John Kline's Record

John Kline: Reliably Opposed to Ethics and Oversight

2008-03-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

This isn't exactly news, but I didn't want to let it pass without comment. About two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives, for the first time in history, established an independent ethics oversight panel. Nancy Pelosi deserves a lot of credit for getting this done; it faced considerable opposition, and not just from Republicans:

The final vote, 229 to 182, belied the measure's controversy in the House; 159 Republicans and 23 Democrats opposed it. Even with two House members under indictment, two others sent to prison, and several others under federal investigation, nearly half the House did not want to submit the body to the scrutiny of a panel not under its control.

It should come as a surprised to no one that John "he doesn't need to talk about ethics; he's lived it" Kline voted against creating this ethics committee; moreover, he and the rest of the obstructionists came within one vote of preventing an "up or down vote" on the measure.

Despite my opposition to Kline on the issues, I have no reason to believe he's guilty of any breaches of ethics. So why is he opposed to an ethics oversight panel which Congress so obviously needs? Is there something going on we don't know about, or is he simply trying to protect the sizeable number of GOP legislators who might be exposed by such oversight?

It Can Happen Here

2008-03-09T15:46:00.001-07:00

That's an ominous statement. It is typically used to refer to acts which were once unthinkable in America --- a President routinely declaring his intent to ignore all or part of the laws passed by Congress, unchecked government surveillance of citizens, arbitrary arrest and detention of citizens, and government-sanctioned torture. But of course, George Bush and his enablers (like John Kline) have ushered in all of those things in the past 7 years, with remarkably little outcry --- indeed, Bush just reaffirmed his devotion to torture yesterday.

However, that's not what I'm referring to here. Rather, I'm referring to the fact that the NRCC lost the race for Denny Hastert's old seat in a special election yesterday.

I would like to think that Bush's blatant and repeated violations of the letter and spirit of the Constitution --- and congressional Republicans' complicity in it --- are a big part of the reason. This is a solid conservative district, a seat Hastert had held for 20 years. What's more, the NRCC outspent the DCCC 2-to-1 to hold this seat, and they still lost.

If it can happen in IL-14, it can happen anywhere. John Kline's back-to-back 16-point re-election wins mean nothing.

Kline Playing Politics with Earmarks

2008-02-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

[This is a letter to the editor, submitted to ThisWeek Eagan on February 23, 2008.]

Far from showing integrity, as another reader suggested, John Kline's position on earmarks is politics as usual.

An earmark is a congressional mandate that part of the budget must be spent on a given project. Earmarks can guarantee funding for worthwhile projects, and are only a problem when used for unnecessary boondoggles like Alaska's famed 'Bridge to Nowhere'. The solution is not to end earmarks, but to hold Congress accountable by identifying each earmark and the legislator who requested it.

John Kline put politics over principle and voted against earmark reform legislation last January, because it was more important to him to obstruct the new Democratic majority in Congress. Now he is playing political games by rejecting earmarks altogether, instead of doing his job to advocate for worthwhile projects in his district --- projects he acknowledges have merit. Some integrity.

We're Back --- Sort Of

2008-02-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

Hello again.

If there's anyone out there still reading this, you may have noticed that I took a bit of a sabbatical. I'll get to the reasons for that in a minute.

First, I want to set expectations about what will appear here over the next 8+ months. I most certainly do not intend to continue posting at anything close to the rate I did while volunteering on the Rowley campaign. That experience left me tremendously burned out, and I'm not eager to go through it again.

But . . . I can't simply sit back and do nothing any longer, either. The Bush administration is still incompetent, corrupt, and the worst threat to the Constitution our nation has seen in my lifetime. To remain silent in the face of such malignant government is unconscionable. Compared to Bush, Cheney, Mukasey, et al, John Kline is small potatoes. But he's still their enabler, and still a poor representative for the people of Minnesota's 2nd congressional district. And if people like me don't work to send him back to Texas, he'll continue to collect taxpayer dollars while acting as a speed bump to progress for as long as he likes.

So, for now anyway, I've decided to wade back in to the shallow end of electoral politics, in the form of writing letters to the editor. No doubt Kline will not be the only target of these letters; Coleman and McCain will likely take their shots as well. And since many of these letters will never appear in print, I'll publish all of them here, just so the four or five people a day who accidentally browse past this blog might see them.

As to my reasons for the hiatus --- well, the fact of the matter is that I'm a family man with a full time job. I poured my heart and soul into the Rowley campaign 2 years ago because I believed Coleen Rowley would be effective in getting Congress to stand up and do its job to check Bush's power grabs. And I still believe she would do a better job of upholding the Constitution than at least 400 or so of the 435 House members currently serving.

But putting that much energy into a campaign while trying to keep up with my other responsibilities really took its toll. And I needed some time away from politics. A long time, as it turns out. And as I mentioned above, I have no intention of getting that deeply involved in any campaign this time around. Two years ago, Kline's folks attacked me, and attacked me hard because they seemed to think they needed to discredit me in order to discredit Coleen.

This time around, let me state clearly and unambiguously: I am not paid by, nor do I volunteer for any candidate for office at the state or federal level. Before it's all over, I might spend a weekend or two doorknocking; that's pretty much the most I'm likely to be involved in the campaign of any particular candidate.

As always, the views and opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Kline Flip-Flops on Earmarks

2007-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

One of the few issues on which I have agreed with John Kline is his call for greater transparency in earmarks --- special provisions inserted in appropriations bills to fund pet projects for various legislators in their home districts. On his congressional web page, Kline cites at least two pieces of earmark reform legislation he has co-sponsored. And as recently as December 9 of last year, Rob Hotakainen of the Star Tribune wrote that Kline "said he will support a crackdown on earmarks for pet projects . . . ."

For some reason, none of that seems to matter now. On Friday, Kline was one of 152 legislators --- all Republicans --- who voted against the Democrats earmark reform legislation (Michelle Bachmann was another --- birds of a feather).

Why the change of heart, congressman? Could it possibly be that you oppose the Democrats' bill because it's more rigorous than anything the Republicans proposed --- but failed to enact?

Kline Silent About a Surge "For No Particular Reason"

2007-01-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, I gave my opinion on George Bush's "surge" strategy for Iraq:

The surge is not driven by military considerations, but political ones. Hundreds if not thousands of our troops will die for it, and our military will be critically weakened for at least a generation. It should be opposed, loudly and repeatedly, by anyone with an ounce of concern for our men and women in uniform or the greater good of our country.

So I'd like to send out kudos to Minnesota reps Ellison, Oberstar, and Walz, and to Senators Klobuchar and Coleman for coming out against the surge. On January 5, MPR made an effort to interview all Minnesota representatives and Senators about Iraq. Peterson and McCollum didn't make an outright statements against a surge, but indicated their belief that a surge could make the situation worse. Jim Ramstad came out in favor of setting benchmarks for withdrawal, but said he wanted to hear Bush's case for a surge before making a decision about it.

That's what all of the adults had to say. What's left are the two clowns.

Michele Bachmann wants to visit Iraq before forming an opinion about what should be done. How did she manage to win an election without having an opinion about Iraq?

Of course the biggest clown of all was none other than our good friend John Kline, the only member of Minnesota's congressional delegation who refused to talk to MPR. A Kline spokesman reportedly told MPR that Kline will "sit this one out for no particular reason".

Yes, our congressman has time to whine and complain about the fact that he's in the minority now, but he can't be bothered to make a statement about the number one issue facing the country. Heckuva job, Klinie.

John Kline Whines About Getting Treated Like a Democrat

2007-01-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

After whining about the fact that the majority Democrats have hit the ground running to live up to their promise to pass major reform legislation in the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress, Kline joined a handful of other Republicans to demand that the Democrats treat them better than the Democrats were treated during their 12 years in the minority.

Led by Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Kline and 10 other Republicans held press conference to promote their Minority Bill of Rights --- ironically drawing on a proposal then-minority leader Nancy Pelosi put forward two years ago, which the Republican leadership greeted with deafening indifference.

The hypocrisy and whining involved here is staggering, and I finally discovered a news report which does it justice:

Of course, the 11 Republicans did their best to quickly brush over the fact that, well, when they were in power, they failed to allow Democrats the same minority rights they now seek.

"Uh, you know, look," Cantor said. "Um, a lot of things that went on in prior Congresses, um, um, may not have been, uh, what we all would have liked to see, but we are here now."

"If you look at many of us here, here on the stage today," McHenry said, "we were not in Congress in 2004 so I didn’t have an opportunity to do that."

But the press was having none of it, accosting the members after the cameras went black.

"Isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle back?" one reporter asked McHenry.

"You do see the irony here, right?" barked another.

"Is this an acknowledgment that the GOP leadership was wrong?"

A light mist of nervous sweat appeared on McHenry’s forehead.

"Don’t you worry that this is going to sound like a lot of whining?" snapped one last journalist.

For twelve years, Republicans have by and large gotten away with making completely ridiculous statements to a guileless press, which rarely called them on their nonsense. Let's hope this is the start of a new, more responsible media who will ask tough questions of leaders who talk nonsense.

Four Years Late, Kline Criticizes GOP Tactics

2007-01-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

Today Democrats formally took control of Congress, and immediately began working to keep their campaign promises by passing the 11 bills Democrats promised to pass during their first 100 hours in power.

Republicans are grumpy about this.

However, almost all of the bills enjoy the overwhelming support of the American people. Some people might look at this and praise these as "bipartisan" bills. However, the Star Tribune (January 3, 2007) has decided that the Democrats' effort to pass this legislation quickly violates the spirit of bipartisanship --- because Democrats are adopting Republican tactics to insure the bills get passed.

They now say they need to sideline the Republicans, much as they were set aside, to ensure their goal of passing half a dozen top-priority bills within the first 100 hours of legislative business. They'll move the bills straight to the House floor without putting them through committee review, where Republicans could challenge them, and without permitting Republicans to offer amendments or alternatives on the floor.

Minnesota Rep. John Kline joined fellow Republicans at a news conference Wednesday to complain. Kline said he was disappointed to learn of Pelosi's plans for the first 100 hours.

"That certainly implies we won't see business done in a new way," he said.

As usual, Kline is putting partisanship over principle in expressing his mock "disappointment" that the Democrats are fulfilling their promise to pass popular legislation. But I must applaud Kline's honesty in acknowledging that freezing out the minority is an old Republican tactic.

Of course, Kline's professed disappointment rings remarkably hollow when one considers how he abjectly failed to lift a finger to prevent the Republican leadership from using these same tactics, and worse, to ram through the Medicare Part D legislation. And Kline himself was complicit in more Republican subterfuge in putting an end to all meaningful oversight of reconstruction activities in Iraq just weeks before the November election.

Hypocrisy, thy name is John Kline.

Surge

2007-01-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

Iraq is a quagmire. By an overwhelming margin, the American public wants to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and they made their feelings crystal clear on election day.

George Bush knows that continuing to "stay the course" is a political loser, but because he has staked his presidency and his legacy on Iraq, the only thing he can do is increase our presence, a tactic which has come to be known as a "surge".

Steve Benen, guest blogging at the Washington Monthly, provides a concise summary of how well folks are receiving this idea:

The troops don't seem to care for the idea. Neither does the public. The Joint Chiefs aren't enthralled with the proposal, and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates apparently has some concerns of his own.

On the Hill, while congressional Democrats are nearly universal in their opposition to escalation, the list of high-profile Republican opponents, or at least skeptics, has grown considerably in just the last three days. Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Chuck Lugar (R-Ind.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) are all expressing doubts, if not outright opposition.

There is good reason to oppose the surge. No one --- I mean, literally no one --- appears to believe that it will move Iraq a single step closer to stability. And a great many people, such as W. Patrick Lang and Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, believe it will make things much worse, while critically damaging the U.S. military:

Analogies come to mind: Stalingrad, the Bulge, Dien Bien Phu, the Battle of Algiers.

It will be total war with the likelihood of all the excesses and mass casualties that come with total war. To force such a strategy on our armed forces would be nothing short of immoral, in view of predictable troop losses and the huge number of Iraqis who would meet violent injury and death. If adopted, the "surge" strategy will turn out to be something we will spend a generation living down.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., spoke for many of us on Sunday when George Stephanopoulos asked him to explain why Smith had said on the Senate floor that U.S. policy on Iraq may be "criminal:"

"You can use any adjective you want, George. But I have long believed in a military context, when you do the same thing over and over again, without a clear strategy for victory, at the expense of your young people in arms, that is dereliction. That is deeply immoral."

The surge is not driven by military considerations, but political ones. Hundreds if not thousands of our troops will die for it, and our military will be critically weakened for at least a generation. It should be opposed, loudly and repeatedly, by anyone with an ounce of concern for our men and women in uniform or the greater good of our country.

From John Kline, a sitting member of Congress who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, we have heard not one word. We know he opposes a surge, because he praised the Iraq Study Group's recommendation against sending additional troops to Iraq.

What are you doing to stop it, congressman? If the ends of your electoral victory are to justify the less-than-honorable means used to obtain it, now is the time to step up and make a bold stand of principle over partisanship.

Leaders lead, congressman.

John Kline's Perfect Record

2007-01-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

I don't want folks to get the idea that this is some kind of attack blog. My aim is to highlight all aspects of John Kline's Record: the good as well as the bad.

So, in addition to, say, pointing out that John Kline continues to campaign on his record of support for veterans, even though the record shows that his support for veterans is spotty at best, I'd also like to call attention to the fact that John Kline was one of 4 members of the House of Representatives with a perfect voting record during the 109th Congress.

Congratulations, congressman.

A Nice Political Ring to It

2006-12-17T20:57:00.000-08:00

Last February, House Republicans, including John Kline, voted for the largest-ever cut to student loan programs. When the Democrats formally take control of Congress in January, one of their priorities will be to roll back some of these cuts:

The plan to lower interest rates that lenders can charge students is part of a broader Democratic effort to make it easier for students and parents to pay tuition by increasing Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,100 per year and expanding tax credits, among other things.

When Republicans cut these loan programs, the cuts only passed by a vote of 216-214. Had Kline voted the other way, the vote would have ended up deadlocked and the cuts wouldn't have passed. What does Kline have to say about the Democrats' plan to restore funding?

Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kline, a member of the House education committee, said the Democratic plan to lower interest rates "has a nice political ring to it." But Kline said Congress has to make hard choices on education spending and that the money could be better spent on special education because the federal government has never met its commitment to pay for 40 percent of those costs.

A nice political ring indeed. People of good will may disagree about whether higher education or special education merits priority for funding, but that's not the position Kline took last February. He voted to cut education funding, and the Congressional Record shows that Kline didn't say a word about special education funding from the day the 109th Congress convened to the day he voted for the funding cut.

But then Kline is an expert on saying and doing things with "a nice political ring" and little substance. Like naming post offices, for example:

. . . while the 109th Congress set a record for fewest days spent in session, among the work it did accomplish was passing a resolution renaming the Farmington post office the Hamilton H. Judson Post Office.

In fact, of the 383 pieces of legislation signed into law during the 109th Congress, a fourth of them were bills naming buildings, particularly post offices. Aside from Farmington, the post office in Dennison --- population 166 --- is now officially known as the Albert H. Quie Post Office.

Quie, a former congressman who served a term as Minnesota governor, grew up on a farm a couple of miles from the 30-by-40-foot building that now bears his name.

U.S. Rep. John Kline sponsored the house resolution that renamed the Dennison post office. He also was behind the bill that named the post office in Farmington after Judson.

"A nice political ring to it" should be John Kline's epitaph.

Draft Versus Volunteer

2006-12-10T18:40:00.000-08:00

As we've noted, John Kline has recently been on a rampage against a purely theoretical return of the military draft. In his Strib op-ed, he says, in part:

It is outrageous that a small but vocal number of antiwar activists are willing to undermine the effectiveness and safety of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to advance their opposition to the war. While a draft might do wonders for swelling the ranks of bitter veterans who would protest U.S. foreign policy, it would do great harm to our national security.

. . .

Having seen it from both sides, I can say without hesitance that the all-volunteer force is better.

. . .

Why? Because there is no substitute for a team that is unified in purpose. Under a draft, there would be tens if not hundreds of thousands of recruits who did not want to be there, and it would harm our nation's defense by undermining the camaraderie and cohesiveness of our Armed Forces.

More than one veteran took offense at what they believed was Kline's denigration of those who served under the draft.

One Joe Green had this to say:

Kline also dishonors the many draftees who have served honorably in times of war by claiming that draftees "would harm our nation's defense by undermining the camaraderie and cohesiveness of our Armed Forces." I was a draftee during the Vietnam War. No one told me I was doing this. I wish I had known.

Kline should also remember that the last war our nation really won was fought by draftees: citizen soldiers. He should pay attention to the "citizen" part of that phrase and make an attempt to understand what that means.

And WWII veteran Alan Anderson cuts to the heart of the matter (emphasis mine):

John Kline shows a warped view of the role of the military in a democracy. As a draftee in World War II, I am offended by his assertion that a draft "might do wonders for swelling the ranks of bitter veterans."

I recall no draftees who served with me as being "bitter veterans." Senseless wars like Vietnam and Iraq produce "bitter veterans."

The ill-conceived Iraq war might have been avoided if a draft brought it home to more Americans. In a true democracy, all those qualified must be subject to a draft, rather than depending on brave volunteers.

Kline's characterization of those who suggest re-introducing the draft is indeed warped. If the U.S. mission in Iraq is central to U.S. security, then our leaders should not hestitate to ask Americans to band together in shared sacrifice for the benefit of our nation, and we the people should not hesitate to do so --- as we did during WWII. It is telling that in the case of Iraq, Kline believes that only the war's opponents could want such a thing. And as Mr. Anderson correctly points out, if serving in Iraq makes members of our armed forces bitter, that says more about the occupation and its conduct than it does about those who oppose it.

Purple Hearts

2006-12-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

In the past two weeks, John Kline has written two screeds opposing a purely symbolic effort to reinstitute the draft, a bill which everyone knows will be dead on arrival in January.

Yesterday, Kline proudly announced passage of a bill imposing harsher penalties for those who falsely claim to have earned military awards they haven't earned:

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said awards such as the Purple Heart "hold a deeper meaning and value for servicemen that far outweighs their monetary worth," and called the bill a chance to honor the sacrifice of all troops by preserving the military’s legacy.

There are only two reasons why Kline is burnishing his record of support for the military. For one thing, the Republican-led Congress, in its final throes, is still dragging its feet on getting anything done, and so backbenchers like Kline have plenty of time on their hands to pass feel-good legislation.

More important for Kline, the recent campaign exposed his record on veterans' issues, which quite frankly is dreadful. This didn't hurt him in 2006, but he's clearly working to neutralize this issue as a liability for 2008.

However, like Republican efforts to pass a "Flag Desecration Amendment" or privatize Social Security, this bill is a solution in search of a problem. I mean, how frequently do people trivialize the "deeper meaning and value" of the Purple Heart? Off the top of my head, I can only think of one such occurrence, and I don't recall Kline raising a stink about it then.

Kline's Take on the ISG Report

2006-12-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

In my previous post, I chided Kline for ranting about a purely symbolic proposal to reinstitute the draft when there were more important things, like the ISG report, to talk about. Well, Kline hasn't written an 800-word screed about it, but he's now made a few public statements.

To start with let's consider the commission's recommendation that the U.S. work with Iran and Syria to find a diplomatic solution. When Coleen Rowley made the same suggestion in the campaign's sole televised debate, Kline responded with:

Oh please, Coleen. You're going to get Iran and Syria to come on board in agreement with the United States? You cannot solve these world problems with pixie dust.

When the ISG made the exact same recommendation, Kline responded thusly:

"We don't want to be in the business of making a deal with Syria and Iran," he said. "I'm not optimistic about that."

I'll give Kline credit. At least his position hasn't changed, even though his attitude (condescending toward his campaign opponent, respectful toward his "good friend", "hero" and "political mentor" James Baker) has.

Additionally, Kline had this to say:

Meanwhile, Kline, whose son, Army Maj. John David Kline, returned this fall from a one-year tour of Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, said the report confirmed that goal of a democratic, peaceful Iraq remains critical and that a quick pullout would be bad for the region and the U.S.

Kline also was glad to see the group reject the idea of dividing the country into ethnic regions and the idea of sending more U.S. troops.

He backed the basic message of the group that the one thing the U.S. cannot do is more of the same. "They said, if we don't do something, that's bad," Kline said.

If Kline backs the notion that the U.S. cannot do more of the same, that's a flip-flop from his position 3 months ago, when Hometown Source newspapers reported Kline's position as "stay the course". And Kline's claim that the report states "that a quick pullout would be bad for the region and the U.S." stands in direct opposition to the following passage from the report's executive summary:

The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq.

The summary also states that "The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq," which directly contradicts the position Kline took during the campaign.

Like the Democrats did to the Republicans in the recent election, this report delivers "a thumpin'" to Kline's position on Iraq. Yet he makes a grasp for vindication by insisting that the report confirms the goal of a democratic, peaceful Iraq.

The goal has never been in question, congressman. What all sane people have repeatedly questioned have been your means of attaining it. And in this report, your good friend, hero and mentor has publicly stated that your means of attaining it are dead wrong.

Priorities

2006-12-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

So today, the Iraq Study Group issued its report. The war in Iraq is undoubtedly the major policy issue for America today, and the ISG report is the starting point for discussions on the right policy for success. Given John Kline's bedrock support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as well as his emphatic disagreement with the report's conclusions, one might expect him to make a statement about it. So far, nothing.

But Kline hasn't been completely silent since the election. On one issue, Kline has spoken up loudly and often (well, twice), and that issue is his adamant opposition to reinstating the draft. Here's a taste of his strawman argument:

It is outrageous that a small but vocal number of antiwar activists are willing to undermine the effectiveness and safety of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to advance their opposition to the war. While a draft might do wonders for swelling the ranks of bitter veterans who would protest U.S. foreign policy, it would do great harm to our national security.

No one --- Kline included --- thinks that Charlie Rangel's resolution to reinstate the draft has a snowball's chance in hell of passing. Yet Kline has chosen to write not one, but two foaming rants opposing it, rather than saying anything substantive about Iraq and what to do there.

And as far as undermining "the effectiveness and safety of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines," the provision Kline and the House Armed Services Committee quietly inserted into a military appropriations bill effectively ending all oversight of reconstruction efforts in Iraq is far more damaging than Rangel's purely symbolic bill ever could be.

Pixie Dust

2006-12-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

Today the Iraq Study Group --- a group led by John Kline's hero and mentor, James Baker, and facilitated by The United States Institute of Peace, an organization Kline openly disdains --- released its recommendations for dealing with the quagmire in Iraq.

In an interview with ABC, Baker made two statements which stand in direct opposition to Kline's stated policy positions on Iraq. ~~Kline believes we must send additional troops to Iraq~~, although he has never explained where these troops will come from. Baker says that beefing up forces is not a realistic option. Furthermore, when Coleen Rowley stated, in a televised debate during the campaign, that we need to engage Iran and Syria in working toward a diplomatic solution, Kline cut her off and denounced the idea, saying "You cannot solve these world problems with pixie dust." Baker disagrees:

Baker clearly said that those against talking with Syria and Iran are wrong. He said that what the report calls for with respect to Iran is, "nothing different than what this very administration did in Afghanistan when it asked the Iranians to help us in Afghanistan and they did." He said Iran's nuclear ambitions should be treated as a separate issue and that, "those should be left to be dealt with in the U.N. Security Council."

Baker, who has negotiated with the Syrian government in the past, referenced his previous diplomatic trips there. "We have an embassy there, we have ambassadors here," and that "notwithstanding their state sponsorship of terrorism" the United States has always been talking with Syria.

Since Kline prides himself on placing "principle above partisanship," I'm sure he will be issuing a statement tomorrow criticizing his hero and mentor Baker every bit as harshly as he criticized Rowley during the campaign.

Update: Apparently I was wrong about Kline wanting to send more troops to Iraq. I was thinking of this interview Kline gave three months ago in which he stated that he wants a bigger Army. He wants this so that we won't need to send so many reserve troops to Iraq.

But he has still never explained where these new recruits will come from.

Kline Learns to Blog

2006-11-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

So, after successfully completing his 2006 re-election campaign without putting any substance on his campaign web site, and after mischaracterizing (whether out of ignorance or malice) the work I did on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog, John Kline has decided that it's high time that he make his blogging debut on The Hill Blog, a weblog for members of Congress and other policy insiders in D.C.

And what is the topic which has finally motivated Kline to break his online silence? New York Democrat Charlie Rangel's proposal to reinstate the draft.

The American people need to fasten their seat belts because Democrats are taking us back to the Sixties. On cue, the Democratic leadership is once again abandoning the mainstream and lurching to the left.

For months, they ran a campaign trying to convince voters they would govern from the middle. Yet, here we are, two months before Democrats officially regain the majority in the 110th Congress, and already incoming Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charley [sic] Rangel wants to pander to the liberal base of the Democratic Party and reinstitute the military draft.

In all sincerity, I have no idea why Kline bothered to write this. His thesis appears to be that a Democratic-led Congress will "lurch to the left" and reinstate the draft --- a thesis which he immediately undermines:

Why should anybody take Mr. Rangel's draft talk seriously? His lack of sincerity was exposed in 2004 when even he didn't vote for the bill he authored which would have reinstituted the military draft. In fact, his military draft proposal was defeated 402-2 in the House of Representatives.

Kline is correct that when Rangel introduced similar legislation in 2004, 186 Democrats voted against it, including Nancy Pelosi and Rangel himself, as Kline acknowledges. Instead of proving that the Democratic party is lurching to the left, Kline succeeds in proving precisely the opposite. He goes on to reject Rangel's proposal "on its merits", just as Pelosi has done.

Everyone with a shred of intellectual honesty accepts Rangel's proposal for what it is: an effort to initiate a discussion about shared sacrifice in a time of war, something which has been nonexistent during nearly four years in Iraq. It would have been worth the five paragraphs of effort Kline put into it if he had contributed something to such a discussion, but instead he wasted his time writing a self-refuting post which amounts to nothing more than whining.

Throughout the campaign, I was convinced that Kline was keeping his mouth shut in order to keep from saying anything foolish. This aimless rant about the draft suggests I was right.

The Kline Record: A Brief Summary of the 2006 Campaign

2006-11-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

As provided by Kline's 2006 opponent, Coleen Rowley, in today's Pioneer Press. Reproduced here in it's entirety, so it will still be available after the article disappears from the PiPress website:

Big money bought distortion, and the facts didn't matter

On Nov. 7, a Democratic wave swept across the country and ushered new leadership into the House and Senate. But a few Republicans survived the wave, including my opponent, John Kline, in Minnesota's Second Congressional District.

