NRCC Tries to Save Jenkins: $335K of TV purchased

To anyone watching the race for Congress in the 2nd district of Kansas it's pretty obvious Lynn Jenkins is struggling to just hold on, with the whole "didn't do her job for months so she could campaign" thing, and then the "misallocating tens of millions of dollars all over the state that has caused tax increases in poor counties that might have been avoided had she been doing her job" thing. Oh, also, she's running against Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, who happens to be a pretty dang good fit for her district.

In the face of such hurdles, both of her own making and not, Jenkins has had to do the only thing trailing politicians can do: She has gone hard negative, out-and-out lying to voters about Boyda's record and trying desperately to distract them from the real positive work Boyda has done on their behalf.

The strategy is clear- if voters already think Jenkins negatively, just make them think of Boyda more negatively and, heck, you've got yourself an upset.

In that vain, the National Republican Campaign Committee, the NRCC, made a huge advertising buy in the district- almost $335,000.

Just like the Jenkins campaign, the NRCC buy is upsetting for one reason: It misrepresents Boyda's record by- again- claiming Boyda voted for the largest tax increase in American history. We all know that claim is bogus, and that the vote they're trying it to was for something non-binding that didn't increase taxes on anybody. Still, the Republicans push it, ignoring anything real that might help the people of Kansas, and what we should be talking about gets shoved off to the side.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already spent a couple hundred thousand dollars trumpeting Boyda's successes in her term (hmmm...someone else does that, too), and we expect they'll expand that buy- if there is any TV time left for them to purchase. Key difference between the DCCC ad and the NRCC ad- the DCCC is positive and record-oriented while the NRCC ad...isn't.

That brings us to a key indicator for what's really happening in this race: You dont' waste time on positive pieces if you think you're losing, folk, and you don't go hard negative if you think you're in the lead.

Five more days, folk, and we'll see what the district does. With both campaigns and the DCCC and the NRCC bashing each other about the head and neck, damage most certainly will be inflicted. We'll just have to see who's been hurt the worst.

NRCC Does TV Ripping Boyda, Jenkins Up with New ad

Lots of waves on the airwaves today with two new ads ripping Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.

The first, from the NRCC isn't anything new or interesting, just more of the same "largest tax increase in history" nonsense that Boyda has long since dealt with. We don't have a buy size yet, but it's in all the media markets that cover the district, and buying Kansas City TV is awfully expensive.

The other ad, Lynn's new one, is called "Team" and talks about what we'll get from the "team" that is Barack Obama and Nancy Boyda if they're both in Washington.

This tactic isn't new- tying independent local Democrats to national Democrats- though when the Republicans tried it in special elections in the spring and summer in Louisiana and Mississippi it didn't work at all. Jenkins does take a slightly new path, though, by misrepresenting both of their records & proposals. Boyda hasn't voted in the largest tax increase in history (lie, lie, lie Lynn) and Obama's tax proposals will result in substantially lower taxes for almost everyone that lives in the Kansas 2nd.

Whatever, though- Jenkins is desperate at this point and has to distract and misdirect if she has any hope of pulling off an upset. Just look at the front page of today's Topeka Capital-Journal and you'll understand why pretty dang fast.

Boyda: "Please Stay Out of My Race"

Text of a letter written by Congresswoman Nancy Boyda today in regards to independent expenditures in the 2nd Kansas Congressional district race:

In late July, I made a public request in the pages of the Topeka Capital-Journal. I called on out-of-state political groups, Democratic and Republican alike, to keep their TV ads out of the race for the Kansas Second Congressional District.

To my knowledge, no such call had ever succeeded in American history. Because these groups are fully independent, they can buy television time in any district in the country, without asking permission from me or anyone else.

Even so, I believed that urging them to stay away was the right thing to do. Many out-of-state groups have a history of running negative, misleading ads aimed at advancing a political party rather than informing voters. I felt that Kansans should have the opportunity to decide our election without their interference.

Unfortunately, in the months since then, numerous Washington groups have disregarded this request. Freedom's Watch, the Credit Union Legislative Action Council, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have all reserved ad time in Kansas.

My sincere hope remains that all of these groups, on both sides of the aisle, will take their ads off the air. In particular, if anyone who is running ads in my support is reading this letter, here's my message to you: "Thanks, but no thanks." Please stay out of my race.

