Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported an exclusive story on how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — the big business lobbying juggernaut running an unprecedented $75 million dollar attack campaign against Democrats in midterms this year — is actively fundraising from foreign corporations and foreign nationals, and depositing the money in the same 501(c)(6) account used to run its campaign advertisements. Dues from foreign corporations have flowed into the Chamber’s coffers, including from government-run companies like the State Bank of India and the Bahrain Petroleum Company. ThinkProgress has reported at least $300,000 in foreign money to the Chamber from Bahrain and India alone.

Following ThinkProgress’ report, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) wrote to the FEC — a federal agency that has ironically “been rendered toothless by its Republican members” — asking it to launch an investigation and to insist that foreign companies prove whether their funds had been used in campaign activities. Today, outside of a fundraiser for Nevada’s GOP U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle at the National Republican Campaign Committee, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, if he would comment on the story. After hearing the question, Blunt quickly turned and began walking away briskly towards the Union Station building. He initially simply ignored the question, then took out his phone and pressed it against his face. Eventually, Blunt replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about” and told ThinkProgress to “talk to the Chamber”:

TP: Congressman Blunt? We reported at ThinkProgress yesterday that the Chamber of Commerce is accepting money from foreign corporations and using that same bank account for buying attack ads. If you’re elected to the Senate will you investigate this? Excuse me, Roy Blunt? Sir, the Chamber of Commerce has admitted that it’s accepting foreign money from businesses like the Bahrain Petroleum Company and they’re using that same bank account to run attack ads. Will you investigate the use of foreign money in our election[s]?

TP: Congressman Blunt? Pardon me, Congressman Blunt? Congressman Blunt? [BLUNT takes out cellphone] We reported yesterday at ThinkProgress that the Chamber of Commerce is fundraising from foreign companies, in India and Bahrain and many other places, uh, they’re using that same bank account run attack ads. Are you going to investigate this? [...]

BLUNT: …And the event went fine. Good. Good. Really? Okay.

TP: Excuse me, Congressman Blunt? I have a membership application that the Chamber of Commerce is distributing in Bahrain asking for funds for the same bank account – the same campaign account – used to run campaign advertisements here in America. Do you have any comment on that?

BLUNT: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Talk to the Chamber, I have no idea.

Watch it:

In August, Blunt announced that he received the Chamber’s endorsement. Currently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ads trashing Blunt’s Democratic opponent, Robin Carnahan. The ads are run out of the same 501(c)(6) account used to fund raise from foreign sources.

Notably, Blunt has voted for many of the Chamber’s top priorities, including unfettered free trade deals, protecting tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas, and against Wall Street regulatory reform.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is fully embracing his role as the Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee, eager to “subpoena the rats and cockroaches” in his crusade to impeach President Obama. While relishing his “duties” as a Oversight Committee member, there is one civic responsibility the five-term incumbent is dodging: the duty to debate.

According to the North County Times, Issa is now “refusing to debate his Democratic opponent” Howard Katz (D-CA), after personally agreeing to do so “when the two chatted at a July 3 parade” in Oceanside, CA. Katz contends that Issa said he’d “certainly” debate him “on a date that works with my schedule so I can come.” But now, Issa’s spokesman Kurt Bardella insists that “the topic of debate never came up” and, “because the economy is a free fall,” his job in “continuing the process of oversight” outweighs is responsibility to participate in a debate:

“I was asking him about a debate and he said, ‘Certainly, just make it on a date that works with my schedule so I can come,’” said Katz, a Temecula resident.

Bardella denied that Issa, R-Vista, ever agreed to debate whether he should continue to represent the district that includes much of North County and Southwest Riverside County.

“The topic of a debate never came up,” Bardella said Tuesday. “He (Issa) has never made any kind of promise or commitment to debate.”[...]

Bardella said Issa is concentrating on his role as the ranking Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a powerful panel he will lead if the GOP wins enough seats on Nov. 2 to wrest control of the House from the Democrats.

“This is a situation where the economy is in a free fall and the people are in a free fall,” Bardella said. “The congressman is focused on doing his job and continuing the process of conducting oversight.”

Katz insists that Bardella is telling a “fib” and even released a picture of the two talking at the parade “where he swears the promise was made.” Katz needed the debate because he is in a “‘David versus Goliath’ matchup” against “one of the wealthiest members of Congress.” Libertarian candidate Mike Paster (CA) shares Katz’s debate frustrations after “he was unsuccessful in repeated efforts to get someone from Issa’s office to respond to his call for a debate” last week.

While Issa may have specific reasons to be wary of public scrutiny, his debate denial reflects a growing number of House candidates “who are flat-out refusing” to debate challengers. Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who has never formally debated a Democratic challenger, told his opponent that he hadn’t “earned” the right to debate him. And while Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is willing to debate his opponent, he is backing out of all but two of the debates he originally proposed.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) not only voted against President Obama’s economic stimulus plan (the American Recovery Reinvestment Act), but he also rallied opposition to the bill within his caucus. As soon as the stimulus passed, Blunt went on a tour decrying the bill as an “absolute outrage.” Now as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Blunt is trying to smear his opponent, Democrat Robin Carnahan, for supporting the stimulus. A campaign ad released yesterday by Blunt accuses Carnahan of being a “rubber stamp on Obama’s job-killing agenda.” As the narrator reads the script, the text “CARNAHAN SUPPORTS $814 BILLION FAILED STIMULUS” flashes on the screen.

