan and put forth a personal ethics pledge. Additionally, Begich brought financial transparency to a new level by posting 21 years of personal financial disclosure records available for download on our campaign website.
It probably comes as no surprise to the Daily Kos community that reforming government ethics is the first major policy plan that Mark puts forward in his campaign to represent Alaska in the US Senate. Alaskans have been let down by their elected officials. Secret meetings, hidden favors, special access for special interests, and now convicted legislators have hurt Alaskan families. And our opponent, Senator Ted Stevens, has a poor record when it comes to supporting stronger ethics legislation in the Senate.
VoteVets.org adviser Roger Martinez has made another phenomenal video in the support of Jim Webb's 21st Century G.I. Bill. This video targets Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens, a World War II veteran who went to UCLA and Harvard Law on the G.I. Bill. Despite using his education to springboard a long career in politics, Stevens is opposed to the new G.I. Bill which would grant veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the same educational benefits as veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
The good news is that Stevens' opposition to giving our veterans the benefits they have earned is a minority view. There's a good chance the Webb bill will be added as an amendment to Iraq supplemental funding next week.
And here in Alaska, Stevens' opponent - Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich - has been a strong advocate for the new G.I. Bill.
It might come as no surprise to the online community, but Ted Stevens is best known outside of Alaska for his stance on net neutrality. Needless to say, when it comes to internet freedom, there is an ocean of difference between Ted Stevens and his opponent (and my boss) Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Today Mark put out a very strong statement in support of keeping the internet free and open.
"Net Neutrality has allowed the Internet to drive economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. I will protect and preserve net neutrality's level playing field, so that all Alaskans -- and all Americans -- can experience the vast social and economic benefits of an open Internet connection."
"Discriminatory pricing would turn the open internet into a toll road that serves only those companies that can afford the price. Access to the internet is no longer a luxury; it's a lifeline for many Alaskans."
"I will work to see that Congress adopts public policies that will protect net neutrality, preserve an open Internet and spur the growth of Alaska's economy."
NEA President Bill Bjork spoke on behalf of the organization on why they were endorsing Mark and why they chose to do so earlier than ever before.
Mark Begich understands public education. From his father being a teacher down to his current family members who teach Alaska’s children, Mark understands the issues faced by Alaska’s children and public school employees.
Earlier today the Begich campaign held a press conference where Mark expressed his strong support for Senator Jim Webb's efforts to pass a new G.I. Bill for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Begich is currently a candidate for US Senate from Alaska. Webb and 56 other senators have signed on in support of this legislation, which seeks to provide educational benefits for our veterans in line what veterans of past wars have received.
Joined by students and veterans at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Begich called on Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) to join him in honoring the service of returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas of conflict since Sept. 11, 2001. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has already signed on to the bill. Begich said:
"When our veterans come home from Iraq, Afghanistan, or other areas, we want them to have the same educational opportunities as those who served before them in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. To support anything less is wrong."
"This is not complicated. Our veterans have sacrificed for America and we owe them this opportunity. I urge Sen. Stevens to join me in providing veterans the full cost of a college education, like he received after World War II, thanks to the G.I. Bill."
Today, Anchorage's Democratic Mayor Mark Begich announced his candidacy for the US Senate. I'm happy to say that I've signed on to work as his Online Communications Director. Many of you probably know me best from my time as Chris Dodd's blogger. As with Dodd, I'll be helping Mark Begich maintain a strong presence in the netroots community and utilize internet tools as a means to communicate with voters across Alaska. It's a challenge that I relish - most of all because I believe Begich will give us a great chance to turn Alaska blue.
One of the things that we've always been told about Joe Lieberman is that he votes with Democrats most of the time, but might buck the party from time to time on issues like the war in Iraq. Having watched a great deal of the 110th Congress's 2nd Senate Session in the last month, I can say that Joe's squarely with the GOP these days.
There have been 22 roll call votes in the Senate this session. In this diary I look at the votes, how Lieberman voted, and what his partisan alignment could be judged as this far in the 2nd Session of the 110th Congress.
I've spent a great deal of time over the last four and a half months trying to pressure the major Democratic presidential candidates - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - to use their platform as the two most important, most listened to Democrats in the country to speak out forcefully against retroactive immunity for telecom companies and the expansion of executive powers sought by the Bush administration in FISA reform legislation. These efforts have at times been met by skepticism - what makes these two senators so much more important that the other ninety-eight?
Leadership from these candidates could set the tone of the FISA debate and could raise retroactive immunity to the level of presidential politics in a way that Chris Dodd's outspoken, persistent efforts never succeeded in doing. While the blogs and key progressive advocacy groups were drawn to Dodd's use of his somewhat-larger than usual microphone afforded a second-tier presidential candidate, the traditional media never credited Dodd nor even the issue as being particularly important.
The last two days have provided us with a pointed example of the power a presidential campaign possesses to impact the media.
