Ladies and Gentleman, This Is My Last Blog Post. You Won't Have Dick Grayson to Kick Around Anymore.

Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
-- "Slacker"


Just about one year ago, over 170 posts and 8200 pageviews ago, I began this blog as "Grayson for Congress AZ-06" with this:

I am a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's Sixth District. Thank you.

* * *
Last October, I started posting more regularly, as in this post, "Welcome to the Sixth Congressional District of Arizona, Bitch...Uh, Candidate!":

Arizona's Sixth Congressional District was created as a safe Republican House seat in the redistricting following the 2000 census, when the Cactus State gained two Congressional seats. It encompasses parts of Maricopa and Pinal counties. It is mostly made up of eastern suburbs of Phoenix, what we in the East Valley call "the East Valley": Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Queen Creek and my hometown of Apache Junction (though I've also lived and worked in Mesa).

It's one of the fastest-growing parts of the United States. Of cities over 100,000, Gilbert is the fourth fastest-growing and Chandler the ninth fastest-growing. Queen Creek's population is doubling every four years. In parts of the district, nearly all the buildings date from the 21st century.

According to Wikipedia:

It is currently represented by Jeff Flake, a Republican. George W. Bush received 64% of the vote in this district in 2004. The district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R +12.
Population (2000): 641,329
Male 49.3%, Female 50.7%
Median age: 34.1
Median Household Income: $47,976
Racial Composition: 84.2% White, 2.1% Black, 1.8% Asian, 1.0% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 8.2% Other, 17.2% Hispanic (of any race)

In 2002, Republican Jeff Flake won his second term with 65% of the vote. (He first won a Congressional seat in the old First District in 2000).

Deborah Thomas, the only Democratic candidate who's ever run in this district, got 42,653 votes, or 32%. Libertarian Andy Wagner got 3%.

In 2004, Rep. Flake won 79% of the vote against the Libertarian candidate, Craig Stritar, who got 21%.

In 2006, Rep. Flake got 74% of the vote to 26% for Libertarian Jason Blair.

Why did no Democrat run in the last two elections? Why am I pushing for some Democrat to run in 2008? Why have I so far been able to convince only myself to run? See future posts.

* * *
The day after Thanksgiving I posted this about AZ-06:

Call us the Speedy Gonzales District.

According to Reid Wilson's post at Real Clear Politics, the just-published edition of The Almanac of American Politics notes that Arizona's Sixth Congressional District -- hey, that's us -- is the fastest-growing in the nation:

Arizona Reps. Jeff Flake and Trent Franks come in at numbers one and two, and new residents of the state have registered overwhelmingly Democratic, according to the East Valley Tribune. Neither Flake nor Franks are in immediate danger, but a generation from now, the districts will not look the same as they do today.

Between 2000 and 2005, AZ-06 grew 36.3%. We Democrats need to at least run someone in 2008 -- are there any Latina billionaire businesswomen abuelas with civic experience in Mesa? -- but I will represent the party next November if no politician with potential agrees to run.

I am sure that Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, or whatever district replaces it in parts of the Southeast Valley after the next decennial census -- will one day shift from Republican to Democratic control. The demographics and history are on our side.

This do-it-yourself campaign by a non-politician is taking a hiatus for the holiday as we speedily run to the supermarket for tofurkey and trimmings. I'm incredibly grateful that I live in a country where, um, anyone can run for national office.

Happy Thanksgiving.

* * *
In early January, I wrote:

The New Year's Day column by conservative David Brooks mostly concerned Mitt Romney's presidential campaign but went on to make more general remarks about the political situation we are facing in 2008:

As Walter Mondale was the last gasp of the fading New Deal coalition, Romney has turned himself into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition.

That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. Surveys from the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.

Since I filed to run as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District last May, I have not heard from anyone in the state Democratic party. For that matter, I haven't heard from a single Democratic voter in AZ-06.

I originally filed to run because I believe in contested elections and because I was frustrated that Sixth Congressional District Democrats like myself did not have a candidate to vote for in November 2006, when our party won back the U.S. House, or in November 2004, in a crucial election that got many Democrats energized.

All along, I have said I would happily step aside if a more credible Democrat would just step forward and run. That remains true.

Look, I know I am a horrible candidate for our party. I am no politician. Anyone glancing at the posts on this blog can see that. I am running only because no one else will.