But like nearly every other member of the Republican caucus, Blunt is trying to have it both ways. Despite Blunt’s assertion that the the stimulus is a complete failure, he has attended multiple groundbreaking ceremonies for stimulus-funded projects. Local Missouri papers have praised Blunt’s role in securing the projects, without noting his efforts to kill their funding. In other cases, he has sent out press releases claiming credit for stimulus-funded programs:

– In July 2009, Blunt attended a groundbreaking for the Neosho National Fish Hatchery in Neosho, Missouri. Earlier that year, the project gained two stimulus grants, one totaling $1.04 million and another for $100,000. Some local media outlets have reported the hypocrisy, while others have not.

– Blunt attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Ozone Disinfection System in the City of Springfield made possible by a $16 million combination low-interest loan and direct grant from the stimulus. As local blogger Jim Lee notes, Blunt’s ceremony unveiling the funding coincided with the one year anniversary of the stimulus. When approached about his opposition to the stimulus, Blunt simply smiled and said “no comment.”

– As FiredUpMissouri reported, Blunt’s office announced $942,000 for homeless assistance programs in Springfield and Joplin in February of 2010. The funds were provided through the stimulus, but Blunt made no mention of the funding source in his release.

As ThinkProgress has documented, Republican lawmakers and even GOP leadership have staked their political fortunes on lying to the public, claiming the stimulus failed to create jobs, while trying to take credit in their home districts for stimulus programs.

Last week, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is running for his state’s open Senate seat, proposed a “jobs plan” that included what he has claimed is $2 trillion in spending cuts. “In this plan, Roy identified over two trillion dollars in cuts right off the bat that can be taken out of government,” said former Missouri treasurer Sarah Steelman, who has endorsed Blunt’s campaign. But in what he charitably calls an “accounting error,” the Kansas City Star’s Dave Helling notes that fully one half of Blunt’s spending cuts aren’t actually spending cuts at all:

A look at that plan shows half of those savings — $1 trillion — would come from Blunt’s proposal to repeal the health care reform package…Repealing health care reform would eliminate $1 trillion in spending, but it would also eliminate the $1 trillion in tax and fee increases and Medicare reductions that are in the law as well. The net effect of health care repeal on the federal deficit is, roughly, zero.

Actually, contrary to Helling’s assertion, repealing the Affordable Care Act wouldn’t have zero effect on the deficit: it would actively increase it. According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the bill would increase the deficit by $455 billion over the next ten years. But the point remains that the only way Blunt’s push for repeal works as a deficit reduction measure is if he plans to keep all of the tax increases and Medicare savings, without actually giving anyone any additional health care. And as The Wonk Room explains, Blunt’s other deficit reduction plans are equally unimpressive.

Last night, Senate candidate Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) posted a YouTube video to his campaign website, which simply played audio of his opponent, Robin Carnahan (D), explaining why she doesn’t oppose the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. However, Carnahan’s words were played over a graphic image of smoldering wreckage from the Twin Towers. Watch it:

This morning, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter asked Blunt about the ad. Blunt told the reporter he didn’t know about the ad, and it disappeared from the campaign’s website moments later. A spokesman subsequently told the reporter that ad was removed because it “didn’t reflect the right tone.” The ad has re-appeared, but now shows pictures of Carnahan with President Obama instead of graphic Ground Zero damage. (HT: Fired Up! Missouri)

Yesterday, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is running for Missouri’s open Senate seat, unveiled his jobs plan at an event with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Blunt spends a lot of time in the document fearmongering about the deficit, saying “we must put a stop to this reckless and embarrassing culture of running up the bill and passing it along to our children and grandchildren.” He even advocates rescinding the stimulus money that has yet to be spent, which amounts be a tax increase on the middle class. But Blunt’s concern about spending evaporates when it comes to having the federal government subsidize the real estate industry, as he calls for permanently extending the home buyers tax credit:

Recently it was announced that new home purchases had fallen off more than 30%. Clearly people respond to tax incentives and the recently-expired home owners’ tax credit is no exception. Encouraging people who can afford it to purchase homes helps employ homebuilders, real estate workers, bank employees, and keeps liquidity in the market.

As The Wonk Room explained, the home buyer’s tax credit was enacted as part of the stimulus and then extended a couple of times, and by all accounts it was a complete and total boondoggle, costing taxpayers billions to subsidize activity that was going to happen anyway. Even the credit’s staunchest supporters have said that its “sunsetting is an incentive to drive people to the marketplace” and poo-pooed the notion of extending it forever, which clearly turns it into a permanent subsidy to the real estate industry. But since Blunt has received far more money from the finance/insurance/real estate sector than any other in his career, maybe that’s precisely the point, no matter what it costs.