I freely admit that I did not run a perfect campaign, and certainly not according to what political experts advise.

But one thing I did right was to spend 10 months focusing my campaign on the issues. John Kline's focus was clearly elsewhere, as demonstrated by his content-free campaign Web site, his refusal to participate in the League of Women Voters' debate, and his failure to respond to numerous issues questionnaires.

Considering Kline's record, this strategy makes perfect sense. He's on the wrong side of public opinion concerning the Iraq War. He voted for permanent military bases in Iraq, and he also just voted to end oversight over the administration's reconstruction contracts there. He has a record of near-unanimous support for George Bush's unpopular domestic agenda, including privatizing Social Security and the Medicare prescription drug plan.

So John Kline hired a Karl Rove protégé to produce a series of 12 smear mailers about me, each containing ugly pictures and whopper lies. Each followed Rove's formula of attacking an opponent at his or her strength: In my case, my law enforcement and national security background and experience teaching ethics. With hundreds of thousands from big oil, drug, defense contractor and insurance company PACs, Kline could pay Rove's protégé a handsome fee for cleverly worded but hugely misleading distortions and then distribute them throughout the district. Kline also spent large sums to constantly air similarly negative TV ads to further mislead voters.

Our Founding Fathers were right to worry about a misinformed electorate. For a long time, I thought our independent news media would conduct "reality checks" on the falsehoods in Kline's negative ad campaign. But it just didn't happen. No media took Mr. Kline to task for saying he was "too busy" to engage in the normal public debates, or to answer voter guide questions. And no media made much effort to expose the distortions Mr. Kline was making in his ads or mailers. When they were mentioned at all, it was to say that our "race" (grouping us together) was one of the most negative in the country, ignoring the fact that all of the negativity came from Kline's campaign.

One thing is clear. The special interest corruption we deplore is rooted in political campaign financing. Without enacting comprehensive ethics reforms applicable to Congress itself, including campaign finance reform (something John Kline ardently opposes), and without a more alert news media to referee the facts, the same scenario of negative ads producing misinformed voters will continue to repeat itself.

Ultimately, this is not about Kline or Rowley; it is about a bad system that needs fixing. Otherwise the mute buttons of our TVs will just get another workout next election cycle, millions of dollars will again dissipate as wasted airwaves into the universe, and we will still not be one step closer to getting the responsible, trustworthy government that we deserve.

It's worth pointing out that in publishing this article, the PiPress is rectifying, in a small and belated way, its hideously partisan handling of the endorsement process.

All Class

2006-11-18T20:21:00.000-08:00

Apparently a 16-point victory isn't enough for John Kline's supporters. I've now received word that Coleen and at least one other member of the campaign staff have received anonymous post cards thanking them for running a "terrible campaign":

It appears that Kline's supporters share John Kline's high standards of decency and class. (In case it needs to be said, any destruction of John Kline's yard signs did not happen at the direction of our campaign).

Spin

2006-11-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

John Kline defeated Coleen Rowley by a margin of 56-40. Why? Rather than seriously analyze that question, Paul Demko of the City Pages gives Kline's Chief of Staff an opportunity to spin furiously:

Even a tidal wave couldn't lift this leaking rowboat. Despite the best climate for Democratic challengers in more than two decades and an opponent who's been a staunch supporter of George W. Bush's disastrous policies in Iraq, the former FBI official-turned-9/11 whistleblower lost by 16 points. We'll let John Kline's chief of staff, Steve Sutton, handle the gloating on this one. "The reason she underperformed is, quite frankly, she's just a very weak candidate. Unorganized, uninformed, unprepared. I think voters were shocked at how little she knew, the depth of her knowledge, how thin it was on these issues. Even on Iraq, which was her number-one issue, she was unable to really articulate a coherent plan." All in all, a spectacular fall from grace for the 2002 Time person of the year, an honor she shared with two other publicized whistleblowers.

One more time:

Coleen on the issues.
Kline on the issues.

What's really spectacular about this spin-as-analysis is that Demko goes on to blast Patty Wetterling because she allegedly "attempted to tar her opponent as a tax-and-spend liberal intent on liberating all sex offenders and providing them with government-financed lifetime supplies of crystal meth." I, of all people, am acutely aware that Kline used a very similar tactic in his campaign. I guess Demko gives Kline a pass because the attack worked in Kline's case.

The truth is, after an agonizing misstep in January, Rowley spent nearly 10 months running a clean, issues-oriented campaign. But her message was drowned out by Kline's relentless smear attacks on TV and in direct mail --- more than a dozen attack pieces in all.

Kline's campaigns consist of smear attacks and nothing else, and nothing is out of bounds to him. Whoever wants to run against him in 2008 needs to understand that. It would be nice if a few more voters in CD-02 understood it as well.

2008

2006-11-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

So, in two consecutive election cycles, John Kline wins re-election by identical 56-40 margins.

A few thoughts. In 2004, Teresa Daly had money. Unfortunately, it seems that's about all she had; she certainly didn't have a winning message (she supported both the Iraq occupation and eliminating the estate tax. Why would any voter who favors those positions vote for a Democrat instead of Kline?). In 2006, Coleen Rowley had a winning message --- on a national scale, the "U.S. out of Iraq" and anti-corruption positions won a resounding endorsement, and that was reflected in MN-02 as shown in Amy Klobuchar's totals here. Once again, however, message was pretty much all Rowley had. Hers was an inexperienced campaign [take for example the role I played in it], which made a brutal blunder early on, a blunder which no doubt accounts for at least 6-8 percentage points of Kline's victory margin, if not more. And of course, she raised only half the money Daly did.

And let's be frank: neither Daly nor Rowley are great rhetoricians. Kline gladly debated Daly at every opportunity in 2004, because he mopped the floor with her every time. Kline largely avoided debating Rowley in 2006 becase (a) he could, and (b) even though she's not a great debater, she was right on the issues, and the more opportunities he gave her to demonstrate that, the worse it was for him.

So where do we go from here?

Well, ideally we need a candidate in 2008 who can raise Teresa Daly's money (and more) with Coleen's message. And it would be great to have a candidate who can dish up some smackdown in a debate.

Who is that candidate? I don't know. I know Sharon Marko considered running and --- although she has tried to retroactively hide the fact --- actually did run for a little over 5 weeks in February. Her fundraising totals were roughly one-third of Coleen's over that time, so I'm not too optimistic she can raise the million-plus necessary to beat Kline. Then again, maybe she wasn't really putting that much effort into it.

Anyway, one thing is clear: John Kline doesn't like it that I publish the facts about his record. That's why he spent $50,000-plus smearing me this cycle. But I'm not going anywhere. So if there are any Democrats out there thinking about a 2008 run, and would like my support, feel free to give me a holler.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be migrating my posts [which are not position statements!] from Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog over here, so that nothing gets lost if/when Rowley's site goes away.

GOP Lies to Voters, Knowing They'll Lose a Fair Fight

2006-11-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the group of congressional Republicans in charge of winning Republican seats in Congress, is furiously lying to undecided and likely Democratic voters in the hopes of keeping them at home tomorrow. In New Hampshire:

For the second straight day yesterday, Democratic field offices received dozens of phone calls and e-mails from frustrated voters upset about repeated automated phone calls they thought were coming from Democratic candidate Paul Hodes - though the calls were paid for by a Republican group instead.

The National Republican Congressional Committee spent nearly $20,000 on the calls last week. Depending on the rate, that could mean more than 300,000 automated phone calls into the Second Congressional District.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Charlie Bass denounced the calls yesterday and said he tried to get the NRCC to put a stop to them. But a spokesman for the NRCC said the automated phone calls would continue indefinitely.

But it's not limited to New Hampshire. It's an orchestrated effort across the country. At least 20 congressional races are being targeted, that we know of.

So far, it seemsthe NRCC has not targeted MN-02 with RoboCalls. However, it's clear that some Republican operatives are lying to voters in this race. From an email which Rowley for Congress just sent out:

Older voters are being misled by phone calls telling them they can only vote for Coleen at limited polling sites during limited hours!

Apparently the calls are being made on cell phones with East Coast prefixes. Rowley for Congress asks that, if you receive such a call:

Ask who is calling and ask for a number they can be called back at. Ask who they are calling on behalf of. Ask who they are being paid by, or if they say they are not being paid, who asked them to make the call. Make a note of those responses and call our Campaign Headquarters at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

To be absolutely fair, this is probably part of an orchestrated attack by the NRCC, one that John Kline has no involvement in. However, given the way he's conducted his campaign, there's every reason to believe he applauds this kind of trick.

Obviously Rowley for Congress believes Coleen is right on the issues. But no matter what your position is on the issues of the day, every American should stand united in support for Democracy. But the national Republican Party has mounted a massive disinformation campaign in an effort to keep people from going to the polls and exercising this most fundamental American right.

Tomorrow, you have a chance to show the leaders of the Republican Party that this is unacceptable. Make John Kline and all other Republican candidates pay for what the national Republican Party has become. And do what you can to make sure your friends, neighbors and family know, too. And not just in MN-02, because this is a national problem --- everyone needs to go and vote the rascals out, everywhere.

Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Coleen Rowley

2006-11-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Coleen believes every American should have affordable health care.
Coleen believes we must end our addiction to oil by putting the full faith and credit of the U.S. behind alternative energy technologies.
John Kline wants to privatize Social Security.
Coleen will truly support our veterans in a way John Kline has not, working for full concurrent receipt of benefits for disabled veterans, expanding TRICARE coverage to the Reserves and National Guard, and the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act.
Coleen supports the comprehensive solution to immigration offered by John McCain, Ted Kennedy and George Bush. John Kline criticizes this solution but does not say how he will deal with the estimated 11 million undocumented workers already in the U.S.
John Kline trusts George Bush’s 'war on terrorism' is making us safer. Coleen believes that the Bush Administration’s actions have had the opposite effect but that we can effectively investigate and prevent terrorism without giving up our constitutional rights.
Nearly $9 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds are missing, war profiteering is rampant, and more than 14,000 U.S. assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket propelled grenades have disappeared. Yet John Kline recently helped sneak through a law ending all oversight of Iraq's reconstruction.
Coleen Rowley supports a responsible redeployment plan to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, a plan which is gaining support even among stalwart Republicans like John Kline's hero, James Baker. Kline supports an open-ended commitment of troops and establishing permanent U.S. bases there.
John Kline voted to end habeas corpus, and trusts George Bush to observe the Geneva Conventions.
Coleen has an established record of speaking truth to power. She will work to clean up the congressional culture of corruption, restore ethics and accountability to government, and hold George Bush accountable for six years of incompetent leadership.

A full list of detailed position statements is available here. The full archives for this campaign weblog are here.

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors. On November 7, we have a chance to send someone to Washington who will work for the best interests of the people in Minnesota's Second District. If we blow that chance, we'll get two more years of John Kline's rubberstamp support for George Bush and his policies.

And whatever you do, make sure you help turn out the vote!

John Kline and Veterans: A Summary

2006-11-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Over the past two weeks, we've been examining John Kline's record on veterans' issues. Here's a summary:

0% rating from Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in 2004 and 2005, and an overall C rating from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
He promotes the work he's done to end the "unfair policy" of concurrent receipt, even though the unfair policy hasn't ended, Kline was in a position to actually end the unfair policy but did nothing about it, and he appears to be confused about what "concurrent receipt" actually is.
Kline voted against ending the so-called "Military Families Tax".
Kline has repeatedly voted to protect tax cuts for the rich at the cost of health care for veterans.
And he's cast other votes against additional funding for veterans' health care.
He's also voted against job training and debt relief for veterans.
And those aren't the only anti-veteran votes he's cast.
As if that weren't enough, this spring, Kline told a group of Minnesota veterans, to their faces, that supporting the Republican party is more important to him than supporting them.

John Kline has devoted considerable time and money to spread the idea that Coleen Rowley disrespects veterans because she once compared Kline to Col. Klink from the 1960's sitcom Hogan's Heroes. But this supposedly outrageous comparison didn't prevent veterans like John Murtha, Wesley Clark, Jerald Albrecht, Tommy Johnson and Ginny Johnson from endorsing Coleen. She also has the support of a number of families of those who died on 9/11.

Most important, Coleen genuinely means to support veterans when she's in Congress. In particular, she supports the full concurrent receipt legislation which Kline watched languish and die; she supports expanding TRICARE to member of the Reserves and National Guard, a plan which Kline voted against; and she supports the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act, to insure that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans get the care they need and deserve.

Listening to the Military on Iraq

2006-11-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In the October 20 debate on Almanac between Coleen and John Kline, the closest Kline ever came to offering a solution to the conflict was to suggest that we "move troops around" and listen to those military officers closest to the conflict.

The military has spoken up recently about the conflict, in ways that aren't supportive of the current course.

First, United States Central Command provided an analysis a few weeks ago, citing "violence at all-time high, spreading geographically." It also mentions ethnic cleansing.

So, things aren't going well in Iraq. But rather than consider responsible redeployment, like Coleen Rowley has proposed and which Kline's hero James Baker is reportedly considering, Kline wants to stay the course.

Beyond the ever-worsening crisis in Iraq, it seems that all branches of the military are uniformly disgusted with their civilian leadership. An editorial which will appear tomorrow in newspapers from all branches of the military calls for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. It further states:

Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.

I believe that all branches of the military speaking out publicly against a Defense Secretary is unprecedented. That they are doing so just days before an election sends a clear signal. The military wants to change course in Iraq, and they're telling the voters that they need to help by affecting a change in the civilian leadership.

We have already pointed out several reasons why the occupation of Iraq, all by itself, is sufficient reason to vote for change. Here's one more.

Kline Staffer Acknowledges Smear Tactics Are Standard Practice

2006-11-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Yesterday, Rowley for Congress held a press conference to highlight the deluge of smear attacks which John Kline has launched during this election cycle. David Peterson of the Star Tribune reports:

Pressed to specify what her own circular called "John Kline's Lies," Rowley said she had considered using the word "distortions" instead. "A lot of it turns on wordsmithing and connecting the dots by implication," she said.

Kline has accused her, among other things, she said, of wanting to legalize methamphetamines, reinstate the draft and reward illegal immigrants, and of disrespecting the military. None of that is true, she said.

In a rare moment of candor, a Kline campaign spokesman acknowledged that this is standard operating procedure for Kline:

"She is calling a press conference to complain that the other side is campaigning," Young said. "It's a little strange."

For John Kline, spreading lies about your opponent and her staff is all just part of the game.

Bush and Kline: Partisanship Above All

2006-11-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

This is unbelieveable. Today the New York Times has not one, but two stories, each of which on their own provides sufficient reason to vote against John Kline and any other congressional Republican, regardless of any other considerations.

First, the Times reports that the Bush administration, at the behest of Congressional Republicans, posted captured documents about Iraq's nuclear program online. The motivation for doing so was to encourage war supporters and right-wing bloggers to do further research in an effort to retroactively justify the administration's flawed decision to invade Iraq. The practical consequence, however, is that posting the documents was a horrendous security risk:

Ray E. Kidder, a senior nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, an arms design center, said "some things in these documents would be helpful" to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret.

A senior American intelligence official who deals routinely with atomic issues said the documents showed "where the Iraqis failed and how to get around the failures." The documents, he added, could perhaps help Iran or other nations making a serious effort to develop nuclear arms, but probably not terrorists or poorly equipped states.

For all their talk about being "tough on terror," the administration didn't think twice about posting sensitive intelligence information online in the hopes of reversing the embarrassment of their flawed rationale for the war. And this is an administration which laughably cited national security concerns as the reason for refusing to disclose the log of who has met with Dick Cheney.

Nothing is more important to this administration than advancing the Republican party's hold on power. Nothing. In such a situation, it is vital that Congress performs its Constitutionally-mandated role of oversight to hold the executive accountable. And that's where the second Times story comes in.

John Kline claims to be a fiscal conservative, and has cited budgetary concerns as his reason for not doing more for disabled veterans. But he has made no effort to address the estimated $8.8 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds which have quite simply vanished, or the war profiteering of companies like Halliburton. And while Kline points to his theoretical support for veterans and troops on the ground and the principal reason to re-elect him, he is silent on the fact that over 370,000 weapons intended for Iraqi security forces haven't been properly tracked, and that 14,000 assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades have just disappeared.

These weapons will be used to kill Americans. And the missing billions and war profiteering will cost lives as well. And any member of Congress, from any party, should be working aggressively to insure further deadly blunders of this sort don't occur.

However John Kline and his Republican friends on the House Armed Services Committee recently inserted a provision into a military appropriations bill which shuts down the only office providing any meaningful oversight over Iraq's reconstruction. As of October 1, 2007, we will no longer hear reports about missing reconstruction funds, war profiteering, and missing weapons.

We'll still be wasting billions in taxpayer money, and American soldiers will still be dying needlessly. It's just that we'll never know about it, because John Kline and the House Republican leadership are more concerned with ending the embarrassment of the disaster in Iraq than they are in fixing the mess they made.

There are many reasons to vote for Coleen on November 7, and many reasons to vote against John Kline. But this kind of extreme, single-minded partisanship is reason enough in itself to throw out Kline. And Kennedy, and Ramstad, and Gutknecht.

Concurrent Receipt

2006-11-02T07:31:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In mid-September, John Kline sent out a direct mail piece claiming, among other things, that (emphasis in original):

For over 100 years, America's disabled veterans were punished by a practice known as 'concurrent receipt'. What it meant was that, for every dollar a disabled veteran received in disability benefits, that dollar was removed from their pension. It penalized veterans for injuries they received in service to their country.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Congressman John Kline helped negotiate the agreement that ended this unfair policy.

It turns out this is doubly misleading. To begin with, 'concurrent receipt' isn't the name of this 'unfair policy'. Rather, it's the solution to the unfair policy:

Concurrent Receipt means to receive both military retirement benefits and VA disability compensation, and up until 2004 this was forbidden by law. To receive a VA disability compensation, disabled military retirees had to waive all or part of their military pay.

In earlier posts on this topic, I got the terminology wrong too, because I mistakenly assumed Kline had it right on his flier. I won't make that mistake again.

The fact that Kline got this exactly wrong on his flier suggests two things. First, it suggests that he wasn't exactly a driving force behind the policy change, if he wasn't even paying sufficient attention to get his terminology correct. Second, it shows (as if there were any doubt), that when Kline sends out a mailing, he's really only interested in perceptions and not substance.

Beyond errors in terminology, the agreement Kline worked on didn't 'end' the unfair policy, as we have discussed previously. Rather, it provides relief for veterans rated as 50% disabled or more, and the relief is phased in over a 10-year period. Kline has stubbornly ignored a bill which would bring a full and immediate end to the practice.

Pioneer Press reporter Frederick Melo recently wrote an analysis of John Kline and Coleen Rowley on veterans issues, and asked Kline about his partial implementation of concurrent receipt. Kline response was "We took that on. It was very expensive. We couldn't get everything (we wanted) done."

But the record shows that the partial fix is exactly what Kline wanted done. When the 108th Congress ended, a bill to provide full concurrent receipt died in the House Armed Services Committee with 383 cosponsors and 207 names on a discharge petition. As a member of that committee, and of the majority party, and as a retired Marine, John Kline could easily have forced the bill onto the floor for an up or down vote, and in all likelihood it would have passed.

But he didn't. He didn't even take the token step of cosponsoring the bill. John Kline needs to stop pretending that he takes this issue seriously.

Kline's Special Taxes for Veterans and Their Families

2006-11-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Over the past week or so, we've been calling out votes John Kline has cast against the interests of veterans. He has voted against increased veterans benefits again and again and again. At a recent veterans' forum in Zumbrota, Kline aide Mike Osskopp tried to explain away Kline's 0 rating from the Disabled American Veterans in 2004 and 2005 by characterizing it as a rating on a single vote --- for the federal budget. It's true that DAV only considered a single vote in 2004, but it looked at five votes in 2005. Since Kline has been in Congress, he's only voted with the DAV three times out of 11 for a 27% overall rating, and two of those came during this campaign cycle.

Kline and Osskopp might argue that it's unfair to put too much emphasis on any one rating, and they're right. Probably a more accurate rating is the grade of C Kline received from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who did a comprehensive analysis of 169 House votes cast over the past 5 years. No matter how you slice it, Kline has been nowhere near as loyal to veterans as he claims.

We wrap up our analysis of Kline's voting record with two special votes. For all his talk of supporting veterans and all his talk of cutting taxes, John Kline has twice voted to continue effective 'taxes' on veterans and their families: specifically, the 'disabled veterans tax' and the 'military families tax'.

11/07/2003, vote #616:
Kline Voted Against Full and Immediate Implementation of Concurrent Receipt. Although Kline is pointing to his work in "ending" the practice of effectively eliminating disability benefits for veterans receiving a pension, the legislation Kline helped put through effects a gradual phase-out of this practice over a 10-year horizon, and does nothing for veterans rated as 40% disabled or less (more detail here). In one of his many efforts to implement concurrent receipt, which would bring an immediate and complete end to this practice, Georgia Democrat Jim Marshall introduced a motion to recommit the National Defense Authorization Act to committee in order to include repeal of the so-called "disabled veterans tax". Kline voted against the motion, which failed 188-217.

5/11/2006, vote #144:
Kline Voted Against Ending the "Military Families Tax". John Salazar of Colorado made a motion to recommit on the National Defense Authorization Act, which would have sent the bill back to the Armed Services Committee in order to put an end to the “Military Families Tax”. Similar to the practice of reducing a disabled veteran's pension by the amount of his disability benefit, current law reduces the amount of a war widow’s annuity by the amount paid out by Veterans Affairs as dependency and indemnity compensation. Kline voted against the motion, which failed 202-220. Every Democrat voted for it.

The motion to recommit was made because separate legislation to end the Military Families Tax, H.R. 808, is stalled in the House Armed Services Committee on which John Kline sits. Kline became one of 212 cosponsors of H.R. 808 on September 26 of this year, just days before returning home to campaign. There is a discharge petition for H.R. 808 with 171 names on it, none of them John Kline’s.

More 'Empty Rhetoric' From Kline

2006-10-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Well, perhaps a more accurate term would be 'absent rhetoric'. For a man who claims to be so concerned about solutions, he has repeatedly come up short when asked to provide them.

Consider, for example, the information Kline provided to MPR, versus the information Coleen provided. Under Coleen's name, there are audio clips on a dozen different issues; for Kline, there are only five clips, all on the topic of Iraq.

Or consider the information each campaign provided to the CW. While there isn't exactly a wealth of information on Coleen's page, it's infinitely more than Kline has provided.

Not a CW viewer? Then how about WCCO? Kline provides his bio, and nothing else.

KSTP? They would have hosted the League of Women Voters debate between CD2 candidates, if John Kline had agreed to participate. But since he refused, KSTP talked to Coleen for a half-hour (requires Internet Explorer).

This is a pattern for Kline, who figures that the less he has to say, the less ammunition his critics will have to attack him. But as a member of Congress, John Kline has a responsibility to be responsive to the needs of his constituents, and a key part of that is telling the voters where he stands on the issues.

But it's hardly surprising that Kline has ducked almost every opportunity to discuss the issues; he hasn't even bothered to put substantive content on his campaign web site. Contrast that to Coleen's dozen detailed position statements.

We've already provided a brief comparison between Coleen's detailed positions and John Kline's empty rhetoric on a few issues they've recently debated. Kline seems to believe that the voters are more concerned about the distorted accusations he's been leveling against Coleen than they are about, say, the debacle in Iraq, the sinking middle class, 46 million Americans without health insurance, the suspension of habeas corpus, or the fact that John Kline and the GOP-led Congress have failed utterly in their Constitutional duty to provide a check on an out-of-control executive.

On November 7, we're going to prove him wrong.

Kline Votes Against Funding Veterans' Health Care

2006-10-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

John Kline has recently chosen to make repeated, groundless attacks on Coleen Rowley's support for veterans. We have earlier noted just how absurd this claim is, and the fact that former NATO Supreme Alied Commander Wesley Clark just endorsed Coleen is yet further proof that Kline is spreading smears without substance.

Smears without substance are all that Kline has been able to offer in this campaign.

Anyway, since Kline has chosen to make support for veterans the cornerstone of his campaign, while providing no solutions to problems like the disaster in Iraq, comprehensive ethics reform, the solution for 46 million Americans without health insurance and other issues of importance to the district, we have been closely examining John Kline's own record of support for veterans, and found it wanting. Today we call out a number of votes John Kline cast to block increased funding for veterans' health care.

7/25/2003, vote #450:
Kline Voted to Maintain VA Funding at $1.8 Billion Below its Authorized Level. The Committee on Rules rejected an amendment in the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and Indepenent Agencies Appropriations Act of 2004 which would increase funding for the VA by $1.8 billion to the level fully authorized in that year's budget resolution. Republicans held a floor vote confirming this ruling, which passed 229-196.

10/31/2003, vote #600:
Kline Voted Against an Additional $1.3 Billion for Veterans Medical Care. In reconciling House and Senate versions of Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense and for the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, David Obey made a motion to recommit the House version of the bill to accept the Senate's larger amount for veterans' medical care. The motion was defeated, 198-221.

3/25/2004, vote #91:
Kline Voted Against a $2.5 Billion Increase in Veterans Health Care. Spratt of South Carolina proposed adding $2.5 billion to the FY 2005 budget for veterans' health care --- money which the Republican chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs agreed was needed in order to prevent cuts to veterans' health care in a time of war. The amendment was defeated, 194-232.

3/15/2005, vote #69:
Kline Voted to Block Consideration of an Amendment to Increase Veterans Health Care by $1.2 Billion.

3/16/2005, vote #76:
Kline Opposed $150 Million for Military Health Care and Job Training. In 2005, Kline voted against a proposal to the budget to increase funding for military health care by $100 million and transitional job training for military personnel by $50 million. This proposal came in place of a $1.3 billion proposal which had been ruled out of order. The proposed increase failed, 200-229.

5/26/2005, vote #224:
Kline Voted Against $53 Million Boost for Veterans Health Care & Benefits, When A Single Vote Made the Difference. In 2005, Kline voted against an amendment to the Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs funding bill to add $53 million for veterans health care and other benefits, offset by a 9 percent cut to BRAC. The amendment would add $8 million for combat-related trauma care, $6 million for poly-trauma centers to support wounded troops once they return to their homes, $9 million for VA medical and prosthetic research and $7 million for 100 additional staff who process claims for compensation and pension benefits. Finally, the amendment would provide $23 million to help approximately 4,100 spouses of service members with children whose spouse died during the War on Terrorism between September 11, 2001 and November 30, 2004 by making them eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation. The amendment failed, 213-214. This is one of the votes contributing to Kine's zero rating from DAV in 2005.