I completely understand why state and national Democrats have little interest in AZ-06. It has the lowest percentage of registered Democrats of any congressional district in the Cactus State.

Our party needs to ensure that Rep. Harry Mitchell in AZ-05 and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 win their first re-election campaigns; their victories in 2006 brought Democrats 4-4 parity in the state's U.S. House delegation.

In 2008, we have an excellent chance of picking up the Republican seat in AZ-01 where an unpopular incumbent is retiring. We also have a very good chance to pick off another of Arizona's conservative Republican congressmen in AZ-03, where Bob Lord is a terrific candidate for our party.

Arizona's Sixth Congressional District should and must take a back seat to these eminently winnable races. But the national and state Democratic party should not abandon us.

I believe 2008 is the year, as Brooks said, the Reagan conservative coalition has come apart. The impending Republican primary fight between Rep. Jeff Flake and Russell Pearce in AZ-06 is a sign of this, as is the chaos in the GOP presidential race.

In my posts over the past few months I've tried to show that Rep. Flake is vulnerable to attack as a rigid right-wing laissez-faire ideologue at a time when this ideology is being rejected by many voters -- including those who have long voted Republican. If Russell Pearce somehow upsets the incumbent in next September's GOP primary, many more Republicans will join AZ-06 Democrats in seeking an alternative.

Please, leaders and members of the Arizona Democratic Party, let's build for the future in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, the fastest-growing district in the entire nation.

Find a better candidate than Richard Grayson.

One who doesn't talk about himself in the third person would be a good start.

[campaigning children in the photo at top are supporting their father, Democratic candidate Alan Grayson in FL-08]

* * *
In mid-April, I posted some "GrEaT nEwS":

As Hubert H. Humphrey would say, I'm as pleased as punch to report that two new Democrats have entered the race to represent Arizona's Sixth Congressional District in Congress.

Rebecca Schneider of Mesa is a librarian at ASU who has the compassion sorely lacking in Rep. Jeff Flake.

Chris Gramazio of Queen Creek is a working man, married father of one (and one on the way), who has the common sense so foreign to Rep. Jeff Flake.

Either of them would be a vast improvement over the Sixth Congressional District's current pathetic excuse for a people's representative.

I started this campaign and blog last year because I was mad that I had no Democrat to vote for in the 2006 U.S. House race.

If either Chris or Rebecca, or both, successfully file their petitions to get on the September 2 Democratic primary ballot, I will gratefully step aside and enthusiastically vote for our party's candidate. If by some chance, neither gets on the ballot, I'll run as a write-in candidate.

Till there's clearly a Democratic candidate in November, I'm going to continue this furshlugginer blog, not trying to promote my own candidacy but explaining why Rep. Jeff Flake needs to be replaced by a progressive Democrat.

Good luck to both Rebecca and Chris. I am really, really happy you are running.

* * *
In this blog, I've posted a lot about what I feel are the failures of Rep. Jeff Flake. Often I used over-the-top language, meant as kind of a parody of the attack ads seen in what passes for political discourse over the airways.

I still stand by all my criticisms of Jeff Flake's record as a congressman (as well as my occasional praise for some of his forward-thinking actions), but I am sorry if the words I used offended anyone, particularly Rep. Flake or his family. I think he's a decent guy and a very intelligent man who happens to have a view of government that is out of step with our times.

After it was clear that other candidates were in the race, I changed the name of the blog from one promoting my "candidacy" to "Defeat Jeff Flake." Now, with Chris Gramazio having filed his signatures to get on the September 2 AZ-06 Democratic primary ballot and Rebecca Schneider filing her petitions next Tuesday, it's time for me to step aside and let a real candidate take over. I'm leaving to spend the summer in Brooklyn. Thanks to everyone who came to the blog.

* * *
Here is my final post:

I am no longer a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's Sixth District. Thank you.

Goodbye and good luck!

Chris Gramazio Has Filed His Signatures to Get on the AZ-06 Democratic Primary Ballot. We Will Defeat Jeff Flake!

Good news comes in an email from Chris Gramazio. He has filed his petitions with enough signatures to get on the September 2 Democratic primary ballot so we will have someone to defeat Jeff Flake this November.

