Closing the deal

These are the last days of the campaign to send Crazy Dana back to the funny farm. However, we must not lose site of the fact that the California Fascist Republican Party has been very good at getting out the vote before any October Surprises can change the course of the election.

Be that as it may, we really need to make sure that voters in the 46th have a chance to hear Wendy Dormal. This principled activist for human rights has had a long history of dealing with Crazy Dana. She reminds us now of just what she thinks of this 5 Star General in Abramoff's Army.

I have had a personal battle with this congressman, at times one-on-one. However, my distain for the congressman is a result of his actions in suppressing justice for the foreign contract workers of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). In 1995 I naively believed that human rights was a bipartisan issue that could not refuted. Jack Abramoff, Congressman Rohrabacher, and their fellow conspirators proved that, in fact, they could make human rights a partisan issue and hurt a great many innocent people in the process.

If anyone that you know is sitting on the fence, just get them to read this. If they don't have a computer, use the one at the public library to show them, and then leave it on that page when you walk away. Someone else will see it too.

Compare the lack of integrity shown here with the calm, intelligent and principles statement of Debbie Cook as she closed her case in their only debate.

Rohrabacher in Emergency Mode

Well, it must be an emergency when they have to bring in Jon Voight to headline a fundraiser. Now we know that Voight is one of those spreading the word that Obama will usher in a new Socialist regime. Now, when Dana needs Deliverance from Voight, he has to know that he is in the middle of something new... a contested race.

I found out about this when I noted it being hyped around Republican circles by Ron Nehring. Now Nehring and Dana have a lot in common, especially their friendships with Jack Abramonff.

Now, if Obama is expected to answer question about William Ayers who was politically active when Obama was 8 years old, why aren't Nehring and Rohrabacher being asked to explain just how much they have changed since playing footsie with Jack. Fair is Fair.

Dana's sense of strategy seems to be getting tone deaf.

Total Buzz at the OC Register had an entry about Dana and Sarah Palin. I find it worth quoting.

“We remember all the negative things they said about somebody else,” Rohrabacher said to the crowd at the Palin rally in Carson. “His name was Ronald Reagan. I can guarantee that the same way Ronald Reagan saved America in 1982, Sarah Palin and John McCain will save America when they get to the White House.”

I think that it is time for Dana to go have his hearing checked. Sarah Palin is to Ronald Reagan as high school garage band is to the Rolling Stones.

In fact, if Dana is lining up to join in this game of trivial pursuit, then he is compounding his problem. While Reagan may be a hero, every single person who watched the interview with Gibson or Couric and saw her performance in the debate with Biden must know by now just what she lacks. Here is a link to what serious media in the UK said about her. The piece is headlined "Flirting Her Way to Victory".

Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse.

That was the kind part...

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty.

Dana, you have to show us better judgment than this. Or, if your ear is really that tone deaf, then I would guess the the Libertarian Troubadour sang off key as well.

Maybe Palin can win over all the Joe Sixpacks who will tell their wives to stay at home, keep their mouths shut and let him do the voting for the family. That is not the way to run a campaign when your opponent is an articulate woman with more experience in field of energy than Palin. You know, I have another idea. Why don't you have Palin come down and debated Debbie Cook on Energy Policy. That should be good for a few laughs.

Up to his old tricks

One of Dana Rohrbacher's favorite tricks is to say or do something so outrageous that totally undercuts any rational discussion of issues in this election. In fact, some of them seem to be designed to prevent Debbie Cook from getting any press mention at all.

I noted this before when everyone was talking about the rising prices of oil, Dana makes a big stink about a science fiction scenario of the world being hit by an asteroid. I keep wondering if he got a campaign contribution from Bruce Willis for this.

The most recent is his dragging up Sirhan Sirhan again. This was best reported by the Pasadena Weekly. but liberal bloggers have had a field day with it.

How dumb to you think we all are, Dana?

The OC Register ran a story on the assignation of Robert F. Kennedy and never mentioned your name. You probably never go over that, did you.

Now, you say you want to get Sirhan Sirhan to explain himself to help bring closure to the Kennedy's. That is another exceedingly callous way of trying to get Democrats to vote for you. I have news for you, Dana. They are not that dumb or they would be Republicans.

