Kilroy Denies Stimulus Shanghai (Another Lie)

Congresswoman Kilroy seems to be preparing for her post-electoral defeat transition back to trial lawyering (though as a multi-millionaire she may just retire and enjoy her wealth). The Kilroy for Congress campaign has filed a frivolous complaint against Steve Stivers for producing and disseminating an ad that accurately portrays Congresswoman Kilroy's record of supporting the failed stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which created jobs in China.

This is just one more pathetic gasp for attention by Congresswoman Kilroy's desperate campaign. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has walked away from her because they've lost faith that she can win. The people of the OH-15 have long since lost faith in her (the majority of us never had any faith in her to begin with--she won her seat with a mere plurality of the vote). Congresswoman Kilroy knows without a major game-changer her career will end with this election. This complaint is a meritless and cynical stunt to attempt to conjure that game-changer out of thin air, and Kilroy is hoping we'll all be dumb enough to fall for it.

The reality is that Lt. Colonel Stivers's ad contains only true statements. The entirety of Kilroy's complaint hinges on the falsehood that no jobs were created in China as a result of the stimulus. Unfortunately for Kilroy, the stimulus did create jobs in China. It's been widely reported. See the ABC News coverage below:



As reported in The Washington Times last month:

"The Department of Energy estimated that 82,000 [stimulus] jobs have been created and has acknowledged that as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion of manufacturing tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in countries including China, South Korea and Spain, rather than in the United States."

Now I may not be a fancy trial lawyer like Ms. Kilroy, but stimulus money going to "foreign firms" that employ workers "primarily in countries including China... rather than the United States" reads a heck of a lot like stimulus money creating jobs in China. Congresswoman Kilroy may like to ignore this inconvenient truth, but as economist Samuel Sherraden of the progressive think tank New America Foundation said, "We have to recognize that we are funding job-creation programs in Germany, Spain, Japan, and China."

While Kilroy turned a blind eye, other Democratic legislators recognized the problem and were outraged. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Bob Casey (D-PA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Ohio's own Sherrod Brown sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner asking him to put a moratorium on the section 1603 grant program responsible for using stimulus money to create jobs in China. In their press release the senators highlighted a project anticipated to create 3,000 jobs in Shenyang, China. The same project's estimated impact in the United States was roughly one tenth the Chinese impact with most U.S. jobs created being only temporary positions.

That's like for every dollar spent we get a dime.

The Treasury Department responded to the senators that it did not have authority to halt the program. Subsequently, Schumer introduced legislation to amend the program to include a "Buy American" requirement. The legislation has not been enacted and thus stimulus funds are still free to flow overseas.

What are we to think when rather than fight to correct legislation that is widely known to benefit China Congresswoman Kilroy turns a blind eye and pretends all is well? Mary Jo Kilroy has been a militant socialist, defended an IRA terrorist on domestic abuse charges, and has received campaign funding from a known front group for HAMAS. Now, she's been exposed as voting in favor of legislation with giveaways for China and is trying to squash the truth about her record by filing a frivolous OEC complaint. Stivers's ad is right to ask, "Whose side is Kilroy on?"

Saving Private Kilroy? Fat Chance!

I wonder what Lt. Colonel Steve Stivers must think looking over to the opposing camp where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee late last week canceled millions of dollars of advertising and, essentially, cut Congresswoman Kilroy loose to her own devices. In effect, what the Democratic leadership has done is left a comrade behind--something, as a soldier, Stivers has been trained never to do. All four hundred of the troops and contractors he lead during Operation Iraqi Freedom returned home safely.