Sneering Elitist Rep. Jeff Flake Takes Break from Bashing Middle-Class Families to Call for Killing of Cats

On Wednesday the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 1464, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2008, sponsored by Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM), the next Senator from New Mexico.

Rep. Jeff Flake took a break from bashing America's hardworking middle-class families to express his hatred of defenseless and endangered cats by voting no.

As the astute blogger That's My Congress notes,

The legislation provides for the financial support of conservation programs around the world that protect endangered wild cats and dogs. In the case of wildcats, every species on Earth is endangered. Half of wild dog species, ranging from the red wolf to the arctic fox, are in danger of going extinct.

The bill was passed in the House of Representatives late yesterday afternoon, but only barely. With just a few more votes against it, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act would have been killed, and programs to conserve these magnificent animals would have been cut off from support.

119 members of Congress voted against this law.

Why? Why would anyone vote to deprive conservation programs for endangered species of support?

Could it be money? Could it be that 119 members of Congress decided that, as much as they like the idea of protecting wild cats and canids from extinction, it would be fiscally irresponsible to spend the money?

That explanation doesn’t hold up, if you do the math. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total expense for the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2008 in 2009 would be only 7 million dollars. Compare that to the supplementary war spending Congress is set to approve: 168.9 billion dollars. Remember that, as supplementarywar spending, that 168.9 billion dollars is in addition to the hundreds of billions already in the federal budget to pay for war war.

7 million dollars next to 168.9 billion dollars is like a grain of sand next to an ostrich egg.

It makes no sense for anyone in Congress to deny the seven million dollars in funding for felid and canid conservation, and then to vote in favor of throwing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars away on war.

This was a bipartisan conservation bill, with some Republicans among the co-sponsors, and even more Republicans voting in favor. However, opposition to the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act was not at all bipartisan. Of the 119 members of the House voting against the bill, only one was a Democrat.

That's My Congress ends by nominating Jeff Flake for the Congressional Coalition Against Cats.

Obviously it's no surprise that a do-nothing congressman like Jeff Flake, who wouldn't lift a pinky to help struggling American middle class families, couldn't give a shit about helping members of the cat family.

Unless, of course, they're the Maker's Mark-swilling, cigar-chomping, arugula-eating Club for Growth fat cats who've lined elitist Jeff Flake's campaign coffers to the tune of a cool million.

This blog post is dedicated to the memory of Eisenhower, the best cat who ever lived on East 54th Street between Snyder and Tilden Avenues in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, in the 1950s.

Lazy Do-Nothing Rep. Jeff Flake's Accomplishments for the People of Arizona's Sixth Congressional District: Less Than Zero

Lazy dilettante Rep. Jeff Flake has been in the United States House of Representatives for nearly eight years. Can you name one thing he's done for the families of our congressional district? Other than send out self-serving press releases and get his photogenic mug in the media?

OpenCongress details Rep. Jeff Flake's utter lack of accomplishments:

Not a single bill that Jeff Flake has sponsored has ever become law.

He ranks 419 out of 435 House members in the number of bills he's co-sponsored -- and that 435 includes members who've died in the middle of a session!

Worst of all, he ranks 424 out of 435 House members in getting the few bills he's bothered to co-sponsor to pass Congress.

Do-nothing Jeff Flake. When it comes to promoting himself, he's a dynamo. When it comes to helping hardworking families in his district, he doesn't lift a pinky.

Anti-Veteran Elitist Rep. Jeff Flake Favors Millionaires Over Vets, Votes Against New G.I. Bill

More good news from Congress yesterday. As the email I got from the hardworking group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), noted:

You did it. Just a few minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed the new GI Bill by a vote of 256-166, as an attachment to the emergency supplemental. Click here to view the full list of who voted for it and who voted against it.

Earlier this week, we told you that the new GI Bill was facing opposition from a small group of Representatives in the House, who were threatening the bill despite its deep bi-partisan support.

We asked for your help, and you stepped up to the plate. Thousands of you took action by calling your Representatives, signing the petition at www.GIBill2008.org, and spreading the word to your friends and neighbors. Today, your dedication paid off and together, we made history.

But Rep. Jeff Flake, on the wrong side of history, voted against helping vets.

As I wrote in a February blog post, "We Need a New G.I. Bill":

I'm sure anti-government extremist Rep. Jeff Flake opposes a new G.I. Bill for the same reasons he opposes any kind of government help for ordinary people.

