May 4-6, 2007
May 04 04:02 US Military Kills Senior AQI Operative May 04 10:35 This Is Compromise? May 04 11:49 She Finally Came Full Circle May 04 12:24 The House DFL Is Falling Apart May 04 13:24 DFL Disintegration Followup May 05 02:49 Poison Pills, Permanent Rules & Omnibus Bills May 05 08:15 It Won't Last Two Hours May 06 01:08 Tony Sertich, King of the Culture of Corruption May 06 07:57 Rukavina: Pawlenty Better Look For Compromise
Prior Years: 2006
US Military Kills Senior AQI Operative
We finally have a plausible explanation for this week's confusion about whether AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been killed. Here's what appears to have caused the confusion:
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the killing of Muharib Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, described as al Qaeda's information minister, apparently had led to confused reports that al Qaeda's top leader or the head of an umbrella group of Sunni insurgents had been killed. Gen. Caldwell said the military had conducted numerous operations against al Qaeda in Iraq in the previous six days but did not have the bodies of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub Masri and did not know "of anybody that does."Yesterday, I posted something about John Murtha's diatribe where he accused David Petraeus of lying about AQI's presence in Iraq. Is Murtha now going to accuse Gen. Caldwell of lying about this, too?
U.S. and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations against the terrorist network following a series of car bombings and suicide attacks that have killed hundreds in recent weeks despite a security crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding areas.Based on that paragraph, it's pretty apparent that AQI's presence is significant enough to warrant raids on AQI. Obviously, the military doesn't plan attacks on terrorists unless they're there. That is, it's obvious to anyone but BDS-afflicted people like John Murtha.
Al-Jubouri was killed early Tuesday while trying to resist detention in an operation about four miles west of the Taji, a town near an air base north of Baghdad, and the body initially was identified by photos, then confirmed by DNA testing yesterday, Gen. Caldwell said.A high-ranking AQI officer like al-Jubouri isn't sent into Iraq if there isn't a major AQI presence there. They don't waste their resources on minor operations. al-Jubouri's presence is the ultimate proof of AQI's presence.
If you need more proof that John Murtha is lying about AQI's presence, check out this article:
Across the walls of the villas they seized in the name of their shadow government, black-masked al-Qaida militants spray-painted the words: "Property of the Islamic State of Iraq.How John Murtha can say that there isn't intelligence supporting AQI's presence in Iraq is beyond me. How can AQI hold an entire city and American intelligence not know about it? The simple answer is it can't, especially since Baqouba's population is 280,000.
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For months, al-Qaida turned a part of one Baqouba neighborhood into an insurgent fiefdom that American and Iraqi forces were too undermanned to tackle, a startling example of the terror group's ability to thrive openly in some places outside Baghdad even as U.S.-led forces struggle to regain control in the capital.
U.S. forces took back the entire Tahrir neighborhood during a weeklong operation that wrapped up Sunday in Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad that al-Qaida declared last year the capital of its self-styled Islamic caliphate.
Though the operation was a success, it forced the guerrillas to either flee or melt into the population, soldiers say the extremists are likely to pop up anywhere else that's short on American firepower.
Simply put, John Murtha's saying that David Petraeus lied about AQI's presence is itself a bald-faced lie. Unfortunately, this isn't surprising.
Posted Friday, May 4, 2007 4:04 AM
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This Is Compromise?
The WC Trib has provided a lesson in how news organizations use articles to influence public opinion. Here's what I'm referring to:
Minnesotans would enjoy more jobsite protections and housing programs would receive new state aid under a compromise lawmakers reached Thursday on an economic development funding bill.As the saying goes, the devil is in the details:
The $375 million finance bill, agreed to by a House-Senate conference committee, covers work force programs, housing initiatives and even a program to lure movie production to Minnesota. Its next stop is final approval from both legislative chambers, expected today.Obviously, the DFL's idea of compromise is to pile tons of junk proposals into a single bill, have their senators & representatives vote on it, then call it compromise.
