I am wondering if anybody on here lives in New Hampshire's first Congressional district represented by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter.  The reason I am asking is that new polls out show her beating one candidate(John Stephen), but trailing the other(former Rep. Jeb Bradley).  
http://www.politico.com/...

I am thinking that anyone who lives in this district should grab a Republican primary ballot on September 9th and vote for John Stephen, who is almost certainly the weaker candidate.  

I received the following solicitation from my congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand, this morning:

12pm tonight is the final deadline for the 2nd quarter of the year, and we are $17,000 short of goal.  This quarter is an extremely important indicator of the strength of our campaign heading into the election season.  Our team will be available all day and night from now until our midnight deadline!  Please donate on www.kirstengillibrand.com/Main or call Ross at 718-344-8025.

No matter who the opponent is, if they spend $5,000,000 on tv ads it is going to have an impact.  One of my opponents has pledged to do just that and has already put in well over $300,000 this month alone.  Your support is crucial to our efforts.

Again every contribution counts from $46 to $4,600!

Warmest Rgds,

Kirsten
Sent via Blackberry by AT&T

My response below the fold.

This afternoon I got the always uplifting chance to hear Howard Dean speak. He was the draw at a Democrats Abroad UK event held at the Imperial College campus in London.

One of the worst things about being an ex-pat is feeling removed from the on-the-ground action. (In spite of my unchangeable screen name, I have been in London for a couple years now.) We don't get the parade of primary candidates the hot states do, although surrogates occasionally visit for money. (Actually, more like California than I thought ;-)

So even if I wasn't an unreformed Deaniac, I have to give kudos to DAUK for making this happen and I went early to help with check-in at this low cost (£10) fundraiser. I think about 300 people registered, which is a really big crowd for DAUK, especially on this exceptionally pretty blue-sky Sunday in a city that used to be called the Big Smoke.

So I guess we knew the FISA capitulation was coming just from the spin we kept hearing over the last couple days from Pelosi and others in the House Leadership. But that doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

To me at least the most galling part of it are the "Aye" votes by members of Congress that we (yes - you and me) helped elect in 2006. My personal list of regrettable campaign contributions includes Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Kirsten Gillibrand and Ed Perlmutter.

Robert Harding will be hosting Darius Shahinfar, Democratic candidate for Congress in the open NY-21 seat, tonight at 6:00PM eastern time for a live blogging session at The Albany Project.

Be sure and get there early so that...

... you don't have to stand in the back of the room.

According to the Albany Times Union, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY-20) gave birth to a baby boy Thursday morning.

Gillibrand is only the sixth member of Congress to give birth while in office.

Follow for a little more info.

Good Evening. My name is Darius Shahinfar and I am running for Congress in upstate New York’s 21st Congressional District.

This is my second ever blog post. I posted here at DailyKos and at The Albany Project about a week back when I came out in support of the "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq." I had planned on my first post being an introduction but that was too important an event to wait. While there are many, many issues that need addressing our country today. Ending the War and senseless death in Iraq remains at the top of the list.

So I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and tell you a little about myself.

Seriously, why don't people in the media just write headlines like:
"Obama Supporters Are Batshit Insane"
"Rally For Obama Felt Like Jonestown"
and
"Area Woman Sees Barack's Face in Grilled Cheese Sandwich; Pilgrimage Imminent"

Add Hillary's mantra "I've got sound solutions instead of sound bites" and it's making me want to claw my face off. Thus, I'd like to formally invite everyone complaining about the passion of Barack Obama's supporters to kindly follow Eric Cartman's advice and suck my balls...

Early Sunday morning is a great time to drink a cuppa and bounce a few ideas around, and the one that has emerged for me this morning can be attributed to some help from bumblebums and nycstray.

I posed the question of "who would make a good woman candidate?".  This is based on yesterday stumping my fellow peace vigil protester, Sr. Mary Ruth Coffman, OSB, who could NOT name a Hillary alternative.

Bumblebums solved my unfamiliarity problem, putting a name to a recollection: Kirsten Gillibrand, freshman rep from NY, and nycstray put up her official link.  

http://www.gillibrand.house.gov/...

So, I ask you good folks, how does she sound as a Veep choice?

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY-20) held her sixteenth town hall this past Saturday, Jan. 12, at the Livingston Town Hall in Columbia County.

In just her first year Congresswoman Gillibrand honored her pledge to hold a town hall meeting in each of the ten counties she represents.  This will be her sixteenth town hall since January of 2007.   In addition to her town hall meetings, Congresswoman Gillibrand regularly holds Congress At Your Corner events at local hot spots, such as grocery and book stores, to bring her office out in to the community she serves.

Gillibrand added, "I believe accountability and accessibility to the families of our community is very important to being an effective representative and I am committed to both."

The topic of the forum was Rising Costs of Taxes on Upstate Families...