But yesterday there was even more reason for an elitist like Jeff Flake who's constantly favored the interests of millionaires over those of struggling middle class families to vote against the G.I. Bill. As the New York Times stated,

Congressional Democrats began to put into practice their philosophy of asking the wealthy to shoulder more of the cost of government programs on Thursday as the House approved an expansive new veterans education benefit that would be paid for by a tax on affluent Americans.

In pushing the tax plan, Democrats are banking on the idea that most Americans will have no quarrel with requiring those on the highest economic rung to pay for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to receive the equivalent of a free four-year college education at a public university.

The proposal is the most striking example so far of a Democratic refrain being heard increasingly in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail: Americans with significant financial resources need to contribute more to efforts to help those less prosperous.

Individuals earning $500,000 or more would pay a surtax of 0.47 percent on income above $500,000 and the tax would apply to couples on incomes above $1 million.

Democratic officials said one analysis estimated that about 440,000 people would fall under the new tax and would pay an average of nearly $9,000 a year.

“We are talking about people who are making over $1 million to make a small sacrifice to pay for this war when our military families are making a huge sacrifice,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois.

Middle-class-hating, millionaire-loving Rep. Jeff Flake sided with the people he's constantly favored in his eight pathetic years in Congress.

And our miserable excuse for a representative once again sided against hardworking regular people -- in this case, the brave veterans who've given everything they've got for America.

A creepy hypocrite like Jeff Flake talks about supporting veterans, but then when push comes to shove, he votes against them because he's more devoted to his ideology than he is to the needs of regular people.

Seriously, how can he sleep at night?

And even more seriously, how can we re-elect this sneering enemy of middle class families?

Out-of-Touch Greed-Worshipping Extremist Rep. Jeff Flake Tells Hardworking AmeriCorps Volunteers: Get Lost, Drop Dead

Rep. Jeff Flake is well-known on Capitol Hill for being a nasty foe of anything that smacks of government giving a helping hand to struggling working-class and middle-class families.

"You're on your own, folks," is the mantra of our do-nothing congressman.

His sponsors, like the anti-family Goldwater Institute and the greed-is-good elitists of the Club for Growth, have a perfect representative in the selfishness-worshipping Rep. Jeff Flake. Too bad those of us stuck with a congressman who makes Ayn Rand look like Mother Teresa can't say the same thing -- unless we've suddenly been thrust into Bizarro World.

Yesterday a routine resolution came before the House. It was simple: to honor the 542,000 American citizens who since 1994 haven taken the AmeriCorps pledge to 'get things done for America' by becoming AmeriCorps members.

These unselfish folks have served a total of more than 705,000,000 hours nationwide, helping to improve the lives of our nation's most vulnerable citizens, protect our environment, contribute to our public safety, respond to disasters, and strengthen our educational system.

Members of the House were asked to simply agree to this:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) encourages all citizens to join in a national effort to salute AmeriCorps members and alumni, and raise awareness about the importance of national and community service;

(2) acknowledges the significant accomplishments of the AmeriCorps members, alumni, and community partners;

(3) recognizes the important contributions to the lives of our citizens by AmeriCorps members; and

(4) encourages citizens of all ages to consider serving in AmeriCorps.

All Democrats and the vast majority of Republicans voted aye.

Horse's ass Jeff Flake voted nay.

Why does Jeff Flake hate AmeriCorps? Because it proves, time and again, that a little helping hand from the government can make some people's lives easier. And that contradicts the rigid ideology that Jeff Flake has sworn allegiance to, much to the detriment of his constituents with real needs.

Jeff Flake wants to get rid of AmeriCorps. As an editorial in the Everett (WA) Herald titled "AmeriCorps should be lauded, not threatened" explains:

Let's face it: Not everyone has the desire or the opportunity to go to college and pursue a traditional career in public service. That doesn't mean young people shouldn't get the chance to focus on doing good in their community. The federal AmeriCorps program is a great way to create a valuable pool of volunteers to do just that.

Even though it's billed as a volunteer program, participants receive awards once they complete their assignments. The grants are meant to be used to further volunteers' education or to pay off student loans.