I continue to believe that I made the right decision in calling on out-of-state groups to keep out of our election, and you'd better believe I'll do the same thing when I run for re-election in 2010.

Sincerely,

Nancy Boyda

Member of Congress

(For what it's worth...we hope lots more independent groups spend on Boyda's behalf...but that's just another time we can prove we aren't in Boyda's pocket :-) )

$4.9 Million Raised to Date in KS-02 Race

In what will end up one of the most expensive congressional races in the United States of America, the three main candidates for the Kansas 2nd seat in Congress have raised a combined total of more than $4.9 million.

Overall, candidates in the race have raised a stratospheric $4.9 million, nearly three times the total spent in the 2006 election and ranking it with some of the nation's most expensive contests.

Surprisingly, it is former Congressman Jim Ryun, who lost in the August primary and isn't on the November ballot, who has raised $1.9 million so far, the most of anyone in the race.

Boyda, the freshman Democratic representative, has raised $1.5 million since the beginning of the election cycle.

Jenkins, the Republican state treasurer, brought in $1.4 million, which included $100,000 she loaned her campaign.

That's a huge, huge number from each candidate- particularly from Ryun.

Lots of ink has been spilled over the fact Lynn Jenkins managed an extraordinary take in the last quarter- it was impressive for sure. We can't, however, stress enough that she had no choice but to raise a ridiculous amount after spending nearly every cent she had to beat Jim Ryun in the primary just two months ago and- and this is very important- if it hadn't been for the fundraiser President George W. Bush was supposed to attend for her that ended up being with First Lady Laura Bush Jenkins would have raised less money than Boyda did.

'Course, none of this matters- Boyda's still got more money to spend, and Jenkins' support from the NRCC has gone up in smoke. Not a fun time to be Lynn Jenkins.

Cook Political Report Upgrades KS-02 to "Leans Democratic"

Brand new on The Cook Political Report today- this race has been officially upgraded from "Toss-up" to "Leans Democratic."

Why? The NRCC pulled hundreds of thousands in ads for Lynn Jenkins, Jenkins has been plagued by two weeks of horrible news stories locally pointing out she's really, really just not a competent state treasurer...oh, and, even though she raised a huge amount of money, Boyda still has more cash on hand going into the final stretch.

Saw the CULAC ad on TV last night- reminds us all Jenkins is good with money. Is that sound we hear the district laughing?

NRCC Cancels $580K Ad Buy in Support of Jenkins

As just a little more evidence of Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's strong standing among her fellow Kansans (and her opponent's free fall), the National Republican Campaign Committee has canceled their television ad buy in support of State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins.

That's $580,000 Jenkins was relying on to drag her across the finish line- and now it's just gone.

With the week Jenkins has had- revelations she has missed all of the meetings of the KPERS Board of Trustees in them same quarter the retirement fund lost $1 billion paired with the fact she refuses to say where she was instead of in her chair listening during those meetings ( *cough* stroking her own ambition *cough*) AND the massive cash-on-hand lead Boyda had over her after the bloody Republican primary- news now that she's $580,000 in the hole....this might even manage to take over as the "saddest day" in little Lynn's life.

UPDATE: The KC Star is reporting the NRCC didn't totally cancel their planned by in support of Jenkins, or so says the Jenkins campaign. We'll all believe that when we actually see an ad on the TV.

Just Let the Voters Sort the Lies Out Themselves

Sometimes, in politics, people take firm, principled stands that cost them dearly.

The general election race is only a week old in the 2nd Congressional District of Kansas, and both women running have already taken such stands: Congresswoman Nancy Boyda by rejecting independent expenditures on her behalf, and Lynn Jenkins for not.

Think whatever you want about Boyda's push to prevent outside groups from spending on her race- Lord knows her war chest is in pretty fantastic form, but every last dollar spent on her behalf makes her even more safe than she already is. But her desire to keep this campaign in Kansas Kansas-centered is noble- it's about making politics what it's supposed to be, a reflection of the will of the people being represented, not of some DC-based action group.

Lynn's position is similar to most of the positions she's taken so far: Lock-step compliance with the national GOP platform & and an identical disconnect from the voters we saw from Jim Ryun- exactly the kind of messaging she needs if she plans to get crushed in November.

