Susan Collins

Yesterday MoveOn.org released a new set of polls conducted by PPP from red and purple states. In all seven states-- Maine, Kansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Kentucky and Virginia-- large percentages of likely voters thought that their state should accept federal Medicaid expansion dollars.

Boehner honored on the front page of Hanabusa's official websiteAs we've been warning she would, corrupt New Dem Colleen Hanabusa has already, albeit inadvertently, shown her true colors when it comes to choosing between her wealthy business donors and ordinary working families.

Please go back one post and read Part I, where we began our look at the tax extenders (i.e., corporate loopholes) bill the Senate Finance Committee is getting ready to sneak through and present as a fait acompli, an incredible transpartisan exercise in Beltway corruption.

It doesn't surprise me that all Republicans-- including fake "moderates" like Susan Collins, Dean Heller, Kelly Ayotte and Mark Kirk-- voted against confirming Debo Adegbile as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Monday we asserted-- and we stand by it-- that there's no legitimate reason to assume Shenna Bellows can't defeat Susan Collins in Maine. Although she vowed to Maine voters, she would only seek the Senate seat twice, she's embarking on her fourth run. And she's not even that popular. How does Susan Collins’ 2008 re-election vote (61%) compare with other Maine Senate elections? In 2006 (also a good year for Democrats) Olympia Snowe’s re-election vote was 13% higher at 74%!

This afternoon, the Republicans were able to kill a bill living up to the country's debts to military veterans, by filibustering the attempt to move it forward. Although every Democrat plus two Republicans-- Dean Heller (NV) and Jerry Moran (KS)-- voted for it, they needed 60 to shut down the filibuster. The final vote was 56-41.

Yesterday's Politico featured a post by Manu Raju explaining how both Democratic and Republican candidates are running against the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda-- the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda that Obama has largely kept intact.

Let me start by saying that Blue America is backing Shenna Bellows for the Maine Senate seat currently occupied by conservative Republican Susan Collins. We are raising money for her and helping her connect to like-minded voters in Maine.

I hope you saw the Blue America e-mail about Maine senatorial candidate Shenna Bellows yesterday. She's the former ACLU executive director who's taking on Susan Collins this cycle. Although Collins is an old fashioned mainstream conservative, who nonetheless backs her reactionary colleagues nearly all the time, the media just delights in terming her a "moderate." Just like Chris Christie.

The new letter to Blue America members earlier today is all about electing a progressive U.S. Senator in Maine, Shenna Bellows. If you contribute to Shenna, or any Blue America candidate-- any amount-- you'll be a member too… and you'll get the e-mail blasts long before they're up on our blogs.