(by bobswern, posted by request)

This belongs at the top of every Democratic blog in the universe. This story's breaking this afternoon in NY's 19th Congressional District via the The Middletown, NY Times Herald-Record, where the most righteous of all political journalists, Hunter S. Thompson, started his career.

I'm sure our nothing-less-than-awesomely progressive Congressman John Hall is going to have a field day with this outrageous piece. I hope this makes the top of every news outlet in the country in the next few hours. If you're reading this, please spread this one far and wide! Time's a wastin'!

  HOSPITAL WON'T ACCEPT ITS OWN EMPLOYEES INSURANCE
--St. Luke's Cornwall says insurer is slow to pay, unresponsive--
By Christian Livermore
Times Herald-Record
July 07, 2008 12:32 PM                                
http://www.recordonline.com/...

In what hospital officials say is a financial decision but union members chalk up to spite, St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital has stopped accepting its own employees' health insurance.

Twice in the past 48 hours, I have felt proud to have John Hall (NY-19) as my representative in the House.  On Thursday, Hall voted against the Iraq Supplemental Appropriations Bill.   This he did,  despite his strong support for the new GI Bill of Rights which was contained therein.  As he wrote to his constituents:

I remain firmly opposed to the U.S. military presence in Iraq. I will not vote to fund an open ended commitment to President Bush’s mistaken war and have thus always refused to vote against any funding that is not tied to a timeline for withdrawal.

Very strong words from a freshman who represents a district that went for Bush in 2004.

More below the fold

In the past 3 months, Democrats have increased their House majority as they picked up a remarkable 3 seats in a series of special elections organized in Illinois’s 14th district, Louisiana’s 6th district, Mississippi’s 1st district. What is particularly remarkable is that all three of these districts leaned heavily Republican; in 2004, George Bush had won them respectively with 55%, 59% and 62%. Each defeat increased the chaos of the Republican caucus as the NRCC started to settle in panic mode. After the loss of MS-01 on May 13th, Tom Cole, the chairman of the NRCC, issued a remarkable statement calling on Republican incumbents to brace for the worse and find individual ways to deal with the onslaught.

These rankings were first posted on Campaign Diaries.

Some great news. Local Republicans in NY's 19th District have now tapped wingnut Keiran Michael Lalor to take on John Hall in November, with the likelihood of a sweeping win by Hall in this moderate, somewhat liberal, and firmly Democratic leaning district. This is looking like a safe seat for the Democrats.

A quick heads up to those in the 19th District of NY and its surrounding areas.  There seems to be a new blog that was launched with the sole purpose of discrediting Dem Congressman John Hall.  That in itself is hardly breaking news, but what is interesting is that the username of the person who owns the blog is "Take 19".  

Those of us familiar with the 2006 election will remember a prominent local blog by the name of "Take 19" whose sole mission was to oust former Rep Congresswoman Sue Kelly.  It seems like the Republicans in the district are now trying a similar strategy, although I doubt it will be successful, given that John Hall's only competition is from Kieran Lalor, a pro-war neocon.  But I thought that the use of the name "Take 19" was awfully suspicious at worst, or just snarky at best.  It might be something that folks over at The Albany Project might want to look into, but I have no clue from their site as to how to bring it to their attention.  It will be worth keeping an eye on to stop any lies dead in their tracks about Rep. Hall.

John Hall has sent an editorial to various media outlets outlining his feelings about the present FISA debate. I attended a meeting of local Hall supporters and the Congressman in Dutchess County recently, and he distributed The editorial.

It's getting downright pathetic for the GOP here, just an hour north of Manhattan, and home to freshman congressman John Hall (D, NY-19). Just a few months ago, this race was on Karl Rove's "Top-20" list of most vulnerable Democratic house seats.

Until November 20th, when Andrew Saul, widely hailed as one of the GOP's greatest hopes in the upcoming '08 cycle, drops out due to press revelations about questionable campaign contributions.

Then, at the end of Thanksgiving weekend, Iraqi War vet Kieran Michael Lalor announces his candidacy, amidst widespread concern and skepticism within his own party that he's too far right, even for them. Well, what else can you say? Plenty. It just keeps getting better and better...

[See below the fold.]

It's getting downright pathetic for the GOP here, just an hour north of Manhattan, and home to freshman congressman John Hall (D, NY-19). Just a few months ago, this race was on Karl Rove's "Top-20" list of most vulnerable Democratic house seats.

Until November 20th, when Andrew Saul, widely hailed as one of the GOP's greatest hopes in the upcoming '08 cycle, drops out due to press revelations about questionable campaign contributions.

