Today's message from the DSCC.

Health Care Premiums Rise and Senate Republicans Get Millions in Return

(New York, NY)- Over the past decade, health care premiums rose seven times faster than family incomes in New York while Senate Republicans received millions from health care interests. A new report from the respected health care advocacy group, Families USA, shows that between 2000 and 2007, health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored coverage in New York rose by 80.7%, while median wages went up by only 11 percent, a rate that was fifth worst in the nation and significantly higher than the national average.

Why have health care premiums risen at such an alarming rate? Senate Republicans, protecting their special interest fundraising friends, led HMO rate deregulation efforts in Albany for the past decade, and won complete deregulation of HMO rates in 2000.

In return, Senate Republicans have received record amounts of campaign contributions from the insurance, pharmaceutical and health care industries.

Senate Republican campaign accounts took in over $2.4 million from insurance companies, over $1.5 million from big drug companies and over $3.2 million from health care interests, receiving a total of $7,371,608 from contributors who directly benefited from the sky-high health insurance rates Senate Republicans engineered.

Why are New Yorkers paying so much for medical care? Because health care interests are paying for the support of Senate Republicans.

The last four days are upon us. The Obama campaign needs your help, and guess what? You cann help without having to travel to states that end in vowels.

Go to the Obama web site to sign up for phonebanking to swing states, and be a part of history.

Do you want to wake up on Wednesday and hear "President-elect John McCain"? No? Then please, do your part.

You've probably heard about the ridiculous racist slurs against ACORN, the awesome group of (often) black, (often) poor community organizers that registered over a million voters this year. Given that these voters were also mostly poor, and mostly black, predictably, the racists in the republican party cried foul about some errors at the margins.

Well, now ACORN's chief, Bertha Lewis, is striking back, with a video that also calls on New Yorkers to vote for Obama on Row E, the WFP's ballot line.

That Long Island sleeper race, with a young, fresh-faced mother (and attorney) running against encrusted incumbent Kemp Hannon? It's waking up. Here's Kristen McElroy's first (and final) TV spot, going into heavy rotation right now (video courtesy of The Albany Project)

Is this going to be the surprise of the night on Tuesday? Time will tell.

Due to the sheer volume of new registrations, the New York State Board of Elections and several of the county boards have had to deal with a substantial backlog of registrations. The good folks at Rock the Vote have been talking to them, and here's what they say.

This week we've been working hard to understand what's going on in New York State and why some of your friends and neighbors weren't appearing on the voter registration rolls. Due to lots of new registrants many counties and New York City boroughs did not finish data entering voter forms until late last week.

After talking with election officials and lawyers in New York I am optimistic that everyone who filled out, downloaded, signed and mailed a form by the October 10th registration deadline will be eligible to vote--no matter where you sent it (State or County office).

One thing we have learned is that the state voter registration database takes several days to update so many voters who are on the rolls were wrongly told that they had not registered.

If you sent in a registration but were told you are NOT on the rolls, we encourage you to call this number set up by our legal partners: 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683). Tell them your name and that you're from New York. They will check the latest database of New York registrations to help you find your polling place. If your name still does not appear on the rolls, they'll let you know how you can cast a ballot on election day.

We are only a couple days away from a history-making election. Have a great weekend and on Tuesday, Rock the Vote.

If you registered before the legal deadline, October 10th, you're entitled to vote in the State of New York. Nonetheless, if you have any doubts whether your new registration took hold, please call the number above or go to the Board of Elections web site.

And on Tuesday, let's go out and win this thing.

Caesar Trunzo would like to let you know just how hard he's willing to work for you and your vote. Wait, here he is now.

Meanwhile, Democratic challenger Brian Foley continues to gather momentum, with endorsements by Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, David Paterson and, as of yesterday, Andrew Cuomo.

If you're thinking of donating to your favorite campaign, do it right now. Money given after today won't hit campaign accounts until Tuesday, Election Day. After today, we're going to be shifting to GOTV outreach for Obama, our Congressional and State Senate campaigns.