As Cook appears to be doing better and better, what additional attention getting trick do you have up your sleeve?

How can you tell when Dana is lying?

His lips are moving.

I can think of no better example than the speech that he gave recently on the floor of the House, the one that gathered national attention to him since he once again brought up dinosaur flatulence. If you want to read it, he is so proud that he has posted it on his House of Representative Web Site.

What you find there is a mixture of a small amount of fact, a lot of conjecture and a huge pile of horse manure. Let's take a good look at his technique. Consider this paragraph.

In a September, 2005, article from Discovery Magazine, Dr. William Gray, now an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a former president of the American Meteorological Association, was asked if funding problems that he was experiencing and has been experiencing could be traced to his skepticism of man-made global warming. His response: ``I had NOAA money for 30 years, and then when the Clinton administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. I couldn't get any money from NOAA. They turned down 13 straight proposals from me.'' This man is one of the most prominent hurricane experts in the world, cut off during the Clinton-Gore administration because he had been skeptical of global warming.

First, he references an article in DiscoverY Magazine. Now, if you check things out, Discovery Magazine is for Kids. We all know that the triplets are far ahead of their dad, so maybe he was reading one of their subscriptions.

Well, actually, it was Discover Magazine, but the error is so prevalent on the internet that we know no one actually fact checked his speech. If they can't get the little stuff right, how can they be trusted with big ideas.

The circumstances behind this article are well documented by Chris Mooney in his book Storm World. Gray is a skeptic about man made causes of global warming, but not about the fact that it is occurring, nor about the fact that it will make fundamental changes in life until it starts to cool again.

I’m not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and ’40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle ’40s to the early ’70s. And there has been warming since the middle ’70s, especially in the last 10 years.

Here is more of the non-story.

On April 26, 2006, RealClimate.org, which describes itself as "a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists," responded to a paper written by Gray by detailing "the fundamental misconceptions on the physics of climate that underlie most of Gray's pronouncements on climate change and its causes" and "the gaping flaws" in his "scientific argument." A June 11, 2006, article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Judith A. Curry, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said that "Gray's message that global warming is a hoax is being heard because of his media connections, but she [Curry] points out he has not published any research to back it up."

If you want more, then here it is...

Additionally, a May 28, 2006, Washington Post Magazine article by Joel Achenbach reported that Gray "concede[d] that he hasn't published the idea [his theory about recent warming trends] in any peer-reviewed journal." Achenbach also noted that Gray's rejection of climate models puts him "increasingly on the fringe" in the field of meteorology. When Achenbach "ask[ed] Gray who his intellectual soul mates are regarding global warming," Gray responded, "I have nobody really to talk to about this stuff.'"

(Source: Media Matters).

What Dana did is to take a string a "facts" and to imply a causality that does not exist. Gray makes the same argument that just because atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures move up and down together does not mean that one caused the other. The work cited above points out the errors in Gray's understanding and methodology when it comes to climate. He is nothing more than a damned good weather man, but the basic scientific understanding has gone far beyond what he knew or is willing to learn. He is left like the Pope arguing that the sun revolves around the earth, unwilling to change.

But, this is Dana's champion. I could go through the rest of Dana's talk. You can take it all apart and be left with not much but the enjoyment of discovering another charlatan. With his talent, Dana should put on a rubber nose and join Barnum & Bailey.

As long as Charles Krotch is paying for Dana to blather away, telling us to go use all the energy that Charlie can provide, then I guess that we will have to put up with Dana's blathering. Unfortunately, some people believe this sh**.

Figuring out Dana

I have long had a problem with trying to understand how Congressman Rohrabacher, ostensibly an intelligent man, could go in for such stunts as his frequently ridiculed dinosaur fart comments about global warming. I think that I finally got it.

We have all know that much of Dana's historic campaign funding has come from Libertarian leaning Energy Executive, Charles Koch. What most do not connect is the fact that the Koch family, owners of the largest privately held Corporation in America, Koch Industries. Charles Koch and his brother David are both listed (19) among the top 20 Richest Americans by Forbes Magazine. That spread their wealth around and are the source of funds for a few of the think tanks that have grown up around Washington. They contributed heavily to the start of the Cato Institute.

