McMahon fundraising midnight deadline

Today is the last day of the third quarter and a major deadline for fundraising. If you are a McMahon donor or have been thinking about getting behind his campaign, donating today before midnight is the most important time to show your support. Because this will be the last FEC quarter update before the election it is crucial to once again vastly outpace Straniere in cash raised and send a message to the NRCC to Republican supporters to stay away, its a lost cause. Any amount helps;

Donate to Mike McMahon by Midnight!

Vito Fossella and the IAFF

The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) donated $1,000 to Rep. Vito Fossella's campaign last quarter, and it seems contrary to all of their political efforts. First and foremost I have the utmost respect for the IAFF. They are a tremendous organization and recently did some great ground work for Sen. Dodd's presidential campaign. And that is why this contribution intrigues me. The IAFF has spent quite a bit of time exposing Rudy Giuliani and his real record regarding disastrous decisions before and after September 11th. While that was going on Rep. Vito Fossella was hard at work negating the IAFF and trying to get Rudy Giuliani elected.

It is not just that Vito endorsed Giuliani. Many elected officials passive endorsed presidential candidates. The bigger problem is the Vito campaigned hard for Rudy Giuliani.

"We helped him out immensely here," said Fossella. "We had people making phone calls and doing other things. You don't have to be physically located in the state to help him. Everything makes a difference. We made a pretty good showing in the Rudy Giuliani campaign."

Fossella took part in a conference call with Giuliani and present and former House members recently, and also has appeared on television to tout Giuliani's campaign.

and then there is this piece where Vito praises Giulaini's leadership post September 11th;



To the fire fighters who worked effortlessly to expose Rudy Giuliani's horrible decisions and poor leadership I would ask you to take a look at the Democratic candidates in this race and see if they do not better represent what you are fighting for and who you want in Washington DC.

update: Going through some previous posts I found this;

Fossella is the only New York City member of Congress to not sign on to Nadler's letter asking Congress for money to fund the health care needs of our first responders suffering from various ailments related to contamination of the area around Ground Zero.

and this;

So while Rep. Vito Fossella used his sound bites to say terror! as often as possible, it wasn't until Rep. Nadler (D) spoke second, that he brought up the point about President Bush refusing to cover the costs of medical tests and treatment for our own firemen. Given the chance to use his appearance to demand funding medical coverage for these first responders, Rep. Vito Fossella instead used his time to praise President Bush.

Rep. Jerry Lewis and Vito Fossella

Another Republican member of congress is under intense scrutiny and
investigation, and no surprise here, he is also a major donor to Rep.
Fossella.

via Politico;

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has issued a subpoena for a House
Appropriations Committee staffer as part of the ongoing probe of Rep.
Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the powerful panel.

Greg Lankler, a staffer on the House Appropriations Committee's
Defense subcommittee, was recently subpoenaed by a federal grand jury
looking into Lewis, according to House insiders.

Rep. Fossella has taken $5,000 from Rep. Jerry Lewis and his
Future Leaders PAC during the last election. Let's add this $5,000 that
Fossella has taken from Rep. Lewis to his list of horribly corrupt
donors who were or are also Congressmen;

• $10,000 from former Rep. Tom DeLay and his PAC
• $2,000 Rep. Doolittle, FBI raided his house and office
• $1,000 former Rep. Mark Foley, resigned after an underage page scandal
• $500 former Rep. Bob Ney

UPDATE:
Rep. Jerry Lewis has been added to the right hand column of this site to better keep track of his donations to Fossella.

Will elected Dems match the Republicans investment?

With Rep. Vito Fossella's second quarter financial filing numbers we get a good insight to how many elected Republicans, that he has played a large role in getting into those offices, are funding his re-election campaign. The question is, will 2008 be different for local Democrats? In the past there has been lots of talk about taking out Fossella but very little financial support to the nominees. Here are the Republicans putting money up to keep this seat in Republican hands:

State Senator Andrew Lanza; $1,000
Staten Senator Marty Golden; $1,000

Assemblyman Lou Tobacco; $1,000

City Councilman Vincent Ignizio; $1,000
City Councilman James Oddo; $1,000

Until there is either one Democratic challenger or the primary determines a winner, our elected Dems;

* Senator Savino
* Assemblyman Titone
* Assemblyman Cusick
* Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer
* Councilman McMahon
* Councilman DeBlasio

to name a few and anyone else who wants to invest in taking down Fossella and everything comes with that can give to the NY-13 General Fund which will be distributed to the primary winner to use in the General Election. Thanks to ActBlue.com for making this possible.

UPDATE: Sorry that title should be 'will' Dems step up not 'why', clearly this is a call out to challenge them to match their Republican counter parts.

Follow along on what stories we are working on with updates from Twitter.

High gas prices fund Exxon donations to Fossella

This is not a donation for renewable energy legislation, mass transit solutions for Staten Island or asthma and respiratory health care brought on by air pollution.

This is a donation from ExxonMobil to encourage Rep. Vito Fossella to continue to vote to stay in Iraq. The more oil potential Exxon receives the more they can line their pockets and make you, the consumer pay for donations like these at the pump.

Follow along on what stories we are working on with updates from Twitter.

Rep. Vito Fossella and Rep. Doolittle connected in corruption

On Thursday, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA-04) resigned his seat on the House Appropriations Committee after the FBI raided his home. The FBI it appears is continuing its investigation into the corruption case of Jack Abramoff. Via the Modesto Bee;

Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, Julie Doolittle's company, was hired by Abramoff to do fund-raising work for a questionable charity from 2002 to 2004. But her one-person company, in the couple's home, continued to be paid long after the one event it was hired to coordinate was canceled. Senate Indian Affairs Committee records made public as part of its Abramoff investigation showed that the company was paid $67,000.

About the time that work was ending, Sierra Dominion started working for Doolittle's political action committee and then his re-election campaign. It was paid a commission of 15 cents for every dollar it brought in. There have been questions about whether those commissions were a way to steer money from contributors into the congressman's pocket

A former aide to Doolittle resigned from his job on Thursday and Abramoff has been offered a newly reduced sentence, both potential signs that prosectutors are looking to go after Rep. Doolittle.

Rep. Vito Fossella of course has taken money from Doolittle, just as he has from many other corrupt Republicans. You can see a sampling of those other donors to Rep. Vito Fossella on the right side of this site.

Fossella learns from the NRCC

via The Hill;

A New York man who pleaded not guilty last week to charges of supporting terrorism contributed about $15,000 to the House Republicans' campaign committee and claimed to be involved with the Senate Republicans' campaign committee in recent years.

SNIP

An indictment states Alishtari accepted money to send $152,000 to Afghanistan and Pakistan to support a terrorist training camp. He is charged with terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering, and faces 95 years in prison.

SNIP

"We are extremely concerned and disturbed by these charges, but we need to be careful not to rush to judgment as the judicial process moves forward," NRCC spokeswoman Jessica Boulanger said.

This means that the NRCC is going to hold on to his money, just like Fossella is holding on to Tom DeLay's $10,000 in contributions.