#ann kuster

[modfarm]

An Overview of the Homegrown Organic Act of 2017

New bills of the same name in the House and Senate seek to help organic farmers expand and conventional farmers switch.

[miscellanyblue]

Exclusive: Leaked DCCC documents reveal effort to replace Shea-Porter with ‘fresh face for 2016′

(Photo: Marc Nozell/CC BY-2.0)

Documents purportedly stolen from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in a well publicized cyberattack reveal the campaign arm of the House Democrats aggressively recruited Executive Councilor Chris Pappas to run for Congress in the state’s first congressional district while actively discouraging former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter from entering the race.

The documents, leaked by a mysterious hacker who goes by the name Guccifer 2.0, date from December, 2014 to April, 2016 and include detailed strategic plans, budgets, election data, turnout models, media and direct mail plans and opposition research for the first district race. The DCCC has not confirmed their authenticity.

‘We recommend a fresh face for 2016′

Of particular interest to Granite State political insiders will be the numerous call sheets and memos that document an aggressive recruiting effort by the DCCC to convince Pappas to enter the race -- with support from local party officials.

The effort began in December, 2014, just one month after the midterm election in which Congressman Frank Guinta defeated Shea-Porter for the second time, when DCCC political director Ian Russell reached out to second district Congresswoman Ann Kuster and asked her to help recruit Pappas.

At the same time, the DCCC was working to discourage Shea-Porter from making another run for the seat she won in 2006, 2008 and 2012. In a January 9, 2015 memo, Russell bluntly told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, "we do not recommend encouraging her to run.”

“Shea-Porter’s campaign fundamentals have always been lacking – she raised $1.7M for the 2014 race, not enough to compete in a swing district that is 92% covered by the expensive Boston media market,” he noted.

“We recommend a fresh face for 2016,” Russell added. “In-state political leaders, including Rep. Kuster and State Party Chair Ray Buckley are encouraging businessman and Executive Council Member Chris Pappas to run.”

Pappas wooed in DC

DCCC memos document a trip Pappas made to Washington on January 21, 2015 to meet with seven members of Congress including DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. Talking points prepared by the DCCC asked the members to encourage Papas to run and to suggest he adopt a timeline “that is least likely to result in former Rep. Shea-Porter entering the race.”

“In-state sources including Rep. Kuster and the state party chair believe that Pappas is the strongest potential contender to take on Rep. Guinta,” the memo read. “The biggest variable is what former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter will do – in past races, her strength among the left flank has made her difficult to beat in Democratic primaries, even though she is not a strong general election candidate.”

An April 22, 2015 memo by the DCCC northeast regional political director noted Pappas was "strongly considering an exploratory announcement” to begin raising money and building momentum but was worried that his entry would “provoke” Shea-Porter.

The memo suggested Pappas could explain his entry into the race by using first-time candidate Shawn O’Connor as a foil. "Both Pappas and O’Connor are gay,” the memo noted. “O’Connor has been able to successfully peel of [sic] some prominent LGBT donors. Pappas can relay to Shea-Porter that he wants to make sure that this community does not stand with O’Connor and therefor [sic] feels the need to enter the race until she makes her decision in June/July.”

Shea-Porter enters the race

Despite the enticement, Pappas declined to enter the first district race. Shea-Porter filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commision in August, 2015 and officially announced her candidacy at the Democratic Party State Convention in September, 2015.

The DCCC grudgingly accepted Shea-Porter as the Democratic candidate but threatened to withhold funding if she failed to achieve certain metrics. “Unlike in past cycles when Shea Porter was an incumbent, this district is not an automatic target for the DCCC – and we have told her this,” one memo read. “If she doesn’t commit to a solid call time schedule and lags in the polls, this district may fall off of the target list.”

Despite the grumbling, the DCCC designated the first district as a Red to Blue “Emerging Race” in February, 2016 and added Shea-Porter to the Red to Blue program in April, 2016 with a promise to provide financial, communications, grassroots and strategic support.

A rocky relationship with party leaders

The backroom maneuvering to replace Shea-Porter is just the latest chapter in a rocky relationship that dates back to her first run for office in 2006, when the DCCC endorsed her primary opponent three months before the election. Even after she defeated state House Minority Leader Jim Craig by a 54 percent to 35 percent margin, Shea-Porter received no funding from the DCCC for the general election.

The Boston Globe reported the committee called Shea-Porter with its first offer of financial support on the day after her general election victory over then-Congressman Jeb Bradley. "They asked us if we wanted them to pay our debt, and we told them we didn't have any," Shea-Porter said. "But it was nice of them to offer."