The award - less than $5,000 - is hardly an incentive by itself to commit to a yearlong project. The partial-year stipends are even less, about $2,300 for between 300 and 900 hours of work. AmeriCorps volunteers are mostly in their mid-20s and make the conscious decision to put better-paying career paths on hold in order to perform admirable tasks.

Last week in the House of Representatives, AmeriCorps faced funding cuts from two different amendment packages. One, sponsored by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), would have cleaved $25 million from its federal grant package, divided between a program focused on underprivileged youth and various programs for the elderly.

Stearns wrote a letter to others on the House Appropriations Committee in which he mischaracterized the nature of AmeriCorps, calling the stipend a contradiction for volunteers.

The other, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), would have removed all $226 million funding AmeriCorps receives at the state and federal levels, effectively ending the program.

Fortunately, neither of the amendments gained enough support to continue up the legislative chain.

Officials for Washington Campus Compact, a service learning organization housed at Western Washington University, said that $27 million in AmeriCorps grants have been spent at state schools. Locally, Everett Community College has seen $847,349 of that money and $583,570 has been used to finance education at Edmonds Community College.

For some people, public service means holding elected office. For others, it's tutoring adult literacy classes, working in a soup kitchen, doing clerical work for a health clinic or planting trees.

AmeriCorps volunteers do that kind of work because they believe in the causes and take pride in offering their time and skills. Government should commend them and the organization shouldn't have to worry about having to scrounge for donations in order to operate.

Shame on you, Jeff Flake.

And shame on us for having an enemy of hard-working American families as our congressman.

Wackadoodle AZ-06 Congressman Jeff Flake Hates Mother's Day -- But Normal People Disagree

A few months ago I reported how wackadoodle Rep. Jeff Flake sent out a press release attacking his congressional colleagues for supporting some measly funds to help out the International Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia, on today's centennial of the start of Mother's Day there by Anna Jarvis in 1908.

Last week, Jeff Flake, crazy as ever, tried to take back a vote he'd apparently cast in error supporting this year's observance of a day honoring American mothers. His fellow House Republicans joined him.

Dana Milbank reports in the Washington Post:

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?

I guess it's clear now that Rep. Jeff Flake really does hate American mothers.

Perhaps Sigmund Freud could tell us why, but he's dead -- so the source of our wacky congressman's animus against the middle class moms of Arizona's Sixth Congressional District and the rest of America, proven with hundreds of his votes against working families, will remain a mystery.

Thanks to Rep. Kathy Castor for challenging mom-hating pols like Jeff Flake. Back when I lived in Florida, I had dinner with Kathy and her husband at the Tampa home of her wonderful mom, Betty, who was then president of the University of South Florida, and whose U.S. Senate candidacy I worked for in 2004. If only our district was represented by a Democrat like either of the Castor moms.

Maybe miracles can happen this November.

Happy Mother's Day to my own wonderful mom in Apache Junction and to every mom in our district and elsewhere.

House Votes 410-11 to Expand Federal Enforcement of Copyright Law, With Rep. Jeff Flake in the Tiny Minority Voting No -- And This Time He's Right!

Now that other candidates are running for the Democratic nomination in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, I've been continuing to post, explaining why Rep. Jeff Flake should not be re-elected. There are a lot of reasons.

Nevertheless, I'd be intellectually dishonest if I did not post occasional pats on the back to Jeff Flake. There are times when his out-of-the-mainstream views get it right, as on his foresighted and lonely crusade to end our embargo of Cuba.

Yesterday, Rep. Flake was in a familiar place: in a tiny minority voting against the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act of 2008. The House passed it overwhelmingly, with only 11 members voting no. They include not only Jeff Flake but also his ideological soulmate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX); another former presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH); and Silicon Valley's Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

I believe Jeff Flake was right on the mark to oppose this bill. As a staff attorney at the Center for Governmental Responsibility back in the 1990s, I worked a lot in the nascent field of digital copyright law as well as other intellectual property issues. I'm the author of a dozen books and a content provider online and for various print publications, so I have a particular interest in this area.

To explain why I agree with Rep. Flake's vote here, I go to an the blog of an organization I'm affiliated with, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which noted that

The bill would nonetheless significantly expand federal enforcement of copyright law.