In this particular instance, Lynn brings us the best of Karl Rove politics: Stand idly by as her big money cronies shove as many lies and as much distortion down the throats of voters that they can't tell up from down and then reap the benefits. Most people running for elective office have the good sense to never admit to anything that cynical- or out-and-out un-American- it is true no one on this blog has ever accused Lynn Jenkins of having good sense:

“It’s free speech,” Jenkins said. “Let anybody come tell their story and let the voters sort it out.”

Of course it's free speech, and, yes, anyone can say anything they want. But, as someone hoping to be a representative of the people of the Kansas 2nd Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, one would hope you would have the common decency to stand up for those would-be constituents and say, "Enough of the lies, enough big money influence, let's talk about the issues important to Kansans and not the issues important to Washington, DC special interests." No, the mind-numbing ambition of our little state treasurer certainly won't allow that. Instead, Lynn, you're doing what the man you beat did- you're just going to sit back and let Washington dictate to you what needs done, and heaven help the people of the Second District start hearing real-live lies about Nancy Boyda, because you sure as Hell aren't going to do a damn thing about it.

Lynn, it's this kind of cavalier "just let the voters sort out the lies themselves" attitude coming from the Republican Party that put this country in the miserable mess we're in today. How do you expect the people of the district to trust you to represent them in Congress if you won't even make sure the election your running in is fair & honest?

This kind of rhetoric is old and tired- the same song and dance we had for 10 years that voters rejected in 2006.

"People are so tired of that kind of partisanship that they're looking for a change," Boyda said. "They've had enough of the infighting, and that's why I'm running for re-election: because Congress needs the right kind of change."

Lynn Jenkins, ladies and gentlemen- just more of the same.

Largest Tax Increase in History? "Marlarky," Says Boyda Camp

We've been hearing it for months- "The Democrat [sic] controlled Congress has passed the largest tax increase in history, blah blah blah..." We've all heard it, and, hopefully, everyone on both sides knows it's nothing more than partisan lies.

Even though it is just partisan lies, that certainly doesn't prevent both Jim Ryun and Lynn Jenkins for repeating it- often. There lack of integrity isn't new or so much surprising, but, still, holding their fee to the fire is the calling of this particular blog, so we're glad to again oblige.

Today, however, we have the help of the mainstream media.

Former Congressman Jim Ryun's campaign spokeswoman told Harris News Service on Monday that Boyda's first term as Kansas' 2nd District congresswoman included her vote for "the largest tax increase in American history."

But Boyda's spokesman, Thomas Seay, refers to a national nonpartisan organization's conclusion that the claim, oft-repeated by Republican candidates, simply isn't true.

"It's, frankly, malarkey," Seay said.

Why, oh wise Mr. Seay, is it malarkey? The article provides a narrative of how this persestent falsehood came into being.

The tax hike claim, first promoted by the National Republican Congressional Committee, surfaced in March after House Democrats, including Boyda, passed a budget resolution, a non-binding proposal to map out budgets for coming years.

Republicans opposed it and issued press releases decrying it as a $683 billion tax hike, or a $2,863 annual increase for the average Kansan.

The resolution laid out a plan to balance the federal budget by ending tax cuts put in place by the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003.

But, wait...so the Democrats do want to increase our taxes? Ah, but there is more:

However, Democrats say they want to change the law to extend the middle-class tax cuts indefinitely beyond 2010.

"Of course, the congresswoman strongly opposes allowing the middle-class Bush tax cuts to expire," Seay said. "She believes that marriage penalty tax relief, the 10 percent tax bracket, and the increased child tax credit should all be made permanent.

Ah ha. So, really, in the end, we're just talking about the Republicans trying to protect the tax cuts for their base- multimillionaires and billionaires.

But wait, Boyda has sympathy for those good folks, too.

"She's also willing to consider extending cuts for the super-wealthy if Congress can find a responsible way to pay for it."

That could occur if lawmakers opt to, say, cut billions in funds elsewhere, such as by scaling back subsidies to big oil companies and major health insurers, Seay said.

"That alone could save more than $70 billion tax dollars over the next five years."

So...there you go. Boyda doesn't support increasing taxes on average Americans, and she doesn't support increasing taxes on the vast, vast majority of Kansans. And she'll even consider keeping the cuts in place for the super-rich if we can eliminate tax breaks for, say, Big Oil.

But there is one final bit to all of this that the Republicans always conveniently ignore: The "largest tax increase in history" that the Democrats supposedly passed...never did. No budget, not one line of any bill, has contained any of the language the House approved in the above mentioned non-binding resolution. Nada. None of it.