I have a question for the DFL: Surely you remember Speaker Kelliher ruling that Laura Brod's tax cuts weren't "germane" to a tax conformity bill. How can Ms. Kelliher say that tax cuts aren't germane to tax legislation but then say that "housing initiatives" & a "program to lure movie production" to the state are germane to workforce legislation?
I know that the DFL has some creative thinkers (that's putting it gently) but can a DFLer explain why luring movie production to the state has anything to do with workforce legislation? If you think that that's all that's in this bill, think again:
Rep. Mary Murphy, the conference committee co-chairwoman, said the bill will improve job opportunities in Minnesota and enhance the quality of life. "This is just the first step down that path," Murphy, DFL-Hermantown, said.Ms. Murphy obviously thinks that spending the taxpayers' money is a far better stimulus to the economy than a radical idea like tax cuts. If she wanted to "improve job opportunities" like she claims, she'd lower taxes on businesses so that they have more incentive to increase business activity. That type of legislation doesn't stand a chance in this DFL-dominated legislature because they don't believe in letting free enterprise work its wonders.
Posted Friday, May 4, 2007 10:35 AM
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She Finally Came Full Circle
Hillary Clinton used to be the most hawkish Democrat on Iraq. Well, the most hawkish Democrat other than Joe Lieberman. Ever since George Soros became the Democrats' banker, most of the Democratic presidential candidates abandoned our military. Until now, Hillary hadn't taken the bait. "Until now" is the operative phrase. Now she has:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., proposed Thursday that Congress repeal the authority it gave President Bush in 2002 to invade Iraq, injecting presidential politics into the congressional debate over war funding.Clinton's proposal brings her full circle on Iraq and sharpens her political position at a time when the Democratic Party is more willing to confront the White House on the war.
"It is time to reverse the failed policies of President Bush and to end this war as soon as possible," said Clinton as she joined Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., in calling for a vote on a plan to terminate the authority as of Oct. 11, the fifth anniversary of the original vote.Her proposal is purely political gamesmanship. She knows that the Republican Senate could filibuster her legislation. If they let it come to a final vote, it'll be because they want it to pass so that Democrats are on the record as calling for America's defeat in Iraq. If it reached that point, the bill would sail through the House. If the authorization reached the President's desk, it'd be vetoed.
Her proposal emerged as congressional leaders and the White House opened delicate negotiations over a vetoed war resolution and illustrated the varied views by Democrats on how to proceed in the aftermath of Bush's decision.
Clinton's move appeared to be an effort to claim a leadership position among the Democratic presidential candidates.Harry Reid is a speed bump in Hillary's path to the White House. He's also a fool's fool for making such a statement.
It came just a few hours after Sen. Harry Reid, (D-NV), the majority leader, had praised the presidential contenders in the Senate for not using the Senate as a platform for airing their differences on the war. It also shows Democrats, with core supporters strongly opposing the war, are leery of being seen as giving too much ground to Bush in the legislative fight.
Posted Friday, May 4, 2007 11:50 AM
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The House DFL Is Falling Apart
I just got off the phone with Rep. Steve Gottwalt. Steve told me that it's likely that he'll get 4 pieces of legislation passed this session. I told Steve that that's pretty good for a freshman, much less a freshman in the minority party. Steve said that"I'll measure my success this session as much by what I voted to prevent from happening as much as by the legislation that I got passed."
Steve explained that a major accomplishment was preventing the DFL from increasing taxes by billions of dollars this session. Steve also said that preventing the DFL from enacting legislation that increased spending by billions of dollars would be a major accomplishment.
Steve, I couldn't agree more.
After talking about that, I asked Steve about the news about the Browns Valley legislation debacle. Steve said that getting the legislation passed should've been fairly straightforward but that it quickly turned into a mess. Steve said that the floor session for that bill was scheduled to start at 5:00 pm Thursday. Then it was postponed until 6:00 pm. The session finally started at 7:15 pm. According to this WC Trib article, the emergency bonding bill finally passed last night after 8:00.