Kirsten Gillibrand, NY-20, delivered the Democratic national radio response Saturday, and talked up the Congressional Democrats' accomplishments.

Like most here, Gillibrand is aware that much of what happened this year, with the Senate blocking/dumbing-down many good House bills, and Bush vetoing several that got through, was disappointing.

But she found a way to describe the glass as half-full.

Like this:

We have fixed the alternative minimum tax to protect middle-class families, raised the minimum wage, and funded small business tax cuts to address the pressures of high fuel prices, increasing health care costs, and rising property taxes.

This is an important meme -- Congressional Democrats accomplished quite a bit this year, and a lot more than the previous three Republican-dominated Congresses --  that the Republicans and their media are fighting 24/7.

Gillibrand got a few minutes on national radio to counteract Republican/media propaganda.

And did a pretty good job.

Hard-to-find details, below.

Earlier this month, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand announced that she was pregnant. No scandal here--the Congresswoman and her husband decided to have a child--until one constituent (probably a strong supporter of family values) wrote a letter to the editor (scroll down the page) arguing that this pregnancy was just one more example of why women can't serve in the U.S. Congress.

Cross-posted from The Albany Project

They write letters...

From the Glens Falls Post Star (third letter down) via Judith Hope of The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee...

A wing nut tells what is and is "Not Suitable for Women?!?!"

Also at The Albany Project

Kirsten Gillibrand held a 41st birthday party/fund-raiser last night at the Albany Institute of History and Art. About 150 people attended -- labor leaders, elected officials, party activists, longtime friends (she's an Albany native), etc.

In her first event since publicly revealing that she's pregnant (due in May), Gillibrand was "showing," but as energetic as ever. She chatted nonstop with people before and after giving a short speech that focused on Congressional accomplishments (energy, security, minimum wage, ethics), though she started by owning up to the failure to end or scale back the Iraq occupation.

I got some one-on-one time with Gillibrand (talking about a Truman committee to probe contractor fraud and the alarming suicide rate of Iraq War vets), chatted with several people I knew from the campaign, and congratulated Mike McNulty (who gave Gillibrand major props in his short introduction) on his pending retirement from Congress.

But the most fun was chatting with a Republican.

Really.

No, not of cash (though she's been fundraising at a might clip), but rather a second child.  The Albany Times Union reported this evening that freshman Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20) is pregnant and expecting the baby to come along next May.  (Cue cheeky headlines, of which I suspect there will be more than a few.)  I'm fairly certain that as of right now, she's the only pregnant member of Congress out of the 90 or so women currently serving -- I'm guessing that we don't need to inquire about the men for this question.

Gillibrand and her husband, Jonathan, say they always wanted a second child -- they already have a four year-old son -- and that she'll continue to commute between Washington and her Greenport, NY, home until the doctors tell her to stay put.

    Here in NY-20 we have had the great good fortunate to see one of Bush's sleaziest enablers in congress, John Sweeney, replaced by an enthusiastic and very capable young congresswoman, Kirsten Gillibrand.
    Ms. Gillibrand, however, is like nearly all other elected Democrats in that she seems to see climate change as one issue among many, something we'll get to eventually when and if her great supporter Hillary is elected.
   Back in January I spoke to her personally at the local grocery store and gave her a packet of information on climate change. I also urged her to work with our neighboring congressman, John Olver, one of the few real scientists in our party and one whose lead Kirsten should follow on this issue.
  Today I sent her the following letter and informed her I was posting it on Daily Kos. I urge fellow residents of NY-20 to join in pressuring this otherwise excellent new congresswoman into providing more than the the usual Democratic lip service on this overriding issue of our time.

Pataki hack Sandy Treadwell, a former NY secretary of state and chairman of the state Republican party, is evidently the GOP establishment's favorite in what is, so far, a four-way race for the right to get creamed by the excellent Kirsten Gillibrand.

A sign of that is that House Minority Leader John Boehner will host a lobbyists' fund-raiser for Treadwell next month in D.C.

Treadwell will raise a few thousand net at this event, but the real reason he is the GOP establishment's favorite is that he is filthy rich, and can self-fund a general election campaign that will, remarkably, probably exceed $6 million total on both sides.

For Treadwell, it's a good thing that he's independently wealthy, thanks to a grandfather who was a "founding executive" at GE, because he's essentially on his own in this race, despite Boehner's little party next month.

Why, below.  

Also at The Albany Project

Kirsten Gillibrand, NY-20, has been off to an excellent start in Congress after decisively defeating Miami Mob Leader John Sweeney, a four-term incumbent often mentioned as a possible statewide candidate, last year.

She has held more than 10 issues forums and more than 20 Congress at Your Corner meet-and-greet events, working at such events almost every weekend.

Her voting record is near-perfect, and her constituent service is top-notch.

In that regard, the Albany Times-Union has a story about her today that deserves wider attention.

Which it will get here.

Details, below, plus a bonus Miami Mob Leader update.