Then, at the end of Thanksgiving weekend, Iraqi War vet Kieran Michael Lalor announces his candidacy, amidst widespread concern and skepticism within his own party that he's too far right, even for them. Well, what else can you say? Plenty.

[See below the fold.]

In the GOP's search for a mainstream opponent to incumbent, progressive Democratic Congressman John Hall (NY-19), it's being reported by credible sources, over the past 24 hours, that national and state Republican leaders have reached out to 2004 NY GOP US Senate candidate and former NY Insurance Commissioner Howard Mills. And, according to the report, Mills is interested.

Until I started reading this (see link, below), if you'd asked me the trivia question: "Which NY Senator was elected by the widest popular margin?" I would've answered: "Hillary in '06." But, apparently, Chuck Schumer's landslide win over Mills, two years earlier, was even greater than Hillary's re-election romp last year.

http://www.cityhallnews.com/...

[See below the fold.]

Since wealthy NY businessman Andrew Saul's abrupt withdrawal last week from the GOP primary to challenge incumbent John Hall (D, NY-19), supposedly due to "personal reasons," (including the very personal reality that the guy may have accepted a pantload of ethically-challenged campaign contributions per the NY Times piece which ran just a couple of days prior to his withdrawal from the race)

http://www.nytimes.com/....

rumors have run rampant throughout the area's political intelligentsia with regard to whom, if anyone, would step in to fill his shoes.

See link to today's NY Daily News piece, below the fold...the story gets interesting...

This is a question for the Kos community. Are you, or the groups that you are a part of, having any success in getting face time with your Congressional reps to talk impeachment? If so, what is going on?

Andrew Saul is the latest limousine republican to believe that a seat in the House of Representatives is his just reward for having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  He thinks that being rich is his ticket to unseat our Representative John Hall because, well he's a republican and they think being driven to work in a limo is the natural state of humanity.

The full rankings are available on Campaign Diaries.

Plenty of action in House races since our first ratings came out in mid-September. This is recruitment and retirement season in the House, and Ohio has been the center of it all, with three Republicans retiring, two of them in very competitive districts (OH-15 and OH-16). Democrats have had better news on the recruitment front as well (look at AK-AL, FL-24, IL-11 and MN-06), but Republicans reply that they are very satisfied with their newest candidates in NM-01 and OH-07...

Dems ARE condemning Rush Limbaugh for his repeated attacks against our service members. Enough is enough.

I know that there is a back and forth about whether another condemnation is worth the time. I happen to believe it is in this case. Therefore, I'm introducing a resolution that shows emphatically that Congress will not condone ad hominem political attacks on U.S. troops. On Monday, I’m introducing legislation to express the Sense of Congress that this body rejects and condemns Limbaugh’s heinous remarks, and will continue to engage in a debate on ending our involvement in Iraq that eschews character-based attacks on our Armed Forces. Hopefully, this will end the back and forth so we can focus our efforts on ending the war.

Every day of September (almost) I'm making a contribution to a new candidate, announcing it here on Daily Kos, and encouraging you to join me.  If one person matches my contribution on my ActBlue page, I'll double my contribution; if ten people match it, I'll triple.  Details here.

Yesterday my contribution to Linda Stender garnered no matching contributions, so today I'm not sending her anything more.

NYPopulist suggested today's candidate yesterday.  Follow me below the fold to find out more about John Hall.

After reading BarbMD's capitulation diary, I was amazed to see that my Congressman, John Hall, was on that list. He has been an outspoken supporter of accountability and rationality when it comes to the military efforts in Iraq.

I knew there must have been a mistake.

This is to be the second of 20 diaries looking at the House districts which look most likely to be in play in 2008.  This is supposed to be a weekly feature but I missed last week.  The next two paragraphs are the intro which will appear at the top of each, so feel free to skip.

The goal is to put up one a week, which will finish the series before the holidays.  These are largely districts that I mentioned in my overview diary here: http://www.dailykos.com/...  In addition, I decided to add 19 "50 State Strategy" districts.  These are districts which would not otherwise make my list but where the Democratic nominee in 2006 a) improved by at least 5 percentage points on 2004 performance and b) held the incumbent under 60%.  Finally, recent developments have added a couple of seats.  I will look at the seats regionally, and look at both GOP-held and Dem-held seats together.  Of the 20 groupings I came up with, there are two which contain only GOP seats to target.  The rest are a mix.  Each profiles between 5 and 9 races.

John Hall (NY-19) told some startling news to a small group of people questioning him about impeachment.