Got extra cash? Donate. Got extra time you don't need for sleep or nourishment? Forget about everything else, crunchtime is now. It's in your hands, right now, today, what your future and that of your kids looks like.

So get out there, Democrats. Like Markos says, leave everything on the road.

Nielsen:

The Obama-mercial was fairly highly rated across the three broadcast networks (CBS, Fox and NBC) in the early metered market numbers. Between the three networks it scored an impressive combined 17.8/29 (household rating/share).

Update: the Obama ad pulled 26.4 million between the three networks in the Nielsen fast national overnight data. NBC had 9.85 million with a 3.0/8 (rating/share) among 18-49 year olds. CBS was next with 8.65 million and an older skewing 2.3/6 among 18-49 year olds. Fox was third in total viewers for the Obama ad with 7.92 million, but fared better than CBS with younger viewers pulling a 2.8/8 among 18-49 year olds.

And here it is again:

In five days, we vote.

The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — National Republican officials have decided to withhold financial support from all but two closely contested Congressional races in New York, as the party braces for the possibility that it could lose several more House seats in the state.

The decision to abandon much of the state came after internal party polls showed Republican candidates in at least three once-promising races falling behind their Democratic opponents, a party official briefed on the internal deliberations said. [...]

Two of the races effectively being written off in New York are in districts currently held by Republican incumbents who are retiring at the end of the year — the 25th Congressional District in the Syracuse region, now held by James T. Walsh; and the 13th District on Staten Island, where Vito J. Fossella is stepping down. Representative Fossella was found guilty in a Virginia court this month on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol.

A third New York race the party has chosen not to finance is in the 20th District, a heavily Republican area that runs from the mid-Hudson Valley to Lake Placid. It is represented by Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat who is completing her first term.

The NTCC seems to think, despite recent polling, that it still has some juice in NY-29 and NY-26.  read more »

Phil Anderson just called and alerted me to a story on his blog that's been bubbling sub rosa for a while.

That said, here's the skinny. Janine S------ was a Robach employee. She worked for Robach until last summer. Her husband, Tom S------, is a deputy sheriff in Monroe County.

He comes home one night to find Robach and his wife in the act. Needless to say, he was less than happy about this. He and (a naked) Robach get into a shouting match that eventually leads to a physical altercation. Let's just say the deputy won. He then kicked Robach, naked and worse for wear out on the front porch and called his wife to come pick his sorry ass up.

The deputy then tells his superiors what has happened and how he just kicked a Senator's ass. He does fully expecting to be in some sort of trouble. The deputy's bosses tell him to just keep quiet about it. He does and he has done so to this day, as far as I can tell.

But, he has suffered. There seems to be every indication that Robach is making the guy's life difficult, especially on the job. I mean, like it was the deputy's fault or something.

This story has been rumbling around out there for over a year and now a number of media outlets have started to make inquiries, one even went so far as to FOIL documents from both the the Monroe County SD as well as from Robach's own office. Which one? Think John Edwards.

The ultimate source for this story, apparently, is here, complete with dramatic atmospherics and a dramatized photo.

I'm going to be fair and not pass judgment on whether this is an accurate rendering of what happened, in part because I just don't know, but maybe someone should just ask?

Mark this one done under the title: Rock’s Long Range Predictions. I predict that after he signs the term limit extension bill next week, Michael Bloomberg will find his approval ratings dropping like a heavy load. They will drop all the way to his political demise. Recently, his approval was in the high sixties percentile, having been as high as the seventies before that. By the end of next January, I predict that his approval ratings will come in be under fifty percent.

Furthermore, I expect that when the issues around the economic crisis sinks in, and when they begin to affect the city’s budget and attendant services in extreme ways; Bloomberg’s ratings will sink even lower. He will have little time to prevent the freefall, since the election is one year away. It is evident that the mayor will have to raise taxes and fees to increase revenue flow in the coming months; these won’t be popular measures. Like Senator John McCain in this presidential cycle, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be negatively affected by the country’s current economic woes. They will both suffer similar election-fates.