One of Charles Koch's more recent activities involves a new organization called Americans for Prosperity, a group that professes to be a grassroots organization but is heavily funded by Koch. Guess what, they are playing the same type of games over global warming with the latest stunt being the use of a hot air balloon to signify that global warming is just a bunch of "hot air".

Now, in case you have not heard of Koch Industries, they are a really big deal in energy production.

So, what we really have from Dana Rohrabacher is the vocalization of a puppet, with Koch pulling the strings to make sure that the word gets out. The vaunted independent streak of Crazy Dana is a sham. He is more dependent than independent, dependent on Koch for support.

When we look at the way most people have to struggle to get by, at the way that our government is pushing us into selling America to pay for an ill-advised war while we wonder how we can pay the mortgage, it is hard to see Crazy Dana as one of the common folks like us, not when he has Koch's $ Billions behind him. The only American Prosperity that Rohrabacher wants is for his buddy Charles and the hope that soem trickles down to himself.

Dana Rohrabacher vs. Shell Oil

We all know where Crazy Dana stands on the question of Global Warming. One can only ask "why?"

In an interview with Charlie Rose this week, James Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company, made the point that "the debate is over." If even the president of one of our largest petroleum companies can make that statement, you wonder why the likes of Sen. Inhofe(R - OK) and Dana continue to chant the mantra of denial.
What to they have to gain?

While I don't agree with all of what Hofmeister said, especially about where we need to go in the future, there are two points that become clear... especially if you listen to the entire interview. The first is that Hofmeister is not talking from his personal viewpoint. Under questioning from Charlie, he made it clear that his statements are completely in line with the positions of the Board of Royal Dutch Shell (the parent company) and it's CEO, Jeroen van der Veer.

Hofmeister went on to explain that the only thing accomplished by such denial is to delay arriving at the solutions we will ultimately be forced to accept. We will all have to pay the costs of such delay, both in terms of the implementation of new solutions and in terms of the mitigation of the effects of global warming that could, possibly, have been prevented by prompt action now.

The only thing that I can see is that Dana thinks he benefits at the polls by continuing this charade, that the voters have been sold this crap for so long that they think it smells sweet, that they are the ones who know better in the face of this "vast left wind conspiracy".

What they will find is that those like Dana and Senator Inhofe have been selling snake oil and the sickness is getting worse. Of course, when we could have stayed at home and taken an over-the-counter remedy, now, because of people like Dana who have abused their access to the media, we may need major, expensive surgery.

Waxman expands Blackwater Investigation

Rep. Henry Waxman is making a name for himself as the guy in Washington who keeps asking questions about ethical behavior, especially in the executive branch of government. One of his more recent targets seems to be Blackwater, a company that is either a loose committee of super patriots of a bunch on down on their luck Rambo's looking for a thrill while getting paid for it.

I am not sure how this will affect Dana, but we do know that he has been a big supporter of Eric Prince, Blackwater CEO. In fact, Prince once worked as a aide to Dana in Washington and I am sure that the connection is just too lucrative for it to have gone away.

The question here is whether the "contractors" who work for Blackwater are really that, independent contractors working for themselves, or whether they are employees. It would seem that Blackwater wants to have it both ways. They are contractors when it comes to the point that Blackwater may have to pay the same employment taxes that every other company has to pay. This is the question the Waxman is trying to answer. If they were to be considered employees, then Blackwater owes a bundle of money plus penalties for the Social Security taxes that they did not pay. If they are determined to NOT be employees, then I wonder how many of these well armed, happy go lucky chaps have been paying their self-employment taxes. It might be that a number of them have run afoul of the law.

Oh yeah, it was tax evasion that send Al Capone to Alcatraz, wasn't it.

An Associated Press story questioned the quality of people that Blackwater has been hiring anyway.

Private security contractor Blackwater USA has had to fire 122 people over the past three years for problems ranging from misusing weapons, alcohol and drug violations, inappropriate conduct and violent behavior, according to a report released Monday by a congressional committee.

That total is roughly one-seventh of the work force that Blackwater has in Iraq, a ratio that raises questions about the quality of the people working for the company.