Congresswoman Kilroy has been the perfect puppet for Speaker Pelosi. In the words of The Columbus Dispatch, she has "marched in virtual lockstep" with the unpopular speaker voting in sync with her 98% of the time. Kilroy voted for Obamacare, the failed $787 billion stimulus plan "that barely made a dent in private-sector unemployment", and supported an energy tax that would have killed over 100,000 Ohio jobs. It's revolting to watch the Democrats abandon her in a bid to hang on to a slim majority after she's blindly supported each and every one of their job-killing measures. Especially after DCCC Chairman Rep. Chris Van Hollen promised her supporters, "I give each of you my word that I am standing with Mary Jo, and that the full strength of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is behind her."

Looks like the Democrat's word isn't worth much.

Congresswoman Kilroy wasn't pressured into wholeheartedly supporting the entirety of the Obama-Pelosi agenda. She is, after all, a Democratic Socialist ideologue and always has been. She's been a poor fit for this politically moderate district. With her votes and actions she has sold us out to special interests time and again. She should have foreseen that her liberal masters would apply a tourniquet to her career in a desperate grasp to hold on to their power. She also should have understood that had she listened to us and faithfully represented us in Washington she could have held on to her own.

But if she had sided with us what would her "old militant friends" have thought?

It's too late for an apology. She chose her side.

She may try to recast herself as an underdog to win sympathy votes. However, a woman who jets around on Air Force One, rolls around with Congress's top dogs, and gets special shout outs from the Speaker of the House of Representatives is no underdog.

Before siding with the agendas of the liberals in Washington over the interests of her constituents Kilroy should have remembered the old adage, "There's no honor among thieves." While she was once a reliable vote in the Pelosi Congress's bid to spend away our country's prosperity and future now she's just a beleaguered comrade who fell behind.

I wonder if she now wishes her Democratic ilk shared Stivers's sense of duty.

Mary Jo Kilroy's Disingenous Astroturf Campaign

Watching the CBS Evening News on Tuesday night I caught incumbent Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy delivering what may be the most ironic quote of the political season. Speaking of the latest CBS News/New York Times poll Kilroy offered, "And as far as this GOP energy, I think a lot of it is 'astro-turf.' That means it's not real grassroots. It's these phony grassroots."

Yes, "It's these phony grassroots", indeed. Let's take a sentimental journey down Kilroy's faulty logic path: The poll is real. The results are real; they say more than three in four Ohio residents described themselves as either angry or dissatisfied with the federal government--with Kilroy's failed policies. So if the poll and the results are real then in order for it to be "these phony grassroots" the citizens must be fake. So she's saying more than three in four Ohio residents are fake Republican interlopers from out-of-state... What?!? That kind of lunacy is even harder to follow than Kilroy's magical thinking that spending money we don't have will lower the deficit! Kilroy's looking more like Norma Desmond every day.

Let's explore a more likely reality: the Congresswoman made a Freudian slip.

Several sources have already reported on Congresswoman Kilroy's fliers seeking $10/hour "paid volunteers" who would, ostensibly, devotedly campaign for Kilroy out of their deeply held belief in... needing cash.

This could be a cultural difference between the values of the the Ohio 15th District and the "values" of Washington, D.C. where they have to declare "Prostitution Free Zones" in order to keep pay-for-play at bay, but here in the OH-15 we don't call it love if you have to pay for it.

And looking over Federal Election Commission filings it gets worse: Kilroy's astroturfing campaign receives assistance from twenty-two additional mercenary campaigners from Working America, the independent expenditure arm of the AFL-CIO. (For the record, Working America pays better than Kilroy for Congress.) A review of the Working America astroturfers' addresses as filed with the FEC reveals nearly half of them don't even live in the 15th District.

So, in review, Kilroy's "volunteers" are:

1) Compensated for their pro-Kilroy opinion.
2) Bused in from outside the voting district.

That is the very definition of astroturf campaigning! And it's pathetic.