"The truth is that Congress has yet to vote either way on extending the Bush tax cuts," he said. "The sunset clauses don't take effect until 2011, and Congress won't pass a 2011 budget for another two years."

So, is that the end? Can we finally put this mess behind us? Have we fully and completely discredited the Republicans by now?

We should only be so lucky.

However, Seay said he expected to continue to hear Republicans repeat the tax hike claim.

"They're going to keep on making it until Election Day."

Nothing more than a skipping record, those dang Republicans.

The American Conservative: Not Clear GOP Can Beat Boyda

You might not suspect it, but we aren't usual readers of The American Conservative magazine, but we do get Jim Ryun, Lynn Jenkins & Nancy Boyda Google Alerts, so that brings into our laps all kinds of publications we wouldn't normally see.

We're awfully glad this particular piece dropped out of heaven for us though- it's called "The GOPocalypse Keeps Getting Worse." Catchy, don't you think?

When asked which party should control Congress, Democrats win 52-33, which is the largest lead any party has had in 13 years and is a larger lead for the Democrats than they had two years ago. Anyone who cites the high disapproval numbers for Congress as proof that the public has wearied of the Democratic majority is kidding himself.

We've said it before...perhaps now the Republican nuts who have found the blog will believe it, since now it's coming out of the mouth of a fellow conservative. Or, what, is this realist just a liberal in disguise? It's so hard to tell anymore.

The author mopes around in the garden of Republican sorrow for a long time- running through the list of upwards of 30 seats the Democrats have a very serious shot at wresting away from the Republicans in 2008 before finally getting the the Kansas 2nd.

Nancy Boyda’s endorsement of Obama may come back to haunt her in her district, partly because she succeeded against Jim Ryun because she kept her distance from national Democrats last cycle. It may be a mistake for her to associate herself with the national party now that she is an incumbent, but it’s not clear that the Republicans will be able to recover that seat. [emphasis ours]

It actually made this blogger titter to read, "but it's not clear that the Republican will be able to recover that seat."

As to Boyda's endorsement of Obama hurting her...if she had instead run from him as fast as she could in the opposite direction would that have prevented the Republican Party from trying to tie her to him? No, no, no- of course not, they were going to try do it anyway. They'll run their already thrice failed ads again, while Boyda's time back home, two years working with the district & the fact she won't be going to the Democratic National Convention will be plenty to make her distinct in the eyes of the voters.

But, anyway...it's not just "not clear" that the Republicans will be able to beat Nancy Boyda, it's apparent they won't be able to beat her.

NRCC Won't Take Sides in Ryun-Jenkins Primary

According to NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK), the national party isn't going to wade into the dangerous waters that are Kansas Repubilcan politics this summer.

If former Rep. Jim Ryun or Kansas state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins is secretly hoping for national Republicans to bigfoot into their primary battle in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, sorry pal.

You’ve got to win it on your own.

It's a strange situation. After a string of three embarrassing loses, Minority Leader John Boehner seems to want the NRCC to take sides in primaries in an effort to produce higher-quality candidates. But Cole is...hesitant, particularly where the Kansas 2nd is concerned. From Roll Call (subscription required):

Another sticky situation for the party could come in Kansas, where former GOP Rep. Jim Ryun is attempting a comeback but faces a party-splintering primary challenge from state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins (R).

Cole also said he didn’t think the party should get involved there either.

“We’re going to help the winner. That’s not one that I feel we ought to get into,” Cole said.

All the indications are, of course, that if the national party did get involved in the race the support would go to Jim Ryun over Lynn Jenkins. After all, several of Ryun's former colleagues, including Minority Leader Boehner, have already endorsed him.

The spin is up to the campaigns on this one: Is Ryun's endorsements from party leadership a sign of his strength and Jenkins' weakness, or is it just an indication he's part of the problem.

To us it is pretty clear it's both.

Republicans Fail- Again- To Win A Republican Seat in Congress

Honest-to-goodness, it's music to our ears:

A GOP House leadership aide told the Politico last week that “if we don’t win in Mississippi, I think you are going to see a lot of people running around here looking for windows to jump out of.”

They didn't win in Mississippi.

For the third time in a row, the Republicans have failed to keep a solidly Republican House seat in their column For the third time Democrats have been elected over supremely well funded Republicans to seats that haven't seen Democratic representative in the last 20, 30, 40 or more years.