But, they are employees when it comes time to discuss the protection of their behavior in Iraq by the State Department.

So, Dana, just how close are you to your one time aide. Did he learn all the secrets of maneuvering through government contracts from his one time boss?

Is Rohrabacher in favor of imeachment?

I doubt it.. but still you can't tell from some of the speeches he has been giving lately. For example, from his February 26, 2008 speech as reported in the Congressional Record.

In my tenure as a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, both as chairman and ranking member of an investigative subcommittee, I have witnessed firsthand behavior by the Bush administration which I find deeply troubling.
The disdain and uncooperative nature that this administration has shown toward Congress, including Republican Members, is so egregious that I can no longer assume that it is simply bureaucratic incompetence or isolated mistakes. Rather, I have come to the sad conclusion that this administration has intentionally obstructed Congress' rightful and constitutional duties.

Now, I am beginning to see a bit of Dana's re-election strategy. He is trying to distance himself from Bush about as far as he can go. Still if the truth were known about just what he thinks of this administration, he might even come up with a couple of Republican Challengers. There must be a few who still trust Dick Cheney with a loaded shotgun.

Just when you thought it was safe...

That must be what Dana is thinking, as he contemplates his next run for Congress. It has been a very long time since he faced criticism from inside the Republican Party, as the comments from Mississippi blogger Conservative Belle laid out.

Her criticism was a mild one. It was an effort to point out just how much earmarks and their use as a campaign tool give a lie to the conservative rhetoric about controlling spending and lowering taxes. If you can not control the amount of pork that is shipped to your own district, what gives you the right to talk about controlling big government. Maybe this should have been levied at Alaska's Senator Stevens or Representative Don Young. Both abuse the system much more that Dana. But Dana is the one that opened his mouth and gave her a good target for her scorn.

Now Dana has more than an irate Mississippi Belle to worry about, he has opposition in the Republican Primary in his own district. According to the Daily Pilot, Ronald R. St.John has actually decided to challenge Rohrabacher for the Republican nomination. You can check the status of all party candidates here.

Now, I don't know much about St. John. Neither, apparently, do the folks at Red County blog where he is only a side comment in a post about Debbie Cook.

Am I beginning to see parallels between what happened to Richard Pombo in 2006 and what is happening to Rohrabacher now? Like Dana, Pombo had a safe district. Like Dana, Pombo had surprising opposition in the Republican Primary. Like Dana, Pombo had an opponent with a reasonable base. Will Dana have to actually dig into his bank account and do some real campaigning this time? It is too early to tell, but Red County bloggers found that the speed with which Debbie Cook gathered signatures on her nomination papers to be "impressive."

Here are some things to watch.

• In CA-11, Jerry McNerney was able to pull in grassroot contributions from all over the country. The average contribution to his campaign was small, but he had a lot of them.
• What will the environmental community do? McNerney had strong backing from national environmental organizations, so does Cook locally. I have not heard that any of the bid spenders (Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife) are willing yet to pour money into this campaign. It will probably take several positive polling results to make that happen.
• Will Dana face more opposition from veterans? The war issue is a Republican strength but also a weakness. Treatment of veterans will make a difference. A Tom Lash issue now.
  
• Will Dana run a smart campaign? Pombo ran a campaign from a position of over-confidence, doing all of the same old things he always did. But, the times had changed and many actions backfired. The times have changed even more now and that can not be good for doing the same old things in the same old way.

This race is beginning to have the feel that the Pombo race had in early 2006. All it needs is for Rohrabacher's opponents to start believing that they can win.

What does a conservative belle think of Dana?

Well, one Conservative Belle is not too happy with him. I quote from her post today.

They frantically scramble for pork projects like they are starving and looking for bread crumbs to lap up. Greedy and desperate. But they have all the justification in the world when they need to defend their own projects, while hypocritically pointing fingers at other.

"I think the whole earmark debate has to be looked at with a skeptical eye on the part of the public," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, whose district covers parts of Long Beach.

Rohrabacher, who helped secure $16.9 million in earmarks, said he favors cutting spending and stronger disclosure rules.

But, he said, he does not want the administration to make the final decision about the flow of all federal dollars.