In the next election cycle, Shea-Porter initially declined a DCCC offer to provide financial and logistical support via its Frontline program, which helps protect vulnerable incumbent Democrats. She told Politico that she wanted to run a grassroots campaign similar to the campaign she ran in 2006. As Republican attacks intensified, Shea-Porter subsequently asked the DCCC for help and was included in the Frontline program.

The committee reportedly judged her 2010 campaign to be a lost cause and declined to get involved as she was defeated by Guinta and was swept out of office in the Tea Party wave. In 2012, however, the DCCC supported her rematch with Guinta and spent nearly $2 million on the race as part of the committee’s Red to Blue program.

Shea-Porter also received DCCC support for her 2014 reelection bid, but her failure to meet the committee’s fundraising target was likely instrumental in the party seeking a “fresh face” for 2016. “She only raised $1.7 million in 2014, and much of this came from having the advantage of incumbency,” a DCCC memo complained. “The DCCC and allied groups spent millions to make up for her lack of fundraising.”

Behind the scenes: Me and Guccifer 2.0

“hi man, r u going to make a story about me?” And so began my conversation with the man who goes by the name Guccifer 2.0 and who may or may not be a Romanian lone wolf hacker responsible for the DNC and DCCC data breaches.

In July of this year, the DCCC disclosed the committee’s computer network had been compromised in a manner that appeared similar to an earlier data breach at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The committee did not reveal what, if any, data had been stolen.

The hacker who claimed responsibility for the DNC breach, and for leaking the DNC documents to WikiLeaks, announced on August 12 that he was also responsible for the DCCC hack. “It’s time for new revelations now,” Guccifer wrote on his website. “All of you may have heard about the DCCC hack. As you see I wasn’t wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach.”

Along with the announcement, Guccifer publicly released documents he claimed he had stolen from the DCCC that included personal cell phone numbers and private email addresses of Democratic House members. He followed up by leaking DCCC campaign documents related to upcoming congressional elections in Florida and Pennsylvania.

Guccifer claims to be a Romanian hacker who works alone, but many cybersecurity experts believe the online persona is a front for a Russian disinformation operation. The New York Times reported senior U.S. national security officials have “high confidence” that the DNC intrusion was carried out by Russian intelligence agencies.

On August 16, the Washington Examiner published a story revealing Guccifer had provided them with documents related to New Hampshire's first district congressional race "as part of an ongoing effort to engage reporters.”

I tracked down the mysterious hacker on Twitter and sent him a message to see if he would also share those documents with me. A few hours later, Guccifer replied, and after chatting a bit -- he asked me to send him a link to the Examiner story -- he typed, “check ur email.” I had the documents.

That was the easy part. I was uncertain about what I should do next and had more questions than answers. Would publication make me an unwitting player in a Russian intelligence operation? Would candidates I support be negatively affected by the story? Do First Amendment protections extend to reporting on stolen documents?

(On the last question, a lawyer with the First Amendment Coalition -- an organization worthy of your support -- was reassuring. “The seminal case on this is Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 535 (2001),” she wrote, “which stands for the proposition that even if the information was illegally obtained by a third party in the first instance, those who have lawfully received the information from that source have a right, under the First Amendment, to publish information gleaned from those documents that relate to matters of public concern. ... At the very least, reporting on state politics is undeniably a matter of public concern, and it seems that the documents you have obtained are related to this issue.”)

After weighing the tradeoffs, I concluded this is a story that needs to be told; one that contributes, in a small way, to a better understanding of the political process and the forces that influence it.

I made a conscious decision not to disseminate copies of the documents or to reveal any details related to strategic plans for the upcoming campaigns. My caution may soon be a moot point. Guccifer has promised another WikiLeaks data dump: “I'll send the major trove of the #DCCC materials and emails to #wikileaks keep following...” he tweeted recently.

[miscellanyblue]

2nd District fundraising report: A Kuster blowout

(Photo: Eliza Kern/CC BY 2.0)

There’s not much of a contest in the 2nd District to see who can build the biggest campaign war chest. Incumbent Ann Kuster, who is living up to her reputation for being a prodigious fundraiser, has raised over $2.4 million for the election cycle and reported having over $1.9 million on hand at the end of June.

Contrast that with her Republican challengers.

Former House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan, who formally entered the race in mid-March, reported having raised just $30,591, which included a $10,000 personal loan, and had $18,669 on hand at the end of June.

His Republican opponent, former state Rep. Jim Lawrence, put up similar numbers in his first reporting period. Lawrence reported raising $31,367, which included $6,000 in personal loans. He ended June with $20,056 on hand.