For those of you keeping score at home, this brings the total number of votes Kline has cast against veterans' interests to 15. And we're actually not done yet. The group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, "the nation's first and largest group dedicated to the Troops and Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the civilian supporters of those Troops and Veterans," recently gave out their congressional report card based on a comprehensive analysis of the voting record, and gave John Kline a C. We'll wrap up our analysis of John Kline's voting record by mentioning a couple of key votes IAVA noted.

More of Kline's Votes on Veterans' Issues

2006-10-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Over the past few days, we've been documenting John Kline's voting record on veterans' issues. We noted earlier how Kline consistently places a higher priority on Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy than on helping veterans, and how he has voted several times against legislation that would smooth a veteran's transition back into American society after returning from overseas.

Today's votes don't really have a theme, other than they are more examples of John Kline choosing not to help veterans when he had the chance.

3/15/2005, vote #71:
Kline Voted Against Consideration of an Additional $3 Billion for Veterans Health Care in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan. In the words of Rep. Filner, author of the tabled amendment: "Those who are coming back today from Afghanistan and Iraq, the vast majority have the potential of having post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD; and yet when they will need the services in the coming year, we will have reduced those PTSD services because of the cut in the budget that the President has proposed and this Republican Congress will approve.

We will cut nursing care. We will cut research. We will cut prosthetic devices. But we will add more waiting time for those who want a mental health examination or a dental examination. We will add months and months and months to the waiting time for those who want their claims established. Yet when I asked today for $3 billion, the majority of this House said no.

We can afford the $81 billion. It was for our active duty. We can afford a $7.5 trillion debt. We can go into deficits for $400 billion this year, but no, no, let us not pay that $3 billion for our veterans." The amendment was not considered 224-200. This is one of the votes contributing to Kine's zero rating from DAV in 2005.

3/17/2005, vote #87:
Kline Voted Against Rescinding Cuts to Veterans Programs. John Spratt offered an amendment to the 2006 budget resolution to rescind mandatory cuts likely to fall on Medicaid, veterans, student loans, and other services; provide increased funding for important domestic priorities, such as education, veterans, community and regional development, and the environment; and impose a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rule, which protects the Social Security Trust Fund surplus by requiring that any mandatory spending increases or tax cuts be fully offset. The amendment failed, 165-264. This is one of the votes contributing to Kine's zero rating from DAV in 2005.

(It's worth noting here that Coleen supports re-implementing the PAYGO rule.)

5/25/2005, vote #221:
Kline Opposed Expanding TRICARE to Thousands of National Guard & Reserve Volunteers. In 2005, Kline voted against a motion to expand access to the military's TRICARE health insurance program to thousands of reservist and National Guard members. Despite the fact that more than 433,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves have been called up for active duty over the last two and one-half years, not all Guardsmen and Reservists have access to TRICARE. A 2003 report by the General Accounting Office showed that 20 percent of all Reservists do not have health insurance, and 40 percent of Reservists aged 19 to 35 lack health coverage. According to the latest Defense Department data, 18 percent of activated Reservists have no medical coverage. Currently, only those called up for active duty are eligible for the program. The proposal would have expanded military health care to provide access to TRICARE to most members of the Guard and Reserve and their families for a low fee. The motion failed, 211-218.

(In Coleen's issues statement on veterans, she states her explicit support for the expansion of TRICARE which Kline voted down.)

John Kline and 'Empty Rhetoric'

2006-10-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

This is really a story about Mark Kennedy, but for some reason, John Kline decided to jump into the fray as well.

Desperately behind in the polls, it appears that Mark Kennedy is hoping to complete a 'hail Mary' comeback by challenging DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar to a one-hour debate devoted exclusively to discussing the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

What makes Kennedy's challenge relevant to this campaign, however, is that John Kline is backing Kennedy up, saying "I, like Mark, am tired of people saying, 'Well, we don't like the war in Iraq, we'll just make it better.' That's empty rhetoric".

That's an interesting view coming from a man who himself ducked out on the opportunity to debate Coleen on Iraq and other issues at the League of Women Voters debate, as well as declining several other offers to debate. It's especially interesting considering that, far from offering "empty rhetoric" on Iraq, Coleen has proposed a plan very similar to that which is reportedly under consideration by Kline's mentor and hero, James Baker.

But what makes Kline's statement truly ironic is that his own plan for making Iraq "better" is to "move troops around".

Another Endorsement for Coleen!

2006-10-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

ECM Publishers, owners of the ThisWeek chain of newspapers the Second District, have endorsed Coleen in her bid to defeat John Kline:

Like many Americans, Rowley is indignant at the country’s direction under President Bush and a Republican Congress. The ex-FBI agent and 9/11 whistleblower is bright, tenacious, a flexible thinker and an able voice of dissent.

In other words, she’s right for these perilous times. The Republican-leaning 2nd District may not be ready to elect a Democrat, but we think Rowley is the most capable and deserving of Kline’s opponents since 2002.

(snip)

[Kline's] uncritical embrace of the Bush team’s Iraqi campaign is troubling, especially for a Marine veteran. His analysis of the challenges faced in Iraq is cogent, his list of solutions short and unsatisfying. Kline is loyal, and determined, and probably correct in stating that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would bring an even greater terrorist threat. But he has little regard for reasonable criticisms of the war effort voiced by several retired generals. Neither he nor the Bush administration has adequately explained why Iraq is, or had to be, the central front in the war on terror.

Rowley supports a phased troop withdrawal that calls for allowing the Iraqi army and security forces to assume responsibility for the country. The plan, promoted by dissident U.S. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, would have U.S. troops retreating to the perimeter of the fighting and being hosted by other countries. The plan may have flaws, but it’s a starting point for discussion.

A self-proclaimed former Republican voter, Rowley can’t be dismissed as a liberal tax-and-spender. Her call for repeal of Bush tax cuts to the top 1 to 2 percent of income earners comes at a time when economic forces are conspiring to fatten corporate profits and further enrich the wealthy while leaving the middle class in its place. Rowley says revenue from repealing the tax cuts should be applied only to reduction of the $300 billion national deficit, not new spending.

This is a very strong endorsement indeed, and confirms much of what we've been saying all along. For example, earlier today we pointed out how Kline's "list of solutions is short and unsatisfying". The final sentence says it all:

"A nation thirsting for change will be better served with Coleen Rowley in Congress than with John Kline."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Listen to the Generals

2006-10-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Listen to generals . . . who are in Iraq. - John Kline on Almanac, October 20, 2006

To the extent that John Kline has a solution to the disaster of Iraq --- and it's not at all clear that he does --- he emphasizes the need to listen to experienced military leaders who have been there.

Leaders like Maj. Gen. John Batiste and Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton:

Two retired senior Army generals, who served in Iraq and previously voted Republican, are now openly endorsing a Democratic takeover of Congress. The generals, and an active-duty senior military official, told Salon in separate interviews that they believe a Democratic victory will help reverse course from what they consider to be a disastrous Bush administration policy in Iraq.

There's more:

Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, agrees that Democratic control of Congress could be the best way to wrest control from the Bush administration and steer the United States away from a gravely flawed strategy in Iraq. "The way out that I see is to hand the House and the Senate to the Democrats and get this thing turned around," Eaton explained, adding that such sentiment is growing among retired and active-duty military leaders. "Most of us see two more years of the same if the Republicans stay in power," he said.

Most of us see two more years of the same if Republicans like John Kline stay in power, too, especially since Kline supports an open-ended committment to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and has even voted to allow the construction of permanent U.S. military bases there (and was in the minority, even among Republicans).

Solutions

2006-10-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"I constantly have difficulty getting a solution from Mrs. Rowley." - John Kline on Almanac, October 20, 2006

John Kline has registered the complaint that Coleen does not offer solutions to the problems facing America. Setting aside the fact that a number of the problems we face occurred or were exacerbated during Kline's four years in office, it's a valuable exercise to do a side-by-side comparison of Coleen's proposed solutions with John Kline's.

Here are just a few of the solutions Coleen has proposed for certain issues, side by side with John Kline's. (The video of the 10/20/2006 Almanac debate is available here):

Issue	Coleen Rowley's Solution	John Kline's "Solution"
Iraq	Responsible redeployment "to regional positions to respond quickly to emergency scenarios and/or terrorist developments." Get the surrounding countries, including Syria and Iran on board to prevent the violence from spilling over. (Almanac debate) Coleen's position is substantially identical to the options reportedly under consideration by a commission led by James Baker, John Kline's mentor and hero.	"move troops around" (Almanac debate)
11 million undocumented workers in the U.S.	Earned path to citizenship. Undocumented workers may gain citizenship in the following manner: Possess a steady job for six years Pay a $2,000 fee and all back taxes Learn English and study American civics Pass a rigorous criminal and national security background check	"Well, it wouldn't be, I mean, it's a false choice to say we have to let them stay or we have to bus them out. That's not the choice that's there. Many will leave themselves if there's a mechanism for them to come back in . . . ." (Access to Democracy, August 14 2006)
Skyrocketing federal debt	Allow tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%-2% to lapse, reinstitute the "pay as you go" budgeting model, and no more earmarks. (Almanac debate)	"contain spending" (Almanac debate)

As of this writing, Coleen has published detailed positions and solutions on a dozen issues which matter in this election. As of this writing, John Kline has published zero. Which candidate is the one short on solutions?

Kline Votes Against Job Training, Debt Relief for Veterans

2006-10-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

More votes where Kline had priorities other than helping veterans. For those keeping track at home, this brings the total so far up to six. But we're not done yet.

1/28/2004, vote #9:
Kline Voted Against Helping Reservists And Veterans With Their Debts. In 2004, Kline voted against a proposal that would exempt active-duty, reservists and veterans' families from a means test that was added to the bankruptcy code. Under the bill, most debtors earning above the median income for their region would be required to file under Chapter 13, which entails substantial repayment of unsecured debt, rather than Chapter 7, which requires little or no payment. According to the General Accounting Office, 16,000 active duty personnel filed for personal bankruptcy in 1999 - the most current data available. The exemption proposal was rejected 170-198.
3/2/2005, vote #47:
Kline Voted Against Additional Job Assistance to Veterans Returning from Overseas. In 2005, Kline voted against a motion to a job training reauthorization bill to provide extra assistance to veterans who are returning from conflicts overseas. Many veterans returning from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq may need skills and training to obtain or retain their jobs while Reservists who have spent a year or more overseas have put their careers on hold to serve our country. The motion failed, 197-228.
4/14/2005, vote #107:
Kline Voted Against Debt Assistance for Returning Guard & Reservists (Again). In 2005, Kline voted against a motion to the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill to exempt members of the National Guard and Reserve from the means test in the bill if their debt was a result of active duty or was incurred within two years of returning home from their service. The 2 years after they return from service are the most difficult. The motion to protect Guard and Reserve volunteers failed, 200-229.

John Kline's Priorities: Tax Cuts Over Veterans

2006-10-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In recent days, we've discussed how John Kline takes veterans for granted, assuming that they will vote for him because Kline is himself a 25-year Marine Corps veteran. But a dispassionate analysis of his record in Congress shows that helping veterans is not a high priority for Kline. One stunning example is the time a group of Minnesota veterans traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with the Minnesota congressional delegation, and Kline told them to their faces that toeing the Republican party line was a higher priority to him than they were.

As for his voting record, Kline has consistently demonstrated that he places a higher priority on Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy than on supporting veterans.

Kline has consistently voted to cut or voted against increases in veterans' health care in order to preserve Bush's tax cuts. Here are three examples:

3/21/2003, vote #82:
Kline Voted To Cut Veterans & Health Programs By Billions To Make Room For Tax Cut Favoring The Wealthy. In 2003, Kline voted for a budget resolution that called for cuts of $15 billion over 10 years in veterans' benefits, including cuts to disability benefit payments to former soldiers and reductions in money for GI bill benefits and health care. The cuts were made in order to make room for President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. The budget passed, 215-212.
3/17/2005, vote #82:
Kline Put Tax Cuts Above Veterans' Benefits. In 2005, Kline voted against an amendment to the 2006 budget resolution to increase spending levels by $15.8 billion. The proposal boosted education, training and social services programs by $8 billion, provided $2.9 billion more veteran's health care and $1.7 billion more for homeland security than the GOP resolution. Furthermore, the amendment would have reduced the deficit by $10 billion and raised $25.8 billion by reducing tax cuts for those earning more than $1 million. The amendment was rejected, 180-242. This is one of the votes contributing to Kine's zero rating from DAV in 2005.
5/26/2005, vote #223:
Kline Puts Tax Cuts for Millionaires Above $2.6 Billion for Veterans (Again). David Obey proposed an amendment which would add $2.6 billion to veterans health care, and pay for it by reducing the Bush tax cuts on those earning $1 million a year or more. House Republicans prevented consideration of the amendment by a vote of 223-194. Every Republican voted to block the amendment, and every Democrat voted to allow it.

The Almanac Debate, Part II: Not Iraq

2006-10-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

On Friday, October 20, John Kline and Coleen Rowley sat down for the only broadcast television debate of this cycle. The first half of the debate centered on the occupation of Iraq, and the second half covered many other issues. What follows is a summary of that discussion, complete with fact checks as necessary.

The Deficit/Budget: Coleen recommends getting the deficit under control by allowing tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%-2% to lapse, reinstituting "pay as you go" budget guidelines, which require that all new spending or tax cuts be offset by corresponding revenue increases, and "no more earmarks". Kline argues that the federal deficit has been cut in half "now, in 2006", and the economy is "robust". Stock market "reached an all-time high". Kline's solution to reducing the deficit is to "contain spending" --- no specifics.

As a fact check, the deficit has not been cut in half "now, in 2006," as Kline claims. The FY 2006 deficit came in at $248 billion. Kline is no doubt referring to the fact that this is less than half of the $521 billion deficit which was estimated for FY 2004, but the actual deficit that year was $413 billion. Half of $413 billion is $206.5 billion. And while smaller deficits are indeed a good thing, they nevertheless continue to grow the overall debt. That's why Congress has had to raise the federal debt ceiling 4 times in five years, as Coleen pointed out (to be fair, she transposed the 4 and the 5. Either way, the debt is skyrocketing). And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that deficits will start to rise again --- at least if we maintain an open-ended presence in Iraq and make Bush's tax cuts permanent as John Kline advocates.

And while Kline is correct that the Dow Jones average recently hit a record high, that's just putting nice spin on the fact that it's taken 6.5 years for the Dow to get back up to the high point it had reached when Bill Clinton was in office.

Medicare/Social Security: Coleen supports requiring Medicare to use its buying power to negotiate lower drug prices, rather than prohibiting it as the current Part D plan does. She also mentions that this bill is a prime example of the cost of the culture of corruption (much more analysis is available here).

Coleen then jumps back to the issues of the economy, pointing out that "real, median income has remained stagnant or has dropped." Kline jumps in with "real wages, by the way, are up almost twice what they were in the 1990's. Real wages are up in this country, as well as family incomes. The economy is robust."

We know where Coleen got her information that "real, median income has remained stagnant or dropped" --- from the Census Bureau. That same report indicates that real average income is rising, and perhaps this is where Kline gets his statement that real wages "are up almost twice what they were in the 1990's." However, it's clear that average wages have not doubled in just 7 years, so I don't really know what Kline is trying to say --- other than to produce some really impressive-sounding statistics about the economy.

Getting back to entitlement reform, Kline says: "The upcoming crunch, when we baby boomers retire, in Social Security and Medicare, is going to be crushing. And we are going to have to have the courage to step up and fix that." However, he provides no specifics, such as his long-standing support for privatizing Social Security.

Energy: The two candidates agree --- in principle --- on all aspects of energy policy but one. Kline supports increased domestic production, specifically via increased production in ANWR and elsewhere, which Coleen does not. And Kline specifically cites his vote in favor of the recently-passed energy bill.

There's nothing really to fact-check here, but I would like to point out that the difference between the candidates is really much greater than whether or not to allow drilling in ANWR. For example, according to the Washington Post, the energy bill Kline voted for:

. . . exempts oil and gas industries from some clean-water laws, streamlines permits for oil wells and power lines on public lands, and helps the hydropower industry appeal environmental restrictions. One obscure provision would repeal a Depression-era law that has prevented consolidation of public utilities, potentially transforming the nation's electricity markets.

(snip)

For example, it exempts oil and gas companies from Safe Drinking Water Act requirements when they inject fluids -- including some carcinogens -- into the earth at high pressure, a process known as hydraulic fracturing. Betty Anthony, director for exploration and production at the American Petroleum Institute, said states already regulate the process, but residents of Alabama, Virginia, West Virginia and other states have complained that it has polluted groundwater in their communities. Meanwhile, the measure will streamline Bureau of Land Management drilling permits -- even though the Bush administration already has granted a record number of permits on BLM land. Lawmakers also authorized seismic blasting in sensitive marine areas to gauge offshore oil reserves -- despite a moratorium on drilling in many of those areas. And the bill will exempt petroleum well pads from storm-water regulations under the Clean Water Act.

Certainly legislators need to compromise in order to get laws passed --- for example, this bill does not include the ANWR drilling which Kline supports --- but it's difficult to believe the Republicans couldn't have passed an energy bill which keeps our drinking water safe if they really wanted to. And Rowley for Congress has previously pointed out other votes Kline has cast which seem to serve no one but the oil industry.

Coleen, on the other hand, supports a much greater emphasis on alternative energy technology.

Immigration: When Cathy Wurzer asks whether a fence on the U.S. Mexico border will really work, Kline doesn't answer the question, saying only that "they're essential" and lists the need for a fence, sensors and increased border patrol. He also mentions the need for an identification system and employer sanctions.

Coleen's approach to immigration starts with fully-funding border patrol and providing them with the tools they need to do their job. Like Kline, she points out the need to enforce existing laws against illegally employing undocumented workers. But the real fireworks comes in the brief debate over Coleen's plan for dealing with the estimated 11 million undocumented workers already in the U.S.: a path to earned citizenship. Coleen supports granting citizenship to undocumented workers who

Work a steady job for 6 years.
Pay a $2,000 fine and all back taxes owed.
Learn English and American civics.
Pass a rigorous criminal and national security background check.

Kline opposes this, but has never said what he would do differently. He hasn't said that he would arrest and deport all 11 million undocumented workers, and that's a good thing since it would rip apart families and communities, not to mention that it would place an impossible burden on our law enforcement agencies. The closest Kline has come to stating a policy was on the public access cable show Access to Democracy, when he said:

Well, it wouldn't be, I mean, it's a false choice to say we have to let them stay or we have to bus them out. That's not the choice that's there. Many will leave themselves if there's a mechanism for them to come back in . . . .

As with the discussion on Iraq, Kline criticizes Coleen's plan without offering any of his own. He carps that he "constantly [has] difficulty getting a solution from Mrs. Rowley," but after 20 minutes of debate, Kline's "solutions" can be summarized as:

Win in Iraq.
Contain spending.
Fix Social Security and Medicare.
Increase domestic energy production.

These aren't solutions, they are goals. Kline provides no detail about how to accomplish any of these. He only gives specifics twice during the entire debate. He provides a lot of information --- much of it false or misleading --- about the health of the economy, and he provides a moderately detailed plan for preventing people from coming to the U.S. illegally from a certain 700 mile long area of Mexico. But he provides no plan for winning in Iraq, no plan for containing spending, no plan for fixing Social Security and Medicare (we know his plan for Social Security is to privatize it, but he's too clever to say that right before an election), and his only plan to increase domestic energy production is to encourage more drilling.

Anyone looking for solutions from Coleen need look no further than the issues page of this website. Anyone looking for solutions from John Kline has their work cut out for them.

Star Tribune Endorses Coleen!!

2006-10-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

From the Star Tribune's endorsement in the Second District congressional race:

. . . we cannot endorse [Kline's] steadfast, increasingly strained, defense of the Bush administration over policies that have produced destructive budget deficits, mired the nation in a disastrous war and tarnished the nation's image as a defender of human rights and the rule of law.

Republicans have tried to paint Rowley as some sort of loose-cannon liberal. We don't see it: She was a career FBI agent, including a stint in New York investigating drug dealers and mobsters, and voted for George W. Bush in 2000 on the belief that he would govern as his father had. She would balance the federal budget by letting the Bush tax cuts expire exactly the way a GOP Congress wrote them and would reform immigration law by following the Senate Republican blueprint. She would move toward universal health insurance though a cautious strategy of state experimentation, and she would wind down the war in Iraq by following the sensible outline of Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania veteran who has endorsed her.

While Rowley is short on political experience, she has proved herself a quick study and avid learner. Washington needs a change in course, and the Second District is a good place to start.

A complete listing of Coleen's positions is available here.

Coleen Rowley Supports Our Veterans

2006-10-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

As promised earlier, we will soon begin to catalog a number of votes Congressman John Kline has cast against the interests of our veterans. But before we start in on that, I'd like to take a moment to highlight Coleen's support for and from veterans.

Coleen's father, brother, and brother-in-law all served in the military. So Kline's smear attacks alleging that Coleen doesn't support our veterans aren't only dishonest, they're personal.

No matter how much Kline might try to get people upset over the fact that Coleen once wrote a personal email critical of a particular general (and when did personal emails become fair game in a campaign?), or the fact that she recently chose to convene a campaign rally by reciting a portion of the U.S. Constitution rather than the Pledge of Allegiance, a fair number of veterans have decided they'd rather see Coleen in office than John Kline. These would include Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha, former Third District Candidate Tommy Johnson, Major General (ret.) Jerald Albrecht, the DFL Veterans caucus and others.

But hey, Kline can list off his veteran supporters as well. Not surprisingly, veterans are pretty much like everyone else. Some will vote for Coleen, some will vote for Kline. The critical factor in determining which candidate is strongest on veterans' issues is their policies. As we have previously discussed, Kline has struggled to point to any significant policies he's advanced to benefit veterans. What does Coleen have to offer?

For starters, she supports the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act, which assures that the Department of Veterans Affairs always has sufficient funding. This bill has the support of most major veterans groups, including the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and AMVETS, but our Republican-led Congress has shown little interest in passing it. Coleen also supports the expansion of the TRICARE program to cover reservists and National Guard members who do not otherwise have access to health care, a policy which John Kline explicitly voted against in 2005.

Support for veterans should not be a partisan issue. It's a shame John Kline has chosen to try to make it one.

(Disclaimer: This blog post is not a position statement. It is a discussion of Coleen's support from and for veterans.)

The Almanac Debate, Part I: Iraq

2006-10-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

On Friday, October 20, John Kline and Coleen Rowley sat down for the only broadcast television debate of this cycle. At the start of the debate Eric Eskola immediately asked Kline whether a change of course is warranted in Iraq. Kline doesn't answer the question, instead spouting rhetoric about "we have to have victory" and the usual talk about "Islamist extremists". The closest he gets to an answer is to say that we might need to "move troops around". Then he says something remarkable:

As you know, my good friend and frankly, political mentor, James Baker, is part of a bipartisan team that's also looking at ways we might approach our activities in Iraq.

Cathy Wurzer then tosses Kline a softball, asking him to "define victory in Iraq." But it's quite interesting that Kline would mention the Baker commission. Kline once identified James Baker, a Republican stalwart and Bush family confidante, as one of his heroes (Star Tribune, September 6, 2004). And he refers to Baker now as his mentor. So clearly Kline must have a great deal of respect for Baker's opinion of the war in Iraq. And what is that opinion?

As reported in the New York Sun this past week, Baker is considering some of the alternatives which Democrats like Coleen have been pushing for over a year now (emphasis added):

. . . the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.

(snip)

The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should "make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are." It also says America's top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq.

So Kline's mentor, Kline's hero, the uber-Republican James Baker is heading up a commission which will recommend giving up on a democractic Iraq and withdrawing U.S. troops. Yet Kline spends the balance of the Iraq discussion sniping at Coleen for her support of responsible redeployment, which is much closer to Baker's plan than anything Kline has to say.

When he next speaks, Kline complains that "looking for a solution from [Coleen] is a little bit hard to find" --- when he has given no solution of his own beyond "move troops around". He proceeds to muddy the debate by mis-stating her position, telling people she wants to redeploy troops to Okinawa and "Kurdistan", which he claims are part of Jack Murtha's redeployment plan.

We know Kline has had trouble navigating this web site in the past, but for those interested in answers instead of distortions, Coleen's plan for Iraq has been available right here for almost a year, and it says nothing about Okinawa or Kurdistan specifically, but ". . . forces should be redeployed to regional positions to respond quickly to emergency scenarios and/or terrorist developments." Anyone with a grain of intellectual honesty will understand that when Coleen says "Kurdistan", she is of course referring to "Iraqi Kurdistan", sometimes also called the Kurdish region in the north of the country. There is little doubt the Iraqi Kurds would welcome U.S. troops as a buffer against the warring Shi'ites and Sunnis in the south.

But Kline doesn't give us intellectual honesty. He gives us quibbles about semantics. From his perspective, it works nicely to obscure the fact that his plan amounts to more of the same failed policies we've seen for more than three years.

When Coleen begins to explain her responsible redeployment plan, Kline erupts with: "I'm sorry, that's just a slogan. Tell us what your plan is." Of course that's what she was doing when Kline interrupted. And again, by making this attack, Kline further obscures the fact that his own plan is "We have to have victory" and "move troops around".

A bit later on, when Coleen is discussing the need to try to involve other nations --- like Syria and Iran --- to help stabilize Iraq, Kline nearly jumps out of his seat, exclaiming: "Oh please, Coleen. You're going to get Iran and Syria to come on board in agreement with the United States? You cannot solve these world problems with pixie dust."

I refer to yet another report on the options Kline's hero, James Baker, is considering:

A commission backed by President Bush that is exploring U.S. options in Iraq intends to propose significant changes in the administration's strategy by early next year, members say.

Two options under consideration would represent reversals of U.S. policy: withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting.

It's true that Iran and Syria are no friends of the U.S., but they do have a common interest with us in trying to stabilize Iraq. After all, if Iraq continues its decline into a failed state, Iraq's neighbors will feel the greatest impact.

George Bush and John Kline have put the U.S. into a situation where there are few good options, if any. A fitting metaphor would be if Bush and Kline, like the Keystone Kops, led us into a concrete jail cell, and decided the only way out is to keep banging our heads against the wall. Kline is convinced there's no point in trying to pick the lock; he'll ridicule anyone who wants to try to get out the window; and it's beneath his dignity to send out a cry for help. And he dismisses with scorn anyone who wants to stop banging their head against the wall, and insists they're opposed to freedom.

