I was going to post the picture here, but since my kids read this blog every once in a while I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. My friend Fecund Stench has a picture of a disturbing bust of Hillary Clinton. There are some seriously deranged people in this country.
Now that we’re entering the heavy campaign season for the 06 elections I think we need a toolkit on how to gather information so we can make informed decisions at the polls. Below are some links to sources of information about Congress and people running for Congress:
I’ve spent a little time lately looking at our Congressional leaders and the amount of money they spend doing their jobs, but I haven’t felt any burning desire to dive into the political maelstroms that are kicking up since there’s so much of that going on everywhere else. But after reading Lex Alexander’s post in which he shares comments made by Virginia Foxx to him re. the Foley Scandal I just have to say my piece about my own US Representative.
It’s really quite simple. I don’t know Rep. Foxx personally but based on her comments on this and at least one other issue I have to ask whether she’s a Republican lap dog or just plain dense. And it’s not just that I disagree with her take on things it’s that I think what she’s doing is stupid from a pragmatic, political angle. Let’s start with the Foley issue. Here’s an excerpt from Lex’s blog:
During my telephone conversation with him Thursday, Rep. Howard
Coble, the 6th District Republican, called on the National Republican
Congressional Committee to return $100,000 it received earlier this
summer from former Rep. Foley’s political-action committee. The NRCC
works to elect Republican candidates to the U.S. House of
Representatives. Because Republican control of the House is in jeopardy
for the first time since that party took control of the chamber after
the 1994 elections, the NRCC understandably wants to raise as much
money as possible to help Republican candidates in close races. Foley,
prior to news of his scandalous Internet communications, was considered
a safe bet for re-election and still has roughly $2.8 million in his
PAC.The NRCC’s problem, however, is that news reports indicate that the
NRCC’s chairman, Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, had been told months
ago about Foley’s potentially problematic behavior. He accepted the
money anyway — and also is reported to have been instrumental in
talking Foley, who had been thinking about retiring, into running for
re-election this year.No quid pro quo has been proved, Coble said, but "appearance-wise, it does not look good."
Rep. Virginia Foxx, the area’s other Republican House member, has no
problem with Reynolds’ behavior. And she thinks that if at least two
newspapers — the Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times — were
onto the story but had chosen not to publish anything at the time the
NRCC got Foley’s money, she doesn’t see why Reynolds should have done
anything differently: "There were at least two newspaper outlets and
they didn’t think it was worth reporting. Then why fault Reynolds for
doing what he did? If the news media had thought at the time that it
was so inappropriate that something should have been done, then maybe
they should have done something."
Can she possibly be serious? Why fault Rep. Reynolds if we don’t fault the papers? Well let’s start with the fact that he’s a member of Congress and it’s his job to do something about it, as it would have been hers if she were privy to what was going on. Is she saying that she’s not obligated to report misgivings about a fellow Representative unless the Winston-Salem Journal also reports on the situation? Furthermore, here’s what the St. Petersburg Times’ editor said about deciding not to run the story:
I led deliberations with our top editors, and we concluded that we did
not have enough substantiated information to reach beyond innuendo.We were unsuccessful in getting members of Congress who were
involved in the matter or those who administer the House page corps to
acknowledge any problem with Foley’s ambiguous e-mail or to suggest
that they thought it was worth pursuing.And we couldn’t come up with a strong enough case to explain to a
teenager’s parents why, over their vehement pleas to drop the matter,
we needed to make their son the subject of a story – and the incredible
scrutiny that would surely follow.It added up to this conclusion: To print what we had seemed to be a
shortcut to taint a member of Congress without actually having the
goods.
I guarantee you that if they’d run the story as it was Rep. Foxx would have jumped all over them for reporting rumors and trying to sabotage a sitting member of Congress. Also, she should take note that had Rep. Reynolds and the other party leaders who’d been warned about Foley done their jobs the story would have run with corroboration.
As I said I’m not just stunned because I disagree with her stand on this issue, I’m equally or more stunned at her political ineptitude here. Instead of just saying "I think we should investigate this matter and take whatever actions are appropriate" she tries to shift the blame and in the process looks less adept at that than my 5th grade son.