For the third time in a row, seats just as or even more Republican than Nancy Boyda's have been won by Democrats, even as the Republicans have scrambled desperately to paint the Democrats with national brushes, when it's local issues, and deep, deep dissatisfaction with the Republican brand, that has won the day time and time- and time- again.

First it was Congressman Bill Foster's stunning win in the seat once held by Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in Illinois- a seat with a PVI of R-5 that the Democrat carried 53% of the vote. Then, Congressman Don Cazayoux was elected in the Louisiana 6th- a district with a PVI of R-1o that hadn't been represented by a Democrat since 1974. And now, just tonight, Congressman-elect Travis Childers has found himself elected in the Mississippi 1st- a district that has been held comfortably by Republicans since 1994 and that Childers took tonight with 54%.

In each race, the Republicans pulled exactly the same tricks they're going to try to use against Nancy Boyda. They're going to try to make the race about Nancy Pelosi, they're going to try to make the race about Barack Obama- they're going to do whatever they can to make the race about anything other than Nancy Boyda's track record or about the Republicans, because, if they do allow the race to be about the job Boyda has done, or about the miserable job the Republicans have done, they know they'll be destined for yet another lose in a "Republican" district.

It didn't work there, and it won't work here.

A third loss in Tuesday’s 1st District special election would prompt new predictions of electoral doom in November, hurt the party’s already flagging morale and usher in a new round of public finger-pointing among an already fractured GOP. Politico.com

With good reason- they're heading toward yet another election year like they had in 2006.

The Mississippi First is a district 4 points MORE Republican than Nancy Boyda's. This wasn't in Boston, kids, this was in rural Mississippi. And rural Louisiana. And rural Illinois.

Our hunch is- rural Kansas is going to be more of the same.

Anti-Boyda Group & NRCC Breaking Election Law?

A front page story on The Politico today reveals House Democrats will file a compliant with the Federal Election Commission today charging the NRCC and one of the conservative attack-dog groups helping them attack vulnerable Democrats, Freedom Watch, with "illegally coordinating campaign activities."

In a draft of its complaint, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee points to a script Freedom’s Watch submitted to Louisiana TV stations on Tuesday for an attack ad bashing Democratic House candidate Don Cazayoux.

The Democrats say the “metadata” in the Microsoft Word document contains the letters “NRCC” in the title field and shows that the document was last modified by “cforti” — apparently a reference to Carl Forti, a former NRCC official who was recently named as executive vice president for issue advocacy at Freedom’s Watch.

“It is impossible to know from the available facts the exact nature of the relationship between the NRCC and the Freedom’s Watch script,” the DCCC says in its draft complaint. “However, any number of scenarios are consistent with the presence of ‘NRCC’ in the metadata of the script. The NRCC may have created the script and sent it to Freedom’s Watch. Freedom’s Watch may have created the script using a file or computer provided by the NRCC. In any event, the metadata tend to show that the NRCC was involved in some way in preparing the ad.”

Oh dear. That seem to be quite the clear violation of federal election law.

Freedom Watch attacked Congresswoman Nancy Boyda in November 2007 with a full page ad in the Topeka Capitol-Journal. Boyda took them to task at the time for being "deeply irresponsible." Now, we learn the full level of their irresponsibility- they'll break the law to get their ridiculous message out.

Fact Checking can be Fun!

Newsweek has done a terrific story that I think you might find to be very very interesting.

I'm sure ya'll have noticed that there are ads running on TV and on Radio now that are slamming Congressional Democrats for their FISA votes. Congresswoman Boyda is one of them. I could link to the video, but I don't want to lend credibility to the lie.

The ads are run by a group called Defense of Democracies. I knew when I first saw the ad and the disclaimer at the bottom that it was probably a shady 527 run by the "rooty tooty republicans for less democrats society." Wow was I right.