That's what the choice boils down to on November 7. Keep banging our heads against the wall, or try something else.

(Disclaimer: This blog post is not a position statement. Rather, it is an analysis of a recent debate between Coleen and John Kline in which Kline appeared not to know that his hero James Baker is reportedly considering recomending a course of action in Iraq much closer to Coleen's position than Kline's.)

Kline and Baker

2006-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Asked to identify personal political heroes, Kline said President Reagan, former Secretary of State James Baker and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Reagan, he said, was the right person for the country at the time. Baker, a personal friend, is a skilled political adviser, Kline said. The congressman credits Hastert with healing and unifying the House of Representatives after leadership turbulence. - Star Tribune, September 6, 2004

During Friday night's debate on Almanac, John Kline also refers to Republican icon and Bush family confidante James Baker as his "good friend and frankly, political mentor". It's interesting Kline should call attention to this relationship, since Baker's views on Iraq seem to be nearly in diametric opposition to Kline's.

Early in the debate, Kathy Wurzer tosses Kline a softball question, asking Kline to define victory in Iraq. Kline responds with "The definition of victory is an Iraq with democracy in place."

James Baker is currently heading up a commission to consider U.S. options in Iraq, and reportedly, the commission has given up on any hope of "democracy in place":

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

A bit later, Kline mocks Coleen for suggesting that we should try to work with Iran and Syria, saying "Oh please, Coleen. You're going to get Iran and Syria to come on board in agreement with the United States? You cannot solve these world problems with pixie dust."

But apparently this sort of "pixie dust" is exactly the kind of solution Kline's hero and mentor James Baker is considering:

A commission backed by President Bush that is exploring U.S. options in Iraq intends to propose significant changes in the administration's strategy by early next year, members say.

Two options under consideration would represent reversals of U.S. policy: withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing neighboring Iran and Syria into a joint effort to stop the fighting.

John Kline would like you to believe that Coleen Rowley is a fringe liberal with no real understanding of policy. Setting aside for the moment the fact that Kline managed to sit on a stage with Coleen for nearly 20 minutes without making a single policy suggestion of his own, it's telling that Kline is --- apparently unknowingly --- speaking condescendingly about his friend, mentor and hero, who agrees with Coleen.

John Kline and Veterans

2006-10-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

I've seen a number of people, presumably veterans, write letters to the editor in support of John Kline, insisting that he is a strong supporter of veterans issues. And Kline has even devoted one of his many direct mail campaigns to promoting his record of support for veterans, while smearing Coleen for her alleged disrespect toward veterans. Given his own 25-year record of service in the Marines, Kline seems to believe he can take veterans' support for granted.

In more ways than you might think.

A close examination of Kline's voting record in Congress reveals weak support for veterans. And we'll be discussing those votes over the remaining days of the campaign. But for now, we'll just discuss two ways in which Kline is abusing the trust veterans have placed in him. One has to deal with Kline's distortion of his own voting record, to make it appear that his support for veterans is stronger than it is. The other is the story of a time when John Kline told a group of Minnesota veterans, point-blank, that partisanship is more important to him than they are.

As our campaign has already pointed out, we've researched a number of Kline's votes in Congress where:

He voted against debt assistance and job training for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan , and he voted against expanding TRICARE to reservists and members of the National Guard. These are the kind of votes which earned John Kline a 0% rating from the Disabled American Veterans in 2004 and 2005.

As I said, we'll get into the specifics of those votes in future posts. But in fairness to Kline, we're not going to go out of our way to call out votes he's cast that make him look good; that's his job. So it's really striking that one of the actions he's proudest of on veterans issues is his work on to implement a policy known as "concurrent receipt".

For decades, disabled veterans had their pensions reduced by the amount of the disability benefit they received. This is certainly a policy which harms disabled veterans, and so Kline deserves credit for working to implement "concurrent receipt" of both pension and disability. The striking part is that is Kline only accomplished a partial phase-out of the policy over 10 years, while he has stubbornly and consistently ignored legislation which would put a full and immediate end to the policy. As we pointed out last month:

[T]his "unfair policy" hasn't ended; rather, it is being slowly phased out over a 10-year period. And even then, veterans whose disabilities are rated at less than 50% will still be subject to a reduction in their pension.

We go on to list in detail the numerous opportunities Kline, as a member of the House Armed Services Commitee, had to enact a much stronger bill, and how he refused to make even the token gesture of co-sponsoring it.

Remember, this is a bill Kline himself points to as evidence of his support for veterans --- in fact, it's one of only two bills he's mentioned in any of his numerous attack mailers. If this is the high point of his time in Congress, it speaks quite poorly about his overall record.

And speaking of sponsorship, it gets worse. The Minnesota chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, a non-partisan group, reported in April (emphasis added):

Without naming any specific elected officials, I want to relate a couple of shameful incidents we experienced on our visit this year just to point out the general attitude toward veterans we experienced while in Washington.

(snip)

Another member from Minnesota of the House of Representatives we visited, when given a list of veterans’ bills that the DAV supports with the members from Minnesota that have either authored or co-authored, made this statement. "These bills are from the __________(party), I will only endorse and co-author __________(party) bills". Obviously, the right party did not author the bills. I am sorry, but I cannot remember ever being asked what party I belonged to when I was inducted into the military. When you go to the VA Hospital, are you asked "are you Republican or Democrat?" Why have bills helping veterans become a partisan issue?

As I said, the DAV is a non-partisan organization, and they clearly went to great pains, despite their disappointment and frustration, to remain non-partisan by not naming names. However, a significant number of veterans support Coleen's run for Congress, and have confirmed to us that the legislator who refused to support veterans' bills authored by the "other" party is none other than John Kline.

Think about that for a moment. A group of Minnesota disabled veterans went to Congress for the sole purpose of talking to the Minnesota congressional delegation about helping disabled veterans. And John Kline had the nerve to tell them, to their faces, that supporting the Republican party is more important to him than they are.

As with almost all other legislation, Kline has voted in a partisan manner on veterans bills. And the Republican party, by and large, has not been a friend to veterans.

(Disclaimer: This blog post is not a position statement. It is a historical document examining the gulf between John Kline's rhetoric in support of veterans, and his actions.)

Habeas Corpus Revisited

2006-10-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Earlier this month, we discussed the concept of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is the centuries-old legal dictum which guarantees that the government can't lock you up and throw away the key for no reason. It's what guarantees you the right to come before a judge and challenge your arrest. It's the reason why every cop show ever made mentions that everyone 'has the right to make a phone call' after an arrest.
This past Tuesday, George Bush signed a law putting an end to habeas corpus, a law which John Kline eagerly helped pass.

It is not possible to overstate how much damage this law does to the concept of justice as it has come to be understood in the Western world, and the media has not paid it nearly the attention it deserves. However, in what little coverage it has received, there has been some question about whether the bill suspends habeas corpus for U.S. citizens, or only for non-citizens. Today, the Washington Post gave us the answer:

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

The Justice Department statement specifically mentions detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, but is broader than that. It says the court cannot consider habeas corpus petitions "filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future."

And the Military Commissions Act says that anyone can be declared an enemy combatant. Even U.S. citizens. So you, or I, or any of your friends and family, can be 'disappeared' forever, if we're unlucky enough for George Bush to label us as enemy combatants.

For some reason, John Kline thinks this is a good thing.

(Disclaimer: This blog post is not a position statement. It is a current events update which points out that John Kline is willing to help George Bush eviscerate the American legal system and Constitution in the misguided belief that it makes our country safer.)

Another Typical Republican Attack

2006-10-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

No, not from John Kline. Not even in the state of Minnesota, in fact. But in Ohio, the national Republican Party is running ads that are documentably false. The Democratic Senate candidate, Sherrod Brown, says they're false. The state of Ohio says they're false. But the Republican Party insists they're going to run the ads anyway:

The Republican Party last night refused to cancel commercials that claim Sherrod Brown was a longtime tax scofflaw - even though the state of Ohio says the ad's claim is untrue.

Brown, the Democrat running against incumbent Mike DeWine, paid the tax bill years ago, soon after receiving a tax lien, according to newly released records from the Brown campaign and authenticated by the state.

(snip)

The RNC, however, said last night that it had no plans to change its ad.

We have already documented how John Kline has used dishonest smear tactics against our campaign. But the national Republican party, which is coordinating attacks such as these on Democratic candidates across the country, is openly stating that they're going to lie in their campaign ads.

Remember that the next time you see a commercial, ad or flier from John Kline or any other Republican candidate. Dirty campaign tactics like these are just one of the reasons why Coleen left the Republican party. Now would be a good time for other long-time Republican voters to consider following her example.

Update: Even though the RNC is willing to run ads that are documentably false, TV stations in Ohio are not. Apparently these stations are worried about the legal implications of airing lies.

(Disclaimer: This blog post is not a position statement. It is simply an effort to point out that the national Republican Party has developed the belief that it is entitled to run the country, and is therefore willing to stoop to whatever means necessary to hold power.)

No Ideas, No Record, No Integrity: Kline Resumes His Smears Against Unpaid Staff

2006-10-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Coleen Rowley is surging in the polls. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is such an unmitigated disaster that James Baker, Bush family confidante and a man John Kline once called his hero, is reportedly recommending that we withdraw our forces. A fifth Republican member of Congress is about to go down in scandal. And John Kline has nothing he can run on. So he is devoting what's left of his campaign to a tried-and-true Republican campaign tactic.

Lie. Smear. Destroy. Take the low road.

Kline, the retired Marine Colonel, the man who "doesn't need to talk about ethics, he's lived it", who promised his supporters an "honest, issues oriented campaign" is smearing me for political gain. His lies could affect my employment, my friendships, and even my children. And he's only doing it because he thinks it will help him win.

Earlier this summer, Kline seemed to believe that his best hope for retaining his seat in Congress was to spread lies about me, sending out not one, not two, but three different direct mail attacks smearing my character, making statements which Kline knew to be false. For about 6 weeks, it appeared that he had given up that tactic in favor of more conventional campaign methods (namely, smearing his opponent rather than her unpaid staff). But a recent poll showed Coleen gaining 12 points on Kline in 19 days. So now he has panicked, and is started making his outrageous and false charges again this morning on FOX 9 News.

In short, Kline's charge boils down to two allegations. 1) He charges that I want to legalize methamphetamine. 2) He charges that I am a senior advisor who has more policy positions on this site than Coleen does. Both statements are categorically false.

Let's take them in reverse order. Kline charges that I have written more policy positions on this site than Coleen has. Not true. Here are Coleen's policy positions. While it is true that Coleen accepted input from a number of people on these positions --- good leaders take the time to research the facts and develop informed opinions before taking a position --- I only provided input for one out of 11. Most of these positions had been written up before I ever joined the campaign.

It's likely that Kline is basing his charge on the fact that I have written the majority of the posts on this campaign weblog. However, none of these posts establish new positions on issues. I encourage everyone to review them carefully, because you will quickly see that my posts are mostly informational, and not policy statements. When I do make a statement about Coleen's policy, I always provide a link to a policy statement Coleen authored. Coleen and I have also co-written a number of articles which Coleen has posted on The Huffington Post. These were joint efforts. (It should be noted that Coleen has co-authored other opinion pieces in the past, for example one published last year in the New York Times with the head of the Government Accountability Project on first amendment rights and most recently one on the Iraq War with Major General Army Reserve (retired) Jerald Albrecht of Prior Lake, MN.)

So Kline is either incredibly dishonest or clueless about what constitutes a policy position. Either way, he's unfit to be in Congress.

My views on legalizing drugs are irrelevant to the campaign. But because I know some people will demand more information, it boils down to this. More than three years ago, I wrote four sentences in support of "decriminalizing" drug use. This is not the same as legalizing drugs. It means that enforcement would be principally directed toward stopping the manufacturers of illegal drugs such as meth, rather than jailing the users. Moreover, it's hardly as though I went to great lengths to advocate this position --- I haven't even thought about it in 3 years, and I've certainly never discussed it as part of the campaign (other than to respond to Kline).

Moreover, for Kline to make this charge is staggeringly hypocritical, considering that it's a view similar to the one held by the libertarian CATO Institute. To my knowledge, Kline has never levelled a similar charge against them, even though his CD2 web site links to them approvingly, and Kline is a member of the Republican Study Committee, which works with CATO. Kline's old think tank, the Center of the American Experiment, also links to them.

Kline is trying to destroy me, and Coleen by association. If he wins this election, he'll keep doing the same thing in 2008 and for as long as lies and attacks "work" to keep him in office. But in 20 days, we'll have an opportunity to show John Kline that destroying people for political gain is not something we tolerate in Minnesota.

Kline Throws Recycled Mud From the GOP Slime Machine

2006-10-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Wow. When I got home yesterday, I discovered not one, but two attack mailers from John Kline, each making completely false attacks on Coleen on the subject of immigration. Here's what each of them said, in a nutshell:

"You reward people for good behavior . . . not for breaking the law. But Coleen Rowley will reward illegal aliens with Social Security."
"Coleen Rowley wants to sell citizenship to illegal aliens and give them Social Security."

Lacking both a positive vision for America and a record he can be proud of, Kline continues his campaign of unfounded and outright false smear attacks. This attack has several different layers of wrongness, starting with the fact that months ago Kline promised his supporters he would run "an issues oriented, honest campaign".

Let's peel back the layers here.

Coleen Rowley spent 24 years in the FBI enforcing our laws. Before coming to Minneapolis and blowing the whistle on pre-9/11 failures, Coleen fought organized crime in New York. Since age 11, she knew she wanted to be an FBI agent because of her unwavering commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law. So to suggest, as John Kline does, that "Coleen Rowley's answer to the illegal immigration crisis is to reward people for breaking the law" is a smear of the lowest kind.
Nowhere does Kline back up his allegations. He doesn't point to a single statement Coleen has made, or identify a single piece of legislation she's supported. Unfounded smear attacks are the antithesis of "an issues oriented, honest campaign".
So we can only guess what Kline is using as the basis for his attack. He may be referring to Coleen's proposal for an earned path to citizenship for those who are already in the country illegally. Of course, Kline can't mention this plan, because any discussion of the plan would reveal how ridiculous Kline's accusations are:
I therefore support an earned path to citizenship along the lines of the bipartisan Kennedy-McCain proposal whereby undocumented immigrants in the U.S. before Jan. 1, 2004 seeking residence must satisfy the following criteria:
- Possess a steady job for six years.
- Pay a $2,000 fee and all back taxes.
- Learn English and study American civics.
- Pass a rigorous criminal and national security background check.
This is not an amnesty program, and I would oppose any such unearned path to citizenship.
Coleen has had this position posted on the campaign site for months. Note the complete absence of any discussion about Social Security or "selling citizenship". Also notice that this plan for dealing with the estimated 11 million people already in the U.S. illegally is far more detailed than anything Kline has proposed (more on that later).
It's also possible that Kline is attacking Coleen for her support of a bill which passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support, including the support of such prominent Republicans as John McCain, Bill Frist, and Minnesota's own Norm Coleman. Not to mention George W. Bush.
On the other hand, the McCain/Kennedy bill contains no "plan to give [illegals] taxpayer-funded benefits" as Kline claims --- in fact, it says nothing about Social Security at all. Rather, current law provides that when anyone becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen, any wages they had previously earned while working in the U.S. will be credited toward their Social Security benefits. So Kline's attack in essence boils down to: 1) Criticizing current Social Security law; 2) For paying benefits to U.S. citizens; 3) Based on the taxes they paid into the system.

In short, Kline is basing his attack quite literally on nothing.
Wait, there's more. Both mailers cite the figure of $5.2 billion in Social Security which "belongs to American citizens" but which Coleen allegedly wants to give to "people who flagrantly broke our laws". Their source for this figure is an August 22, 2006 article in the Washington Post. This same article contains the following nugget:
In the long run, tax revenue generated by new workers would ease the baby-boom generation's burden on Social Security and offset virtually all the additional spending, said James Horney, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The report "will be problematic," he said. "People who don't like the bill will jump on the 10-year number. But I hope others will look at the longer term and realize in the end, the answer is still the same. It's all a wash."

One of Kline's mailers bellows that "Coleen Rowley supports a plan that could jeopardize the future of Social Security," when the very source Kline cites says exactly the opposite, and even claims that the addition of new workers to the system will ease the baby-boom generation's burden on Social Security. Furthermore, recall that Coleen's plan would require those working here illegally to pay all back taxes plus a $2,000 fine prior to gaining citizenship. So there's no basis for claiming these new workers will be taking more money out of the system than they put in.
While Kline is hurling wild and baseless allegations at Coleen for her plan to provide an earned path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented workers currently in the U.S., he is unable to propose an alternative of his own. When local TV host Alan Miller asked Kline this question recently, Kline gave the following puzzling answer:
"Well, it wouldn't be, I mean, it's a false choice to say we have to let them stay or we have to bus them out. That's not the choice that's there. Many will leave themselves if there's a mechanism for them to come back in . . . ."

This is a recurrent theme in John Kline's campaign. Coleen provides a plan for dealing with immigration, so Kline attacks it without providing a plan of his own. Coleen champions responsible redeployment from Iraq, so Kline attacks it without explaining how he will change course to achieve an Iraq which is "self-governing, sustainable, and capable of defending itself". Kline whines about things he doesn't like on this very campaign web site, when his own campaign site is completely devoid of substantive content. One can only conclude that Kline believes he will lose more votes by taking a stand on the issues than if he avoids a real discussion of issues altogether.

Finally, it's worth noting that these fliers are part of a broader GOP smear campaign against Democratic challengers. Both FactCheck.org and the StarTribune's Eric Black have debunked this attack.

Two months ago, we challenged John Kline to renounce GOP smear tactics for the balance of the campaign, a challenge that has gone unanswered. It comes as little surprise that Kline's latest attack comes on the same day that Rowley for Congress is showing a powerful surge in the polls.

Update: Rumor has it that Kline is running TV ads (his first of the cycle!) making this same trumped-up smear attack. Two different mass mailings and a TV ad campaign, all focused on the same non-issue. Kline must really be desperate to stop his bleeding in the polls, as well as being desperate to avoid a discussion of the issues that matter, like the bloodshed in Iraq, 46 million Americans without health insurance, and scandal after Republican scandal in Congress.

Poll Shows Giant Surge for Coleen Rowley!

2006-10-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Today SurveyUSA released a poll showing John Kline with 50% support, Coleen with 42% support, Independence Party candidate Doug Williams with 5% support, and 2% undecided. The poll's margin of error is 4.4%.

Ordinarily we wouldn't get too excited about a poll which shows us 8 points down, but this isn't an ordinary poll. There are some methodological concerns with this poll (after the jump), but the most startling thing about it is that it shows Rowley for Congress closing the gap by an amazing 12 points in just 19 days! An identical poll conducted by SurveyUSA in late September showed Kline with a 20-point lead.

If we keep it up at this rate, we'll win by a comfortable 6-point margin. And you can help make it happen!!

But wait, there's more! There are at least three good reasons to believe that we're even closer than the 8-point margin shown in the SurveyUSA poll.

The poll's methodology is flawed in at least one obvious way. When asking the candidate preference question, the candidates are always presented in the same order, with Kline first, then Coleen, then Williams. Voters with no strong preference will often select the first choice offered, or the last, which is why most pollsters rotate the order of candidates when doing their polling. In this case, it seems quite likely that the consistent last-place position of Doug Williams artificially increased his total to 5%, considering that he has done no observable campaigning of any kind. It's reasonable, therefore, to believe that Kline's total is similarly inflated.
Kline has conducted at least two polls this election cycle, in February and July. His campaign did not release the results of those polls, which they likely would have done if they had showed Kline with anything like the 20-point lead in the September SurveyUSA poll. So it's a fair guess that those polls showed that Coleen was within range of Kline. Since Coleen has narrowed the gap by 12 points in the SurveyUSA poll, Kline's pollsters would likely find the race very competitive indeed --- perhaps a bit too competitive.
After a brief respite, Kline's campaign just today launched another direct mail barrage telling outright falsehoods about Coleen's position on immigration. We'll have more details on this one later, but Kline is clearly desperate; his campaign actually sent out two different mailers (that we know of) containing the same smear.

It's going to be an interesting 21 days. Please help out however you can.

Murtha Makes His Case

2006-10-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman John Murtha, a 37-year Marine Corps veteran who has endorsed Coleen, laid out in detail today his reasons for wanting to change course in Iraq:

In September, 776 U.S troops were wounded in Iraq, the highest monthly toll in more than two years.
Over the past year, the number of attacks against U.S. personnel has doubled, rising from 400 to more than 800 per week.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, recently acknowledged that sectarian violence has replaced the insurgency as the single biggest threat to Iraq.
In the past two months, 6,000 Iraqis died, more than in the first year of the war.
Last week, electricity output averaged 2.4 hours per day in Baghdad and 10.4 hours nationwide -- 7 percent less than in the same period in 2005.
A Sept. 27 World Public Opinion poll indicated that 91 percent of Iraqi Sunnis and 74 percent of Iraqi Shiites want the Iraqi government to ask U.S.-led forces to withdraw within a year. Ninety-seven percent of Sunnis and 82 percent of Shiites said that the U.S. military presence is "provoking more conflict than it is preventing." And Iraqi support for attacks against U.S.-led forces has increased sharply over the past few months, from 47 percent to 61 percent.

Now, Karl Rove may call me a defeatist, but can anyone living in the real world deny that these statistics are heading in the wrong direction? Yet despite this bleak record of performance, the president continues to stand by his team of failed architects, preferring to prop them up instead of demanding accountability.

Democrats are fighting a war on two fronts: One is combating the spin and intimidation that defines this administration. The other is fighting to change course, to do things better, to substitute smart, disciplined strategy for dogma and denial in Iraq.

That's not defeatism. That's our duty.

Murtha also asks:

We are seeing an astonishing and unprecedented parade of retired U.S. generals calling for a new direction in Iraq. These are voices of bravery, experience, conscience and loyalty. These are men who have been taught to look coldly and objectively at the facts of bloodshed. Can they all be wrong? How about the 15 intelligence agencies that recently offered the opinion that this war has not made us safer? Are they all defeatists? Are they to be ignored?

John Kline believes the answer is yes. Coleen Rowley believes the answer is no. It's really that simple.

Do Nothing

2006-10-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Congress adjourned on September 29, and won't be back in session until after the election. Typically, this is the time when incumbents return to their districts and tout their accomplishments to make their case for re-election.

For some reason, John Kline hasn't exactly been doing that. We discussed one possible reason earlier: that Kline's policy positions aren't likely to win him much support. Another possibility is the fact that the 109th Congress stands out for its minimal level of accomplishment.

A recent article by Margaret Talev of McClatchy cites an analysis by Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute:

They note that President Harry Truman first stuck the "do-nothing" tag on Congress in 1948. That year Congress was in session 110 days. This year Congress completes only 94 days of work before recessing for the elections.

Lawmakers typically are in Washington only from Tuesdays through Thursdays.

Mann and Ornstein say Congress' Republican leadership has taken traditional abuses of power farther than ever: They bypass committees, cut off floor debate, disallow amendments, force hasty votes on major bills that few have read and sometimes keep 15-minute vote counts open for hours while they browbeat junior members into supporting their position.

They also note the stark contrast between the attack-dog nature of the Republican-led Congress during the Clinton adminstration, and the extreme deference this Congress has shown the Bush White House:

On balance, scholars say Republican congressional leaders ignored their duty to question decision-making and investigate corruption within the Bush administration. "They've done almost no oversight on the war or almost anything that matters," Ornstein said.

In contrast, in the 1990s Republicans in Congress investigated whether President Clinton had used the White House Christmas card mailing list to scout for donors.

"There were (more than) 100 hours of oversight hearings on alleged misuse of the Clinton Christmas card list, and 12 hours of hearings on Abu Ghraib. This tells you all you need to know," Ornstein said.

No immigration reform, no action on Bush's Social Security privatization scheme, no ethics reform, not even a budget for the 2007 fiscal year. But undermining one of the pillars of western jurisprudence, that they found time to do.

Farm Policy: Another Zero for Kline

2006-10-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Via Minnesota Monitor, we learn that the National Farmer's Union (NFU) recently released the results of its 2005-06 congressional voting record survey, and guess where John Kline ranks? Yep, another perfect zero:

Among Minnesota's congressional delegation, Reps. Betty McCollum, Martin Sabo and James Oberstar all received 100% ratings. At the other end of the scale, Reps. John Kline and Mark Kennedy received 0%. Collin Peterson received an 83% rating, Gil Gutknecht 33%, and Jim Ramstad 16%.

In the Senate, Mark Dayton garnered 100% while Norm Coleman received 33%.

This isn't too surprising, considering Kline also received a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Disabled American Veterans, and the National Education Association. No wonder Kline doesn't want to discuss his record.

John Kline: "Steadfast in Backing the President's Domestic and Foreign Policy Actions"

2006-10-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

So says Kevin Diaz of the Star Tribune in a profile of Kline which appears in tomorrow's paper (Coleen is also profiled). When discussing Kline's campaign style, Diaz only gives us part of the story:

Far from adopting the typical incumbent's "rose garden" strategy of ignoring a rookie challenger, Kline has aggressively attacked Rowley in direct mail pieces designed to portray her as a fringe liberal out of touch with a bucolic district of farms and new suburbs.

Diaz is being charitable here. In an earlier piece, he described Kline's mailers as mudslinging. But in all of the discussion about Kline's attack politics, one salient fact is often left out: there has been very little of substance to John Kline's campaign. Of the four campaign mailings he's done (that we know of) only one mentioned any of John Kline's positions or votes in Congress. He's refused a number of debates, including most notably the League of Women Voters debate. And of course, his campaign web site is a joke.

Nevertheless, ths campaign is all about issues, and we get some brief glimpses into where Kline stands on them in this article.

We start with the central issue in the campaign: Iraq.

"Ultimately, we have to win," he said. "And win means an Iraq that is self-governing, sustainable, and capable of defending itself."

Like Bush, Kline defines Iraq as a central front in the war on terror, a formulation opposed by Rowley, who argues that the U.S. invasion was a strategic blunder unrelated to the larger war on terrorism.

An Iraq that is "self-governing, sustainable, and capable of defending itself" would no doubt be a great benefit to Middle East stability and the world. But after 2,700 U.S. troop fatalities, an estimated 655,000 Iraqi fatalities, and at least $6 billion a month spent for more than 3 years, our top generals in the region describe the sectarian violence as the worst it's ever been. Kline and Bush are great at describing noble goals, but their track record shows they have no idea how to achieve them. But John Kline is determined to continue on the same failed course if he's sitting in Congress in 2007.