The most outrageous provisions would create new and unnecessary federal bureaucracies devoted to intellectual property enforcement. None seems more ridiculous than language creating a Cabinet-level "IP enforcement czar" that would report to the President and coordinate enforcement efforts across government, a proposal that has been loudly opposed by the Department of Justice. Why is Congress spending our tax dollars on a new layer of officialdom that the cops themselves don't want or need?

Moreover, the bill also includes provisions — such as expanded forfeiture penalties and language "clarifying" that copyright registration is not required for criminal enforcement of the copyright -- that could be read to open the door to increased prosecution against individuals or innovators as well as large-scale commercial pirates.

Similarly, a Daily Kos contributor called Berkeleygrad writes:

It is backed by all the usual industry suspects (grouped together under the name of "the Copyright Alliance") and is a potential disaster insofar as it threatens to impede fair use and balanced enforcement while increasing the criminalization of non-commercial copyright infringement. H.R. 4279 would also create a new "Copyright Czar" within the federal government, a position that appears to be loosely modeled on the "Drug Czar" positions that have done so much to perpetuate the wasteful, expensive, and ineffective "war on drugs."

Those of us who value our digital rights and civil liberties should be concerned...

Rep. Jeff Flake was right this time, although for most middle-class families in Arizona, this issue won't matter much. More important was his other vote no yesterday, against helping those whose homes are being foreclosed.

Still, Rep. Flake should be commended for voting against PRO-IP.

Rep. Jeff Flake's PAC Violated Federal Law, Admits to Wasting Money in Campaign

From yesterday's Boston Globe:

The Porkbuster PAC set up by US Representative Jeff Flake violated federal contribution limits and, by its own account, wasted $2,100 to rent Granite State hotel rooms that were never used.

In response to inquiries by the Globe, PAC treasurer Steve Voeller said the excess in-kind contributions were an oversight and notified the McCain campaign, which said it wrote a $1,896.52 check to reimburse the committee for the excess contribution.

Flake, an Arizona Republican, set up the PAC last year, but the campaign of fellow Arizonan McCain is the only beneficiary so far. In reports covering last November and January, the campaign reported in-kind donations of airfare and lodging costs of about $4,200. The expenses were incurred by Flake and aides who campaigned in New Hampshire for McCain, Voeller said. Under federal law, the PAC has a $2,300 limit on in-kind contributions to a candidate. . .

Porkbuster PAC apparently intended to spend even more on behalf of McCain, however. Last Jan. 10, two days after the primary, the PAC reported paying $2,161 in "lodging expenses not utilized" at a hotel in a Manchester, N.H. suburb. Voeller, in an e-mail said: "The $2,161 should not be listed as an in-kind, since nobody stayed in those rooms and the PAC had to eat the charge (lesson learned about buying over the Internet). We checked with the (Federal Election Commission) on that one."

Because of high demand for rooms before the primary, the hotel required a minimum stay of more than one day, but Flake and two staffers did not use the rooms, Voeller said.

Well, as his constituents can attest, our do-nothing, lawbreaking total waste of a congressman doesn't use his heart or his brain much, either.

House Votes 345-73 to Help Families Keep Affordable Housing as Middle-Class-Hating Rep. Jeff Flake Sneers, Protests and Votes No

In 1975, right near where I grew up in Brooklyn, responsible developers and a consortium of labor unions built Starrett City, the nation's largest affordable rental housing development, by the waters of Spring Creek.

My friend Randy's Grandma Sarah and Poppy Joe moved there, and it was and still is a great place for diverse working class and middle class folks. The 20,000 people who live in the high-rises there aren't concerned with social engineering so much as they want good schools, a safe place for kids to play, and a clean spot of the city to call their own.

But in the last couple of years, one of the last affordable places for families to live in New York has been threatened by greedy developers who want to throw out the tenants and turn the property into luxury housing for the rich. Residents of Starrett City have been scared they will be thrown out on the street as the complex becomes another place that only the wealthy can afford.

This afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 345-73 to pass H.R. 5937, which will enable Starrett City to remain affordable. The majority of Republican members of Congress, led by the bill's co-sponsor, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), joined all the Democrats in support of affordable housing for middle class and working class families.

Rep. Jeff Flake sneered and voted no.

In his eight years in Congress, Jeff Flake has done everything he could to stop any helping hand for families who aren't the richest of the rich. He would have voted against this bill had the residents of Starrett City lived in his own district.