A third Republican, state Rep. Eric Estevez (who has been in the news recently), has not filed any reports with the Federal Election Commission and presumably has not met the FEC’s $5,000 threshold for contributions or expenditures.

Kuster ‘plunged into the fund-raising fray with gusto’

In early 2013, two months after Kuster first took the oath of office, Boston Globe reported congressional newcomers had been told to reserve two hours a day for committee hearings, floor votes and constituent meetings but to “devote at least four hours each day to the tedious task of raising money — so-called ­dialing for dollars.”

Kuster, reporter Tracy Jan noted, “plunged into the fund-raising fray with gusto.”

[miscellanyblue]

Kuster was for accepting 100,000 Syrian refugees before she was against it

(Image: Eliza Kern/CC BY 2.0)

Before her vote this week to effectively halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S., Second District Congresswoman Ann Kuster urged the president to “be bold” and take in 100,000 refugees from the war-torn country by the end of 2016.

Then the terrorist attack in Paris left 130 dead -- and political strategists warned Democrats of a “massive backlash” in the next election if they continued to support the refugee program.

‘It is our moral duty... to assist’

In September, Kuster joined dozens of Democrats in signing a letter to the president urging him to dramatically increase the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S.

“The number of Syrian refugees that the United States has resettled since the start of the conflict — approximately 1,500 — is insufficient in light of the current crisis,” the letter read. “We appreciate the recent announcement that your Administration plans to increase the refugee quota for 2016 and we strongly feel that such an increase must be bold, and take into account the enormity of the current crisis.”

The congressional Democrats called for accepting “a minimum of 200,000 refugees by the end of 2016, including 100,000 Syrian refugees” and answered critics who warned the refugees would be a security risk. "This criticism,” they wrote, “ignores the fact that the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program subjects applicants to more thorough security vetting than any other traveler or immigrant to the United States.”

"It is our moral duty, as a nation founded on the principles of equality and freedom, to do what we can to assist our brethren who are in desperate turmoil, and are searching for the slightest gesture of goodwill,” the letter concluded. “As Americans and Members of Congress, we believe it is our duty to do the right thing and offer protection to those fleeing violence and turmoil in the Middle East.”

Strategists warn of ‘massive backlash’

Following the terrorist attack in Paris, Democratic strategists presented polling data to members that indicated lawmakers would pay a steep political price if they opposed Republican legislation to effectively halt the refugee program, Huffington Post reported.

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, acknowledged the briefings. “And while he didn't explicitly encourage members to vote for the SAFE Act,” Huffington Post reported, “the implication was clear: you will be vulnerable if you don't support the only piece of refugee-related legislation that has gotten a vote after the Paris attacks.”

"Don't let this non-issue become a battering ram against Democrats," another strategist reportedly told House members.

Thursday, Kuster crossed the aisle to vote with the Republican majority in favor of the “American SAFE Act of 2015,″ despite a veto threat from Pres. Obama. “Today I voted to strike the balance of protecting the safety of our homeland while preserving American compassion,” she explained in a written statement.

[miscellanyblue]

Kuster follows vote to halt Syrian refugee program with fundraising email blasting ‘GOP extremist’

Syrian refugees. (Photo: IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

1:55 p.m.

In response to fears arising from the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed legislation that would effectively halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S.

The House passed the “American SAFE Act of 2015″ by a 289-137 margin. 47 Democrats, including 2nd District Congresswoman Ann Kuster, crossed the aisle to vote with the majority despite a veto threat from Pres. Obama. Two Republicans joined 135 Democrats in voting against the measure.

The bill would require the FBI director, Homeland Security secretary and national intelligence director to personally confirm that each applicant poses no threat -- the strictest screening ever required for refugees fleeing a war zone. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the new requirements are impractical and impossible.

The U.S. State Department has explained that current procedures require each refugee requesting resettlement to be vetted by the United Nation’s refugee agency, and then separately by the State Department, the FBI and the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The process takes between one-and-a-half and two years.

2:35 p.m.

In a release posted on Facebook, Kuster said she voted in favor of the legislation to “strike the balance” between protecting Americans and preserving our fundamental values:

My number one priority is to protect the security of the American people. Today I voted to strike the balance of protecting the safety of our homeland while preserving American compassion. With a thorough vetting process in place, we can assure safe passage for women, young children and elderly refugees fleeing rape and other atrocities in their war-torn land. Americans are a compassionate people and we cannot let ISIS terrorists destroy our way of life or our fundamental values.

3:28 p.m.