Next issue: Kline runs as a "strong fiscal conservative," which is laughable on its face. Apart from the roughly $400 billion which has been spent bungling the so-called War on Terror, the federal debt ceiling has been raised no fewer than 5 times since Bush took office, from $5.95 trillion to $9.62 trillion --- more than a 50% increase in the debt limit. Kline may believe strongly in fiscal conservatism, but he doesn't seem to have acted on his principles much.

By the way, Coleen supports a return to the 'pay as you go', or PAYGO rules, which require that all new spending increases or tax cuts be balanced by equal spending cuts or tax increases --- a policy which, in the late 1990's helped Bill Clinton steer the federal budget into surplus. Coleen's position on this issue and many others is available on her National Political Awareness Test. Much to the surprise of no one, John Kline hasn't yet filled out one of these.

We get one-liners for Kline's positions on a number of issues:

On immigration, he has taken a more hard-line position than the White House, opposing Senate proposals for a guest-worker program, which he sees as a form of amnesty.

Kline has voted for measures to restrict federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, back a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and grant the federal courts jurisdiction in the Terri Schiavo life-support dispute in Florida.

Kline and his supporters love to use the "amnesty" label when discussing immigration, but it's just a political trick. There are an estimated 11 million persons in the U.S. illegally; for them, Coleen supports an earned path to citizenship, which Kline denounces as "amnesty". So does Kline advocate rounding up all 11 million and deporting them, a process which we could never complete even if all U.S. law enforcement ignored all other crimes, which would tear apart communities, not to mention families where the children born here are now U.S. citizens? Kline doesn't have a good answer to that question. When Alan Miller asked that question on the public access TV show Access to Democracy, Kline responded:

Well, it wouldn't be, I mean, it's a false choice to say we have to let them stay or we have to bus them out. That's not the choice that's there. Many will leave themselves if there's a mechanism for them to come back in . . . .

So apparently Kline's solution is to persuade these 11 million people to leave the U.S. voluntarily. That's about as realistic as his support for the war in Iraq. On the issue of same-sex marriage, the article doesn't tell you that John Kline opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment before he voted for it. The article also overlooks Kline's rock-ribbed support for George Bush's doomed effort to privatize Social Security.

The differences between these two candidates couldn't be more clear. John Kline is a "steadfast" supporter of George Bush who supports an open-ended, indefinite commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq, a fiscal conservative who can't keep the lid on exploding federal debt, who wants to privatize Social Security, and who recently voted to eliminate habeas corpus and give George Bush discretion in obeserving the Geneva Conventions, because he trusts George Bush to do the right thing.

Coleen Rowley, on the other hand, supports responsible redeployment from Iraq, has a plan to do something about the debt, believes that we can keep America safe while remaining true to our values of liberty and justice, wants health care for every American, and will work to restore ethics and accountability to government and hold George Bush accountable for six years of failed leadership.

John Kline: Too Busy to Debate?

2006-10-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

John Kline will not participate in the League of Women Voters debate on October 14. When first asked why he had refused, Mr. Kline said something to the effect of "You run your campaign and I’ll run mine." Later, however, he must have improved on his answer since radio news reported he's too busy to debate. But with Congress adjourned until after the election, one would think a two-term incumbent would have nothing better to do with his time than to afford his constituents a side-by-side comparison of his views with his opponent's, so that voters can make an informed decision on election day.

When failing to explain Kline's refusal, Kline's spokesman explicitly noted that "No incumbent member of Congress in Minnesota debated their challenger more than Congressman Kline in the last election." So it's all the more striking that Kline is ducking debates this time around. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that George Bush is an extremely unpopular president now, and so praising Bush for his "principled, consistent and determined leadership for our men and women in the armed forces" (Pioneer Press, 10/22/2004) doesn't win votes like it used to? Perhaps Kline doesn't want to try to defend his support for an open-ended U.S. occupation for Iraq, for the Medicare Part D fiasco, and for privatizing Social Security? Or maybe it's the simple fact that most people have come to rightly view our Republican-led Congress as being bloated, corrupt and ineffective, and so appearing in public as a Republican member of Congress is damaging to Kline's electoral prospects?

Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that this time, Kline's opponent is Coleen Rowley, a principled Democrat who supports comprehensive ethics reform of Congress, responsible redeployment from Iraq, universal health care, and holding the Bush administration to account for its deception and incompetence.

Just guessing.

Cut and Run

2006-10-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Those who support an open-ended U.S. occupation of Iraq, like John Kline, accuse those who support a responsible redeployment strategy of wanting to 'cut and run'. This phrase comes straight from Karl Rove, and Republican candidates across the country have incorporated it into their campaigns. Some of John Kline's supporters have also used it in their attacks on Coleen.

Apart from this slogan, John Kline and his supporters have offered little to defend their 'stay the course' approach to Iraq, and it's no wonder. All the facts support a responsible redeployment approach, and many folks --- including some Republicans --- are beginning to acknowledge it.

Tommy Johnson, a veteran and former candidate for Congress in Minnesota's Third Congressional District agrees with Coleen. Major General (ret.) Jerald Albrecht agrees that the Bush administration has left our troops in Iraq twisting in the wind, which is why he co-authored an op-ed with Coleen. And Congressman Jack Murtha, the member of Congress with the longest service to the military, has endorsed Coleen in part due to their agreement on responsible redeployment. Numerous military and foreign policy experts, many with prior experience serving as national security counsel, are in strong consensus on the need to change course.

Even John Warner, Republican Senator from Virginia and former Secretary of the Navy, has conceded that it may soon be time to change course in Iraq. And this is hardly surprising, considering that the situation in Iraq has been steadily deteriorating since Bush proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished'; that the occupation of Iraq has dramatically weakened our military readiness; and that according to a recent national security report, it has given rise to a new generation of terrorists bent on destroying America. This is the course John Kline believes we should stay on.

Coleen Rowley believes we should change the course, because it's in our national interest.

When it comes to sound bites like 'cut and run', there's one other thing to keep in mind. A person cuts and runs because they want to take the easy way out of a bad situation, and that's something Coleen Rowley would never do. It would have been the easy thing for her to remain silent in 2002, and go along with the administration's "there's nothing we could have done" defense for being asleep at the wheel on September 11, 2001. But she didn't. She risked her 24-year FBI career to stand up and tell the truth about the mistakes which had been made, and has paid for it by bearing the scorn of Bush administration rubber stamps like John Kline. For Coleen, there is no choice between doing the easy thing and doing the right thing; there is only the right thing. Anyone who says otherwise is playing politics.

Universal Health Care - A Personal View

2006-10-07T19:38:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

For the past couple of weeks, my family has been dealing with pinkeye. My son caught it with a vengeance two weeks ago, and for reasons which aren't clear, the first medication he used didn't clear things up within a week. So the doctor prescribed a different medication and made it very clear he should stay on it for a full week.

Only the drops ran out on Thursday, two days before the week was up (and coincidentally, the same day my daughter and I both caught it). So I took the morning off work to stay home with my daughter --- all schools and day cares require a child with pinkeye to stay home until they've been on antibiotics for 24 hours --- and picked up meds for her and for my son.

Except. When I arrived at the pharmacy, I was told that our insurance wouldn't pay for my son's meds, because I ordered a refill less than a week after filling the original prescription. The pharmacy hadn't bothered to fill the order, assuming I wouldn't want it. I was told I could pick it up on Saturday when my insurance would cover it again.

Now, there are a couple of reasons why waiting 2 days would have been a really bad idea. For one thing, given that my son had already had difficulty beating the disease, I didn't want it to come back. Like I said, when a child gets pinkeye, that child stays home, so the parent misses a day of work. Furthermore, any health care professional will tell you that it's a really bad idea to stop taking antibiotics sooner than the doctor recommends --- it creates antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

So, I explained very patiently that I needed the prescription immediately, and that I would pay full price. It was only an additional $34, and I can easily afford it. But it was an extra hassle at the pharmacy and it will be an extra hassle with our insurance getting our money back. An annoyance, but hardly life-altering.

But it could have been. If I were a single parent, it would have been a bit harder for me to cough up the extra $34, especially if I had a low-wage job. Especially because I would have already lost a day of work when my son first got sick, and another when my daughter got sick (as it was, I was able to split time with my wife).

And if I had no health insurance at all, which is the case for an estimated 46 million Americans, I would have paid full price for my kids' meds from the start. Only maybe I don't, because I can't really afford it, so I end up staying home with the kids and missing more than one day of work. Or possibly, because I can't afford to miss work, I send my kids to school without any medication, and other kids end up getting sick.

And of course, this scenario isn't limited to just pinkeye. Right now, thanks to the the Medicare 'donut hole' John Kline voted for, millions of seniors are responsible for 100% of their prescription drug costs, regardless of whether those are drugs to treat pinkeye or breast cancer.

Odds are, you're not entirely happy with your health care plan, either. It's possible you're among the 46 million uninsured, or the estimated 3 million who will fall into Medicare's donut hole this year. And if you're not, it's quite likely someone you know or someone in your family is. There is a health care crisis in this country. Coleen's solution is universal health care. I'm not sure John Kline has a solution; I don't see anything about it on his campaign web site.

Habeas Corpus

2006-10-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine: the Writ of Habeas Corpus. It has a funny name because, as a legal concept, it's at least seven hundred years old, but in 21st century America, it means that the federal government can't arrest and detain you indefinitely without charge and without giving you the opportunity to challenge your arrest.

However, George Bush is going to change all that. Sometime this week, Bush will sign the Military Commissions Act, which explicitly voids the writ of habeas corpus for non-citizens. And as Glenn Greenwald explains, the bill implicitly voids habeas corpus for citizens as well. So pretty soon, federal agents could arrest you, or your spouse, or your parents, your brothers, sisters, adult children, coworkers, etc. for nothing more than the suspicion of "purposefully and materially" supporting hostilities against the U.S. No warning. No attorney. No "one phone call" from jail to even let your family know where you are.

And all perfectly legal, thanks to John Kline and 252 other members of Congress.

(Look here for Coleen's position on the Military Commissions Act).

Habeas corpus does not exist to protect the guilty: it exists to protect the innocent who are wrongly accused. It's almost certain that if you or someone you know gets caught up in Bush's indefinite-detention and almost-torture scheme, it will happen by mistake. And thanks to John Kline, there will be absolutely nothing you can do about it. It doesn't take much for this administration to suspect someone of "purposefully and materially" working against the U.S. Authorities have already arrested a New York man who broadcasts a television station operated by Hezbollah. But the bigger problem is when authorities arrest someone completely by mistake.

This isn't hypothetical. It has happened roughly three dozen times that we know about. Khaled Masri, a German citizen, was abducted and interrogated in Afghanistan for five months on a "hunch" that he was a terrorist. The CIA has since acknowledged they were mistaken. Maher Arar, a man with dual Canadian-Syrian citizenship, was detained in New York in 2002, sent to Syria and tortured for a year before he was released. Murat Kurnaz spent more than four years at Guantanamo Bay, even though the U.S. knew he was innocent of any wrongdoing for at least three years of that time. Last fall, the Washington Post reported on at least six other Guantanamo detainees who were known to be innocent, a story which never would have been told were it not for habeas corpus.

Last week John Kline, along with almost all other congressional Republicans, made the statement that they trust the President to conduct the "war on terror" without making mistakes. This means they trust the winner of the 2008 election, and if you're not concerned about the possibility of a President McCain, you probably are concerned about the possibility of a President Dean. But more surprisingly, they made the statement that they trust George Bush to get it right, which is quite remarkable given Bush's record, not only on arresting and abusing innocents, but on a whole host of issues.

John Kline may be comfortable giving up habeas corpus for himself, but he also gave it away for you and everyone you know. He'll tell you it was necessary to make America safe. Are you feeling safer?

Affordable Health Care for All

2006-09-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

The New York Times is reporting that a panel which Congress created is advising Congress to take immediate steps to guarantee affordable health care to all Americans by 2012.

The panel, the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, said Congress should create an independent "public-private entity" to define a basic set of health care benefits and services for all Americans.

While leaving many details to be worked out, the panel declared, "It should be public policy, written in law, that all Americans have affordable access to health care."

Apart from the specific date of 2012, this goal is remarkably similar to Coleen's stated position on health care.

Doughnut Hole Day

2006-09-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Congressional Democrats dubbed last Friday "Doughnut Hole Day", holding it up as the day the typical Medicare beneficiary fell into the "doughnut hole" --- the point at which they must assume responsibility of 100% of their prescription drug costs. The doughnut hole is a novel feature of Medicare reform legislation passed in 2003, which took effect on January 1 of this year.

The Washington Post recently discussed Medicare's doughnut hole, and told the story of several people, including at least one woman battling breast cancer, who are choosing to stop taking necessary medication because they can't afford it. According to the Post, roughly 3 million Medicare recipients will find themselves in this situation this year.

The Post also claims that most beneficiaries are better off with the new Medicare plan than they were with the old. While that may be true, the Post fails to point out that, since the new plan explicitly prohibits Medicare from using its considerable buying power to lower prescription drug costs, these drugs cost roughly 40% more than they would otherwise. Consequently, more seniors are falling into the doughnut hole sooner than they would if the free-market Republicans in Congress had actually let market forces prevail.

In fact, the the Medicare bill is a marvelous case study in how official corruption in Washington has direct consequences on the everyday lives of Americans. If you haven't read our four-part series on this bill, take an hour and do it now.

The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

This dreadful piece of legislation, together with the ever-increasing urgent need to care for our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, are just two of the reasons why Coleen will work for universal health care when she's in Congress.

A New Generation of Islamic Radicalism

2006-09-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"It does make us safer."
John Kline on the U.S. presence in Iraq, June 28, 2004

"[America's internal security] posture has been weakened by the diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to our government’s plan to invade Iraq, a step that will, in all likelihood, bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad."
Coleen Rowley, in her February 26, 2003 letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The New York Times just came out with a story titled "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat". Here's the opening paragraph:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The report, compiled from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, also declares that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

Now, to be fair to John Kline, it's been more than two years since he declared that the U.S. presence in Iraq "does make us safer", and things have changed a lot since then. So if anyone knows of John Kline publicly agreeing with our intelligence agencies in their assessment that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has made the overall terrorism problem worse, just email the campaign and let us know.

More Shocking

2006-09-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces throughout the Middle East, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that the military will likely maintain - or possibly even increase - force levels of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring. The current total is 145,000, up about 20,000 since June.

Abizaid also stated that the increased commitment of troops will last at least through the spring. The Army is working on recruitment to grow in size from 504,000 soldiers to 512,000. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute notes that the Army should have set even higher recruitment goals at the outset of the conflict rather than waiting until now, but Donald Rumsfeld opposed such action in order to keep costs down.

Kline's Effort to Show Support for Veterans Backfires

2006-09-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Last Friday, John Kline sent around his fourth glossy mailer of the campaign. In a first for Kline, this mailer actually discusses his record on something: veterans issues. However, true to form, one of the four pages is devoted to smearing Coleen. The smears are nonsense, of course, and judging by the turnout at John Murtha's recent show of support for Coleen at the Rosemount VFW Hall, most veterans know that.

Kline's mailer makes two claims about his record of support for veterans. One section blares that Kline is "Supporting Disabled Veterans". This is no doubt a response to the 0% rating he received from the Disabled American Veterans in 2004 and 2005. Another proclaims that Kline is "Improving Veterans Benefits". Each section cites one example of legislation to back up the claim.

It is true that these bills help veterans. But Kline's record on these bills shows less support for veterans than you might think; in one case, much less.

Kline's mailer doesn't specify the legislation he supported (e.g. H.R. 5385), making it difficult to fact-check his claims. This already suggests he's trying to sweep something under the rug. But one bill is described as the "Military Quality of Life and Veterans' Affairs Bill" passed this year, which is pretty clearly H.R. 5385. This bill does indeed improve veterans benefits, and John Kline deserves credit for voting for it. In the same way, Betty McCollum, Jim Oberstar, Collin Peterson and Martin Sabo deserve credit for voting for it, as do all of the other Democrats in Congress. As a matter of fact, every single member of Congress who was present that day voted for this bill; it passed 395-0. So while John Kline's vote was indeed a good thing, it was in no way exceptional.

The other bill Kline talks about has to do with 'concurrent receipt', which addresses a problem Kline accurately explains as follows:

" . . . for every dollar a disabled veteran received in disability benefits, that dollar was removed from their pension. It penalized veterans for injuries they received in service to their country."

Instead of this reduction, disabled veterans should receive 'concurrent receipt' of both their pension and disability benefits. Kline claims that, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, he "helped negotiate the agreement that ended this unfair policy". Since he doesn't tell us which bill he "helped negotiate", we can't get into its specifics. But research reveals some interesting tidbits about concurrent receipt.

First, this "unfair policy" hasn't ended; rather, it is being slowly phased out over a 10-year period. And even then, veterans whose disabilities are rated at less than 50% will still be subject to a reduction in their pension. Second, Congress hasn't enacted any single law which implements concurrent receipt: according to the Disabled American Veterans, there are at least four (PDF). No doubt one of these is the one Kline supported.

"The efforts of Congress to eliminate the unfair offset incrementally have resulted in a number of programs with different eligibility requirements. This piecemeal approach was utilized by members of the presiding committees to escape mounting public pressure, while still avoiding paying the cost of an outright fix."

. . .

"Many disabled veterans are confused by the various eligibility requirements, and no headway has been made in recent years to rectify the injustice toward disabled retirees rated 40 percent and below."

(The DAV has a great deal more to say about the erosion of veterans' benefits under our Republican-led government.)

However, the most startling fact about Kline's claim to have "ended this unfair policy" is that Kline has steadfastly ignored a bill which would grant concurrent receipt to all veterans immediately, even though as a member of the Armed Services Committee, he might well have been able to usher it into law. This bill was introduced as H.R. 303 in each of the last two sessions of Congress.

The history is truly striking. Here is a timeline of actions which have been taken on H.R. 303:

January 8, 2003 - H.R. 303 is introduced in the House by Florida Republican Mike Bilirakis at the start of the 108th Congress. It is immediately referred to the House Armed Services Committee on which John Kline sits.
February 3, 2003 - H.R. 303 is referred to the subcommittee on Total Force, where it sits for months.
May 22, 2003 - Georgia Democrat Jim Marshall introduces H.Res. 251 for the sole purpose of bringing H.R . 303 to the floor for a vote. It is immediately referred to the Rules Committee and never heard from again.
June 12, 2003 - Marshall begins circulating a discharge petition to force a floor vote on H.R. 303. If 218 members sign it, the House leadership will be forced to bring it to the floor.
November 7, 2003 - Marshall makes a motion to recommit the National Defense Authorization Act to committee, so that full implementation of concurrent receipt can be added. The motion fails, 188-217, with John Kline voting against it.
December 20, 2004 - The 108th Congress ends with H.R. 303 still in committee. The bill dies with a bipartisan list of 383 cosponsors; John Kline is not among them. The discharge petition contains 207 names, just eleven short of forcing a vote, but does not include John Kline.
January 25, 2005 - Bilirakis reintroduces H.R. 303 at the start of the 109th Congress. It is once again referred to the House Armed Services Committee on which John Kline sits.
February 18, 2005 - H.R. 303 is referred to the subcommittee on Military Personnel, where it once again languishes.
May 10, 2005 - Marshall once again tries to force H.R. 303 to a floor vote by introducing H.Res. 270. Once again, Marshall's bill is referred to the Rules Committee, and once again, it is ignored.
May 24, 2005 - Marshall once again starts circulating a discharge petition.
September 15, 2006 - John Kline sends a mailer to the district claiming that his work has "ended this unfair policy" of reducing disabled veterans' pensions.
Today - H.R. 303 is still stuck in a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. It has 239 cosponsors, none of whom are John Kline. The discharge petition has 191 signatures and once again, John Kline's is not among them.

So the truth is that as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, John Kline had the opportunity to champion a full and immediate implementation of concurrent receipt by insuring that a bipartisan bill with hundreds of cosponsors made it to the House floor. But he has chosen to let it languish in committee --- twice; he has failed to sign a discharge petition to get it to the House floor --- twice; he has even failed to make the token gesture of cosponsoring the bill --- twice; and on at least one occasion (there may have been others), when given the opportunity to include it as an amendment to a bill, Kline voted no.

And yet he proudly proclaims the work he's done to enact a partial and gradual implementation of concurrent receipt as one of his major achievements for veterans.

Update: This post addresses a policy of reducing a disabled veteran's pension by the amount of his disability benefit, when our veterans deserve 'concurrent receipt' of both benefits. Earlier versions of this post mistakenly identified 'concurrent receipt' as the reduction in pension.

The Final Push: GOP Dirty Tricks Begin

2006-09-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In recent days, we've seen vicious attacks against Keith Ellison in the 5th CD race. Rowley for Congress has been on the receiving end of a few smear attacks, too. These are likely just the opening salvos in an all-out campaign of character assassination and dirty tricks which will make us all nostalgic for the gentler, more civil campaigns of 2002 and 2004.

Last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced that it would be spending at least 90% of its $50 million war chest on personal attacks on Democratic candidates. And it won't stop there. The Republican who funded the Swift Boaters in the 2004 cycle is funding a 527 group to spread lies about Democrats using automated phone call "push polls", and the election is more than 7 weeks away.

Think about this for a minute. The Republican party, which lays claim to "family values" and "personal responsibility" is not only campaigning principally, if not exclusively on smear tactics, they're brazen enough to formally announce that this is their strategy.

Then again, they can't point to anything they've actually accomplished for the average American, so what choice do they have? There are a lot of good reasons to vote for Coleen Rowley in November: responsible redeployment from Iraq, increased funding for education, health care for every American and protection of our civil rights. But the best reason to vote for Coleen is that it's your one chance between now and 2008 to hold George Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress accountable for their cronyism, for their incomptence, for wasting American lives and treasure on the debacle in Iraq, and much, much more.

Think about that between now and November 7. And if you receive a phone call before then dishing dirt on Coleen, consider who it's coming from.

John Kline's Puzzling Interview

2006-09-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

It's been three weeks since the 'debate' between Coleen, Jason Lewis and John Kline at the State Fair. Since then, Kline has refused at least four additional debates, and has ignored the debate challenge Coleen issued two weeks ago. While he continues to avoid an honest exchange of views in a neutral forum, he recently talked with T.W. Budig of ECM. In addition to reiterating his support for an open-ended occupation of Iraq, he made some truly puzzling statements about the campaign.

To begin with, Kline alleges that Rowley for Congress has been "relentlessly negative" in its campaign. This is a puzzling charge, coming from a congressman who launched three smear attacks in as many weeks in August. As evidence of the Rowley campaign's negativity, Kline alleges that Coleen Rowley and her supporters "attacked" him at parades. Actually, what the Rowley campaign did was pass out bookmarks with an abbreviated chart of John Kline's record on the issues, as scored by independent groups such as the League of Conservation Voters, the AFL-CIO’s "Working Families" group, the National Education Association and the Disabled American Veterans. The full list of rankings is available here. If informing voters about John Kline's record is "relentlessly negative", Kline has no one to blame but himself.

Kline goes on to charge that Coleen Rowley is difficult to pin down on the issues, saying "We need to get her, frankly, to say where she stands on some of the issues". If Kline is truly confused about Coleen's positions, then he should be welcoming debates, not ducking them. But it's difficult to understand how Kline could be confused in the first place, since Coleen has clearly stated her position on no fewer than 10 issues on this very website, and has authored numerous other pieces in the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, New York Times and Huffington Post (the Star Tribune is currently running an op-ed she co-authored). Perhaps John Kline doesn't understand that a campaign website is the place where most candidates publish their positions on issues; certainly Kline has failed to do this at his own campaign site. But if he's confused about Coleen's positions, he once again has no one but himself to blame.

Speaking of issues, Kline next jumps into a discussion of U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Budig, Kline "expresses shock that people seem to have conveniently forgotten that it was generally agreed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." But this statement is remarkably disingenuous. People haven't "conveniently forgotten" the consensus view in 2003 that Saddam had WMD; rather, they resent the fact that the administration manufactured that consensus by lying about the threat in order to generate support for the invasion. And instead of holding the administration to account, John Kline is continuing to cover for them.

Kline goes on to reiterate his rock-ribbed support for an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq, noting that U.S. troops have been stationed in Germany for 60 years. Of course during WWII, we were fighting a conventional war against other countries, not a sectarian conflict among multiple guerilla factions; and combat was concluded within a relatively short time frame. Our troops have now been fighting in Iraq longer than we fought in Europe during WWII, and there is no end in sight. Indeed, our top two generals in the region recently testified that the sectarian violence is the worst it's ever been, and Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and Republican Senator from Nebraska, contends that the occupation is "destroying the United States Army". Despite overwhelming evidence that the occupation of Iraq is ineffective both in fighting terrorism and in fostering democracy, and the fact that it is destroying our military readiness, John Kline is adamant about staying the course. Indefinitely.

Kline does, however, want to increase the size of the Army.

"We should not have to deploy the reserve component to that extent," he said, noting the recent departure of 2600 Minnesota National Guards troops for Iraq.

It would stretch the military, but Kline believes the U.S. forces could handle Iraq and Afghanistan and also deal with North Korea or Iran if military action were deemed necessary.

Coleen Rowley supports responsible redeployment from Iraq; but since John Kline demands an open-ended commitment, a push to increase our overall troop strength is essential. But Kline conspicuously avoids discussing where these troops will come from; he has previously made it "crystal clear" that he "categorically" opposes reinstating the draft. Until he provides specifics on how to increase recruitment and retention, it's irresponsible for Kline to publicly state that the U.S. can reasonably maintain forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and North Korea or Iran.

Finally, Kline cites an increase special education funding and continued work on national security as his priorities should he win a third term. Coleen supports these goals as well, but Kline's record in Congress shows he hasn't always pursued them. On national security, John Kline prioritized tax cuts for millionaires above funding for homeland security, and has consistently voted against steps to secure nuclear and chemical sites, against improved air travel screening and inspections, against tougher border and port security, and against funding for first responders. And on education, Kline voted for a $12 billion cut in student loan programs --- the largest such cut ever.

What Kline fails to discuss about his third-term agenda is his long-standing support for Social Security privatization. He was one of the main champions of George Bush's doomed privatization effort in 2005, and Bush has clearly indicated Social Security is one of his priorities in 2007. There's every reason to believe that Kline will continue to toe the line for Bush if he gets the chance.

Yes, the answers John Kline gave in this interview are truly puzzling, but what's not puzzling is Kline's continued refusal to sit down with Coleen Rowley for another discussion of the issues. Kline knows that if he engages in another debate with a moderator just slightly less partisan than Jason Lewis, voters will get a clear look at Kline's record. Considering what that record is, there's no wonder Kline is sowing the seeds of confusion.

