The Savage Republican

Voting records are pesky little things...

Coleen Rowley has been seen around town with a banner stating that while "gas prices soar, Kline snores" but is that really what is going on? A quick check of the roll call vote record on the House website will tell us....

On June 7 the House considere HR 5254 - the Refinery Process Permit Process Schedule Act. The Act set schedules to permit new refineries - specifically to ease the process that allows new refineries to be built. It is common knowledge that the US is severely lacking in refinery capacity and that is one of the factors that is causing our high gas prices right now. An "Aye" vote is a vote to add more refinery capacity and a "Nay" vote is a vote against adding the capacity. Voting "Aye" were Congressman John Kline and Congressman Mark Kennedy (MN 6). Vating "Nay"...Congressman Martin Sabo (MN 5) and Congressman Colin Peterson (MN 7).

Well that shoots that talking point in the foot Coleen. Got any others?????

Cross posted at Ladies Logic

A call to Action - Part 2

CD2 did there part.
Will others follow.

Coleen Rowley - WRONG

I posted previously on some of the reasons why Coleen Rowley is WRONG when she says that it is better to handle the global war on terror as a police action. Well thanks to the intrepid Dr. Tefft, I have five more reasons why the criminal justice system is woefully unable to handle the Islamofascists that want to impose their beliefs on the rest of the world.

1) The mastermind of the Bali bombings is released after serving nearly 26 months in jail.

"I will continue to fight to uphold the Islamic sharia,' he said, after walking free 45 minutes ahead of schedule. "

2) Canadian court gets green light to release al Qaeda suspect.

"On May 23, another federal court had granted Harkat a conditional release as he awaited a ruling on an extradition request from Algeria."

3) German authorities assign crack agents to track radical Islamist with ties to 9/11 AND the Madrid bombings because they lack evidence to detain him.

"...Ayub had been sentenced in absentia in Egypt to 25 years in jail for ordering the murder of a secret-service officer. He had admitted to police he knew the Hamburg students who led the 2001 suicide hijackings in the United States. Focus said Ayub was an associate of Rabei Osman al-Sayed, 34, who is on trial in Italy for ordering the 2004 Madrid bombings which killed 192 people. "

4) Canadian terror suspects claim they have no shot at a fair trial and then slam media blackout that guarantees their shot at a fair trial.

"Seventeen men accused of planning al Qaeda-inspired attacks across densely populated southern Ontario stand no chance of a fair trial after prejudicial comments from police and the intelligence community, one of their lawyers said on Monday."

"A publication ban on the court hearings of 17 men accused of planning al Qaeda-inspired attacks in Ontario is just another example that the men stand no chance of a fair trial, some defense lawyers said on Monday. "

5)Key FBI officials still do not understand the Islamofascists we are fighting, nor do they care to!

"Imagine a British intelligence official in charge of infiltrating terrorist groups in Northern Ireland not knowing the difference between Protestants and Catholics. And imagine his boss in MI5, England’s super-secret counterterrorism service, not only not knowing that his man had no understanding of Ireland’s centuries-long religious wars, but shrugging it off as irrelevant to his agency’s counterterror mission.

Now listen to the testimony of Gary M. Bald, the FBI’s top counterterrorism and counterintelligence official, in a legal deposition last year. Questioned under oath in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by an Arab-American FBI agent, Bald was asked whether he knew the difference between Sunni and Shia, the two strains of Islam at war with each other as much as with the United States. Bald waved off the question. “You don’t need subject matter expertise. The subject matter expertise is helpful, but it isn’t a prerequisite.”

Emphasis is mine. Politicians like Coleen Rowley want the American people to be trusting little sheep. Don't worry, we will protect you...just continue to pay your taxes and your homage to those of us who know better! They hope that if they shuffle the card often enough, we will quit paying attention to what they are doing so that they can go back to the status quo! We must never let that happen. We must be vigilent and make sure that we keep our leaders honest and doing what is right for the country - not just what is right for them and their party.

Cross posted at Ladies Logic

A call to Action

See my post over at MNTeaParty.com

Thoughts on the Rowley interview.

OK - now for my thoughts...

R:On the other hand, of course whistleblower is not the best term, I always use truthteller...and so if you can't have the image of being a truthteller it would be obviously quite the opposite of what most people see as politicians right now.