Not every family can afford to buy their home, as many Arizonans have learned in the past couple of years. As the sponsor of today's bill, Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) said, "With the weakening economy and rising gas and food costs, it is urgent now more than ever that we fight to preserve affordable housing for tenants.”

Only if we defeat Jeff Flake in November will our representative in Congress be fighting for middle class families, not against us.

Re-elect Jeff Flake? Fuhgeddaboudit.

House Passes Bush-Backed Bill to Ensure Access to Student Loans, 388-21, With Arrogant Family-Hating Rep. Jeff Flake Voting No Again

So much for moderation. Out-of-step ideologue Rep. Jeff Flake may have simply have reversed his position on genetic discrimination on a whim. He seems to get a kick out of showing voters that he's boss since he still doesn't seem to understand that a congressman's first mission should be to help the families in his district.

On Thursday the House agreed, 388-21, to the Senate amendments on the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act. All the Democrats voting supported it, as did 89% of Republicans.

Student-hating Rep. Jeff Flake, not caring about the costs of higher education to struggling East Valley families, smirked and voted no.


President Bush got it right when he said in a statement released by the White House after House passage,

In order to ensure that Americans can continue to compete in the global marketplace, the federal government has an obligation to encourage and support people pursuing higher education. By granting the Department of Education greater authority to purchase federal student loans, today's action should ease the anxiety many students may feel about their ability to finance their education this fall.

The legislation was important because the credit crisis has forced about 50 lenders to stop writing some forms of student loans. The companies cite increased borrowing costs, cuts in government subsidies for education loans and a lack of investor interest in securities backed by loans.

Without this law, demand for federally backed student loans would outstrip supply, industry officials said. According to Education Department estimates, about 7 million borrowers will need more than $68 billion in federal loans this academic year.

College students and their families will now have ensured access to educational loans thanks to an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress and the support of the Bush administration.

No thanks, of course, to rigid ideologue Jeff Flake, who haughtily sneers when anyone, even President Bush, says that the federal government has an obligation to encourage and support people pursuing higher education.

Really, we should be going further and expanding grants to college students instead of forcing them to borrow. I can just see Jeff Flake rolling his eyes when I say anything like this that attempts to give middle class families a helping hand.

Arrogant Jeff Flake assumes he's smarter than everyone else in Congress, the President, business leaders and you.

And every time he assumes this, he's making an ass of u and me.

Rumors that Rep. Jeff Flake is Noticing our Blog, Moderating Extremist Positions; He Votes Against Genetic Discrimination & May Vote to Help Veterans

Most days someone from Capitol Hill checks this blog. In the beginning they were doing Google blog searches for "Jeff Flake," but now we're getting blog searches for "Richard Grayson" too.

I've been trying to point out, often employing deliberately ludicrous and outrageous language, just how Rep. Jeff Flake's out-of-the-mainstream ideology has proven to be of no help to regular people in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District and elsewhere in the state and nation.

Word is coming to me that Rep. Jeff Flake has taken notice and has started to moderate his positions in view of the coming election.

The estimable blogger Random Musings discusses Rep. Harry Mitchell's H.R. 5740, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, which "is garnering widespread support among his colleagues (250 cosponsors and counting)." And then surprises us with this news:

Jeff Flake (R-AZ6), who, like Mikey of Life Cereal fame, 'hates everything' related to government spending, may sign on in support of the bill (which, by the way, would be this year's "Phoenix freezes over" moment if that comes to pass :) ). . .

Jeff Flake, the putative anti-government crusader, who is almost physically incapable of supporting anything that has even a hint of a whiff of help for the average American, veteran or otherwise, is considering throwing his support behind Mitchell's bill?

(Random Musings kindly links here to what he calls "Richard Grayson's chronicle of Jeff Flake's extremist ideology and ineffective representation of his district.")

Now today I check and see that the House passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (which I blogged about a few days ago) by a vote of 414-1, with Rep. Jeff Flake not joining Ron Paul (R-Pluto), his buddy from other lopsided votes, most recently one I blogged about yesterday).

Jeff Flake voted for against genetic discrimination. Good for him.

But, really, with every member of the Senate and House but one voting the same way, it's the least we can expect of Jeff Flake.

He's got a new campaign slogan:

Rep. Jeff Flake: I do the least you can expect from a congressman.