More on Median Income

2006-09-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Not long ago, we explained how median income, adjusted for inflation, is a better measure of the health of the American economy than average income, because median income only rises if the number of people moving above the previous median exceeds the number of people falling below it.

Recent census data show that over the past 2-3 years, median income has fallen while average income has risen, indicating that the rich are getting richer while most Americans are left behind. Yesterday, the Detroit Free Press published a story discussing the drop in median incomes over the past 6 years. While the story was focused on Michigan, there was one quite telling graphic showing the change in real median income for every state over the past 6 years.

The upshot is, real median income is stagnant or down --- in many cases, sharply down --- in 31 states and the District of Columbia. Wisconsin had the worst drop, at 16.5%, and Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri all had double-digit drops as well.

Viewed from that perspective, Minnesota's 1.6% drop is relatively modest. Nevertheless, it's clear that the economy is heading in the wrong direction. This is yet one more reason we need to change things in Washington.

Update: It appears that the Detroit Free Press had an error in their data; this post has been updated accordingly. The corrected data is available here.

What's Median, What's Average, and What's Real

2006-08-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In last Friday's debate between Coleen, Jason Lewis, and John Kline, there was a great deal of discussion near the end about the state of the American economy. Lewis and Kline gave a positive view, while Coleen focused on the facts. When one crunches the numbers, it turns out that there is good news and bad news about the American economy: good news for the very wealthy, and bad news for nearly everyone else.

Discussions about economics are easily bogged down in details, so we'll focus on just two statistics: average income and median income. (Actually, we'll consider real average income and real median income, which factor out inflation).

Average income, or per capita income, is computed by taking the total income earned in the U.S. and dividing by the number of workers. When average income goes up, it could mean that most workers saw their incomes increase, or it could mean that a few very wealthy people got more while everyone else saw their income remain constant (or even drop a bit).

Median income is defined to be the midpoint of all incomes: 50% of American workers earn more than the median income, and 50% earn less. Median income can only increase in a given year if there more people rise above the previous median than fall below it. Conversely, if more fall below than rise above, median income goes down.
With this in mind, consider the Census Bureau report which came out on Tuesday. Specifically, on page 12 we find:

. . . the real median earnings of both men and women who worked full-time, year-round declined between 2004 and 2005. The median earnings of men declined 1.8 percent to $41,386. The median earnings of women declined 1.3 percent, to $31,858. This is the second consecutive year that men experienced a decline in earnings and the third consecutive year for women.

Median income for full time workers has decreased for two consecutive years, three consecutive years for women. That means that for the past 2-3 years, more people have seen their income fall below the existing median than rise above it (after adjusting for inflation). Needless to say, John Kline is unlikely to discuss real median wages during this campaign.

You're more likely to hear John Kline talk about average wages or per capita wages, because on the surface, the news there looks good. Again from the Census Bureau report:

Real per capita income rose by 1.5 percent for the overall population and by 2.1 percent for the non-Hispanic white population between 2004 and 2005.

Consider for a moment what these statistics mean. Real median income is down for the last 2-3 years, while average income is up. How is this possible? Since median income is down, then overall, incomes are dropping . So it's likely that average income is going up because the people who ARE gaining income are gaining quite a bit.

Put another way, an extra $100 million for Bill Gates or Paris Hilton can offset $500 losses for thousands of workers. The real story of the American economy is that the rich keep getting richer, while the middle class fall farther and farther behind. The Census Bureau report also estimates that there are 46.6 million people without health insurace, and 37 million people in poverty. This is the legacy of John Kline, George Bush and the GOP-led Congress.

Big Pharma Contributed to Medicare Ads

2006-08-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

All this month, we've run a series of pieces on the Medicare Bamboozle, a series which came about as a response to recent television ads paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praising John Kline, Mark Kennedy and others for their support of the abysmal Medicare Part D legislation.

Only it turns out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wasn't the only organization footing the bill for these ads. The Associated Press reported yesterday that the pharmaceutical industry, the true beneficiaries of the Medicare bill, also contributed an unspecified amount to the ad campaign:

The pharmaceutical industry quietly footed the bill for at least part of a recent multimillion-dollar ad campaign praising lawmakers who support the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, according to political officials.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims credit for the ads, although a spokesman refused repeatedly to say whether it had received any funds from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Given the truly unprecedented and broadly-based chicanery used to pass the bill in the first place, it's hardly surprising that Big Pharma is still quietly pumping money into promoting this pork-laden bill and the legislators who passed it.

If you're not familiar with the whole sordid tale of the Medicare Bamboozle, our treatment of it is available here:

The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

Instead of a near-trillion dollar giveaway to drug companies masquerading as a prescription drug benefit, Coleen Rowley supports universal health care. She also supports comprehensive ethics reform, because an ethical Congress never would have passed this disaster of a bill in the first place.

Shocked?

2006-08-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"If you're talking to me in eight or 10 months, and we're not starting to see actual withdrawals, I'll be shocked." - John Kline in the Star Tribune, November 24, 2005

The Blotter (not this Blotter, the ABC News Blotter) is reporting that the Marine Corps has now resorted to calling up troops from the Individual Ready Reserve in order to maintain required troop levels in Iraq. These are reservists who have not been drilling on a regular basis. Apparently the Army has been doing this on a regular basis, but this is the first such call-up for the Marines.

Since a callup of troops from the IRR is the exact opposite of withdrawals, I did a Google search to see whether Kline has expressed any shock over this development. I also searched his campaign and congressional web sites. Nothing.

Fiscal Reponsibility

2006-08-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

The New York Times has an absolutely fascinating story out this morning, about plans to privatize IRS collection enforcement:

Within two weeks, the I.R.S. will turn over data on 12,500 taxpayers — each of whom owes $25,000 or less in back taxes — to three collection agencies. Larger debtors will continue to be pursued by I.R.S. officers.

The move, an initiative of the Bush administration, represents the first step in a broader plan to outsource the collection of smaller tax debts to private companies over time. Although I.R.S. officials acknowledge that this will be much more expensive than doing it internally, they say that Congress has forced their hand by refusing to let them hire more revenue officers, who could pull in a lot of easy-to-collect money.

This is one of the problems with our current Congress --- it seems that no one can analyze the consequences of their actions more than one day into the future. In fact, it seems that few people even want to, other than crying about the theoretical Social Security crisis in an effort to distract attention from more pressing matters.

It's difficult to imagine a bigger waste of money than to hire private collection firms to do work that the IRS could do far more efficiently itself. How much more efficiently?

Privatizing government services is often promoted as a way to cut costs. But the government would probably net $1.1 billion from private debt collectors over 10 years, compared with the $87 billion that could be reaped if the agency hired more revenue officers, as Mr. Rossotti had recommended.

About 80 times more efficiently. First Congress passes unprecedented tax cuts which principally benefit the wealthy, and then they give away a substantial portion of the tax revenues to private companies.

It's time for a change.

The Medicare Bamboozle: Part IV

2006-08-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"The fear here is that there's no cost containment, there's not enough competition, this thing goes through the roof, and what happens is you break Medicare." - John Kline in 2003, on the Medicare bill

We have already examined how the Republican culture of corruption led to the passage of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, and the reasons why one prominent conservative opined that it "may well be the worst piece of legislation ever enacted". We've also discussed why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using this bill in an effort to put halos on John Kline and Mark Kennedy.

The final chapter in this saga is to take a closer look at John Kline's role. It is a little-known fact that Kline led an effort to get the GOP leadership to act deliberately on this bill, instead of ramming it through as they ultimately did. The problem is, when crunch time came, Kline toed the GOP line.

There is no question that John Kline always supported the stated goals of the Medicare bill. In a rare op-ed in the June 29, 2003 Pioneer Press, Kline wrote:

As the Medicare Trustees remind us year after year, the current Medicare system is not, in the long term, financially sound. According to the President's Fiscal Year 2004 Budget, the net present value shortfall for Medicare is $13.3 trillion and growing. Unless health care costs to the Medicare system can be controlled as the baby-boom generation retires, the combination of increasing costs and the growing number of beneficiaries will cause the program to collapse under its own weight.

As final passage of the bill grew nearer, Kline publicly expressed concerns about the cost. In a November 18, 2003 article in the Star Tribune, Kevin Diaz quotes Kline as saying:

"It's $400 billion, with a 'b,' '' Kline said. "The fear here is that there's no cost containment, there's not enough competition, this thing goes through the roof, and what happens is you break Medicare."

Perhaps due to concerns over cost, or perhaps for other reasons, on October 29 2003, freshman congressman John Kline led a group of 41 Republican legislators in publicly requesting that the GOP leadership follow House rules, and permit all House members, Republican and Democrat alike, the required 72 hours to review the final draft of the Medicare legislation before voting on it. From the Congressional Record:

The general public will evaluate not only what Congress does regarding Medicare and prescription drugs, but the way in which it does it. A bill proposing such substantive changes to the Medicare system and costing an estimated $400 billion over the next decade deserves the careful and thoughtful consideration of all Members.

Unfortunately, we already know the rest of the story. The bill was brought to the floor on November 21, the Rules Committee agreed to suspend the required 72-hour review period prior to voting on legislation, and John Kline voted in favor of suspending the rules. In a span of about 3 weeks, he went from leading the charge for "careful and thoughtful consideration" to following the orders of the GOP leadership.

A search of the four major Minnesota newspapers (Strib, Pioneer Press, Duluth News-Tribune and the St. Cloud Times) returns no evidence that Kline objected to House leadership holding the vote open for a record 2 hours, 51 minutes. It reveals no comment on the efforts of the GOP leadership to bribe Michigan congressman Nick Smith for his vote. And although Kline clearly had reservations about the bill's $400 billion price tag, there is no evidence that he expressed any objection or surprise over the revelations that the true White House estimate was at least 20% greater, or that the chief Medicare actuary had been threatened with firing if he informed Congress of the true cost.

Given the level of bullying and deception required to pass the Medicare bill, it's easy to conjecture that the bill might never have passed if John Kline had stood up to the GOP leadership and demanded of them what he thought was right. But he didn't. He needs to explain that to the thousands of seniors in our district who even now are sliding into Medicare's 'donut hole'.

This is part one of a four-part series on the Medicare Bill. Make sure to read them all!
The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

It's Official: Bush's Warrantless Surveillance is Unconstitutional

2006-08-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Today U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor confirmed what anyone with the most basic grasp of the law already knew, that George Bush's warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens is unconstitutional:

"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion. ". . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."

Let's be clear on this. Coleen Rowley does not oppose surveillance of suspected terrorists in the name of national security. No one opposes that. But what should greatly concern us all is the Bush administration's apparent need to conduct such surveillance without the federally mandated oversight of the FISA court. Coleen is on record as far back as March in stating that the NSA program needs needs close scrutiny:

If the President is correct in claiming his program is both legal and vital to the larger "War on Terror," then prove it. Let's have a bipartisan, comprehensive review of the program. Let's do it behind closed doors, so as not to reveal any sensitive details that could compromise our national security.

Keeping America safe is an absolute priority. But that responsibility does not give the President license to break the law.

For his part, John Kline has said . . . um . . . hmm. Well, I could be missing something here, but I'm unable to find any public statement of any kind from John Kline on this program, which is of central focus in both the so-called 'war on terror' and in defining who we are as a nation.

The New York Times broke the news about this program 8 months ago, which is a long time for a member of Congress to remain silent on such an important issue. Perhaps he believes that if he avoids saying anything, he will avoid criticism.

More on Social Security

2006-08-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

We have already discussed recent Bush administration efforts to revive their deeply unpopular plan for privatizing Social Security. The Campaign for America's Future, a grassroots organization dedicated to "a new vision of an economy and a future that works for all of us", and which played a key role in defeating Social Security privatization in 2005, is gearing up for the fight.

They recently released an analysis of the impact of the 2006 elections on Social Security, along with reports for a small handful of legislators, describing their past support for privatization. Minnesota was the only state to have two House members mentioned: Mark Kennedy and John Kline.

The full report on Kline is available here (PDF). Here's the key paragraph:

Representative John Kline, R-MN, has been one of the staunchest supporters of privatizing Social Security. He is a cosponsor of HR 3304, the bill that would use the Social Security surplus to help fund private accounts. Kline aggressively and publicly advocates a risky scheme for privatizing Social Security. In response to a survey administered by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper, he responded “Strongly Agree” to a question that said, “American workers should be allowed to place a portion of their Social Security payroll deductions into private retirement accounts if they wish.” As his record clearly demonstrates, Kline wants to put Americans’ retirement at risk, and as a member of the U.S. Congress, he’s currently in the position to do so.

All but one of the Democrats currently in the House of Representatives oppose Social Security privatization, as does Coleen Rowley. And Republican proponents of the plan will believe they have a public mandate to implement privatization if they are returned to Congress.

One more reason to vote for change.

Responsibility

2006-08-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

The Washington Post is reporting that John Kline will not be sued for statements he made about last year's massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who is alleged to have participated in the killings, filed suit against Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha for libel, insisting that public statements Murtha had made about events in Haditha prejudged his case. Attorneys had threatened to add John Kline to the suit for making similar statements, but Kline has apologized, saying ". . . as a Marine officer, I would never want to publicly insinuate, implicitly or explicitly, that I have prejudged what took place that day on the battlefield or afterwards."

We take Congressman Kline's words at face value. Certainly, we would not want to accuse him of publicly disparaging our troops fighting in Iraq. But the fact remains that Kline made some fairly conclusive statements about Haditha, and he isn't taking responsibility for them.

According the the Post, Kline effectively blames the media for his troubles:

Kline wrote that news outlets used incomplete statements that gave the false impression that he had concluded the Marines broke the law.

Yet there are several reasonably complete statements from various media outlets which show that Kline himself gave the impression he had concluded the Marines broke the law. Statements like:

Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity." - New York Times, May 26, 2006

and:

"There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up — there is no question about it," Kline said. - Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2006

and:

Representative John Kline, a Republican and a former marine, said: "This was a small number of marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them. This is going to be an ugly story … There is no doubt that the marines allegedly involved in doing this lied about it. They certainly tried to cover it up." - The Sunday Herald (Scotland), June 4, 2006

Everyone makes mistakes, so it's understandable that John Kline may have made stronger statements about Haditha than he intended. But by issuing an 'apology' in which he blames the media for his statements, he falls short of demonstrating the kind of responsibility and accountability we need and expect from our public officials.

Two Approaches to Fighting Terrorism

2006-08-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

For nearly five years, George Bush and the Republican Congress have been telling us that only they can keep America safe, because only they have the will protect us from the terrorists. The arrest of 24 suspected terrorists in Great Britain on Thursday shows how the George Bush/John Kline approach is exactly wrong.

Let's start with an observation in today's New York Times editorial:

The most frightening thing about the foiled plot to use liquid explosives to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is that both the government and the aviation industry have been aware of the liquid bomb threat for years but have done little to prepare for it.

This is a small detail which got lost in the initial media frenzy surrounding the arrests, but it's dead on. Liquid explosives were successfully detonated on a commercial airliner as long ago as 1994, but George Bush and John Kline haven't done much to prevent future attacks of this sort. The 9/11 commission gave Bush and the GOP Congress a C in this area on last fall's report card, and John Kline actually voted to limit the number of airline baggage screeners.

Beyond the Republican-led government's failures to adequately address this specific type of attack, there is also the issue noted here earlier, that George Bush and John Kline's preferred method of fighting terrorism --- keeping U.S. troops trapped in the middle of Iraq's civil war --- has actually increased the terrorist threat.

So what was the key to foiling this particular terrorist plot? The Times continues:

What saved everyone was apparently superb intelligence work by the British, who apprehended the terrorists before they could carry out their scheme. It is unlikely that any of the scanning machines or screening personnel deployed at airports would have detected the potentially destructive materials before they could be carried aboard.

This is something Coleen Rowley knows about, as a 24-year FBI veteran. By its very nature, terrorism is carried out by individuals, not states. So our counter-terrorism strategy must be primarily a law enforcement strategy, not a military one.

Another great myth of the Bush administration is that terrorist surveillance cannot be successfully conducted with judicial oversight. For literally years, George Bush has authorized NSA surveillance of innocent Americans, and attempted to create "a database of every call ever made" within our borders. To critics who charge that these programs violate the 1978 FISA law, Bush and his allies have responded that the surveillance is necessary to track down an neutralize terrorists.

This argument is absurd on its face. The FISA law doesn't prevent the government from monitoring terrorist suspects; rather, it subjects such monitoring to judicial review, to prevent the government from monitoring, say, political enemies (see: cointelpro).

But for proof, one need look no further than last Thursday's arrests. While the suspects were arrested in Britain, British authorities received a great deal of information from the FBI, who were monitoring calls between Britain and the United States. And what do you know:

The investigation was so large, officials said, that it brought a significant surge in warrants for searches and surveillance from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees most clandestine surveillance.

One official estimated that scores of secret U.S. warrants were dedicated solely to the London plot.

So the FBI helped the Brits nab these guys, and they did it using the same FISA warrant process which George Bush has blatantly --- and almost certainly illegally --- ignored for five years. And although the FISA law doesn't extend to Great Britain, Glenn Greenwald reports that the Brits have a similar requirement to obtain a warrant for surveillance, one which was presumably followed.

George Bush and John Kline will tell you that we need to 'stay the course' in Iraq in order to defeat the terrorists, when it's abundantly clear that approach is accomplishing the precise opposite. And George Bush will tell you it's necessary to give up your civil liberties in order to be safe (astonishingly, it appears that John Kline has been silent on this point for nearly 8 months now, and just as astonishingly, the media haven't pressed him on it), even though the FISA warrant process --- the same process Coleen Rowley recommended for dealing with Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 --- proved to be no barrier in this case.

(Update: Robert Kuttner provides an insightful and more detailed analysis of exactly how incompetent Bush's approach to the 'War on Terror' has been)

Priorities

2006-08-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Today, President Bush made the following statement:

"The easy fix is to say 'Let somebody else deal with it.' This administration is going to continue trying to work with Congress to deal with these issues."

It's encouraging to see George Bush so determined to address the difficult challenges facing our country before he leaves office.

Can you guess which issue he was talking about? Was it:

Working to reduce the record-breaking-with-no-end-in-sight federal deficit?
The fact that an estimated 46 million Americans are without health care?
The ever-deepening levels of sectarian violence in Iraq?

It's a trick question. The answer, of course, is none of these. For some reason, with less than three months until the election, George Bush is making a renewed effort to push his deeply unpopular Social Security privatization plan --- a plan which John Kline championed, with little success, in the House of Representatives last year.

Safer?

2006-08-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

"It does makes us safer." - John Kline in a June 28, 2004 interview with Kevin Diaz of the Star Tribune, talking about the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Madrid. London. And now it seems, we came within a hair's breadth of "mass murder" over the Atlantic:

British authorities said the threat involved terrorists who aimed to smuggle liquid explosive material aboard airplanes in hand baggage, including timers and detonators that could be assembled in flight. British Home Secretary John Reid said the operation was aimed at bringing down "a number of aircraft" -- reportedly at least ten -- "through mid-flight explosions, causing a considerable loss of life."

The State Department recently reported that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005. Thankfully, none of these attacks occurred on American soil, but that seems to be mostly coincidence. John Kline himself has posted a feature on his congressional web site titled 'Terrorists in America'. And there were certainly Americans on the transatlantic flights which this most recent terrorist effort was targeting.

Taking all of this into consideration, together with Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's recent statement that continued U.S. involvement in Iraq is "ruining our United States Army," I would like to ask John Kline exactly how keeping our soldiers in Iraq is making Americans safer. How is it making anyone safer?

Please phrase your answer in the form of an answer, not a wild-eyed distortion about something one of our staffers did months before joining the campaign.

Stay the Course?

2006-08-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

I'd like to spend a bit of time talking about the campaign's latest press release. Our campaign has noticed that while John Kline was very outspoken about the U.S. occupation of Iraq during the first three years, he's been relatively quiet on the subject lately. Is this because the congressman is going soft in his previously rock-ribbed support for the war? The election is less than three months away, and the voters deserve to know.

For the record, Coleen opposed going into Iraq from the beginning, citing her belief that doing so would be a shot in the arm for al-Qaeda recruitment, and pose a greater threat to our security over the long term. She has held to that view, and is now an outspoken supporter of responsible redeployment along with Pennsylvania Democrat and 37-year Marine Corps veteran John Murtha.

According to a October 24, 2002 Pioneer Press article by Rachel Stassen-Berger, John Kline supported war in Iraq "long before it came to a vote in Congress". Perhaps he still does. But his relative silence on the subject has got us wondering, so we're asking him for a clear statement of his position.

And since it seems John Kline doesn't want to talk to us, we're asking the media to do what they can to get an answer.

Here are a few of Kline's statements on Iraq from late last year:

"What I would expect to happen is that they [Iraqi security forces] will get better and better and stronger and stronger, and by this time next year, I'll be very surprised if we don't have significantly fewer U.S. forces in Iraq" - Star Tribune, September 18, 2005

Kline said troop reductions are a near certainty in the coming year - barring unforeseen circumstances. "If you're talking to me in eight or 10 months, and we're not starting to see actual withdrawals, I'll be shocked." - Star Tribune, November 24, 2005 --- 8.5 months ago

"President Bush's speech reemphasizes that there is a clear plan for victory in Iraq. It is uplifting to see the courage of the Iraqi security forces as they take on more and more responsibility." - Star Tribune, December 1, 2005, shortly after Kline returned from a visit to Iraq

But then this past April, we have:

Gutknecht and Kline, meanwhile, who have been consistent supporters of the war, had little to say last week about Iraq and the election.

Kline declined to comment. His spokesman Troy Young said: "We're not going to continuously air our political election views through the press. That's not the way we operate. That's not the way any incumbent operates." - Star Tribune, April 28, 2006

Now perhaps it's unreasonable for us to expect that John Kline will, as the incumbent, talk about his positions on issues like the situation in Iraq. But oddly enough, first district congressman Gil Gutknecht, who like Kline is an incumbent as well as a long-time supporter of the U.S. presence in Iraq, not only spoke out recently, but announced that he had changed his mind:

Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.

If Gutknecht can a) Speak up about Iraq and b) Change his mind, why can't Kline? Especially when our top General in the Middle East, John Abizaid, and Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have this to say about Bush's "clear plan for victory in Iraq":

"The sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it," Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

. . .

"We do have the possibility of that devolving to a civil war, but that does not have to be a fact," said Pace. ". . . We need the Iraqi people to seize this moment."

This is where George Bush and John Kline's 'stay the course' strategy has brought us. After 3.5 years of fighting, $300 billion spent, 2600 U.S. soldiers and untold thousands of Iraqis dead, Iraq is further from Democracy than it has been at any time since the fall of Saddam.

Has it made us safer? There are a lot of ways to answer that question, but if we measure the safety of our country by the readiness of our military, the answer is a resounding "No". Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, himself a Vietnam veteran, recently declared:

"We're ruining our United States Army. We are decimating our army. We can't continue with the tempo and the commitment that we are on right now."

John Kline wanted this war, and he has supported the Bush administration in its conduct of the war every step along the way, even praising Donald Rumsfeld as having done "a very good job" in the wake of the Abu Ghraib abuses. So the very simple question is, does he still support the Bush 'stay the course' strategy?

Coleen believes emphatically that 'stay the course' is no strategy at all; it's simply a mantra for the Bush administration to repeat over and over until 2009, when someone else will move into the Oval Office and be forced to clean up the mess.

If John Kline is confident in his position, he shouldn't hesitate to share it with the voters.

The Medicare Bamboozle: Part III

2006-08-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

We've discussed the recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce ads praising John Kline and Mark Kennedy for their support of the Medicare prescription drug program, and scratched the surface of what truly awful legislation it is. One might well ask, how did Congress ever pass such a pork-laden giveaway for the pharmaceutical industry into law?

The answer lies in the Republican culture of corruption. Coleen is running on a platform of comprehensive ethics reform, which most everyone says they support. But in order to truly understand how official corruption in Washington affects our everyday lives, it helps to examine a real-life example in detail.

You couldn't ask for a better example than the Medicare Part D legislation.

Our story begins in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, November 22, 2003. 3:00 AM, to be exact. That's when Doc Hastings, R-WA, who was acting as Speaker Pro Tem of the U.S. House of Representatives, declared that debate on the prescription drug bill was over, and the time had come to vote. This was less than 26 hours after the bill had been released from the conference committee, much to the consternation of many Democrats, including Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who complained earlier in the proceedings (from the Congressional Record):

. . . under House rules, Mr. Speaker, all Members of this House, Democrats and Republicans, are supposed to have 3 days, 3 days to review any conference report so they can actually read what is in it so that they will know what, in fact, that they are voting on. It is obvious, as has been the case so many times over and over, that the Republican majority is choosing to ignore the rules of this House . . .

This was to no avail. At 3:00 AM on Saturday, November 22, Doc Hastings declared that "Members will have 15 minutes to record their votes." A November 23 Washington Post article describes what ensued:

The 2-hour-and-51-minute ordeal -- more than double the previous record -- saw Democrats savoring the possibility of their biggest victory of the Bush years -- an apparent 216 to 218 rejection of the $400 billion plan -- for almost an hour. But in that final hour, the president, jet-lagged from his flight home from Britain, phoned recalcitrant Republicans from the White House, and his secretary of health and human services, defying custom, jawboned members on the floor.

The full Post article is worth reading, but the full extent of Republican misdeeds wouldn't be known until weeks later, when Nick Smith of Michigan admitted that a member of the GOP leadership had effectively tried to bribe him into voting yes, and when that didn't work, resorted to threats instead. Smith later tried to recant, but the damage had already been done:

What little credibility Smith's retraction had back then was undone by the emergence of two pieces of evidence. The first was a tape-recording of a pre-recantation radio interview in which Smith very clearly described a "$100,000-plus" contribution to his son's campaign for Congress in exchange for his "yea" vote on the Medicare prescription bill. (Smith declined.) That meets the statutory definition of a bribe under United States Code, Title 18, Section 201, "Bribery of public officials and witnesses." The second piece of evidence was a story in the Washington Post that produced two witnesses—one of whom, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., went on the record—who said they distinctly heard Smith say the bribe was offered by someone in the House leadership.

Okay, so far we have the Republican leadership breaking House rules, holding the vote open for nearly three hours (a record) to give time for President Bush and the GOP leaders to pressure reluctant Republicans, and an actual felony committed on the floor of Congress.