"The ads began running Friday, Feb. 22 in 17 media markets targeting 15 Democratic members of the House. A national version was up and running Monday on the major cable networks, and it was expected to air for most of this week. It appeared during a commercial break in Tuesday night's MSNBC-sponsored debate between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The group behind the ad, Defense of Democracies, was set up just last week. It was spun off from a nonprofit called Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which was formed after 9/11 and is headed by Clifford May, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The three listed members of the foundation's board of directors are Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of the business magazine Forbes and a Republican candidate for president in 1996 and 2000; Jack Kemp, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 and GOP nominee Bob Dole's running mate in 1996; and Jeane Kirkpatrick, best known as Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations. Kirkpatrick died in 2006, however. A few Democrats were sprinkled in among the parent group's advisers (as well as Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman), but several of the most prominent, including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Donna Brazile, the former campaign manager for Al Gore's presidential bid, have resigned because of this ad. Brazile issued a statement calling the ad campaign "misleading and reckless" and saying it would "have the effect of emboldening terrorists."

The piece moves forward to specifically target each word and detail the ways in which it is both misleading and includes important facts that the ad conveniently leaves out.

Narrator: Midnight. February 16. The law that lets intelligence agencies intercept al-Qaeda communications expires.
This is simply not true. First, if government eavesdroppers want to listen in on communications between two suspected terrorists who are outside the U.S., they can. That would likely include a lot of al-Qaeda-related chats. No warrant is necessary as long as the communication isn't intercepted over a wire in the U.S.

Second, even if one of the parties targeted for tapping is in the U.S., the government still can rely on the granddaddy of laws that deal with wiretapping as a foreign sleuthing tool, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under FISA, intelligence-gatherers must apply to a special court for a warrant to tap the communications of a person in the U.S. The process can be cumbersome, although officials have said that court approval sometimes takes only minutes. And if there's an emergency and the government has strong evidence, the wiretap can proceed before an order is sought; authorities have up to 72 hours to get their application to the FISA court, which seldom swats the government down. Of the 2,181 applications made to the FISA court for authority to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches in 2006, just one was denied, and only in part, according to the Justice Department's annual report on the statute.

What the ad's narrator really means is that a law updating and expanding FISA to make the government's work easier, which was passed last August, has expired. The Protect America Act was given a life of only six months because lawmakers wanted to put something in place while continuing to debate its civil liberties and national security implications before deciding whether to make it permanent. That's the law that vaporized on Feb. 16, with disagreements between the House and Senate still unresolved.

The Protect America Act, among other things, expanded the range of situations in which the government could operate without a FISA warrant. Controversy arose because the wording of the law could have allowed the government to wiretap the conversations and e-mails of Americans without a court order when targeting a foreigner abroad.

Narrator: Senate Democrats and Republicans vote overwhelmingly to extend terrorist surveillance. But the House refuses to vote and instead goes on vacation.

It's true that the Senate passed a bill replacing the Protect America Act, and it was largely to the White House's liking. It's not as though the House sat on its hands, however. It passed its own bill, the Restore Act, back in November.

The Bush administration opposes the House bill, as do its allies at Defense of Democracies, and the point of the ad is to pressure House members to accede to the Senate version...

I know this is a lot of information. But this is important. As we mentioned earlier today:

"The Senate bill would give telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits arising from their cooperation with the Bush administration's post-9/11 intelligence-gathering program. In December 2005, the New York Times broke a story revealing that after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, President Bush secretly authorized a program that allowed the government to bypass FISA in pursuit of terrorists, even when collecting communications in the U.S. More than 40 lawsuits contending that the program was illegal and that telecom companies violated citizens' constitutional rights by participating in it are pending in federal court in California, consolidated from around the country. Bush has accused Democrats who oppose this immunity provision of shilling for the trial lawyers' bar, and he has cast the House Democrats as roadblocks on this issue almost daily...

Critics of the immunity provision point out that it provides blanket immunity and is not specifically targeted to lawsuits arising from the companies' cooperation with the post-9/11 program. Some suspect there may be another secret program that hasn't yet come to light. Telecom companies already have immunity for actions they take in connection with surveillance conducted under the law.

But wait... here's the golden part. This is where it gets crazy

The ad's play to public fear echoes the tactics used by the administration to put strong pressure on Congress. In an interview late last year with the El Paso Times, McConnell even went so far as to say that without quick approval of the law, "some Americans are going to die" because of continuing public discussion of the issue. The reporter asked McConnell how he makes the case that the new law is important.

El Paso Times: You have to do public relations, I assume?

McConnell: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. ... The fact we're doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means. ...

El Paso Times: So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

McConnell: That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public.

Wow... I mean.... wow. Seriously.... what do you say to this? I think I just threw up a little in my mouth..... Anyone seen the movie The Lives of Others? Nice little German flick about what it was like living under communism... deserves a poignant mention.