If you think that that was the only debacle, think again. They started by debating the Senate's version of the bill. Then that was pulled in favor of the House version. Sadly, the DFL wanted to play political retribution with this emergency bonding bill:
Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, said he wanted a bill only funding Browns Valley's needs, but Republicans insisted the House Finance Committee include up to $1 million for Rogers residents to recover.This morning, the floor session was supposed to start at 10:00 am. It was just being gaveled into session when Steve & I finished at 11:15. Steve said that the plan is to debate 5 conference reports this weekend. Each of these conference reports are in excess of 100 pages. What's worse is that the GOP hadn't seen any of these conference reports until this morning.
They failed to talk committee Democrats into accepting the idea, setting up the year's most heated legislative debate.
Rep. Joyce Peppin, a Republican representing Rogers, walked out of the meeting after a [DFL] lawmaker said that Rogers' needs "did not sound like a disaster."
Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, said Democrats like Marquart have no problem getting money for their districts, but Republicans like Peppin often end up empty handed in the DFL-controlled House.
"I just pray to God that a tornado never hits my district," Garofalo said.
Frankly, folks, the DFL House is falling apart. If this isn't the most incompetent House leadership team in history, I'd shudder to think of which one was more incompetent.
Suffice it to say that friends should never let the DFL run the legislature ever again.
Posted Friday, May 4, 2007 12:24 PM
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DFL Disintegration Followup
Earlier, I linked to the WC Trib's article on the political gamesmanship the DFL tried playing. Now, I'd like to give that stunt a bit closer scrutiny.
Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, said he wanted a bill only funding Browns Valley's needs, but Republicans insisted the House Finance Committee include up to $1 million for Rogers residents to recover. They failed to talk committee Democrats into accepting the idea, setting up the year's most heated legislative debate.Think about this. The only reason why we had to have a separate Browns Valley bonding bill was because the House & Senate DFL bonding bill had tons of pork in it for freshman DFLers' re-election campaigns. The House started with a $290 million bonding bill; the Senate with a $320 million bonding bill. They 'compromised' by passing a $334 million bonding bill.
Rep. Joyce Peppin, a Republican representing Rogers, walked out of the meeting after a [DFL] lawmaker said that Rogers' needs "did not sound like a disaster." Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, said Democrats like Marquart have no problem getting money for their districts, but Republicans like Peppin often end up empty handed in the DFL-controlled House.
"I just pray to God that a tornado never hits my district," Garofalo said.
Now Rep. Marquart is worried that the Rogers tornado damage isn't a 'real disaster'? That doesn't pass the laugh test. Where was his concern about what constituted a true emergency when the original bonding bill was passed?
Everyone take note: This bonding bill fight was set in motion by the DFL because their political vindictiveness knows no bounds. When Rep. Pat Garofalo says that Democrats like Marquart don't have any problems getting money for their districts, she means it. Here's a breakdown of who got the most ;goodies' from the original House bonding bill:
Total Republican Projects, not including HEAPR: $4.835 millionFrankly, Mr. Marquart's statement is disgusting & disingenuous in light of these statistics. They don't meet the laugh test.
Total Democrat Freshman Projects, not including HEAPR: $58.630 Million
Posted Friday, May 4, 2007 1:24 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 05-May-07 06:51 AM
Rep. Pat Garofolo is right-- the DFL shenanigans know no bounds of logic or decency. But HE is not going to be happy about HIS quote.
Poison Pills, Permanent Rules & Omnibus Bills
There's a common thread running through those three subjects that the DFL doesn't want you to put together. If I didn't remind people of that thread, I'd be letting my readers down. Let's start with a WC Trib article about omnibus bills. Check out this quote:
Rep. Bud Heidgerken, R-Freeport, said he didn't vote for the 545-page health and human services bill because he didn't have time to go over the entire document. He said he would prefer lawmakers have at least a week to go through the big bills. "It's tough," Heidgerken said.Here's what the WC Trib article said about omnibus bills with regard to poison pills:
Heidgerken said he doesn't like how the large bills can be used as a shuttle for some individual items. "I, for one, don't like them," Heidgerken said of omnibus bills.