But wait, there's more! Even this staggering amount of corruption isn't sufficient to pass a bill this bad! Since Republican lawmakers still like to lay claim to the title "conservative", they need to show concern about the cost of something like the Medicare bill. And well they should have been concerned; official White House estimates put the cost at $400 billion over 10 years. That's a lot of money.

But what's more astounding is that the White House knew the $400 billion figure understated the true cost by more than 20 percent (emphasis mine):

The chief Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, told Congress on Wednesday that last June he provided the White House with data indicating that prescription drug legislation would cost 25 percent to 50 percent more than the Bush administration's public estimates. That information did not make its way to Congress for six more months.

. . .

In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Foster said he had struggled to preserve the independence and integrity of his office. It was his first public appearance since a furor erupted over his assertions that Mr. Scully threatened to fire him if he disclosed his cost estimates to Congress during debate on the Medicare bill.

The "Mr. Scully" referenced above is Thomas Scully, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who:

. . . received a waiver from ethics laws, thereby allowing him to represent the Bush administration in discussions about the new drug bill while negotiating employment with three lobbying firms and two investment firms that had major stakes in the legislation.

Note that the Bush administration explicitly acknowledged that Scully was engaging in unethical behavior by granting him an "ethics waiver". I guess once Scully had the waiver, he figured there was nothing to stop him from demanding that Foster choose between lying to Congress and losing his job.

But let's not focus solely on Mr. Scully and the transgressions of the Bush administration; lots of the people involved in drafting the Medicare bill jumped on the Big Pharma gravy train shortly after the legislation passed, strongly indicating that the interests of the American people were not foremost in their minds while writing the bill.

This is the problem in a nutshell. The Medicare prescription drug benefit was written by people who wanted to shove as much taxpayer money as possible into the gaping maw of Big Pharma, so that they could be rewarded with cushy jobs at lobbying firms, working with their former colleagues in Congress to shove even more taxpayer money into the gaping maw of Big Pharma. There are at least two known instances of threats or bribes in this story, including one member of Congress attempting to bribe another on the House floor. Rules were ignored, ethics were ignored, laws were ignored.

And the ones paying the price are the seniors falling into the 'donut hole' --- our parents and grandparents --- as well as the American taxpayer who has to subsidize exorbitantly priced drugs because a corrupt Congress explicitly prohibited Medicare from using market forces to bargain for lower costs.

This is just one example of what the culture of corruption has brought us. It is far from the only one. Fixing this problem will be at the top of Coleen Rowley's agenda when she goes to Congress.

And John Kline? We'll look at the role he played in the Medicare debacle in our final post on the topic.

This is part one of a four-part series on the Medicare Bill. Make sure to read them all!
The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

The Medicare Bamboozle: Part II

2006-08-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

An earlier post discussed recent TV ads which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce purchased praising John Kline and Mark Kennedy for their support of Medicare Part D and its prescription drug provisions. The chief goal of the ads was to keep two of the Chamber's most reliable supporters in Congress, but a secondary goal was to convince voters that Medicare's prescription drug program is a good thing for consumers.

It's not. In fact, it may very well be the worst piece of legislation ever enacted. And that's not just my opinion.

The major provision of the prescription drug program which is causing problems for many seniors right now is the so-called 'donut hole'. In order to keep the cost of the program merely outrageous instead of obscene, the coverage is set up to pay 75% of drug costs until you've purchased $2250 worth of prescriptions. After that, you're on your own for the next $2850 (95% of costs beyond that are covered). Estimates on the number of seniors who will fall into the donut hole vary, but everyone agrees it will be more than 3 million:

Advocacy groups and some independent health analysts have warned of serious health consequences for older and disabled Americans living on low or moderate fixed incomes. Their resources, though minimal, often are too much to qualify for extra help. They face difficult choices, advocates fear: buy medicines or food and other necessities?

The donut hole problem is exacerbated by another horrendous provision of the bill: Medicare is explicitly prohibited from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices. By one measure, this provision has led to a 48% increase in drug costs, pushing more seniors into the donut hole sooner.

But wait, there's more. Since Medicare covers a substantial portion of drug costs --- at least until the donut hole kicks in --- the American taxpayer is also paying higher prices. And it doesn't end there. In today's global economy, drug companies sell their products all over the world, in countries which already have some form of universal health care. The governments in these countries do negotiate lower prices with the drug companies, which make up the difference by raising prices in the U.S. So in effect, the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing health care in Canada, Great Britain and Japan. So much for John Kline's claim to be a friend of the taxpayer.

Indeed, the plan is such a blatant giveaway to big pharma, even conservatives are disgusted with it. Bedrock conservative Bruce Bartlett, writing for the Cato Institute, points out yet another flaw in the plan:

. . . the drug program would reimburse corporations for the drug benefits they were already providing to their retirees. The federal government would send huge checks to some of the largest corporations in the United States for the costs that they were already contractually obligated to pay. The final legislation provides a 28 percent tax-free subsidy that is expected to average $660 per retiree per year.

The numbers are huge. After passage of the legislation, the Wall Street Journal reported that General Motors anticipated receiving $4 billion to cover its prescription drug costs. Other recipients included Verizon ($1.3 billion), BellSouth ($572 million), Delphi ($500 million), U.S. Steel ($450 million), American Airlines ($415 million), John Deere ($400 million), United Airlines ($280 million), and Alcoa ($190 million).

. . . I believe that the Medicare drug bill may well be the worst piece of legislation ever enacted. That it was enacted by a president and Congress controlled by my party is a source of great distress to me. It will cost vast sums the nation cannot afford, even if its initial budgetary projections prove to be accurate, which is highly doubtful.

And it doesn't end there. Readers who want a more comprehensive accounting of the problems with this program can read the analysis Consumer's Union did just before the bill was passed (PDF).

It's clear that this bill was written for the good of the drug companies who contribute so generously and reliably to Republican candidates (John Kline has received nearly $100,000 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical and health products industries). This bill is a perfect microcosm of the Republican culture of corruption in action.

And that's not taking into account the remarkable stunts the Republicans played to get the bill passed in the first place, which we'll discuss in the next post.

This is part one of a four-part series on the Medicare Bill. Make sure to read them all!
The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

Responsible Redeployment Now

2006-08-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In a June 28, 2004 interview with the Star Tribune writer Kevin Diaz, John Kline said:

Actually, I rate the chances pretty high of avoiding a civil war. It's my understanding . . . that there really is a sense in Iraq of being Iraqi. Yes, there are the distinctions that you outlined. You would think the Kurds would be the most problematic, because they're geographically isolated largely in the north, and there's been an effort on their part for generations to have an independent Kurdistan. Having said that, though, they seem to be working together well now . . .

This past Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, our top General in the Middle East, and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Star Tribune, August 4, 2006):

"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war," said Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command and the top general in the Middle East.

Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with the appraisal. "I believe that we do have the possibility of that devolving to a civil war, but that does not have to be a fact," he said.

These generals are responsible for guiding our troops in Iraq. But many more detached observers believe that full-blown civil war has already broken out in Iraq. And at least two of those observers make compelling arguments for a responsible redeployment of our troops.

Tom Friedman, long-time Middle East commentator for the New York Times, like John Kline, supported Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq. And for the past 3.5 years, he's remained cautiously optimistic about the outcome. Yesterday however, he dropped his optimism (subscription required):

It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war.

When our top commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, tells a Senate Committee, as he did yesterday, that "the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it," it means that three years of efforts to democratize Iraq are not working. That means "staying the course" is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B — how we might disengage with the least damage possible...

...Yes, the best way to contain Iran would have been to produce a real Shiite-led democracy in Iraq, exposing the phony one in Tehran. But second best is leaving Iraq. Because the worst option — the one Iran loves — is for us to stay in Iraq, bleeding, and in easy range to be hit by Iran if we strike its nukes.

Former U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith notes that, contrary to Kline's 2004 observation that the factions in Iraq are "working together well now," the Kurds have isolated themselves from the sectarian fighting between the Shi'ites and Sunnis. He further points out that the more immediate threat of extending the occupation of Iraq comes not from Iran, but from al-Qaeda:

Seeing as we cannot maintain the peace in Iraq, we have but one overriding interest there today — to keep Al Qaeda from creating a base from which it can plot attacks on the United States. Thus we need to have troops nearby prepared to re-engage in case the Sunni Arabs prove unable to provide for their own security against the foreign jihadists.

The situation in Iraq is bad and getting worse, and there are no easy answers. Thanks to the adminstration's insistence on fixing the facts around a predetermined course of invasion, their refusal to send adequate troop strength, and their failure to secure the postwar peace, there is no good solution to the problem of Iraq.

There will be no good solutions as long as politicians like John Kline stubbornly insist on staying this misguided and deadly course.

The Medicare Bamboozle: Part I

2006-08-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

A couple of nights ago, I saw a campaign ad for John Kline, which discussed in glowing terms Kline's support for the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, and how Kline is actually "doing something" to help seniors.

A few minutes later, I saw the same ad, only with Mark Kennedy.

Now while Mark Kennedy's new ads have received a lot of attention, and while John Kline and Mark Kennedy have nearly identical records of rubberstamp support for George Bush, some folks might find it strange that Kline and Kennedy are running the same ad. The explanation is that Kline and Kennedy didn't produce or pay for the ads. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did. And the Chamber is certainly correct that John Kline and Mark Kennedy both voted for and continue to support the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. The unstated implication of the ad, that the Chamber would really like to help Kline and Kennedy win their elections, is true as well.

But the implicit conclusion, that Medicare Part D is a great bill benefitting seniors, is dead wrong. This post is the first in a series examining Medicare Part D. We'll start with an examination of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their reasons for helping out John Kline and Mark Kennedy.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an advocacy group for businesses, which means their primary purpose is to support legislators and legislation which helps business. This fact alone casts doubt on the ad's implication that Medicare Part D is a great program for America's seniors. But let's dig a little further.

According to Wikipedia, the main legislative priorities for the Chamber are:

Supporting Bush's immigration reform plan
Pro-ANWR Drilling
Pro-Offshore Oil Drilling
Pro-Health Savings Accounts
Against most forms of tax on business
Anti-Minimum Wage

The Center for Media and Democracy says that the Chamber also supports Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. Now while John Kline and Mark Kennedy might not support all of these policies, they certainly support the bulk of them. Kline has voted for drilling in ANWR and for offshore oil drilling, and he most definitely supports Health Savings Account and tax cuts. As we noted earlier, he also championed Bush's failed drive to privatize Social Security last year. So there's little wonder the Chamber likes John Kline and wants to help him retain his seat.

In fact, the Chamber was so eager to help out its favored politicians that it got a bit careless with its fact-checking. Many politicians nationwide are featured in the ads, but at least three of the Republicans the Chamber praised for passing the legislation weren't even in Congress when the bill passed in 2003, and another congressman who was in the House actually voted against it. This is another indicator that the Chamber produced the ads not because Medicare Part D is really great for consumers, but mostly to keep Chamber-friendly legislators on Congress.

Instead of relying on a business advocacy group like the Chamber to weigh the benefits of Medicare Part D for consumers, it probably makes more sense to consult consumer advocacy groups, like Public Citizen and Consumer's Union.

Here's what Public Citizen had to say when George Bush first proposed the legislation:

The Medicare proposal announced by President Bush today betrays seniors and people with disabilities by forcing them to join unreliable private insurance plans in order to get significant coverage for the high cost of prescription drugs. The White House plan, announced during a speech to the American Medical Association, is also far inferior to the bill by House Democrats, also introduced today, to add a drug benefit to Medicare.

Consumer's Union urged its members to write their elected representatives expressing opposition to the plan, and gave this analysis:

An indepth analysis performed by Consumers Union of the proposed Medicare prescription drug benefit reveals a plan that not only falls embarrassingly short of giving seniors a real drug benefit, it likely will threaten Medicare’s viability.

Pretty grim stuff. But these analyses were written three years ago. Do these negative assessments match up with reality? See for yourself.

In a future post, I'll delve into the particulars of Part D. But as an interesting side note, here is an analysis of John Kline's and Mark Kennedy's voting records (All rankings obtained from Project Vote Smart). The first table shows how often Kline and Kennedy supported the agenda of the pro-business, pro-Medicare Part D U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

	Kline	Kennedy
2001	N/A	91%
2002	N/A	95%
2003	100%	93%
2004	100%	100%
2005	93%	93%

No wonder the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending millions to help these guys. Next, here's how often Kline and Kennedy supported the agenda of pro-consumer, anti-Medicare Part D Public Citizen:

	Kline	Kennedy
2001-02	N/A	5%
2003	0%	0%
2003-04	0%	0%

Still think John Kline and Mark Kennedy are great for "doing something" about Medicare?

This is part one of a four-part series on the Medicare Bill. Make sure to read them all!
The Chamber of Commerce and its support for Kline and Kennedy.
The worst piece of legislation ever enacted.
The Republican culture of corruption in microcosm.
John Kline's bold stand and subsequent crumbling.

Social Security: The Forgotten Issue

2006-08-01T22:12:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Let's travel back in time to February, 2005. In response to far-ranging criticism, Billboard created the Pop 100 music chart. The New England Patriots eked out their second 3-point Super Bowl victory in as many years, staking their claim to dynasty. And George Bush, who himself had just eked out a second consecutive victory the previous fall, gave the first State of the Union speech of his second term, and announced his centerpiece policy initiative: privatization of Social Security.

After 60 days spent traveling around the country talking about his plan, Bush found that the more he talked, the less people wanted to listen. Eventually his privatization plan just sort of faded away. But John Kline was one of the plan's most vocal proponents, and if Kline returns to a Republican-led Congress next year, February 2007 may well look an awful lot like February 2005 (except for the parts about Billboard and the Super Bowl).

An early indication that Bush hasn't given up on his privatization plan came this past February, when he silently slipped it in to his 2007 budget proposal. More recently, Republican House members have been inexplicably promoting the idea again, and two days ago, House Majority Leader John Boehner told the Washington Times "If I'm around in a leadership role come January, we're going to get serious about this." And he's not the only prominent national Republican saying such things.

Remember, whatever problems Social Security might have, George Bush's "personal accounts" will only make the problem worse. And given Social Security's projected insolvency date, Congress has more pressing things to consider, like energy policy, 46 million Americans without health care, and of course, civil war in Iraq.

To my knowledge, John Kline has not made any recent comments about Social Security, but he campaigned long and hard for privatization during the 2005 legislative session. There's every reason to believe he'll do it again in 2007 given the chance.

Coleen Rowley has other priorities.

Smear

2006-07-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

Al Franken and other Democratic luminaries were kind enough to hold a fundraiser for Coleen this past Sunday in Brainerd. Tyler Rushmeyer of the Minnesota Daily, the U of M campus newspaper, reports on Coleen's remarks and the odd response from John Kline's campaign spokesman:

Rowley, who took the stage midway through the event, said Kline has the worst voting record in the state on environment, education, disabled veterans and working family issues, which she specifically selected for their nonpartisan nature.

"The 2nd District is Republican-leaning," she said. "But these issues are all things that any person should find important and Kline has done nothing to support them."

Marcus Esmay, spokesman for the Kline campaign, described Rowley's campaign as a "smear" against Kline's record.

"Congressman Kline is a 25-year Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, was Military Aide to both Presidents Carter and Reagan and received Four Legions of Merit," Esmay said via e-mail. "John Kline doesn't need to talk about having integrity and ethics, he has lived it."

Note how Esmay responds to criticisms of Kline's record in Congress by discussing Kline's military record. It's almost as if Esmay wants people to forget that John Kline has been their congressman for nearly four years.

Sadly, this has been John Kline's strategy during this campaign: to talk about anything and everything but what he has and hasn't done in Congress. It says a lot about both John Kline and his record as a congressman that an honest assessment of his record on the issues is deemed a "smear".

Walls

2006-07-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

[Disclaimer: This post was first published on Coleen Rowley's campaign weblog.]

In the July 17 online edition of the Pioneer Press, Ruben Rosario discussed two gun bills (HR 5005, HR 5092) which John Kline is co-sponsoring. It sounds like these bills are tougher on law enforcement than they are are criminals.

Between them, these bills would:

Restrict public and, in most cases, law enforcement access to federal gun tracing data.
Eliminate the requirement that dealers inform local and state authorities about multiple gun sales.
Water down penalties for dealer violations. One proposal places a $15,000 cap on fines in spite of numerous violations.
Restrict access of federal gun trace information "when it pertains to the geographic jurisdiction of the law enforcement agency or prosecutor requesting the disclosure."
And the kicker: Up to five years in prison for any police officer who shares federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms gun trace data with another officer or agency.

Nearly everyone agrees that the perceived "wall" between counter-terrorism units and criminal law enforcement agencies was a significant obstacle to preventing the 9/11 attacks, and that we need to tear down such walls. Yet John Kline is pushing to erect more walls when it comes to tracking firearms. Even the Bush Justice Department agrees that these bills will make it more difficult for police officers to do their jobs.

Rosario rightly declares that " . . . those who back these bills outright as drafted should have their tails between their legs." The Minnesota Association of Police Chiefs opposes the legislation, and Chaska police Chief Scott Knight calls it "completely nuts" insisting that those who support these bills are lackeys of the gun lobby.

John Kline has accepted, to date, $31,750 in campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association.

Disclaimer

2006-05-06T20:12:00.000-07:00

There seems to be general consensus in the blogosphere that whenever ethical questions arise, the best answer is disclosure. So I'm posting this clearly lest there be any confusion about my role in Coleen Rowley's campaign for Congress and my publication of this site.

I began this site in October 2005 as a Rowley supporter and sometime volunteer. My reasons for starting the site and for helping Rowley's campaign were the same: I think Coleen offers Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District better representation than John Kline does. And I have learned through hard experience that if you want your politicians to change, you can't just sit back and hope for the best; you need to make it happen.

Over the past few months my involvement in the campaign has grown, and last Friday, as I was writing the previous post, I was offered the opportunity to join the campaign in an official capacity, as a member of the campaign staff.

After giving this some consideration, I have chosen to join the campaign on a part-time basis (I currently work full time and I am obliged to honor my current contract for another couple of months). My first act as a member of Coleen Rowley's campaign staff occurred this morning as I led a group of volunteers in a demonstration of support for Coleen, and later in the day I attended the DFL's endorsing convention as a member of the campaign staff.

Anyone who's read this far realizes that there have been problems in the past two election cycles --- and even in this one --- with political bloggers who have undisclosed partisan affiliations. In every case I'm aware of, the consensus of the blogosphere has been that there is no inherent problem with campaign staff maintaining a blog as long as all relevant information about the nature of the blog and the campaign's relation to it is fully disclosed.

Hence this little disclaimer.

So, for the record, I signed on to Coleen Rowley's campaign on May 6, 2006. None of my official acts pertain to publication of this blog. It is still the case that the ideas and opinions expressed on this site are exclusively my own. I do not take direction from the campaign about the content of this site, nor is publication of this site overseen by or coordinated with the campaign. In particular, I do not receive any monetary compensation from the campaign for maintaining this site.

If anyone has specific questions about this disclaimer, they are encouraged to contact the management.

Silent John Kline is Mum on Iraq

2006-04-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

It long ago became clear to me that, as one who supports John Kline's opponent, Coleen Rowley, Kline's office considers me persona non grata. They have not answered my questions via email, snail mail, or telephone. Personally, I think this is a foolish choice on their part, because it makes them look like they have something to hide. If John Kline has the courage of his convictions, he shouldn't hesitate to subject them to the scrutiny of his opponents.

But hey, I'm just one blogger, and no one much pays any attention to what I think, anyway. But in the last couple of days, I've noticed that Kline is giving the silent treatment to the mainstream media as well.

A few days ago, I noted that MPR asked every member of Minnesota's congressional delegation about the war in Iraq. Everyone but Kline, Gil Gutknecht and Collin Peterson responded.

Yesterday, the Strib asked Rowley and Kline about the war and the election:

Coleen Rowley, a Democrat and former FBI agent whose questioning of the war pre-dated the 2003 invasion, and who is challenging U.S. Rep. John Kline, a Republican, in the Second District, said once she secures party endorsement May 6 she will begin pitching a broader message focusing on how the middle class has been hurt by the war and the nation's debt.

(snip)

Kline declined to comment. His spokesman Troy Young said: "We're not going to continuously air our political election views through the press. That's not the way we operate. That's not the way any incumbent operates."

Kline had an opportunity to talk about Iraq --- two, actually --- and refused them? This is puzzling behavior, considering that Kline has long been one of the war's most ardent supporters.

John Kline's Auction Block

2006-04-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

The DCCC has started up a new site called GOP Auction House. It attempts to catalog the full range of Republican corruption, and the ways in which Republican coziness with big business interests is hurting the country.

That's a mighty huge task.

It appears that they have info on every GOP member of Congress, including John Kline of course. It's worth explicitly making the point that I have seen no evidence so far that Kline is actually corrupt in the sense of Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney or Katherine Harris. It appears that unlike many of his colleagues, Kline actually makes an effort to maintain a clear distinction between his duty to his constituents and the PACs from which he receives money.

(The only caveat here is that Kline has remained remarkably loyal to DeLay, at one point voting to weaken Republican caucus ethics rules on DeLay's behalf, and until this very day holding on to $31,000 he's received in campaign contributions from DeLay or his PAC).

The real knock on Kline --- both in my opinion and according to GOP Auction House --- is simply that quite often he votes for bad legislation, because he votes with the GOP caucus 98% of the time. So he voted for last year's energy bill, which included $7 billion in giveaways to the oil and gas industry, at a time when oil companies were ringing up record profits. He voted for Medicare Part D. He opposed expanding TRICARE to cover all National Guard and Reserve troops (as I've discussed elsewhere). He championed Social Security privatization. And so on.

This site has raised the ire of at least one Kline supporter, but I'm just presenting Kline's record, as advertised. Those who don't like what I present need to take it up with Kline.

Pension Reform: A Tough Call for CD2

2006-04-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've written about pension reform before, about how the House and Senate have passed different versions of the bill, and may be unable to reconcile them. Ultimately, all that matters is that according to the government's pension agency, whichever version gets passed will make the pension crisis much, much, worse.

Setting that aside for the moment, it seems that House and Senate negotiators are concerned that if they don't work out a final bill soon, nothing will be passed this session at all. In this case, nothing would be better than something, but legislators understandably want to be able to go home to their constituents and point to legislation they passed, even if it was bad legislation.

The problem for Kline is that he comes from the House, a chamber that did not approve special language bailing out airlines like Northwest Airlines, based in MN-02. The Senate did. But it is this very provision which is largely responsible for the fact that the bills will hurt more than they help:

The biggest single-industry pension break in the bill passed by the Senate is for the airlines, to allow them to keep their unstable pension plans going.

Among other things, the airlines would be given 20 years to close the shortfalls in their pension funds Â nearly three times as long as other companies. They would also be allowed to factor in highly optimistic assumptions about their investment returns when calculating how much they needed to contribute to their pension funds each year.

The measures were written into the bill at the request of Northwest Airlines, which is in bankruptcy proceedings and is trying to keep its pensions alive, though in sharply reduced form. Northwest sought a 14-year breather on its pension contributions.

Kline nevertheless supports the provision, because:

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), one of the conferees, said he favors the airline relief because Northwest is in his district and added he hopes to overcome opposition from some conferees who don't like government bailouts of companies that have over-promised their employees.

"In the case of Northwest, this is not theoretical," he said. "They are in bankruptcy. They will dump their plan on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp."

The House bill, pushed through by now-Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), left out airline pension relief, which many conservatives oppose.

It's got to hurt Kline that Boehner dissed him on this; Kline was one of the folks leading the charge to make Boehner majority leader. Maybe this is why Kline took his glowing praise for Boehner off his web site.

But what is Kline to do? Should he support Northwest, as he is doing now, or should he accept the better provisions of the House bill (no airline relief) and work to include the better provisions of the Senate bill as well (force companies with low credit ratings to accelerate contributions to their pension plans even more, protect older workers in the conversion to cash-balance plans)?

I'm not sure what Coleen Rowley would do if she were in Kline's place, but it's a fair bet that if Democrats controlled Congress, we might actually see a bill that helps solve the problem, rather than two bills which exacerbate it. As it is, I suppose I would like to see Kline drop the airline provision. Yes, it means that Northwest will probably drop its pension plan on the PBGC, so Northwest's workers will receive reduced benefits. On the other hand, Northwest's plan is so underfunded, and the bill would allow them such unrealistic leeway in funding going forward, that reduced pensions for Northwest workers in a foregone conclusion.

A tough pill to swallow, especially in an election year, but right is right.

Silent John Kline Strikes Again

2006-04-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

As you might imagine, I've signed up with Yahoo and Google to receive email alerts about John Kline. I received one recently and was directed to an MPR piece in which every member of Minnesota's congressional delegation was asked:

With an erosion of support for the war and growing concern about the Bush administration's handling of it, what, if anything, should members of Congress be doing to represent their constituents?

Are you eager to hear Kline's response to this question? Me too. However, get ready for disappointment because apparently: "Only Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn, and Rep. John Kline, R-Minn. and Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn. did not respond."

I'm shocked.

Kline's Corner: Touts Peace Corps, Pension Reform. Throws Boehner Overboard?

2006-04-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

Having thoroughly dissected the scary Terrorists in America!! feature of John Kline's spiffy new congressional web site, I have now turned my attention to Kline's Corner, an archive of quasi-weekly email updates Kline sends to favored constituents. I say "favored constituents" because since signing up sometime last October, I received exactly one of the newsletters, on February 3, and have received none of them since, despite the fact that I sign up rather frequently.

Anyway, on February 13, Kline's Corner was devoted to legislation Kline authored and championed which, in Kline's words, "removes the Peace Corps as a military recruitment option and will re-establish the distinction between Peace Corps volunteers and our military service members".

On this point, I agree with Kline, and I believe he did the right thing. For the safety of those who donate a year or two of their lives for the sake of helping others in underdeveloped nations, it is important to draw a bright, indelible line between them and members of the U.S. armed forces. This is especially true now, when America has lost the trust, faith and good will of a great many countries in the world as a consequence of Bush's bumbling arrogance.

So, score one for Kline.

On March 10, however, Kline devotes the bulk of his missive to extolling the virtues of the pension reform bill. Given that the government's pension agency has concluded that both the House and Senate versions of the bill will make America's pension problems worse, Kline is either ill-informed or intentionally misleading constituents by promoting the bill as a solution to the pensions crisis.

The only other comment I have for the moment is that the letter Kline sent out on February 3 appears to have been removed from his site. As it happens, this is the only issue of Kline's Corner I received via email, so I can report that the focus of that letter was to loudly trumpet incoming House majority leader John Boehner as "a breath of fresh air to a body in need of reform" (emphasis in original).

