In 2005, the Bush budget for fiscal year 2006 passed the House of Representatives by two votes. One key vote was that of Congressman Edolphus Towns of New York's Tenth District.

As I wrote in 2006,

I had a conversation with Congressman Towns' chief of staff last year, after he failed to vote against the republican budget because he was, and I quote, "stuck in traffic on Capitol Hill". This because he had left the chamber to get some rest, it being rather late at night, and was unaware that the vote was coming up; after all, the man is of an age when most Americans, certainly those few of us with retirement benefits as generous as those accruing to Members of Congress, want to be retired someplace on a porch in Florida. So he took the night off, as it were.

She didn't disagree with me that this was a very feeble excuse.

That exchange between myself and Karen Johnson, Congressman Towns' Chief of Staff, was documented in an email I sent to the board of directors of New Democratic Majority on November 18th, 2005.

I just spoke to his chief of staff, Karen Johnson; she apologizes profusely [for Towns absence from the budget vote], and basically reiterates that he was stuck in traffic outside of the Capitol.

That is pretty lame, and I told her so; she didn't disagree. I mentioned that Towns draws a taxpayer salary to do nothing but vote, and that this kind of excuse in a very close vote just wasn't acceptable.

The 2006 Federal budget was notable, per the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, for deep cuts in domestic spending and shifting the Federal tax burden downwards to states and municipalities. Grants to Medicaid declined by $10.7 billion,, or 4.5%; grants for all other domestic programs, at 1.99% of GDP in 2001, were cut to 1.75%; all told, the funding shortfall compared to 2001 levels, whether they were themselves adequate or not, amounted to $31 billion.

That budget passed in part because Ed Towns was too tired to vote on it. Considering how poor his district is, and how reliant on Federal grants, it's fair to ask whether district residents are getting the best representation they can, or whether it's time for a change.  read more »

Heh. So my friend Rock has a piece up this morning, presumably right below this one, with a call-out.

But what I am surprised about is the curt e-mail from my white Parisian cousin over at the Daily Gotham blog, admonishing me not to go “overboard” with my candidate (Ed Towns). Michael “Frenchie” Bouldin says that he hates to pick political fights on the blogs, and yet he throws these lil pit-a-pat punches when something is on his mind. So Michael: tell us how you really feel about this race in the 10th congressional. Why; the cat got your pen?

Okay then - callout. Smackdown!

The answer is really very simple: I send terse emails all the time. It's a time-management issue. The email I sent was to the effect that I detect a gap between Rock's supine hagiography of Towns and the legislator I know, the one who voted for the bankruptcy bill, the one who's missed over 10% of all votes since 1993, the guy who tried to declare India a terrorist state, who voted for CAFTA and against net neutrality, the latter presumably not because he understand the issues involved, but because his coffers overflow with checks from the telecom lobby. Towns even refused outright to take Project VoteSmart's Political Courage Test. While we're at it, he even voted against ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would establish the right to not be fired because you're gay on a national level.

It's difficult to choose Ed Towns' worst vote out of the smorgasbord of failures in the House. Is it the one for the bankruptcy bill, the one that, in a relatively poor district, makes it next to impossible to ever get out of debt? Is that what the residents of New York's Tenth wanted, or needed? I'm not so sure, but I do know that Ed Towns got tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from banking and credit card industries, who have made billions from the law, at the expense of ordinary citizens burdened by a law that falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor.  read more »

For years, some Brooklyn loudmouths on the left of the political spectrum have been using Congressman Ed Towns as a whipping boy of sorts; despite the fact that Ed Towns voted against the Iraq invasion and all subsequent wasteful defense spending. He has also gotten a 100% voting scorecard from groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, so you would think that some lefties would be pleased at his recent ratings; but I guess not, since I don’t see those left-wing endorsements coming in for Towns.

We saw the lefties jump all over young ivy leaguer Barry Ford -when he twice challenged Towns a few years ago- embracing him like he was the prodigal son; and although in 2006 they were reluctant to support Charles Barron, “Chuckie B” still did surprisingly well in pockets of Brooklyn’s 10th congressional district where lefties reside (go look at the results). Now this year Kevin Powell shows up to challenge Towns, and lefties are surprisingly silent; I wonder why.

Former Black Panther H. Rap Brown once said that the worst place to find yourself is in the middle of a crossfire, because you will definitely be mowed down by both sides; he was absolutely correct. So now it is time for Brooklyn’s lefties to declare what side are they on in this Towns v. Powell race. You see their strange silence is leaving a lot of suspicion that they are supporting Powell in a clandestine way; and if they are then they need to come out and tell us all why they are doing that. Is there something that they are ashamed of? Is there something they are ashamed of exposing? They need to know that size doesn’t matter/lol.  read more »

Lord have mercy.

I was checking my Facebook this morning when I saw on my main page an entry by Kevin Powell. So I go to check it out and what did I find?

O.M.F.G.

Just look after the jump so you can see all what Kevin needed to get off his chest. Let's just say it was more than just a couple of things.

And, mind you, I have cut and pasted the text just as it appears on the Facebook page. Exactly. I have changed not one word and have not added any spacing.

So take a peek and let Kevin now what would have been a better way to go about putting his message out to the world and US Rep. Towns.  read more »

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently conducted a poll that should make candidates and campaign people sit up and take notice: a staggering 46% of Americans got information about the 2008 campaign via the internet. This is worth quoting at length, so bear with me.

Furthermore, three online activities have become especially prominent as the presidential primary campaigns have progressed: First, 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos--a figure that nearly triples the reading the Pew Internet Project got in the 2004 race.

Second, 10% say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. This is particularly popular with younger voters: Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.

Third, 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did that during the entire 2004 campaign.

A significant number of voters are also using the internet to gain access to campaign events and primary documents. Some 39% of online Americans have used the internet to access "unfiltered" campaign materials, which includes video of candidate debates, speeches and announcements, as well as position papers and speech transcripts.

In May 2008, 135 million Americans used the search engine Google to search for information on the internet. And here's where Daily Gotham rules the roost in New York: if you're a candidate for office, odds are, our pages are one of the first results for your race.

For example, Ed Towns: the first result after his Congressional page and his Wikipedia entry is, you guessed, a piece on Daily Gotham.

Jon Powers (NY-26): Campaign site, Wikipedia entry, ActBlue, Daily Kos, Daily Gotham, in that order.

Eric Massa (NY-29): Campaign site, Wikipedia, ActBlue, Daily Gotham.

Brian Foley (SD-3): government site, unrelated site, Daily Gotham.

So is it worth engaging blogs, specifically, this blog? If you care about what your voters will see if they type your name into the world's biggest search engine, I'd suggest the answer is yes.