Not too long ago, Bloomberg told council members -who were concerned about their vote on the controversial bill- that the voters will soon forget the issue. He was wrong; dead wrong. His hubris blinds him from the reality that voters are pissed; extremely pissed.

I believe that there is more than a fifty-fifty chance of the courts overturning this bill. I also believe that even if the bill stands up to legal scrutiny, the high court of public opinion will speak out emphatically against what happened here. The inability of Bloomberg’s advisors to convince him to take his plans for the extension to referendum, will be the biggest failure of their service tenure. He disrespected the voters, and it was disrespect with a capital-“D”. He will pay the two ultimate prices: his mayoralty will be ended; and his legacy will be permanently tarnished.  read more »

Via an emailed release.

Sarah Jessica Parker to Phone Bank at Obama NYC Headquarters

TV/film star & fashion entrepreneur will make calls to undecided voters and encourage other New Yorkers to do the same

With grassroots enthusiasm for Barack Obama at an historic level in New York, the Obama campaign today announced that “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker will attend its phone bank in downtown Manhattan at 6:00 pm TODAY, Thursday, October 30.

The phone bank is part of the New York campaign’s big push - called “Last Call” - to recruit over 10,000 volunteers to make 6 million calls from now until Election Day. To date, there has been historic voter participation in New York State for Senator Obama, including:

Volunteers have been making calls from the phone-banks in campaign headquarters. Last weekend, volunteer cellphone banks made over 220,000 calls from roughly 4,000 volunteers.

Specifically through the campaign’s online “Neighbor to Neighbor” program, over 42,000 New Yorkers have made calls to voters from the comfort of their own home.

Nearly 1000 New Yorkers have graduated Camp Obama, an intensive workshop whereby they are trained and deployed to other states as deputy field organizers.

8,000 NYers in all have signed up to travel to battleground states on weekends.

WHERE:
Obama Campaign New York Headquarters
52 Broadway
New York, NY

WHEN:
TODAY, Thursday, October 30
6:00 PM

So, pull on a pair of Blahniks and go hang with Sarah.  read more »

Today's message from the DSCC.

Senate Republicans Fail Again, Refusing to Address Energy Crisis for New York Families

(New York, NY)- Energy costs have skyrocketed in the past year, and this winter's home heating costs are beyond the budgets of many New York families. But Senate Republicans have refused to pass home heating legislation proposed by Senate Democrats which would have provided short-term AND long-term aid to millions of low-income and middle-class New York families.

The average New York household that depends on heating oil to heat their homes will spend $2,468 this year, nearly a 25% increase since last winter. Senate Republicans haven't taken action on any real-world proposal that would help families now or in the future.

The Senate Democrats' 21st Century Energy Policy for New York package is designed to help alleviate financial burdens on both homeowners and renters. Key components of the plan include:

Creation of a new Middle-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (MIHEAP) to provide emergency heating bill assistance to middle-class families making up to $85,000 per year;
Expansion of the existing Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by doubling the average benefit for the 2008-09 winter heating season for families making up to $45,000 per year;
A large-scale investment in home weatherization improvements that will save families up to 40 percent on energy costs and create tens of thousands of new green jobs.

Senate Republicans first claimed the Democratic plan wouldn't work because it included increased federal funding. Proving the Senate Republicans wrong yet again, Congress agreed on a bipartisan funding increase for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that would fully fund a key portion of the plan. And the economic downturn has made the job-creation component of the Democratic plan even more important.

The message is clear: Senate Democrats want to cut home heating costs, Republicans want to do nothing. Instead of doing its job, the Republican-majority has chosen to ignore this problem and hope working families don't notice their skyrocketing energy bills. Their inaction is a price New Yorkers cannot afford to pay.

And there you have it. Throw the bums out.

I kid you not. A bunch of right wing fanatics are holding a day of prayer for economic prosperity and decided to go down to Wall Street and worship the Golden Bull:

I mean, I may be a poor Jew, but to me this is basic idolatry here!