I wonder whether this letter has vanished simply because Kline's site is set up to remove back issues of Kline's Corner after three months or so (in which case there's not much point in the "browse by" feature they've implemented), or if Kline is understandably trying to distance himself from his overblown support of the notoriously lobbyist-friendly Boehner?

Independent John Kline versus John Murtha

2006-04-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm well aware that John Kline, like many other Republicans in Congress, were outraged when Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Vietnam veteran John Murtha called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq last November. At the time, Kline called Murtha's statement "unconscionable" and said "he should know better".

Recently, I ran across an article from May 2004, immediately after the Abu Ghraib abuses were revealed. In it, Murtha expresses his frustration with the war effort, saying:

"We cannot prevail in our policy today. We either have to mobilize or get out," said Murtha, who called for increasing the force in Iraq to 200,000, perhaps even by reinstating the draft.

"I'm going to support the troops, but I'm going to tell them (the administration) to change course"' added Murtha, a Marine Vietnam veteran.

The suggestion that the U.S. should increase its troop strength in Iraq upset Kline even more. Kline was "furious" with Murtha, "because when that message gets out to our forces they won't feel love and support. They'll feel betrayal."

So publicly calling to leave Iraq is "unconscionable", but suggesting that we send more troops will make our soldiers in Iraq "feel betrayal". In other words, independent John Kline won't tolerate any deviation whatsoever from the administration's conduct of the war.

Iranian Diplomats in America!!

2006-04-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

Apparently Mohammad Nahavandian, a senior aide to Iran's top nuclear negotiator, in currently visiting Washington D.C. Ordinarily I wouldn't bother to mention such a mundane event, except for two things.

First, it seems Nahavandian isn't here in any official capacity, as he is not meeting with anyone from the U.S. government.

Second, no one is quite sure how Nahavandian managed to enter the U.S., especially since the Bush administration is currently urging other countries not to allow Iranian diplomats to cross their borders.

But don't worry. I'm sure that no one with criminal intent, like, say, a terrorist for instance, could manage to slip through the formidable wall of defense John Kline and the other congressional Republicans have built in more than four years since 9/11. Nope. No way.

I feel safe.

John Kline is Just a Click Away

2006-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

Of course, that doesn't mean he'll actually respond to the questions you send.

Last Thursday, I received a flier from John Kline's office --- printed and mailed at taxpayer expense --- publicizing Kline's new congressional website. In addition to summarizing the various features of the site, it also devotes about half of its content to discussing the possible ways constituents can contact Kline, insisting "Congressman John Kline wants to make sure you have access to him, and know how to reach him to share your views and concerns". This pitch was pretty much wasted on me, since I've made numerous attempts to extract information from Kline's office, and have received for my trouble only this mailing and another one like it on immigration reform.

Actually, I'm probably just whining. After all, the flier only says that Kline wants us to know we have "access to him" to "share our views and concerns", and encourages us to "contact him with questions or comments". It never actually says that Kline plans to answer any of those questions.

Still, on the assumption that Kline has, perhaps, turned over a new leaf, and given that emails sent to Kline's office apparently do get read, I decided to take another stab at getting an answer to one of my long-standing questions: where does Kline stand on Bush's illegal NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens? I sent in the following letter:

Yesterday, I received a mailing from your office, printed and mailed at taxpayer expense. The focus of this mailer was your new web site, pointing out among other things how accessible John Kline is.

I beg to differ.

I have called your office at least twice in the past 4 months (it may be more, I lose count) to get John Kline's answer to a very simple question, yet I have so far received no answer. Since you are now promoting congressman Kline's accessibility, I thought I would make the effort to ask again.

As you no doubt know, George Bush authorized the NSA to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens without first obtaining a FISA court warrant. Bush has acknowledged making this authorization dozens of times, and has also made it clear that he intends to continue such authorizations. Despite some ex post facto rationalizations by the Bush administration, it is painful clear that the President is willfully and repeatedly breaking the law.

I was taught in my 5th grade civics class that Congress has a Constitutional obligation to act as a check on Executive abuse of power. Senator Russ Feingold, who clearly takes this obligation seriously, has introduced a resolution to censure President Bush for his lawbreaking.

I know that John Kline is a member of the House, not the Senate, but it is amazing to me that these NSA wiretaps have been public knowledge for more than four months, yet I am unable to find any public statement by Congressman Kline stating his position. So my question is very straightforward:

Do you believe it is appropriate for Congress to ignore willful, repeated lawbreaking by the President? And if not, what actions do you personally plan to take to hold President Bush accountable?

I plan to keep asking this question until I get an answer.

To be updated as events warrant (don't hold your breath).

Who's Your Daddy?

2006-04-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

For years, conventional wisdom has held that the Democrats are the "mommy" party, mainly championing issues like social programs, increased minimum wage, education and so forth, while Republicans are the "daddy" party, mainly concerned with national security and the rule of law (don't blame me for the implicit sexism in these labels, I didn't invent them).

Needless to say, the insecurity and fear which followed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has benefited the "daddy" party, as fears of future terrorist attacks make the public eager to support leaders whom they perceive will do the best job of keeping them safe. It is hardly surprising that Republicans have picked up seats in both the House and Senate the past two election cycles, and that despite serious questions regarding his competence, trustworthiness, and conduct of the war in Iraq, George Bush was able to eke out a re-election victory.

All of this, of course, is the subtext behind John Kline's Terrorists in America!! feature on his revamped congressional website. Sure, he says the purpose is to recognize the efforts of those who have helped keep us safe, but the unstated implications are:

Terrorists have attempted attacks within the U.S. since 9/11.
Hundreds of them, in fact.
Look to the "daddy" party to continue to keep you safe.
So vote for John Kline in 2006.

I have spent considerable time and effort debunking implications (1) and (2), and I wrap up my dissection of Terrorists in America!! today by examining item(3). If national security is your top priority, it does make sense to support the "daddy" party. However, contrary to popular perception, the Republicans have done little to improve our nation's security since 9/11, and in many ways they've done exactly the opposite.

For some hard data, consider the following votes in Congress, where the majority Republicans struck down Democrats' efforts to improve our national security (it's interesting to note that although Kline is attempting to remake himself as an "independent Republican", he voted with more than 200 other Republicans in each case below):

In one of Kline's first votes in Congress, he joined 220 Republicans and one Democrat in defeating an amendment to add $3.5 billion for first responders and $90 million to the CDC to monitor the health of the first responders at the World Trade Center site.
Not long after that, Kline joined 216 Republicans and zero Democrats in killing an amendment to add $250 million to port security grants.
More recently, Kline voted with 224 Republicans and zero Democrats in opposition to maximum funding for Border Patrol and Immigrations enforcement, which according to Senate Democrats amounted to $284 million.
Kline joined 226 Republicans and 3 Democrats in defeating an amendment to increase the 2006 Homeland Security budget by $6.9 billion.
About 45 minutes later, Kline, 225 other Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against an additional $400 million for airline safety and security, as well as tighter security regulations.
Just last month, after the outcry over the sale of U.S. port operations to Dubai, Kline and 209 other Republicans defeated an amendment to increase funding for port security by $1.25 billion.

Of course, if homeland security already has all of the money it needs, then none of this matters. But just last December, the 9/11 commission issued a report card indicating that George Bush and the Republican Congress have done a very poor job in keeping our country safe:

The federal government received failing and mediocre grades yesterday from the former Sept. 11 commission, whose members said in a final report that the Bush administration and Congress have balked at enacting numerous reforms that could save American lives and prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

So much for the Republicans as the "daddy" party. And Kline's opponent this November, Coleen Rowley, is attacking the Republicans' hypothetical strength on national security head on.

Kline's Congressional Record: March 2006

2006-04-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

The House of Representatives convened on only 13 days in March. And John Kline only shows up in the Congressional Record on one of those days, March 29, talking about Medicare Part D. His speech is fairly lengthy, but it boils down to making the following two points repeatedly:

We don't have time to debate the merits of the bill because there are confused seniors out there who need help signing up.

And
This was a good bill

To demonstrate what a great thing Medicare Part D is, Kline gives anecdotal evidence from some information sessions he's held for seniors. And it's great that he's making an effort to help seniors figure out Part D, considering he could have stopped this disaster from happening if he'd stood up for his principles in 2003. Also, Kline's mother is happy with the plan. I wonder how happy she and these other seniors will be in a few months when they fall into the donut hole?

As to Kline's first point, this is a well-honed Republican gambit by now. First they screw things up, then they avoid responsibility by insisting that the situation is too dire to waste time pointing fingers. Don't bother investigating why the 9/11 attacks happened; it distracts us from the War on Terror. Don't criticize the administration's great disaster in Iraq while troops are in harm's way. Don't point out that short-sighted budget cutbacks left New Orleans vulnerable to the devastation of Katrina; the important thing is to help the survivors. And so on. I suppose we could wait until all the messes were cleaned up before we asked Republicans to take responsibility for their actions, but that would require Republicans to stop making messes.

Moreover, Kline is intentionally misleading his audience when he claims "27 million seniors now have coverage under Medicare Part D". While this is true, he states it in a way to suggest that all of those 27 million folks signed up because they eventually realized what a good deal the program is. But the majority of those 27 million people were enrolled in Medicare Part D automatically on January 1 (or would have been if the system hadn't been so poorly implemented). Only 7.2 million of that total are people who have signed up for the program voluntarily.

One last telling detail: Note how Kline states that "65,000 senior citizens" in MN-02 have registered for the prescription drug benefit, yet later on he touts the "hundreds of people in Minnesota's Second District" who are saving money with the plan.

Here's the full transcript, with occasional interruption by Republican Phil Gingrey of Georgia:

Mr. KLINE. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his bringing this issue to the floor tonight and certainly his leadership over these months.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of points. I think it is important, as the gentleman from Georgia said, that we recognize there was a spirited debate on this bill, and not everyone in this House voted for it. There are still people today who think that it was a mistake when we added the prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

But I think the point to my colleagues, and I know that my good friend Dr. Gingrey would agree with me, and I hope that senior citizens across the country understand that we need to set that debate aside right now. We have a law in place that provides a tremendous benefit for our senior citizens, particularly our lower-income senior citizens.

I think that chart that Dr. Gingrey showed that says a total of 27 million seniors, 27 million seniors now have coverage under Medicare Part D, says an awful lot about the acceptance of this program, regardless of the heat and the debate that took place when this bill was passed.

I know that we now have registered for the Medicare prescription drug plan in Minnesota, in the Second District, 65,000 senior citizens, and that is a very, very good thing. We found early on, and I think my colleague probably did, that as we moved from the discount cards, which I thought were a tremendous benefit themselves, I know that my mother, who lives on Social Security and Medicare, has saved literally thousands of dollars with that interim program. When we moved from those cards to the sign up for Medicare Part D there was certainly confusion. Seniors were confused. Pharmacists were confused. Doctors were confused. It was not what we would call a smooth start.

Having said that, we have now moved past that rocky start, and seniors that have had the chance to look at this understand that it is really an important benefit for them.

We wanted to help, in my office, and I know many of my colleagues did this on both sides of the aisle. They held town hall meetings and workshops. We chose to have what we call sign-up workshops. We got some tremendous support from the Minnesota Board of Aging Senior Linkage Line provided volunteers to come and help us, help the senior citizens in Minnesota's Second District understand what their options were. We advertised the workshops. We had seniors call my office to make an appointment to come in for one-on-one counseling. And as these seniors came in and they sat down with experienced volunteers and members of my staff who have become quite expert on this, and they looked at the program that was offered in front of them and they looked at their list of medications that they are taking and that the options that were there, in case after case after case, they were able to make wise choices, and I don't know anyone who came to our workshops who didn't leave feeling that they had gotten the information they needed and were able to make a wise choice.

I have some quotes here that I just thought I would share with my colleagues here, and I know that Dr. Gingrey can empathize with this, and he experienced much of the same, I am sure, when he was working with the folks in Georgia. But just a couple of quotes. There is a man from Shakopee came to the workshop and he said, quote, "I got an honest comparison and found out the plan I was leaning toward would cost twice what I could get. Now I can save $2,000 on a different plan." That is quite a bit.

Lady from Eagan said: It was wonderful. I wouldn't have known what to do or where to begin without that session. The woman that worked with me was very knowledgeable and did all the computer work for me. She printed up the nine cheapest prescription drug coverages for me, and I can see already that I am going to save $100 a month. I was very, very pleased. And so forth.

Lady from Inver Grove Heights said: They were wonderful. They were extremely informative. In 45 minutes, they probably saved 8 hours of work and confusion.

These programs, if you just take the time to sit down with somebody who knows what they are doing, it is actually pretty easy to decide what plan is best for you. And we have seen that in case after case after case. And I very much regret that there are, in fact, some of our colleagues who are still perhaps upset over the bill itself and are not providing this kind of help and encouragement to the seniors in their district.

I know my mother, as I mentioned before, she was a beneficiary of the interim plan with the cards, and now we have got her signed up for this Medicare Part D and she is going to save thousands of dollars a year.

You can save a lot of money, and I hope that our colleagues will help the constituents in their districts, the senior citizens, understand the value of this program, set aside the bitterness of the debate that took place over the bill itself and recognize that this is a tremendous benefit, it can save their senior citizens hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, and help those seniors to sign up.

I don't know if the gentleman from Georgia is continuing with his workshops. I know we are. We have a couple more scheduled next month. We are looking at the schedule deadline. May 15 is the deadline for signing up for this prescription drug benefit, the Part D, without paying a penalty, suffering a penalty. So we are encouraging our seniors to sign up. We are scheduling some more of these workshops and encouraging them to come. The wonderful volunteers from Senior Linkage Line are going to be there to help us again. We hope that every senior will take a look at this option and decide whether it is for them or not. If they have any questions, we would love to help. I will yield back to the gentleman from Georgia here. I know that he has spent a lot of time helping seniors in his district in much the same way.

Mr. GINGREY. Well, if the gentleman would yield.

Mr. KLINE. I am happy to yield.

Mr. GINGREY. Actually, just for a question. And I wanted to ask the question, if he has had an experience really similar to what I have. We have been working on this program, like I say, for a year and half during the transitional phase, and Representative Kline has held a lot of town hall meetings; I have certainly held a lot of town hall meetings. You sort of lose count after a while.

But what I wanted to ask Mr. Kline, Colonel Kline, is, in your experience, when you first started doing these programs, and there was so much angst and rhetoric and doom and gloom possibly from certain Members of the body, did you feel that what you heard then and what you are hearing now was a little bit different? Has that changed a little bit?

Mr. KLINE. If the gentleman would yield. I think it is fair to say so. We took a different approach in how we were going to reach out to the seniors. We sent them mail to alert them to what they were doing. We invited them to call our office and make appointments so they could get that one-on-one attention. But I am sure the gentleman will agree that back in January and early February, when there was a great deal of confusion, many seniors were afraid to get started. They didn't know where to start. And we found that by continually offering the opportunity for seniors to come in and get one-on-one help, that we moved through that. And I know that the gentleman from Georgia and most of my colleagues who have been working on this issue for some time have seen a change in the understanding and the attitude of not just seniors, but I think many of us who are at that stage in life where we are helping to take care of seniors.

You know, the gentleman from Georgia, I don't know if he has advertised what his age is. It is a matter of public record, as you know. But those of us that are in our 50s, many of us are in the position of having parents who are not as able to take care of themselves, and we are anxious to make sure that we are providing the best for them. And so I found that not just the seniors, but a lot of times, their children, I hesitate to think of myself as a child anymore, but those people who are responsible for the health care for their parents and elderly relatives have also come to understand that, with just a little bit of attention to this, it has proven to be a very good program that can save them hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. And I know that Dr. Gingrey knows that not only is it saving individuals money, but this whole process, the competition in this process, which was hotly debated and much discussed, has actually started to drive down the cost of those prescription drugs and the cost of the whole program to the taxpayer. So we are seeing competition work in the large scheme of things, a sort of macro economics. But we are also seeing a payoff in these examples that I read from constituents in my district of where it is helping the individual seniors, the elderly couple and those who are helping to take care of them. So a change in attitude, I think we are seeing everybody who has come to our workshop, whether they have signed up on the spot or just taken the information and gone home, has left very relieved that this is a program that can help them, and it is not nearly as scary as they thought a few months ago. And I will yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. GINGREY. I thank the gentleman. And that really is an experience, Mr. Speaker and my fellow colleagues, that I have had as well. Early on, we, almost every town hall meeting on the subject it seemed like there was someone there that was reading the talking points from the opposition in regard to oh, you know, you have done nothing but let the pharmaceutical industry write a bill, or this is just a giant giveaway to the drug companies. And you heard that kind of rhetoric almost every time. But what I am hearing, and I think Representative Kline as well, that people now understand that in this process that we go through, nothing that we do, no bill, Mr. Speaker, is perfect. I wish that it were. But that the product that we delivered in November of 2003 is a very, very good product, and our seniors are beginning to understand that. They are seeing through a lot of this negative rhetoric, mostly from the other side of the aisle. And what is said is they are even in the last throes of the implementation of this program, we are down to the last 5 or 6 weeks, it is my understanding, and I know this because I have actually seen this, Members are holding town hall meetings and in some instances discouraging people, continuing to discourage them.

Mr. KLINE. If the gentleman would yield.

Mr. GINGREY. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. KLINE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know I find that absolutely remarkable. I was just thinking, I could not help but smile to myself when the gentleman was pointing out that there is no such thing as a perfect bill. And I would argue that many times there is a perfect bill. It is perfect to me, but it is not perfect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, or I dare say sometimes not even to the gentleman from Georgia and vice versa. So we work these things out. We try to do the very best we can. Every large bill is going to have a flaw in it from one of our perspectives. There are some flaws in this bill from my perspective and I am sure from the gentleman's and from our colleagues. But I think what is very important, that we all understand, that our constituents understand and that our colleagues here understand is that debate is for now behind us. What we have now is the opportunity, with a deadline of May 15, for our constituents to see what is available to them and see if it can't save them money. And we are seeing in case after case after case of the now hundreds of people in Minnesota's Second District that it can save them money. It is saving them money. And if you are discouraging one of your constituents from looking into this program because you are unhappy with the bill, I would argue that you are doing them a great disservice. And I would argue that you are not doing your job as their Member of Congress because that debate may come again another day. There will no doubt be changes in Medicare legislation as we go down the road. But for now, it is very important that we set that acrimony aside and make sure that our constituents know that they have a program here that can save them an awful lot of money. And I will be happy to yield back.

Mr. GINGREY. If the gentleman would yield. And the gentleman said, you know, doing your job, and that is exactly what we should be doing. In fact, I think what we are hearing from the other side as they continue to oppose everything that this majority has tried to do in the 109th Congress, and of course the rhetoric gets worse and worse as we approach November, and we all know it is an election year. But it is not only, I think, not doing your job for your constituents, but it is kind of like one of my favorite Garth Brooks songs, it's shameless. It is absolutely shameless to think that someone would hold a town hall meeting and discourage, as the gentleman from Minnesota said, seniors from signing up for something that is going to save everybody some money, but it is an absolute Godsend to those of our seniors who are low income, low assets, the very neediest in our society. And I think most of the legislation that we try to pass, and I think the attitude should be the same whether we are Republicans or Democrats, is to try to help those in the greatest need who really can't help themselves through no fault of their own (((Indeed, it is the fault of Republicans, especially Kline. But it's considered bad form to mention that right now.)))

We need to put some wind beneath their wings to kind of uplift them.

And I know there may be a few in the gentleman from Minnesota's district and I know there are some in the 11th of Georgia who still need to get the message, and maybe they do not know and they do not realize. They have not gone to the Social Security Web site and found out that they qualify because their income is only $14,450, or if they are married, $19,250 a year; and they do not have assets worth more than $11,500 if they are single, or $23,000 if they are married.

We need to get them signed up, and I know the gentleman would agree with me on that.

Mr. KLINE. If the gentleman would yield, I think that is an excellent point. We sometimes forget that when we passed that bill, the one we have been discussing which was debated with some spirit, it was designed, it was designed to help seniors who are low income first; and I think that the implementation of this part D is showing that to be true. When we have low-income seniors come to one of our workshops and they are taking sometimes a passel of prescription drugs, they are saving thousands of dollars. That is what the bill was designed to do.

I remember a lot of the debate and discussion, and we talked about seniors who were forced into the terrible position of choosing whether to take a prescription drug or having the next meal or paying rent or perhaps arbitrarily choosing to cut their tablets in half. This part D for low-income seniors removes that. There is no low-income senior who should not be getting their prescription drugs with tremendous savings, virtually free in some cases, but saving lots and lots of money.

What we are finding very interesting is that there are thousands of middle-income seniors who, when they come to our workshop and look at the choices and they sit in front of that computer terminal where you can very quickly rate the different choices, they are seeing that they can save an awful lot of money and it is to their benefit.

If it is not to their benefit, certainly they can choose some other form. Perhaps they have private insurance or they have VA benefits or something. It may not be for them. But many are finding out that they can save money.

And so it goes back to the point the gentleman was making earlier. It is incumbent upon all of us, certainly the administration; some organizations like the AARP are working very hard to get this word out, and Members of Congress, our colleagues, to make sure that the citizens know that this is something that they ought to investigate.

And I know that we found early on and even last year when we were looking at the interim discount card that there are seniors who are not comfortable, frankly, sitting in front of a computer and going on line. Many are and I am always very heartened to see that. Some of them, in fact, are much more computer literate than I am. But in many cases they are intimidated, and that is why it is important that this help be offered to them, either in one of our workshops or yours, or there are other ways that you can get help.

Medicare, CMS itself, will be happy to provide help. Seniors can call 1-800-Medicare. There are ways that they can get help without having a computer and without having to sit down by themselves and try to figure this out.

So I encourage all of my colleagues to do everything they can to make sure that their constituents, their senior citizens, know that even if they are not low income, this is a program they ought to investigate.

Terrorists in America?!?

2006-04-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

For some time now, I've been dissecting John Kline's alarmist web page put up for the putative purpose of recognizing the unheralded efforts of Americans who have fought successful battles in the war on terror here at home. The page starts of by giving some Justice Department statistics about numbers of arrests, convictions and so forth, and goes on to cite six specific examples of "victories on the home front" (there were seven, but one of these examples was removed, perhaps in response to a letter Kline's office received from a certain intrepid blogger).

I have worked through these seven (now six) examples one at a time to show that at most one and a half of them actually count as "victories" in the war on terror. But people of good will may disagree with my analysis, and in any case, Kline can point to those Justice Department statistics:

Five terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), and Northern Virginia have been broken up;
401 individuals have been criminally charged in the United States in terrorism-related investigations;
Already, 212 individuals in the United States have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to terrorist charges;
113 individuals in 25 judicial districts have been charged with terrorist financing-related crimes, with 57 convictions or guilty pleas to date

One might reasonably argue that even if I'm right about the specific examples Kline has cited, it proves nothing more than Kline (or rather, his staff) didn't pick the best examples. One could argue that if we look at the big Justice Department picture, there's no doubt that there are terrorists in America, and the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security are doing their jobs in keeping us safe.

One could argue this. But I'm sorry to report that the Bush Justice department has a well-established record of misleading the public about the scope of terrorism-related arrests, prosecutions and convictions. Beginning in June, 2003:

Under post-9/11 rules promulgated by the Justice Department -- which created a number of new terrorism-related categories by which to classify cases, but left it to district attorneys to determine which crimes fit the bill -- federal prosecutors across the country are turning in creative anti-terrorism records to their superiors in Washington, who are under enormous pressure to produce results and have little incentive to double-check them. The result is an epidemic of phony reporting. According to a January report by the General Accounting Office, at least 46 percent of all terrorism-related convictions for FY 2002 were misclassified; of those cases listed as "international terrorism," at least 75 percent didn't fit the bill.

Then in September, 2004:

Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department's detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft's record is 0 for 5,000. When the Attorney General was locking these men up in the immediate wake of the attacks, he held almost daily press conferences to announce how many "suspected terrorists" had been detained. No press conference has been forthcoming to announce that exactly none of them have turned out to be actual terrorists.

The mendacity which originated under John Ashcroft has continued under his successor, Alberto Gonzales. In June, 2005:

Many people appear to have been swept into US counterterrorism investigations by chance -- through anonymous tips, suspicious circumstances, or bad luck. They have remained classified as terrorism defendants, years after they were cleared of connections to extremist groups.

For example, the prosecution of 20 men, most of them Iraqis, in a Pennsylvania truck-licensing scam accounts for about 10 percent of those convicted -- even though the group was absolved of ties to terrorism in 2001.

So how many of the 401 criminally charged, and 212 convicted of terrorist charges actually are "Terrorists in America?!?" There's really no way to tell. All we know for sure is that the numbers are wildly inflated. But the systematic use of misclassifying defendants as terrorists for PR purposes means that the data from the Justice Department, far from being the strongest part of Kline's case, is actually the weakest.

Gratuitous Tom DeLay photo

2006-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

From an anonymous reader:

Of course, we know that DeLay has been to the Twin Cities fundraising for Kline. The key thing to remember is that Kline continues to maintain that DeLay is innocent, even as he claims credit for being the first Republican in the Minnesota delegation to call for DeLay's ouster.

And the fact that Kline still has $31,000 in campaign contributions from DeLay.

And Kline flip-flopped on softening ethics rules for DeLay.

jmjm has another Kline/DeLay photo, apparently from the same event.

The Many PACS of John Kline

2006-04-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

From DumpJohnKline, maintained by someone who clearly has more patience for copying and pasting links than I ever would.

Sorry about the lull in posting. I've been working on another project, and spent some time goofing off. New original post tomorrow.

Noted

2006-04-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

Hot off the presses: John Kline wrote a letter to the Star Tribune to clarify some facts about his support for Tom DeLay.

Actually, Kline was responding to this letter:

Good riddance to disgraced Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas and his corrosive brand of politics (Star Tribune, April 4).

As for Second District Rep. John Kline, R-Minn.: His constituents await his public apology for his shameful vote to allow DeLay to retain his leadership position while under criminal indictment.

And here's Kline's response:

An April 5 letter writer neglected to mention that I was one of the Republicans who voted to reinstate rules stripping Rep. Tom DeLay of his leadership position when he came under indictment. Most recently, I was the first Republican from the Minnesota congressional delegation to call for DeLay to step aside from his leadership post.

Apparently Kline wants everyone to know that although he voted in November 2004 to weaken House ethics rules so that DeLay could keep his leadership post even if indicted, he eventually reversed himself and voted to restore the rules after Democrats and the media embarrassed him into it.

So Kline wants everyone to know he flip-flopped on ethics. Got it.