"If all we're doing is shifting the power to spread a certain amount of money from elected officials to un-elected officials ... that's no great benefit to the taxpayers," he said.
[...]
Waxman said he already has begun informing Los Angeles municipalities, hospitals, nonprofits and other groups that he will not be seeking money for them this year.

The 15-term lawmaker said he doesn't believe the decision will hurt his re-election efforts.

But some other local lawmakers said they don't intend to follow Waxman's lead and give up pet projects.

Rohrabacher, for one, called Waxman's decision "meaningless" unless Congress decreases the overall level of government spending. Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram

Right. By all means, do not lead by example, Mr. Rohrabacher. This 'do as I say, not as I do' rhetoric and behavior have nothing to do with the pitifully low ratings of Congress, of course. Americans have to be angry about something else, like how many steroids are being injected into sports players. Meaningless things like that provoke our ire.

And, as her final jab, our Conservative Belle lays it on the line like Scarlett O'Hara.

Hasn't Rep. Rohrabacher recognized that taxpayers are disgusted with their behavior? For crying out loud, even Henry Waxman gets it. Sheesh.

I guess Conservative Belle is not used to California ways and Ronnie's 11th Commandment. That is Reagan, not Nehring. The latter has not learned to count to 11 as his finances seem to indicate.

Ho-dad

I just found what purports to be the official Rohrabacher Website... or at least one that says it was paid for by the Committee to ReElect Congressman Rohrabacher. So, here is if folks: http://www.surfdana.org/ Even got a picture of someone on a surfboard. However based on his current official House of Representative web site photo, this must have been taken a while back.



Now, I talked about Dana with a surfer called "Birdlegs". Some of you from the Surfrider Foundation may know him. He called called Dana a "ho-dad". Must be something pretty bad.

Another thing I noticed is that the Surf Dana site looks pretty cheap. All three of the challenger sites look better. But, there have been rumors that the California Republican Party is having financial problems under the leadership of Ron Nehring. Could it be that Dana is having similar problems and has to rely on some middle school student volunteer to keep the site going?

Well that is about right. Ho-dad instead of surfer. Amateur web site instead of professional. Wonder how he is at being a congressman.

Debbie Cook Joins the Race

According to the Daily Pilot, Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook wants to get Dana talking. That should be easy. The problem may be to get him to shut up. He seems, with surprising frequency, to have foot in the mouth disease.

Unfortunately, that is also what makes him such a dangerous opponent for Cook, who can be a bit of a policy wonk at times... and the global warming / energy nexus is where she is far ahead of Crazy Dana. Dana, however, has managed to come off as being charmingly quirky rather than just _________: dumb? ideologically inflexible? in the pay of the bad guys... fill in the blanks yourself.

Now, we need to see just what kind of campaign Cook can wage. Maybe she should call Jerry McNerney for advice. Yeah, I know that the linked blog has not been active for a long, long time, but it is still around and show everyone that astounding things can happen when people get together to take back control of government.

Lincoln acted so that "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth." Crazy Dana claims to be from the party of Lincoln. You couldn't tell by what he is willing to do to the earth. I would think that Lincoln might given him to the Know Nothings. With Dana's anti-immigrant rhetoric, he would have been right at home.

Soldiers of MisFortune

The NY Times ran this story. I wonder is the OC Register will touch it.

January 10, 2008

2005 Use of Gas by Blackwater Leaves Questions
By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel.

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

You can read the rest of it at the Times. Not only did this group of renegade Rombo wannabes get upset at Iraqi's for clogging up an intersection and casually killed 17, now they start on our own troops. We hear all about supporting the troops. Does this me to gas them?

I would guess that the OC Register owes too much to Dana Rohrabacher to even mention the story. Just because Blackwater's CEO Erik Prince used to be an aide to Rohrabacher should not make these gun happy goons immune.

It is time to shut them down and to retire those who support them. Otherwise, we might begin to think that the OC Register is a bunch of hypocrites, talking about supporting out troops and then dropping the ball when our hired hands screw up. That is OK. Keep your public in the dark. We will continue to shine the light of truth on this until the Dept. of Defense decides to fire Blackwater. Then we will fire Rohrabacher.