Toward the end of the legislative session, most bills are grouped together by topics, such as public works projects, transportation, economic development, agriculture, education, environment, etc., into large pieces of legislation, some stretching more than 500 pages.Check out this post I made back in late February about the House Permanent Rules session:
At times, election campaigns against incumbents pull a small provision out of a big bill to attack the lawmaker. Lawmakers often complain in debates about provisions they don't like, sometimes at length, then vote for the bill. Sometimes a small initiative dooms a bill.
In many cases, especially near the end of a legislative session, lawmakers don't know everything that is in a bill.
The big bills, formally known as omnibus bills, are praised by many as efficient tools to take one vote without having to debate hundreds more bills individually.
FAIR NOTICE ON BUDGET BILLS: Under current rules, the majority is required to announce by 5:00 on the preceding day when major finance bills will be considered by the full House. Under the DFL's proposed rules, that would be cut to two-hour's notice on the day of the bill hearing. Rep. Dean Simpson (R-New York Mills) asked the House to expand that to six hours' notice so that citizens with an interest in the bill could be outside the House chamber to provide expertise and guidance to Representatives on the House Floor. The DFL killed the A-32 amendment with a procedural motion by a 79-50 vote.Back at the time of my post, I thought that this amendment made too much common sense not to pass. That's why I chided Tony Sertich for urging his minions to not adopt the A-32 amendment. That's why I indicted Sertich in that post.
Here's why Sertich & the DFL defeating this amendment matters:
Bud Heidgerken said that he wouldn't vote on a 545 page HHS omnibus bill because he was expected to vote on the conference report even though it was dumped in his lap less than two hours before the vote. The HHS budget is nearly $1 billion. A shifty legislator can hide alot of pork into a bill of that size. Not only is it possible, it's practically a guarantee.
Rep. Heidgerken would've been able to read the bill had Sertich not gotten the two hour rule passed because he would've had almost 24 hours to read through it. I suspect that the biggest reason why Sertich pushed this rule through was to prevent Republican legislators from finding out what was in these bills so they couldn't bring up these poison pills & pork barrel projects during the floor sessions.
It's apparent that the DFL isn't interested in good legislation. It's apparent that they're more interested in passing huge spending increases in the main part of the bill, then throwing in piles of pork to their political allies. Let's not forget that alot of this pork is sent into the districts of freshman DFL legislators so that they'd have a better shot at re-election in 2008.
When I watched the House Rules debate, I knew that the DFL had something up its proverbial sleeve when it defeated these amendments. I just didn't know how they'd use them this session. Looking back through the lens of time, it's apparent that they voted out the A-32 amendment so that they could pork up conference reports.
That's what happens when a political party makes playing hardball a higher priority than writing & passing good legislation.
Posted Saturday, May 5, 2007 2:49 AM
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It Won't Last Two Hours
According to this Strib article, that's what Rep. Steve Sviggum is prediction on several of the bills that the DFL rammed through yesterday. Let's get right to the details:
The $369 million jobs and economic development bill drew fire from Republicans as being too tilted toward DFL strongholds of the Iron Range, Minneapolis and St. Paul. And Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, whose family owns meatpacking plants, complained on a floor debate about new workplace protections for packinghouse workers. The measure would appropriate $7 million for employment and training of disadvantaged youth and a one-time $15 million increase in funding for affordable housing.Instead of cutting taxes to spur economic growth, the DFL chose the predictable path of increasing taxes & adding millions of dollars of spending. Predictably, they also targeted their districts with the lion's share of their spending largess.
But Rep. Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said it would kill jobs, not create them, because it appropriates $52 million more than Pawlenty requested, necessitating tax increases.
Sviggum, a former House speaker, predicted a veto within two hours.