This is what REAL grassroots looks like:

Lt. Colonel Steve Stivers with actual volunteers

And within the ranks of Congresswoman Kilroy's astroturfer/"these phony grassroots" mercenary army there are some accompanying hypocrisies:

1) In the wake of the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission ruling, which expanded the rights of unions and corporations to make independent expenditures in federal elections, Congresswoman Kilroy made a big show of signing a pledge opposing independent expenditures. If she were truly principled about the issue she would have refused the aid of Working America but, apparently, she was only putting on a show for media benefit. Changing her opinions based on who she thinks is watching makes Mary Jo Kilroy a sleazy flip-flopper.

2) The rental vans used to haul around Kilroy's mercenary Working America crew filled up with BP gas. Twice. One would expect that after all the Congresswoman's carping about how "BP must pay" and after she signed the bpmakesmesick.com petition that her campaign staff wouldn't patronize the company. As it turns out, all that rhetoric was just for show.

Mary Jo Kilroy is disingenuousness personified.

Mary Jo Kilroy is Addicted to Lying

Mary Jo Kilroy is what's wrong with politics. She knowingly lies, distorts, and obfuscates in an attempt to confuse busy voters without the time and energy to factcheck her every false statement. She does it because it's her nature and her only hope. If voters decide this election based on the issues--jobs (or the present lack thereof) and the Pelosi Congress's ruinous spending--Mary Jo Kilroy is toast. Defeated. Over. Unemployed.

Congresswoman Kilroy's latest attack ad is no exception to her past record of deception. In her first ad she told us she voted against a bill that was voted on before she took office. Then she tried to imply she was anti-lobbyist when she's been an active part of a Congress that has created a "golden age" for lobbyists. Now she's running an ad (link forthcoming) with a completely false claim that Lt. Colonel Steve Stivers wants to create a 23% national sales tax.

Kilroy's ad cites a Union County & Galloway 912 Project Federal Candidate Questionnaire as her source for the bogus claim. The specific question the Congresswoman bases her misleading assumption on (below) was a multifaceted question inquiring as to how Lt. Colonel Stivers would vote on legislation to eliminate the progressive income tax. Because Stivers supports "a flatter, more simple tax system with less loopholes"--a more equitable system--he answered, correctly and honestly, that he would vote for eliminating the complicated progressive income tax (which most likely would be done without tampering with the 16th Amendment).

We've seen in the past that when in desperate situations Democrats tend to forget the definition of basic words like "is". In Kilroy's desperate struggle to hold on to her job she must have forgotten the definition of the word "or". In checking "Support" Stivers was not endorsing BOTH a flat tax AND a national sales tax, he was endorsing elimination of the complex progressive income tax structure that we are all burdened by right now. Because he has publicly stated his preference for "a flatter, more simple tax system with less loopholes" and is on record against a national sales tax, using Midwestern common sense (which Congresswoman Kilroy apparently lacks) we can draw the logical conclusion that Stivers supports a flatter, simpler tax system with less loopholes and not a national sales tax.

As an aside, I imagine Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would agree with Steve Stivers that the tax code needs simplified. After all, Secretary Geithner's confirmation hearings proved a testament to the complexity of the tax code.

Furthermore--and this is in very stark contrast with the claims made in Kilroy's deceitful ad--Stivers has been quoted very recently by The Columbus Dispatch stating his adamant opinion that, "Now is not the time to raise taxes on anybody." Conversely, Mary Jo Kilroy wants to raise taxes by ending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. According to a CNN Money survey 60% of economists agree with Stivers's position. Some prominent Democrats agree with Stivers too.

Once again Mary Jo Kilroy is out on a limb and out of touch. And once again she's trying to cover it up with another shamelessly dishonest ad. Politics as usual for Mary Jo.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Mary Jo Kilroy's gotta lie.

Kilroy's K Street Love

The most predictable act of the OH-15 congressional race has taken place: incumbent Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy has attacked Lt. Colonel Steve Stivers with a negative TV ad. With her past history of running negative campaigns, the fact that she aired a negative ad isn't itself worth discussing, but the hypocrisy of the message contained in the ad is well worth highlighting.