For the record, it isn't just me. My Catholic co-worker's response was, appropriately, "Oh...My..God! What are they DOING?"

United States Senator Charles Schumer today joined Democrat Bill Stachowski in Buffalo to announce that he was endorsing Stachowski in his campaign for the New York State Senate.

Schumer orchestrated the Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate in 2006 and is leading the effort to expand on that majority in this year's election. Despite his very busy schedule, New York's senior senator made time to support Stachowski and appear at events in the 58th State Senate District, where he noted how important it is to have partners like Stachowski in Albany.  read more »

We've been flogging the idea of traveling to swing states, but there are always people who can't do that. Maybe you can't travel for health reasons, for job reasons, family, the list of hindrances is endless.

Well, fret not: you can help out in swing states from the comfort of your couch. Go to the Obama website, and sign up for the final four days phone banking push.

New Yorkers have probably made millions of phone calls into swing states. we can make a few million more. And, when this is all over and we finally move this country into a new era, one with dominant Democratic majorities and a crushed right wing, don't you want to feel that you did everything possible to help make that happen?

Good news and bad news for Democrats in the new Siena poll (.pdf).

On the plus side, two Democratic incumbents under sustained assault by the reactionary mob are holding steady in their lead.

7th SD – Nassau County – Craig Johnson (D, incumbent) vs. Barbara Donno (R)

Johnson has a 50-35 percent lead over Donno, down from a 49-25 percent lead in the previous Siena New York Poll. Johnson has the support of more than three-quarters of Democrats, while Donno has the support of more than two-thirds of Republicans. Johnson has a nearly two-to-one lead among independent voters, 50-28 percent, up from 36-24 percent in the last poll. Donno’s overall gain in the poll comes largely from Republican voters, where she went from leading 47-28 percent, to now leading 68-19 percent.

37th SD – Westchester County – Suzi Oppenheimer (D, incumbent) vs. Liz Feld (R)
Oppenheimer has maintained a large 64-29 percent lead over Feld, down slightly from 61-24 percent in the previous poll. While Oppenheimer has support from 88 percent of Democrats, Feld is only winning among Republicans 64-30 percent. Oppenheimer has a better than two-to-one, 59-28 percent, lead among independent voters. Oppenheimer leads in every region and with virtually every demographic group.

Johnson and Oppenheimer are the top targets of the SRCC, so this is good news. The bad news over the fold.  read more »

Some action words from Caesar's campaign site: Delivered, secured, created, provided, increased, established, fought, sponsored, and saved.

And here his now, doing all that.

Enjoy. Can't wait for the Nielsen numbers.

On Daily Kos, an Iraq veteran tells the tale of how republicans discriminate against, harass and silence actual veterans.

While most of my work with Iraq Veterans Against the War has been directed regionally or nationally, recently I've attempted to reach the high population of Veterans around my home, here on Long Island. The Annual Bellmore Family Street Festival is an event which has occurred just three blocks from my home each year since before I was born. I remember waiting each year as a child for my favorite part of the fair, the military recruiters and Veterans Groups who would set up their tents around Bellmore's Veterans Memorial Park at the corner of Broadway and Bedford Avenue. This year, home and out of the Army, I approached the Bellmore Chamber of Commerce requesting to set up a table at the Street Festival. At first, as a someone who was late in registry, I was granted space "44" in front of "Madison Smoothies" at the far northern end of Bedford Avenue, close to Oak Street. I was told that regardless of the fact that I am a Veteran of Iraq, if I were to table for Iraq Veterans Against the War, I would be segregated from the other Veterans Groups as to not offend them. The Executive Director/Festival Coordinator, Joni Caputo, explained to me that she was doing me a favor by letting me table at all due to my late registry, so I accepted the terms of the segregation from those at the Veterans Memorial.

