Progress Illinois

During the "Future Leaders" panel at Netroots Nation yesterday, Dan Seals said congressional Democrats "caved" by voting for the recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill:

Here's my interview with 10th District Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals at Netroots Nation yesterday:

Stay tuned for more video from Austin, TX in the coming days.

Talking Points Memo's top story at the moment is Rep. Mark Kirk's retraction of his false claim -- originally caught by Progress Illinois -- that China is drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Check it out:

After circling its way through the national media, our post nabbing Rep. Mark Kirk for his repetition of the debunked China drilling myth finally hit home. Today, the Tribune's Eric Zorn covered the story on his blog. Moreover, he got a statement from Kirk's office acknowledged that the claim made by the North Shore Republican on WLS Radio was false:

Monday, Kirk’s spokesman Eric Elk acknowledged the bloggers were right: “While the Cubans may have issued offshore drilling rights, Congressman Kirk has publicly agreed that the Chinese are not currently drilling for oil near Florida," he said.

UPDATE: Turns out it wasn't just a Zorn blog post -- he included the Kirk drilling story in his column in today's print edition.

Could it be that many 10th Congressional District voters are starting to sour on GOP Rep. Mark Kirk and his repeated lies and distortions? In an email to supporters, Democratic challenger Dan Seals reported today that his campaign raised $635,000 from over 2,000 contributors in the second quarter, a personal record for the North Shore Democrat. The numbers are even more encouraging when compared to the second quarter of his 2006 bid for the 10th District seat, when he raised $391,250. From the release:

"Dan's message of bringing change to Washington continues to build unprecedented momentum across the 10th district," Seals Campaign Manager Patrick Mogge said. "While Mark Kirk has relied on playing the fear card against Dan and Barack Obama, 10th district voters have turned out in overwhelming numbers to volunteer and contribute to Dan's campaign to show that they are fed up with this type of politics. Like Dan, they know our country can do better and that it is time for a new direction in Washington."

Seals has raised approximately $2.1 million during the 2008 cycle, more than he did during his entire 2006 campaign for Congress.

UPDATED (7/8): Yikes. Kirk's second quarter numbers came out today. He raised $900,000 and has $2.85 million cash on hand.

During his June 18 appearance on WLS' morning radio show, we caught GOP Rep. Mark Kirk repeating a debunked claim about the Chinese drilling for oil in Cuban waters. Later that day, we published the audio to the blog, along with evidence that Kirk's assertion was false.

On June 30, TPM Election Central picked up on our original post and added Kirk to their growing list of Republican members of Congress who have persisted in advancing this falsehood despite the fact that Vice President Dick Cheney -- who was one of the first to make the claim -- retracted it on June 13.

Then today, the Washington Post's Capitol Briefing blog reported on the story, noting that Kirk was among the five federal lawmakers who have persisted in spreading this assertion long after it was debunked. The Post also pointed out that Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) -- one of the five -- ended up the subject of a Kansas City Star editorial as a result.

If only one of our local papers would do the same ...

Congressional candidate Dan Seals has a new web ad up, which incorporates our clip of Rep. Mark Kirk repeating the debunked claim that China is drilling for oil off American shores. Take a look:

Last week, we debunked Rep. Mark Kirk's bogus argument for why he opposed the federal unemployment insurance benefit extension: that it would lead people to cash in after two weeks of work. Take a listen as he tells a Chicago radio audience: "I think that in this tough economic time. A temporary extension for people that held the job for a long time, that makes sense. But two weeks, that's probably not enough":

Internal mp3

Of course, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out: "Only in rare circumstances could a worker with such a limited work record meet his or her state’s regular UI requirements, which target assistance on workers with a demonstrated attachment to the labor force." They added: "the share of the additional benefits under the bill that would go to workers with very limited work records is almost surely miniscule."

But while Kirk is manufacturing excuses for his vote against this common sense legislation, unemployed workers are hurting. Check out some of the comments that appeared below our original post on this subject:

my husband ran out of benefits and can't find a job. we filed bankruptcy and lost our home. i'm on food stamps for the first time in my life but the problem is we'll no place to live to use them.

I have over 20 years of experience and can't even find a min. wage job!! Now that's bad! I guess we are supposed to support our goverment but they won't support us!!

Laid off for a year now after working for the same company for 17 years. ... I have been actively searching for a job, even applying out side the box jobs, the few that have contacted me, either have said I was over qualified or the position has been filled. The majority do not even respond, even after a follow-up. ... Savings account is long gone. I'm tapping into my retirement funds just to keep the house payments going.

Oh, and did we mention that the unemployment rate jumped almost a full percentage point in the past month?

During an appearance on WLS' Don Wade & Roma last Wednesday, Rep. Mark Kirk asserted that China has been drilling for oil just off American shores -- in the Cuban-controlled section of the Gulf of Mexico. But as we noted, that claim is blatantly false. In fact, it had been earlier used by Vice President Dick Cheney, who then had to retract his statement. Apparently that wasn't enough to keep Kirk from peddling it days later. Have a listen:

Internal mp3

Yesterday, Ellen of the Tenth live-blogged a teleconference Kirk held with constituents and, lo and behold, the GOP congressman apparently repeated the China drilling claim. From her post on the call:

More on gas prices. Open up areas off Am shorelines to oil drilling? (That question is misleading--see why by looking at my recent post on why that is not the real question -- and he's making reference to the already proven false comment about China drilling offshore Cuba again--unbelievable).

Unfortunately, there's no audio of the call, so we can't check Kirk's exact language.

Today, the Seals campaign put out a statement calling on Kirk to retract his assertion about Chinese drilling in the gulf. From their press release:

"For weeks, Mark Kirk has engaged in tired scare tactics to justify his support for environmentally destructive drilling," Seals Communications Director Elisabeth Smith said. "Once again, he has shown how far he is willing to go to enrich the big oil companies that have funded his campaigns. Mark Kirk owes it to his constituents to apologize for these grossly misleading comments after even Dick Cheney acknowledged this information to be false."

It should be noted that Kirk isn't the only GOP member of Congress repeating this garbage to his constituents. Reps. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Sam Graves (R-MO) have also been caught repeating the claim, despite Cheney's retraction.

Although the Prairie State has survived the severe economic downturns faced by other states in the region, the local economic landscape isn't too pretty these days. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reports the state's May jobless rate was 6.4 percent, up one full percentage point from last month and 1.5 percent from this time last year. Illinois sits well above the national unemployment rate of 5.5 percent as well.

Employment agency director James Sledge told the AP that this uptick further proves the need for Gov. Blagojevich's capital improvements plan. I'd say it also proves the need for more robust unemployment insurance, something Rep. Mark Kirk and his Republican cohorts in the Illinois Congressional delegation aren't too interested in providing.