The Foley incident where Rep. Foxx has looked like she’s living in a different, partisan universe. Earlier this summer she went to Baghdad and here’s some excerpts from a Winston-Salem Journal article about her trip:
The war in Iraq is
going well, Iraqi government officials are determined to have a united
government, and American soldiers are satisfied with their equipment
and their mission, said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, who visited Iraq
yesterday and Sunday…Foxx and other members
of the congressional delegation stayed with troops overnight in a
military compound in Baghdad that is one of Saddam Hussein’s former
palaces and had lunch together yesterday. (Ed. Comment: Sure she got a real good idea of what the situation on the ground looked like from there)…Yesterday, after
Foxx’s visit, there were several kidnappings in Baghdad, the latest in
a string of sectarian violence that has escalated in recent months.Foxx said she did
not see any evidence of this (Ed. See comment above). but said that the government officials,
particularly al-Bolani, are committed to making sure "the terrorists
don’t create a civil war."…Ideally, she said,
military leaders and government officials told her they hope to have
Baghdad "secure" and a "place where people can feel safe" by the end of
the year. (Ed. She really bought this?)There have been
reports that American military personnel do not have adequate supplies
or that their morale is low. Foxx said that her meetings with soldiers
did not support this. She said that at one point she asked the
soldiers, while their supervising officers were not within earshot, in
hopes to get the most honest answer, and they told her they were fine."There was no sense of any problems," she said, "There was no indication of unhappiness." (Ed. Oh come on, in the private sector that would be like a VP going around her CEO to bitch to the Board of Directors. It ain’t gonna happen).
So again I ask, is she really this obtuse or is she a party hack? Personally I think she’s a party hack and my evidence to support this is her early and consistent push for immigration reform. That’s a hot-button issue in this neck of the woods (see this W-S Journal article) and I will definitely give her props for being a consistent advocate for immigration reform, even if I don’t agree with some of the solutions she proposes.
Still her recent comments and stances on issues like the war and the Foley matter really have me thinking she’s more commited to her party than the good of her constituents. I’m sure she’s worried about her party losing the majority in November, but her comments and behavior, and that of her party’s leadership are only serving to highlight why it’s time they get a little butt spanking. Maybe it will help them remember where they’re from and what they’re supposed to be about. Sadly the Democrats aren’t any better, but I guess it’s their turn to figure out how to further screw this country up.
What with all the to-do over the law recently passed by Congress to deal with the treatment of captured enemy combatants and that pesky little thing called the Geneva Conventions there’s been a lot of discourse between the "f— ’em they’re terrorists, they don’t have or deserve rights like us" crowd and those who are a little frightened by the idea of giving the President the power to define what is cruel punishment and pretty much freaked out by the denial of habeas corpus the new law provides. Based on how I wrote that last sentence you can probably guess that I’m part of the latter crowd, but before you think of me as some "lilly-livered I love the world and the world loves me" type let me explain my thinking.
First, I don’t understand how we can have a "War on Terror" and not consider terrorists prisoners of war. People say that we can’t treat the terrorists as POWs because they aren’t traditional soldiers for a state funded armed force, rather they represent a nebulous, sectarian foe. If you look at it that way then we can’t say we’re at war because you can’t declare war on a nebulous, sectarian foe. Our leaders are being disingenuous, to put it kindly, and we need to hold their feet to the fire by asking two very simple questions: Are we at war or not? If we’re at war then why can’t we treat everyone we capture as a POW?
Second, if we accept the designation of the terrorists as "enemy combatants" why do we need to create a new system to deal with them? I remember clearly when the first President Bush initiated the "invasion" of Panama and we captured Manuel Noriega and then shipped him to the States and in the great American tradition we charged him with federal crimes, provided him with a lawyer and then put him away. (BTW, he’s still in jail in Florida). Noriega had been financed by the CIA (in fact Bush 1 had authorized some of the payments when he was head of the CIA) and it was only when he started misbehaving (harassing US troops in the Panama Canal zone and eventually killing a US Marine) and engaging in various activities like drug smuggling that the US took him down. If we can do this with the head of a sovereign nation’s military why can’t we do it with a bunch of religious fanatics who killed or are trying to kill American citizens? Charge them with federal crimes, try them, convict them and put them away. Hell, we could even get the death penalty for them and legally kill them.