Yes Coleen - let's talk about your "truth telling"....You unfurled a sign (at last week-ends parade in Waterville) that said "Gas prices soar while Kline snores". What has the sleeping Congressman done to help the middle class deal with these high gas prices? He voted FOR exploration for oil in ANWR, he voted FOR the repeal of the law that prohibits drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, he voted FOR increased refinery capacity in the US.....how would you have voted on those issues Coleen?

R:So the threat has doubled, tripled, quadrupled perhaps - the potential threat in the world is much more elevated than it was even pre 9/11 so that no matter how good you are on defense, if the threat keeps going up you're gonna be in a bad situation. And so I think we gotta have a much more comprehensive approach to dealing with terrorism as opposed to how we are dealing with it right now.

What would that comprehensive approach be Coleen? What would you do to stop Islamofacists who want one thing and one thing only - to wipe all "infidels" off of the face of the earth! Please tell us how you would stop that?

B: What is your position on investigating mosques? How do we balance that with the obvious concern with chilling religious expression....

Did you notice how she never did answer this question?????

R:there is a law...let me think of it...it's called the Classified Information something Act where you can go into court and make these arguements to judges.

The Classified Information SOMETHING Act???? Come on Coleen - if you are going to campaign on this issue, you really should know the full name of the law you are quoting!

R: Yes - I advocate something along the lines of Murtha's position. Just to go back to what you said - you said that "most reasonable people now acknowledge that it is a mess" are you saying that my opponent is not a reasonable person because John Kline, I'm sure you have heard him speak before, he has spoken many times about the progress in Iraq and I have never heard him acknowldege that it is a mess the way that most people do...

Do you suppose, Coleen, that maybe, JUST MAYBE Congressman Kline knows a little more about what is going on in Iraq that the "reasonable person"? After all - he has only been there 4 times since the beginning of the Iraq conflict! You don't suppose maybe he is talking about progress because we are actually making progress there do you?????

R: because this was one of the pretexts that you could say that have Al Qaeda connected to Iraq even though Zarqawi had no connection to Saddam....

I think Stephen Hayes over at The Weekly Standard might have some things to say about that, as do Saddam's own documents!

I have to give Dan Barreiro credit for this comment "I think it is safe to say that the last 2 administrations have made a series of blunders when they have had opportunities to get people before...at a point where we might have had a better chance to get on top of a situation that I know is important to you. " All in all it was a typical Coleen Rowley appearance - she talked about the one thing she knew and that was it!

cross posted at Ladies Logic

Coleen Rowley on KFAN

I started listening to the Dan Barreiro program before Coleen Rowley came on. Apparently what sparked this is because Congressman Kline was on the Barreiro program a couple of weeks ago (audio here) talking about the Haditha incident. Someone from the Rowley campaign heard it and called KFAN demanding equal access which they got. Will they regret it? We will know after the commercial break.

And we're back with Coleen...

Barreiro: I would argue that an effective whistleblower has about as good a rating amoung your average citizen as anybody if the feeling is that what you are whistleblowing about is important and you're effective in doing so and you bring to light something that needs to be. The question is, the moment that you declare you're running for office and become a "politician" can you still hold on to the good stuff that is associated with the whistleblower part or does it all change in way that ultimately could be not necessarily good for you?

Rowley: Politicians of course in the current environment are viewed quite negatively, I don't know - my informal poll is 30-40% of the public right now really has a low opinion of politicians. On the other hand, of course whistleblower is not the best term, I always use truthteller...and so if you can't have the image of being a truthteller it would be obviously quite the opposite of what most people see as politicians right now. And you're right - it is very difficult - the lucky thing...I had a chance for a solid year almost to give speeches on ethics and talk to civic and church groups on two topics - civil liberties and the need to balance civil liberties in the war on terrorism and also on ethical decision making...ethical decision making because it ties in with law enforcement ethics...so I had little bit of a chance to meet people before I was cast as a politician...

B: Lets talk about your former employer and your own views on whether we are any closer to dealing with the vast bureaucracy...with the reams of information...so of it vital some if it maybe rather mundane...is it your view that we are doing any better job of sharing information?