This afternoon the Senate will reconvene to begin considering a raft of amendments to the bad Intelligence Committee bill on warrantless wiretapping. Debate will begin at 2 PM Eastern, though no votes will happen before 5:30 and it's still unclear if votes on FISA will happen today. What looks more certain is that Title II amendments related to retroactive immunity are likely to be considered tomorrow, namely the Dodd-Feingold Amendment to strip retroactive immunity from the underlying SSCI bill.
I have a breakdown of all the amendments being considered (and cboldt's work has been much linked to, for good reason) at the CREDO Action Blog. But what I'm most concerned about today is the part of this legislative fight that has garnered the most attention thus far: retroactive immunity.
We only need 51 votes for Dodd-Feingold to pass and though we aren't where we need to be yet, we have just over 24 hours to lobby the Senate to get the votes we need to defend the rule of law.
Last December Chris Dodd, alone among presidential contenders, led a fight to stop retroactive immunity for big telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon from becoming law. Dodd came off the campaign trail to stand in the well of the Senate for almost eleven hours, arguing against retroactive immunity and for accountability for the violations of Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Dodd was prepared to filibuster, but his tactics succeeded in stopping the FISA legislation from proceeding without going that step. However, he was alone when he should not have been.
Other Democratic senators made pledges to be there beside Dodd in the event he had to filibuster bad FISA legislation. Here's what Barack Obama's campaign had said about his willingness to support a filibuster:
To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. [TPM: Election Central, 10/24/07]
On January 3rd Iowans will be making a critical choice on behalf of the nation. The people here helping Chris Dodd are taking part in history here over the closing days before the caucus. I'm going to try to tell that story over the next week and give you a window into the Dodd campaign. Throughout our campaign I've covered hundreds of Dodd events. For the most part, I've eschewed writing the typical campaign blog posts cheering on how great the events are or how positive the crowds response is, because frankly, I think it's better to let the video from Dodd events do the talking for me. Now, though, I want to use my time in Iowa to show as much as I can what's happening on the ground.
After a hectic day of travel filled with missed and delayed flights, I arrived in Iowa last night to a bustling Dodd Headquarters in Des Moines. "Bustling" is a word you'll hear bandied about a lot when campaigns talk about the activity in their offices around Iowa this week, but to be honest it hardly covers what's going on. The winding halls of Dodd HQ were filled with staffers and volunteers fulfilling a range of tasks - planning the events between now and the caucus, calling Iowans to ask them to support Senator Dodd, honing the closing argument for Chris Dodd, keeping our web presence dynamic, and much, much more.
This Wednesday at 8PM Eastern, the Republican Presidential candidates will be holding their own YouTube debate. Similar to the Democratic version in South Carolina in July, the candidates will be asked questions via YouTube videos. YouTube accepted thousands of videos and those submissions will be winnowed down to a handful that are presented as questions for the GOP. Senator Dodd jumped on the opportunity to ask the Republican field a question about the issue that matters most to him: protecting our Constitution.
This diary began as an ostensible response to Devilstower's front page post on Senator Dodd's answers in the UNLV debate on constitutional rights and national security. As DT has updated his post a few times, explaining that he seeks to hold Dodd to a high standard, I'd like to think of this post as an opportunity for me to elucidate Senator Dodd's long standing opposition to the false choice of security versus liberties.
In the debate, Senator Dodd spoke directly to the question of whether we should choose security over our Constitution.
"But there ought not to be any correlation here. When you take the oath of office, you don't swear to uphold the Constitution or protect the country. I believe by upholding our rights, we do protect the country. And the administration has taken the opposite view. They are posing to us the false choice, the dichotomy that to be safer, we have to give up rights. I think that is so fundamentally flawed and fundamentally dangerous for the United States of America to embrace that idea."
Tomorrow morning the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin marking up FISA reform legislation. What we don't yet know is what changes they will make to the bill passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That's why we have to keep calling and make sure all of the Judiciary Committee members know that retroactive immunity needs to be stripped from the bill.
So far, four senators have said they will oppose retroactive immunity. We need six more to ensure that we'll win this fight. Coincidentally, there are still six Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee that have not said how they will vote on retroactive immunity (Schumer, Feinstein, Durbin, Kohl, Whitehouse, and Leahy). Arlen Specter has also expressed his concern over retroactive immunity, but has not yet made clear where he stands.
The good news is that we've just launched a new function in the Citizen Generated Whip Count that makes calling the Senate much, much easier for you.
We've built a direct calling feature on our Whip Count tool that connects users to Senate offices over the internet.
I feel so strongly about this. It’s part of my DNA, in a sense. Some of you may know, that I grew up in a household where my father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, here. And, Robert Jackson, the great prosecutor, the great Supreme Court Justice, made the case as others did. That we were going to stand up for the rule of law, even with some of the greatest violators of human rights in recorded history. That we were going to provide a trial for them, that which they never gave to their victims. So I heard all about the rule of law growing up, and how important it is. I didn’t discover this a week ago, or year a go or two years ago...So my history on these matters go back a long way, here. They didn’t come up recently, and I’m urging people to stand up.
If caring about the rule of law is in Senator Dodd's DNA, it's critically important to remember as citizens that the Constitution is our nation's DNA. And this administration's actions against our founding document risks fundamentally altering who we are as a nation.