Perhaps we the people are willing to accept the government’s new system because we’re so consumed with fear and a desire for vengeance that we’ve forgotten our long tradition of justice. Perhaps our political leaders are using our fear and lust for vengeance to serve their own purposes (stay in power, expand powers of the President). Perhaps our leaders want the new system because they view the traditional system as more difficult to use to get the results they desire than their new system and they’re probably right, but we didn’t elect these guys to take the easy road, we elected them to take the right road. Perhaps many of the members of Congress aren’t really serious about
this law and are counting on the Supreme Court to find it
unconstitutional, thus allowing them to make political hay but not
really give the President what he wants.
But I digress so let’s leave this with my original question: How can we have a war on terror and not consider captured terrorists prisoners of war?
Vernon Robinson is at it again. His latest ad for his campaign against Brad Miller for the House seat in North Carolina’s 13th District is just flat out over the top. It’s an attack ad…kind of. He doesn’t call Miller names, but he does say that Miller voted against a bill that would have paid for more body armor for the troops in Iraq and then lists a litany of sex-related bills that Miller voted for. Actually he cherry picks line items out of larger spending bills, but you can’t miss the point. Watch the video below and make sure you watch it all the way through; I swear you will actually hear the words "probes attached to their genitalia".
You may recall that Vernon was the only Winston-Salem leader to take me up on my offer to host their blogs for free (he was a member of the City Council at the time), but the blog never really took off. If he’d brought even 1/100th of the, uh, creativity of his ads to the blog it would be in the top 10 on Technorati.
I’ve done a little more digging over at Legistorm and here are some fun numbers about the payrolls of North Carolina’s congressional delegation. This time I’ve included the Senators, both of whom are Republican (Dole and Burr). Please keep in mind that these numbers are extrapolated from the first quarter 06 numbers reported by House members, and 1/2 of the payroll reported by the Senators between 10/1/05-3/31/06. That means they may not be exact to the dollar but they’re definitely close:
If you want to be a well-paid Congressional staffer in NC you
definitely want to first try and get on a Senator’s staff (they pay
almost 90% better than House members do) but since there’s a limited
supply of those jobs you’re more likely to get a job on the House side. I had my suspicions that the amount that members of the House were paying might have a correlation with how long they’d been in office, so I decided to rank them by seniority and then by their payroll. Below is a list of Representatives in descending order (longest serving to shortest) and in parentheses is their rank in terms of payroll (1 is highest payroll and 13 is lowest).
My suspicion was borne out somewhat. If you want to work for a Representative who pays well then you need to work for one who’s been in office for at least five terms and if you can’t hire on with one of them then get in on the ground floor with Rep. Butterfield; he’s showing early signs of being a generous boss, at least financially.
Or just go after the Democrats, since with the exception of Rep.’s Myrick and Coble the Republicans appear to be pretty tight with the dollar. Here’s the ranking by party, again 1 is the top paying office:
Of course the real money play is to get a job with one of these folks, put in a few years and then go work for a lobbyist. The trick, of course, is to make connections on the right side of the aisle (i.e. for the party that’s in the majority) so you may want to wait until after this November to apply.
If there’s one area that I think most people can agree on the war, whether they’re ‘fer it or agin’ it, I think most would agree that profiteers are the lowest of the low. There’s a new movie out (and yes it looks like it was made by some lefties) that I’m hoping comes out on Netflix soon or I’ll end up buying it. It’s called Iraq for Sale and if you visit the site you’ll find that there’s a blog and all kinds of other information to be had there.
I’ve often written about the soaring real estate prices in DC throughout the late 90s and early 00s, but they didn’t really take off until after 9/11. The late 90s could be explained by the tech explosion (many people don’t realize how much of the internet/telecomm infrastructure was based in the DC area) but I think the early 00s can only be explained by the huge run up of defense spending after 9/11 and through the beginning of the war. DC has always grown rapidly during wars, but I think this expansion was particularly sharp because of all the money flowing to contractors who then created very high paying jobs (contractors pay their people much better than the government/military pays theirs).