The state government bill passed the House by 71-57, with many DFL defections. The Senate vote was 42-23.Yesterday, Steve Gottwalt told me that the state government bill would lose a bunch of DFL support, saying that alot of them wanted nothing to do with it. Why am I not surprised?
Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, defended the bill, saying it would spend less than the governor's proposal. It also would restore cuts made in recent years to legislative staffs while the governor's office was growing, she said.My first reaction to this section of the article was "When did Larry Pogemiller resign as Majority Leader?" Then I realized that the Strib reporter just made a mistake. (Hey, cut me some slack. I was still waking up.) My second reaction to Tarryl's response was along the lines of 'You call DFL spending bills as responsible? Give me a break.'
"Our budgets are fiscally responsible," she said, adding that DFLers had removed controversial items such as health benefits for domestic partners of state workers in hopes of gaining Pawlenty's support.
How "responsible" can it be if DFL support for these budgets is minimal?
Posted Saturday, May 5, 2007 8:15 AM
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Tony Sertich, King of the Culture of Corruption
This afternoon's Final Word showed one piece of proof after another why I was right to indict Tony Sertich this past February. Now more than ever, I feel vindicated in writing that post. Here's why:
In my indictment against Rep. Sertich, I said that he singlehandedly defeated numerous 'good government' amendments to the House's Permanent Rules. One of the most egregious of the rules he implemented allows the DFL-dominated House to drop massive omnibus bills in legislators' laps with two hour notice. Here's how they used that rule Thursday night:
Rep. Bud Heidgerken, R-Freeport, said he didn't vote for the 545-page health and human services bill because he didn't have time to go over the entire document. He said he would prefer lawmakers have at least a week to go through the big bills. "It's tough," Heidgerken said.As I mentioned in last night's post, Dean Simpson had proposed an A-32 amendment that would've at least given them six hours. Sertich defeated that amendment.
That's just one instance of Sertich's corruption. Sertich is also involved in the cover-up of a major scandal involving Minnesota's Attorney General, Lori Swanson. Swanson is accused by lawyers in her office of trying to prevent them from forming a union. In fact, Eliot Seide, the Executive Director of AFSCME, said that "he's 'disgusted' that his union endorsed Swanson last fall. In addition, he said "Lori Swanson is not walking her talk."
Mr. Sertich's role in this scandal is to lead the official DFL coverup:
House Rules Committee Chairman Tony Sertich, DFL-Chisholm, said he would handle the politically charged motion with the "respect it deserves," but he did not promise to conduct an investigation.It's clear that Rep. Sertich won't investigate this scandal because it involves the DFL. What Rep. Sertich doesn't understand is that this just gives people reason to believe that the DFL isn't interested in investigating corruption if it involves their own party. That's a stark contrast from the image that Amy Klobuchar created with her first Senate campaign commercial "Without fear or favor" where she bragged about putting a judge in jail "even though he was a Democrat." Here's what Rep. Sertich appears to be helping hide:
The union has accused Swanson of abruptly firing Assistant Attorney General Kari Jo Ferguson last week for collecting union membership cards.If these allegations are true, then every Minnesota taxpayer should be furious about Rep. Sertich's role in this scandal. I know that there's a number of liberals in this state but many of them are Wellstone liberals who don't condone scandals of any sort. It's time that they told Rep. Sertich that he needs to hold real hearings & conduct a real investigation.
"They have shared their stories about political patronage, fear, intimidation and humiliating working conditions," Seide said of attorneys in the office. "Now is the time for Lori Swanson to confer about working conditions. And there's nothing stopping her in asking worker-friendly legislators to change the statute, the Public Employees Relations Act."
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Those work conditions include a pattern of micromanagement as well as abrupt and unpredictable reassignments, dismissals and outright firings, the union alleged. The union hasn't been able to meet with Swanson about the problems, Seide said.
