September 15, 2006
Patrick Kennedy Won't Fight For You
Congressman Patrick Kennedy ends his first TV ad saying that he "will never stop fighting for you". But here are two areas where he has already stopped, or perhaps never started, fighting for his constituents. They are both related to votes taken just yesterday...
- Congressman Kennedy will not fight for America's border security. The Congressman voted against a House bill authorizing (but not funding) 700 miles of physical fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border. Border fencing is not controversial to reasonable people at this stage of the immigration debate. Earlier this year, Senators Jack Reed and Lincoln Chafee, Senators with very liberal positions on immigration reform, both voted in favor of funding 370 miles of triple-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico. The House overwhelmingly favored building a border fence, 283-138, with Congressman James Langevin, as well as Congressman Kennedy, in the minority who opposed the bill.
- Congressman Kennedy will not fight to make information on Congressional spending public. He prefers that Congress' spending pratices be kept shrouded in secrecy, away from the view of average citizens. The Congressman, along with a majority of his party, voted against a change in House rules that would require "earmarks" in appropriations legislation to include simple information like the identity of the Congressman that requested the earmark, the identity of the earmark recipient, and the amount of the earmark. Amazingly, just 1 of 29 Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee voted to make the earmark process transparent (though Republicans appropriators did only a little better, 12 of 35 voting in favor). When it came time to decide between making government open to public oversight, or protecting arcane privileges, Congressman Kennedy and his committee-mates chose to protect their privileges.
The earmark reform rules passed by a vote of 245-171. Congressman Langevin was one of just 45 Democrats who broke party ranks to vote in favor of earmark transparency.
Finally, there's an interesting sidebar regarding the earmark reform vote. In June, Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia publicly promised a group of his constituents that he would "earmark the sh**" out of bills if the Democrats regain control of Congress and he becomes chair of an appropriations subcommittee. Yet Congressman Moran voted against the simple disclosure rules -- rules that would help him take credit for the earmarks he so dearly craves. If Congressman Moran is so proud of the earmarked money that he spends, why doesn't he want it to become an easily-accessed part of the public record? Could it be because the earmarks he requests don't benefit as many of his constituents as he would have you believe?
But he seems like such a nice young man; he reminds me of my own little boy when he was about 12. Patrick even brought donuts to the senior center for us. And I just loved his uncle, JFK - he was so much more handsome than FDR. And Patrick said that he'd protect our Social Security and Medicare from those nasty Republicans who want to throw us out on the street and uh, uh .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...
Posted by: Tom W at September 15, 2006 9:34 PM
And doesn't he own this building? It has his name on it. We have to vote for him or he'll throw us out.
Besides, they've suffered so much, those Kennedy's.
Someone leave the troll door open again? So Langevin batted .500, and Kennedy whiffed. Sounds about right. I can only imagine how proud Lawless would have been to stand hem-to-seam with Patches and squeak "no" on both roll calls.
BTW - Jim Moran is the jerk who actually called for an "understanding of root causes" from the podium at an Arlington 9/11 ceremony, offending the crowd. And they say Bush tried to politicize the day.
i saw his new ad on tv he looks really doped up
half the nitwits in ri think they are voting for jfk
Posted by: johnpaycheck at September 16, 2006 11:30 PMI saw some comments here last night that have since been deleted. They regarded Chafee's victory. Why were they deleted? Is this a case of sour grapes? At least have the integrity to let stand what was said, no matter how anathema to your own beliefs.
--
For those who are wondering what “John Weingreb” is talking about, here is the full text of one of the comments I deleted… HAHAHAAHAHAHAAH LOOHOOHOOOHOOOSEEEEEERS.I L:OVE CHAFEEE AND I AM A DEMOCRAT> HE IS THE BEST THING TI HAPEN TO DEMS IN THIS STATE!
This comment was one of eight comments put up in the span of four minutes from the same IP address by someone using three different handles. One of the handles referred to a part of the female anatomy. Another misappropriated the handle of a regular AR commenter. And of course, all were off-topic; this is a post about Patrick Kennedy, not the Chafee/Laffey primary. The example above would not have been deleted in a Laffey/Chafee thread. However, the commenter should look into having the caps lock key on his or her keyboard repaired.
If “John Weingreb” is looking for an outlet where no material is deleted no matter how content-free or off-topic, I suggest posting to the “free” domain of the Usenet hierarchy.