I want to see this film, but I also want to see more hard hitting reporting done on the contractors. Some of these companies are making HUGE money on the war, much more so than in past conflicts because so much more work that used to be done by military personnel is being done by contractors. I want to see how the money is being spent with contractors, what the contractors are delivering in return and exactly how much lucre some of these companies’ executives are getting at the cost of American blood. Personally I think it’s a non-partisan issue, and if some people see that kind of questioning as an attack on certain leaders of the country then I’d say that’s a tacit acknowledgement of exactly what many of us suspect is going on.
Screw it, I’ll just say it: George, Dick and Don’s friends are getting awful fat off of this little adventure in Iraq.
I’ve written before about the dust-up over the proposed use of electronic voting machines here in Forsyth County, NC. That dust-up led to the resignation of the longtime director of elections because the Board of Elections wouldn’t support her proposal to use the Diebold machines, and over time the Board of Elections has been proven correct in their negative assessment of the machines.
Ed Cone has a piece about the trouble election officials are having with the Diebold systems being used in the Maryland primaries. Things are so bad that Maryland’s governor is calling for a return to paper ballots for the November elections. David Allen, whose been on top of this issue for a long time, has some interesting comments himself.
This is VERY important stuff and we need to get it sorted out by November since this mid-term election has the potential to have the greatest impact on our country’s future as any mid-term election in a generation. And we definitely need to have all this figured out before ’08. Is there any doubt that ’08 will be the most important presidential election in decades?
Former Virginia Governor and possible Democratic presidential candidate Mark Warner recently made an appearance in Second Life, the incredibly hot online virtual reality "game." You can see a transcript of it here. Warner really is the political polar opposite of George Allen, aka Macaca Man.
Don’t sleep on Warner as a presidential candidate, if not in ’08 then in ’12. He’s proven in the past that he’s persistent and effective in the political arena. After losing the race for Virginia governor in ’98, and being dismissed as a rich political neophyte who tried to buy himself a seat in the Governor’s mansion (he’s a self-made millionaire and spent a lot of his own money to finance his campaign) he patiently built up his base, especially in rural areas outside of Northern Virginia, and came back four years later to win in ’02. He left office with higher approval ratings than he had at the beginning of his tenure, this despite raising taxes. He also left the state in a healthier fiscal state than he found it. Yep, all in all I’d say he’s the real deal.
There’s an article in Time about House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi which I think perfectly highlights what’s wrong with America’s leadership. From the article:
The 66-year-old San Francisco lawmaker is an aggressive, hyperpartisan
liberal pol who is the Democrats’ version of Tom DeLay, minus the
ethical and legal problems of the former Republican House leader. To
condition Democrats for this fall’s midterm elections, she has employed
tactics straight out of DeLay’s playbook: insisting other House
Democrats vote the party line on everything, avoiding compromise with
Republicans at all cost and mandating that members spend much of their
time raising money for colleagues in close races. And she has been
effective. House Democrats have been more unified in their voting than
at any other time in the past quarter-century, with members on average
voting the party line 88% of the time in 2005, according to
Congressional Quarterly. That cohesion enabled Democrats to hasten
President Bush’s slide in the polls when they blocked his plan to
reform Social Security by allowing retirees to eschew guaranteed
benefits in favor of private accounts. Bush’s approval rating remains
depressed–38% in a TIME poll last week–and the Democrats are in their
best position to win the House since Republicans took control of it in
1994.
I don’t know about you but I don’t vote for anybody to go to Congress and vote the party line. I vote for them with the expectation that they will go to Congress and vote their conscience, for what they think is best for the country. Hell, I don’t even expect to agree with them all the time, but I do expect them to do what they think is in the best interest of the country and there’s no way they can do that if they vote the party line.
Is there anyone in our country’s leadership who isn’t serving a political party, PAC or donor interest before they’re serving the country? I swear at this point I’d trust a room full of convicted felons before I’d trust this bunch. Why? Because the felon’s aren’t smart enough to get away with robbing me blind (they did get caught after all) while members of Congress, with the exception of folks like Duke and Delay, are smart enough to get away with it and somehow get re-elected. I’d rather deal with people who try to stab me in the front than those who keep nicking me in the back.
Now you know why I continue to proudly proclaim myself an independent with a capital "I".
Befuddled 