NRCC fundraising down under Sessions' leadership

From Politico:

If Republicans hope to make a play for dozens of Democratic-held House seats, they’ll need a well-stocked campaign account to fund all their candidates. But right now, after spending money in two contentious off-year special elections, the National Republican Congressional Committee has a long way to go to raise enough money to compete across the national map.

The National Republican Congressional Committee ended September with just $4.3 million in the bank, less than one-third of the $14.7 million banked by its Democratic counterpart. So far this cycle, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions hasn’t improved the fundraising fortunes of the committee — he’s raised $10 million less than his predecessor, Rep. Tom Cole, did at this same point in the past election cycle.

And the committee took an additional financial hit in the New York 23rd District special election, spending nearly $1 million on a race in which the GOP nominee, Dede Scozzafava, ended up quitting and then endorsing the Democratic candidate. Worse, the NRCC’s decision to support Scozzafava’s campaign has played a role in alienating conservative donors.

In related news, Florida Republican State Senator Eric Eisnaugle has decided not to run against Alan Grayson for his seat in Congress (FL-8). The other Republican contender in that race is Armando Gutierrez, who is causing the GOP to be "concerned":

But GOP operatives in Washington and the district say he is running a destructive primary campaign, and national and local leaders are doing just about anything they can to avoid having him as their nominee.

“He’s offending a lot of people,” said attorney Will McBride, who opted out of the race last week. “He’s rubbing people the wrong way. He needs to be a little more professional in his approach to reaching out to local leaders in our party.”

Numerous others confirmed the widespread bristling at Gutierrez’s early maneuvers.

“He’s pissing people off a lot,” said a leading local GOP operative...

Pete Sessions votes to Defund Military Industrial Complex!

Pete Sessions was one of the first members of Congress to co-sponsor John Boehner's bill, H.R. 3571, to cut off Federal funding to "Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency."

The bill was intended as a "de-fund ACORN" measure, but Democrats figured out right away that the broad wording of the bill could also cut funds to a long list of military contractors, effectively defunding the "military industrial complex."

From Huffington Post:

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 345-75, and the Project on Government Oversight is working on building a database of organizations that have defrauded the government:

At last count, it includes 87 instances of government contract fraud – federal and state – involving 43 contractors. You might want to focus on Lockheed Martin, which has 11 government contract fraud instances, or Northrop Grumman with 9 contract fraud instances including this $325 million False Claims Act settlement from earlier this year.
Bear in mind that, since 1994, ACORN has reportedly received a total of $53 million in federal funds, or an average of roughly $3.5 million per year. In contrast, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman respectively received over $35 billion and $18 billion in federal contracts last year. (Their totals since 2000 are $266 billion for Lockheed and $125 billion for Northrop.)

If you'd like to help Representative Alan Grayson build a list of organizations that have committed fraud against the government, contact him at this link: Help Rep. Grayson Find Fraud (and, yes, they've got Blackwater already).

Florida Democrat uses Pete Sessions in fundraising ad

You know how Pete Sessions is always using the name "Nancy Pelosi" to scare conservatives into voting for him? Well, turnabout is fair play--in Florida, Alan Grayson (D-08) is using Pete Sessions' recent remarks about Obama in a fundraising email. From CQ Politics:

Freshman Grayson called Sessions, a Texas congressman, "crazy, "a lunatic," "demented," and "paranoid" in a fundraising e-mail to supporters.

Grayson attacked Sessions for stating that President Obama wishes to "inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system" and for the national party's attempts to blame Grayson personally for the national debt.

"Join us -- show Pete Sessions that he can take his 30 pieces of silver attacking Alan Grayson, and shove it," Grayson wrote.

Alan Grayson left out "incompetent," "corrupt" and "misanthropic," but, hey, Grayson hasn't been in Congress all that long, so we'll cut him some slack for missing Sessions' other rare qualities. :)