Just minutes ago, I sent an email to Rep. Sertich because I didn't like sitting on my hands while he did nothing. Here's the text of that email:
Rep. Sertich, It's been over a week since the House voted unanimously to have your committee investigate the allegations swirling around the Attorney General's office.I hope that this lights a fire under Rep. Sertich but I'm not holding my breath on it. The best way for Rep. Sertich's committee to hold real hearings & to conduct a real investigation is for everyone to write their representatives, especially if you have a freshman DFLer representing you. They can't be perceived as giving preferential treatment in this type of thing. I'd also urge readers of this blog to (a) write letters to the editor about this & (b) email local reporters & ask them why they aren't covering this scandal. That's the fastest way to crack this open.
I expected your committee to take immediate action to find out what did & didn't happen but instead, I read that you had the motion tabled. I later read that you've refused to let Tom Emmer testify before your committee about this investigation.
Rep. Sertich, I'm trying to keep an open mind about this but this reeks like a coverup of one of your cronies. Simply put, that won't cut it. I expect public officials to conduct themselves with a high level of integrity. I know that they'll fall short of that mark more often than I'd like. When they do, I expect them to be investigated & for the proper discipline to be meted out.
My question for you is simple. When are you going to hold serious hearings into this matter? Following Matt Entenza's scandal last summer & Mike Hatch's intimidating a judge last fall, I'm wondering if scandal is a permanent fixture of the Attorney General's office.
It's time that you got started with a real hearing that aggressively investigates these allegations.
Posted Sunday, May 6, 2007 1:08 AM
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Rukavina: Pawlenty Better Look For Compromise
Veteran DFL legislator Tom Rukavina's quote in this morning's Strib shows the arrogance of the DFL this session. Here's what he said:
"We've got a governor who's never won a majority of the vote yet but acts like he's got a mandate," said Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, a longtime foe. "He better recognize there's a DFL Legislature and start looking for compromise."Rep. Rukavina best recognize that Gov. Pawlenty isn't obligated to sign budget-busting legislation that the DFL passes. Rukavina knows that the legislation the DFL-dominated legislation has passed will cause a recession & return Minnesota to huge deficits. No governor is obligated to signing that type of legislation.
House and Senate leaders have yet to figure out how to negotiate over income-tax increases that the House uses to fund property-tax relief while the Senate applies them to education. Pawlenty has said repeatedly that any income-tax increase in any measure will draw an automatic veto. Without the income-tax increase, DFLers would have no way to pay for their two marquee items.At a time when Minnesota's economy is slowing down, there's no way that Gov. Pawlenty will sign major tax increases into law. The fact is that we should be talking about cutting taxes to stimulate Minnesota's economy. Democrats have proposed increasing spending by almost eighteen percent over the next biennium. That isn't sustainable & it certainly isn't prudent. It's time that DFLers like Rukavina stopped pretending to be fiscal moderates & started being fiscally responsible.
Tarryl Clark can talk all she wants about Gov. Pawlenty saying "no, no, no, no" but the reality is that we need an adult saying no to childish temper tantrum spending sprees. The lesson that Tarryl & other DFLers haven't figured out is that good public policies matter, no matter how big their majorities are. It's time they did before they send Minnesota into an economic disaster.
EducationActually, most Republicans don't have a problem with increasing special education funding. What they have a problem with are budget-busting tax increases on small businesses. Increasing taxes on businessmen making $400,000 a year will cause them to terminate employees, shrink employee benefits & wages or spur inflation. That isn't smart public policy. That's why Gov. Pawlenty won't sign it.
This could be the hardest nut to crack. The problem? The Senate bases much of its schools spending package on enacting a highest-in-the-nation income-tax rate for Minnesota's wealthiest taxpayers, which Pawlenty opposes. No increase, no cash for 2 percent annual, across-the-board increases for school districts or $93 million in tuition relief. The Senate also wants nearly $500 million for special education.
It's time that the DFL stopped catering to their special interest friends & started paying attention to smart public policy.
Posted Sunday, May 6, 2007 5:45 PM
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