About 90 minutes after Kuster cast her vote in favor of halting the refugee program, supporters received a fundraising email in which Kuster described her potential 2nd District opponent as a GOP extremist. “The media, pundits, and political insiders are watching to see what happens next,” she wrote:

I just wanted to make sure you knew the latest in my race. The GOP extremist with his eyes on my seat is really gearing up. He just stepped down from his leadership position presumably to concentrate on his campaign. This requires a swift response from us. [...]

Having one of the first primaries in the nation just around the corner, all eyes will be on New Hampshire Democrats. The media, pundits, and political insiders are watching to see what happens next, and we can't come up short.

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately...

[miscellanyblue]

Kuster fundraising email raises specter of race against Democrats’ favorite bogeyman: Bill O’Brien

An end-of-quarter fundraising email from Congresswoman Ann Kuster warns of a potential re-election campaign against Democrats’ favorite bogeyman. “Rumors are swirling that Bill O’Brien could challenge Annie!” the email reads.

The message goes on to offer a synopsis of O’Brien’s legacy as House speaker, when he “fought to defund Planned Parenthood, repealed our state minimum wage, instituted the most severe cuts to education and made ‘right to work’ legislation a top priority.”

We haven’t heard the swirling rumors of a congressional bid by O’Brien but he did briefly run for the the seat in the last election cycle. The Mont Vernon Republican ended that campaign to take a position in the private sector after a disappointing initial fundraising effort.

Earlier this year, O’Brien’s name was floated as a possible primary opponent for Sen. Kelly Ayotte by conservative Republican activists. The effort to recruit O’Brien for the primary challenge began after he publicly blasted the senator following the arrest of her staffer, David Wihby.

O’Brien scotched those rumors writing, “I am honored by those who think I should run, but I will not. I have made commitments that I must keep and there are obstacles that are insurmountable.”

For good measure, the Kuster fundraising email also targets the Koch brothers. “It’s clear that Bill O’Brien is only fighting for the Koch brothers’ agenda,” the message adds. “Fight back.” Send money.

[miscellanyblue]

Kuster statement opposing Dodd-Frank roll-back at odds with congressional voting record

Image: Eliza Kern / CC BY 2.0

Congresswoman Ann Kuster's assertion that she opposed a provision in the 2014 spending bill that weakened banking regulations is at odds with her congressional voting record.

In December, the outgoing Congress passed a $1 trillion spending package that funds most of the federal government through the current fiscal year. The so-called "CRomnibus" legislation included controversial language rolling back a provision in the Dodd-Frank banking regulations that prohibited FDIC-insured banks from engaging in risky swaps and derivatives trading.

Kuster told the Concord Monitor she opposed the Dodd-Frank provision (and another measure raising the limit on contributions to political parties) but voted for the spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. “ 'As standalone bills, I would be opposed' to those measures, [Kuster] said, but she felt it was 'a better deal than if we’d closed down the government and come back in January when the Republicans controlled the Senate.' "

Salon's David Dayen tracked the legislative history of the Dodd-Frank "push-out" repeal contained in the CRomnibus bill and noted the language is "virtually identical" to HR 992, the “Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act,” which Kuster supported:

The origins of eliminating Section 716 go back to the writing of Dodd-Frank itself. Blanche Lincoln, author of the derivatives regulations in the bill, initially included practically all swaps. A combination of lobbyists, Wall Street-friendly “New Democrats” and the Treasury Department significantly rolled that back, limiting it to the riskiest bits, like credit default swaps that don’t go through a clearinghouse.

After wounding the provision, the banks employed their allies in Congress to disappear it entirely. A bipartisan coalition, including Jim Himes, D-Conn., a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, introduced a host of bills to weaken derivatives rules as far back as 2011. HR 992, the “Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act,” sailed through the House Financial Services Committee 53-6 in spring 2013. The language of this bill, written by Citigroup lobbyists, is virtually identical to what passed in the CRomnibus.

As we reported in 2013, Kuster was one of six Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee who voted with the Republican majority in favor of HR 992. When the bill advanced to the House floor, Kuster once again voted in favor of the legislation, which was approved by the House in a 292-122 vote before dying in the Senate.

The New York Times reported Citigroup lobbyists drafted the language in HR 992. It's worth noting that Kuster, who is a prodigious fundraiser, has received $8,000 in campaign contributions from the Citigroup PAC. This cycle, she raised over $90,000 in PAC money from the financial industry including contributions from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, TD Bank USA and UBS Americas.

Kuster's communications director did not respond to our email seeking clarification.

h/t: Dean Barker

[americarising]

NH Dem Says America Should Not Lead On ISIS

WATCH