Joe Sonka November 12th, 2007
(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)
The Public Campaign Action Fund has a devastating new ad parodying McConnell’s new “I am the big government pork king” advertisement. This ad mentions some of the earmarks he created that Mitch left out.
Here’s the ad being parodied by PCAF. As we’ve already mentioned, this ad is a big steamer, featuring a head-scratching starring actor.
Joe Sonka November 10th, 2007
(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)
Here’s my column in the current issue of Lexington’s W Weekly. I think it’s a nice welcome to the post-Ernie era for our pal Mitch. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?
When one is presented with the opportunity to provide healthcare to an additional 10 million children from low-income families, most people believe that our government should take advantage of it. In fact, almost 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 80% in opinion polls agree.
Others say, tough luck kiddo. Pull yourself up by your own bootie straps like a real American.
Senator Mitch McConnell would be one of those people.
Though outnumbered in both Congress and public opinion for the past 2 months, Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush have been able to derail the overwhelmingly popular and bipartisan legislation to expand healthcare for such children under the already successful SCHIP program. Despite many Republicans breaking ranks to support and pass the expansion of SCHIP, there were not enough votes to overturn Bush’s veto of the bill. Last week, McConnell again sided with the fringe minority in the Senate by voting against a new version of the bill, which he regards as “wasteful spending” and a stepping stone to “socialized medicine”.
But the Lexington Herald-Leader has recently discovered other avenues for our tax dollars that Mitch McConnell does not regard as “wasteful spending”.
One such avenue would be providing $25 million to a foreign military arms contractor called BAE. This was not $25 million that the Defense Department requested, mind you, but rather money that McConnell snuck into a defense appropriations bill as an earmark (pork, as they say).
And who is BAE? Well, they are a foreign company that is currently under investigation from several different countries, including our own Justice Department, for bribing public officials with hundreds of millions of dollars in order to secure contracts.
It should also be noted that BAE’s PACs and employees have given McConnell at least $53,000 in contributions since 2002. BAE’s subsidiary has also donated $500,000 to the new “McConnell Center” at the University of Louisville.
But I’m sure those two facts have nothing to do with one another.
So what other recipients of our tax dollars are not considered “wasteful spending”? How about clients of powerful Washington, D.C. lobbyist Hunter Bates? He was a top level staffer for McConnell from 1997-2003, and now heads his own lobbying firm, Bates Capital.
Bates represents “Voice for Humanity”, an organization formed to “spread the word of Christ throughout the world”. From 2003-2005, McConnell earmarked $8.3 million dollars to Voice for Humanity, so that they could send small mp3 players to people in Afghanistan. Recordings on these devices were supposed to teach the Afghanis how to have a democracy.
No, seriously.
McConnell has also earmarked $2.5 million to e-Cavern, $2.1 million to Boardpoint LLC and $17 million to Appriss Inc., all of whom paid large fees to hire Bates Capital.
During that time, Bates’ clients have given McConnell a total of over $120,000 in campaign contributions.
Again, maybe it’s just a coincidence.
Or maybe this is just the standard operating procedure for Mitch McConnell. Maybe those who play the game get rewarded, and those who don’t are left behind. You scratch my back, I’ll put $5 million in earmarks in your back pocket.
This kind of behavior, awarding constituents and donors back in your home district, is supposed to be avoided like kryptonite according to the mantra of “fiscal conservativism” within the Republican Party. Republicans like John McCain have long railed against these earmarks slipped into legislation, blaming it for building up massive debt in our federal budget. House Republican leader John Boehner also decries earmarks, saying of his supporters, “if they wanted someone who would raid the federal treasury on their behalf, they should vote for someone else”. Mitch McConnell apparently has no such qualms.
McConnell was a very strong critic of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill passed a few years ago that set strict limits on the amount of soft money that individuals could contribute to campaigns. He argued that this was a violation of Americans’ “freedom of speech”. Indeed, money is speech to McConnell. And if you aren’t giving him money, he doesn’t hear you.
McConnell’s war chest for his re-election campaign next year is almost at $10 million, already. And this war chest is full of money from the health insurance industry. So when you see Mitch McConnell fighting so hard with the rest of the fringe minority to block the expansion of SCHIP, just know who is in his ear, whispering sweet nothings. Rest assured, it is not the children of low-income families who cannot afford health insurance.
Perhaps the only way for these kids to get through to Mitch McConnell is to repeal the child labor laws that we’ve had the past century. Hire them as big shot lobbyists, and let them wheel and deal with Mitch on the only level that he understands and respects.
Until then, poor kids who fall through the cracks and don’t have health insurance only have one option when they’re sick. Suck it up, walk it off, and keep pulling up on those bootie straps.
Joe Sonka November 5th, 2007
(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)
We already know about the millions of tax dollars that Mitch McConnell directed to former staffer Hunter Bates for “music players” sent to Afghanis (shocking that those didn’t work, isn’t it?). Now we have more government handouts for Mitch’s favorite lobbyist. From Cheves at the LHL:
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $1 million in federal funds to help e-Cavern, a Louisville company whose lobbyist, Gordon Hunter Bates, is McConnell’s former chief of staff and 2002 campaign manager.
McConnell, the Senate minority leader, put his earmark in the spending bill that pays for the U.S. Treasury Department, which awaits a conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions.
Since 2004, McConnell has earmarked $2.5 million for e-Cavern, which leases out space in a 3-million-square-foot, man-made cave near the Louisville airport. Under a deal proposed by e-Cavern and funded by the Treasury Department, the University of Kentucky uses the cave to study the effectiveness of underground storage of computer data from the financial sector in the event of disasters or terrorist attacks.
E-Cavern started to win earmarks after it hired Bates in 2003 to replace a previous lobbyist.
Bates, a 2003 candidate for Kentucky lieutenant governor until he was disqualified for living in the Washington suburbs, spent years on McConnell’s staff and continues to raise campaign funds for him. Bates and his wife have made at least $146,000 in donations to Republican politicians, including $17,200 to McConnell. E-Cavern is one of at least eight of Bates’ lobbying clients to directly receive assistance from McConnell, either through earmarks or friendly legislation.
Executives of e-Cavern have made at least $11,500 in donations to Republican politicians, starting in 2004, including $2,000 to McConnell and $2,500 early this year to former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., in her GOP primary challenge to Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Northup put a $1 million earmark for e-Cavern into the federal budget last year, but because the government operated in fiscal year 2007 under a continuing resolution, not an actual budget, that earmark was lost.
McConnell and Bates did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Our Treasury is basically Mitch McConnell’s own play money that he uses to buy influence and reward donors. For another year, at least. If only child labor laws didn’t prohibit poor children from working as lobbyists, they might actually have a chance at getting healthcare…
Ditch Mitch KY