The original dates for the Bellmore Street Fair were Saturday, September 27th and Sunday, September 28th. However, due to rain, I was notified by the Bellmore Chamber of Commerce that the fair would be pushed back a few weeks, to Saturday, October 25th, and Sunday, October 26th. At this time I was told by the Bellmore Chamber of Commerce that my space would still be available for the rescheduling, and I confirmed with them I was still planning on tabling.

On Thursday, October 23rd I received a call from the Bellmore Chamber notifying me that my space was now unavailable, and that I would not be allowed to table at the Street Fair. At this time I requested to share a tabling space with another organization, but was denied due to total lack of physical space on the street. Going further, I asked Executive Director Joni Caputo if I found someone willing to share their rented physical space, if I could then be allowed to table there. Her reply was something to the effect of "look, you can't table anywhere, because the Chamber decides who gets to use what space and where. No matter what, you cannot table at the fair."

Saturday, October 25th 2008, I walked along Bedford Avenue to look at the "total lack of physical space" on the street. What I saw on the front window of the Law Office that Joni Caputo works in made it clear as to why my space was suddenly "unavailable" at the last minute. Every Republican Candidate had their posters plastered on the front of this office. A cardboard cutout of John McCain with a sign attached saying "$3.00 for a picture" stood by the front door to the office. Signs for Congressman Peter King taped to the windows reminded me how when I spent a month in Washington DC this summer, King, my own representative, refused to grant me time for a meeting. I know that Peter King supports the troops, but only when they align themselves with his ultra-pro-war views. How could he deny me, an Iraq Veteran, one of his own constituents, time in his office?

Yes, why indeed? Why do republicans hate our troops?

Heh. Anderson has a post about a new site exposing some republican, and helpfully points out a photo on said person's campaign site, as follows. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dennis Delano.

Does that remind you of anything? Sure it does. John E. Sweeney.

Hey, it totally worked for Sweeney.

Today's message from the DSCC.

Senate Republicans Protect Their Jobs But Not Yours

(New York, NY)- Facing the worst economic crisis in decades, Senate Republicans have failed to protect the jobs of New Yorkers. The latest blow to working families in the Senate Republicans’ 40 year history of failure is the steady loss of jobs which has occurred throughout the past year.

*Since the beginning of 2008, New York has lost nearly 8,000 jobs, an average of 900 jobs per month. At the same time, the unemployment rate has risen to 5.8%, resulting in a crumbling economy that no longer works for its people.

This past year, while job loss was on a steady rise, Senate Democrats attempted to revitalize the struggling economy by introducing legislation to eliminate Republican tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs. Though families are losing their jobs as the financial crisis worsens, Senate Republicans blocked the proposal which would have protected thousands of working families. Controlled by special interests, the only jobs Albany Republicans have fought to protect are their own. To create jobs, protect jobs, vote Democrat. Operation row ‘A’ all the way!

*Statistics compiled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.toc.htm

Hillary campaigning with Democratic Senator Bill Stachowski (D-Buffalo). In the background are Antoine Thompson, Joe Mesi, Bill Stachowski and U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins.

Following is the statement I sent to the Campaign Finance Board regarding proposed rule changes following the extension of term limits:

Introduction

With the passage of a bill extending term limits from two to three full terms, some people who had been subject to term limits and were planning to run for higher office may now choose to run for a third term in their current office. Under the city’s campaign finance system, however, they could have a problem. Since the spending limits that accompany partial public funding are lower for the office they currently hold than for the office they had planned to seek, some people have already exceeded, or are close to exceeding, the lower spending limits.

There are two consequences of exceeding spending limits. First, candidates who exceed spending limits are not eligible for partial public funding. Second, and more importantly, opponents of such candidates are eligible for extra public funding and are granted higher spending limits. In other words, the advantages enjoyed by high-spending candidates are greatly diminished.

In an attempt to restore those advantages, the Campaign Finance Board (CFB) has promulgated rules designed to allow those high-spending candidates to “freeze” the campaign committees they created to run for higher office, and create new committees in order to run for a third term to their current office.

These new rules are in violation of New York City Administrative Code, and must be thrown out.

Specifics  read more »