Unbelievable - Rahm supports Dan Lipinski

by Sandra Verthein [courtesy of Blog for America]

On November 17, 2007, just two months ago today, Rahm Emanual's "Our Common Values" PAC made a $2,500 contribution to Congressman Dan Lipinski's reelection campaign.

• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by national DFA
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by us, Northside DFA.
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by NARAL Pro-Choice America
• AFTER Mark Pera's endorsement by pretty much the entire progresive netroots, including Daily Kos, Open Left, Swing State Project, Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, and Down with Tyranny

In other words, when we were freezing our toenails off knocking on doors trying to get rid of Lipinski and elect Mark Pera, when we were asking people to scrounge for couch change to donate to Mark Pera on our Northside DFA Act Blue Page, Rahm was writing a check to help Lipinski's re-election campaign.

And what are the "common values" that inspired Rahm to support Congressman Lipinski?

From local blogger Archpundit:

"Lipinski isn’t just a guy handed a Congressional seat, he’s a supposed Democrat with an incredibly reactionary record. His ACLU rating–one of the lowest Democrats outside of the South/border states. He has zeros from NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

So no family planning at all. Dandy. He and Costello were the only Illinois Democrats to get zeros–the rest? 100s. When the chance was there to vote for contraceptive use by those receiving money in other nations, he voted against it and he voted against funding Planned Parenthood under Title X–contraceptive funding.

From the Family Research Council–71 percent approval. To get that? He voted to remove the power of the Courts to review cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance. He voted against embryonic stem cell research. He voted to not allow those who win federal civil liberties cases related to religious cases to receive court fees. IOW, if you sued to protect your civil liberties and won in a religious liberties case, you could not be compensated for the costs incurred to enforce your rights.

He’s from a heavily Latino District–his rating from the the leading anti-immigrant group–60%. And that’s down from 71 percent and higher previously.

A big zero on the gay and lesbian measure from Progressive Punch

Drum Major Institute focusing on progressive policies for families, 50 percent.

And, of course, he voted to ignore the 4th Amendment and give one of the most corrupt and incompetent administrations ever the ability to listen to domestic phone calls without a search warrant."

So, what do we do? Well, the first thing is that I would love to match Rahm's $2,500 contribution to Lipinski with an equal amount for Mark Pera on our Act Blue page. Right now we are at $1,925. Surely we can raise another $575! If you can help with that, donate here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/ndfa_picks

We will also be phonebanking for Mark Pera tonight, and will be out knocking on doors for Mark this Saturday and Sunday and every weekend through the election, and we especially need help on election day! You can see a full list of all of those upcoming events, and sign up for them, at www.dfalink.com/ndfa. Just scroll to the bottom of the page, the list of events is on the right side of the screen.