R: Well the short answer is one step forward two steps backward. Even though you go forward on one level...there are other areas that have been under cut. For example, pre 9/11 this FISA wall that prevented sharing of intelligence with law enforcement was one of the big problems...and certainly complacency in general was a problem. I think both of those have been pretty much remedied. But on the other hand now what we have going on and this makes it even worse is we've got more recruiting of jihadists and extreme...extremists in the world. So the threat has doubled, tripled, quadrupled perhaps - the potential threat in the world is much more elevated than it was even pre 9/11 so that no matter how good you are on defense, if the threat keeps going up you're gonna be in a bad situation. And so I think we gotta have a much more comprehensive approach to dealing with terrorism as opposed to how we are dealing with it right now.

B: What is your position on investigating mosques? How do we balance that with the obvious concern with chilling religious expression....

R:Well this is my balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigations...it is one of my subtopics that I talk about all the time. There is a problem right now, people do not understand that just collecting more data if it is not relevant does not help. And of course we can talk all day of the ethic of this, perhaps even the legality right now...I approach it from a different perspective and say - is it making us safer? When you talk about 300k on the no fly lists and the people on them are not all terrorists. When you talk about this collection of all these international calls...I'm not the only one saying this...it's the false positive problem. It's the needle in the haystack and we are adding more hay. They have a hard time sifting through the irrelavent data to find the real terrorists...

B: Let me ask you about Moussaoui ? I'm curious to get your viewpoint on how the trial played out in the stretch...How big a "fish" was he?

R:Well how big a fish is really kinda beside the point! If we had effectively investigated him at the time, he was tied in a couple of ways to the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks....I think the facts have born out that he wasn't and some of the stuff that he said was self aggrandizing. Despite all of the mistakes the investigative mistakes that our HQ was responsible for (not the agents the supervisors) HQ thwarted the case... To those that say we can't try terrorists in open court - in spite of the issues we saw a jury weigh all of the facts and come up with a verdict. So I think it shows we should rely on our criminal courts to try terrorists!

B:Do you think it can be done without compromising sensitive data?

R:Yes I do. There are cases where the sensitive techniques can be shielded but the results can be used in court. I recall in organized crime cases...a judge will not allow the placement of the listening device to be provided but the results of that device can certainly be allowed...there is a law...let me think of it...it's called the Classified Information something Act where you can go into court and make these arguments to judges. The law itself is sufficient to handle this.

B:Give us your view on Iraq - not necessarily that it is a mess (because I think most reasonable people think it is), but there is great disagreement on how we go forward. You think we need to get out as soon as possible - is that your position?

R:Yes - I advocate something along the lines of Murtha's position. Just to go back to what you said - you said that "most reasonable people now acknowledge that it is a mess" are you saying that my opponent is not a reasonable person because John Kline, I'm sure you have heard him speak before, he has spoken many times about the progress in Iraq and I have never heard him acknowledege that it is a mess the way that most people do...

B:If you want to buy the notion that we made the mess - you break it you own it? It sounds like you do not think we can do that and are we even going to be more rippable if we just walk away?

R:If we go back to that "breaking the china in the china shop" paradigm, if you go into a china shop and break it, you do not stay in the china shop and keep breaking it...you pay for it and you get out! If we are all for pushing for democracy in Iraq - why don't allow a vote? to see if they even still want us there....It is a low grade civil war and our troops are caught in the middle...and the quagmire argument I think which is "it's mess now but what do we do...it's people like Rumsfeld "well we gotta stay 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years now"...that is his last guesstimate and he simply seems to be throwing up his hands and saying "I don't know what to do"...so we let the troops stay in this cross fire of a low grade civil war?

B:Zarqawi 's death has been met with lots of different reactions - will it turn the tide? Based on what we know - it's a good thing. Some Dems suggest that this is a distraction, this is a way for Bush to score political points.

R:I would never say that the taking out of Zarqawi was a distraction. I think actually President Bush the tone he set when he was not overly hopeful is correct here. Remember the story of Hercules killing the hydra - every time you cut off a head 2 come up...so by cutting off one head...he should have never been allowed to escape the US controlled zone when the US invaded...a lot of people are talking about the fact that Cheney - Vice President Cheney knew that Zarqawi was in the US zone but didn't want to do a lot about it....because this was one of the pretexts that you could say that have Al Qaeda connected to Iraq even though Zarqawi had no connection to Saddam....we are looking at another mistake. We can cross our fingers and hope that it is not the hydra story, but unfortunately this has really taken root and it is a bad situation...

B:I appreciate the time...I think it is safe to say that the last 2 administrations have made a series of blunders when they have had opportunities to get people before...at a point where we might have had a better chance to get on top of a situation that I know is important to you. I appreciate the time...

Rather than clutter the interview with my interjections, I will post my thoughts after this.

Cross posted at Ladies Logic

When is enough too much?

Last Tuesday, the over taxed citizens of California over-whelmingly rejected two ballot initiatives that would have raised taxes to pay of early childhood education and libraries! According to official results, one initiative (to raise taxes on the "wealthiest few" to pay for mandatory early childhood education) only passed in 3 of Californias 48 counties!

The failure of these referendums is not lost on many, including E.J. Dionne.

"While the political world was obsessed with the Republican victory in a special election for a California congressional seat, the truly sobering news for liberals was in the statewide voting. Proposition 82, the ballot measure that would have guaranteed access to preschool for all of California's 4-year-olds, went down to a resounding defeat, 61-39 percent.Not only that -- voters also rejected a $600 million bond measure for the state's libraries. A vote against libraries? Yes, the bonds went down 53-47 percent."

While Dionne has the right idea about why these initiatives went down in flames...

"there remains a deep skepticism about government spending, even for the best purposes. On the same day that the two propositions went down, voters in five California counties rejected sales tax increases, mostly to fund transportation projects."

...he is also way off base on why these initiatives failed...

"Higher taxes on the wealthy are a logical way to finance necessary programs because the best-off Americans have been posting much larger gains in income and wealth than the rest. But the well-to-do can still fend off such tax increases by creating rational doubts about what the money will be used for."

The plain and simple answer is this....the over-burdened taxpayer is finally at the breaking point! They simply can not and will not accept another tax increase in order to fund something else for someone else, no matter how well intentioned the project! The days when we were all "Happier to pay for a better Minnesota" are long gone! The time has come for our elected officials to think of our money as if it were their own! Would they spend their own money in so reckless a fashion? I think we can all safely say that answer is a resounding NO!

We can maintain our quality of life here in Minnesota and still reduce the tax burden of it's over-taxed citizenry. We do not and should not have to work simply to turn around and hand it all over to the state government. That is something that the sages of Portland Avenue need to learn as well.

Cross posted at Ladies Logic.

Campaign Advice

Craig Westover's last column in the Pioneer Press is something that the Governor's staff needs to tape up someplace where the Governor can see it multiple times a day!

"Conservatives were embarrassed by the obvious semantic ploy of "fee" versus "tax." They were angered that the governor proposed the fee knowing revenue projections made it possible to increase education funding without raising taxes. He gave conservative legislators Sophie's choice with a health and human services bill that contained both the hated health impact fee and anti-abortion provisions."

Then what can the Governor do to regain the Conservatives trust and yet show the rest of the state the differences between the Republicans and the DFL?

"There is, however, another alternative for the GOP — uncovering or creating alternative constituencies that have a vested interest in free-market activities. In other words: Don't necessarily propose cutting government, but rather push structural changes that create value and reduce the demand for government.

Ripe areas include parental school choice and expanded free-market education, a market-oriented health care strategy and removing government-imposed barriers that inhibit development of innovative, private sector mass transit. Open doors for entrepreneurs by eliminating unnecessary and overly restrictive occupational licenses. Follow the model of the eminent-domain reform legislation and set criteria limiting government intervention in individual health issues; set rigid criteria for bonding proposals."

One thing that Republicans have been saying for the last 2 years is "you can't beat something with nothing" - in other words "we aren't the other guy" is not a winning platform. It didn't work for John Kerry in 2004 and it will not work for Governor Pawlenty this year. If he really wants to continue to stay in the Governor's mansion, he needs to let the people of this state know why we need to vote for him. To campaign on the fact that he is not a conservatives worst nightmare (a "big-spendin', tax-raisin', abortion-promotin', gay marriage-embracin', more welfare-without-accountability-lovin', school reform-resistin', illegal immigration-supportin' Democrats for governor who think Hillary Clinton should be president of the United States.") is not enough. He needs to run on policy - on what he will do for the state given another 4 years in office! Tell us why your vision for the state is better than Mike Hatch's vision. Then let us know how you are going to make that vision happen!

cross posted at Ladies Logic.

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Thursday, June 15, 2006