The ad decries the number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., but fails to mention that under the Obama Administration and the Pelosi Congress lobbyists are thriving like never before. The Weekly Standard calls the current Democrat-created environment in Washington a "golden age" for lobbyists. And they're correct in doing so: 2009 set a record as the most profitable year ever for the lobbying industry with a walloping $3.47 billion dollars being spent on lobbying the federal government. And they couldn't have done it without Mary Jo Kilroy and her liberal ilk in Congress.

"Lobbyists love it ... when you've got an activist agenda like this," said James Thurber, the director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, of the Obama-Pelosi agenda. And the lobbyists who are thriving aren't Republicans either--they're Democrats. The much-decried "army of lobbyists" President Obama and Congresswoman Kilroy carp about include many faces friendly and familiar to them: former Obama administration officials, prominent Democratic donors, former lawmakers, and former staff members of the current Congressional Democrats. People like Obama's failed Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee and tax-dodger Tom Daschle; Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta's BP lobbyist brother Tony and sister-in-law Heather; Goldman Sachs's Michael Paese, formerly an aide to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (as in Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act).

Kilroy's Army

What's worse is that the anti-lobbyist rhetoric of Kilroy and Obama is pushing lobbying into a black market. The Huffington Post brands the new trend "influence laundering". To get around the scorn and disclosure requirements of being publicly known as a lobbyist many Washington influence peddlers are deregistering themselves. Effectively, this sends much of the lobbying industry underground to a world free of transparency and accountability for both lobbyists and Kilroy lawmakers alike. (Remember when Congresswoman Kilroy inserted a provision into the financial reform bill that sent bond deals underground? --It's like she's got an ax to grind with the very ideas of transparency and accountability.) For his part, President Obama has found his own clever way around the transparency requirements he instated.

In truth the only way to curb the influence of the "army of lobbyists" is to cut the size of government; if the beast starves it will die. President Obama and Congresswoman Kilroy have kept the beast well-fed with Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank "reform" bill, and cap-and-trade. It's time for the lobbyists' "golden age" to end!

Mary Jo Kilroy did get one line right in her attack ad: With big lobbyist enablers like her in Washington, it is no wonder our voices never get heard.

Democrats: The "D" Stands for Dishonest

According to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democratic strategy for this fall is to run away from the Democrats' legislative record and try to make the election a choice between political parties. In support of this strategy, President Obama offered up a cutesy little metaphor:

"I do want to point out, when you get in your car, when you go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D.' When you want to go back, what do you do? You put it in 'R.' We don't want to go into reverse back in the ditch."

Effectively, the strategy is to run against George W. Bush.

"Blame Bush" is hardly a new strategy. One might even say it's a worn-out dogma that has, for far too long, strangled our politics. It's like President Obama's mind is stuck in reverse. And it's because of this brand of childishness that the president's once-soaring popularity has declined, by the way.

Far worse, however, is that it's dishonest. The groundwork for the financial crisis was laid before George W. Bush took office. In the last month of his presidency, President Bill Clinton signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted the toxic mortgage-backed securities from government regulation. And before that Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act which allowed the creation of the mega-banks, the banks that were "too big to fail".

So by the time President Bush (43) took office big banks were getting bigger and had been equipped with the financial instruments that Warren Buffett described as "weapons of financial mass destruction". The car was already in overdrive when George W. Bush first sat in the driver's seat.

But blaming President Clinton is overly simplistic; it's the sort of thing the Democrats would do, and I most certainly will not stoop to their level. The global financial crisis was a complex occurrence, and the guilty parties are many. (Besides, the former president has had the decency to admit his error in creating the climate for the collapse.) However, when doling out blame, there are some very guilty people who mustn't escape notice: former Clinton advisers who now, coincidentally, are Obama's advisers.

As it turns out, we can't put the car in reverse because we've already gone backward.

Liberal columnist Paul Krugman asserts, dejectedly, that all of Obama's economic advisers are "proteges of [Clinton Treasury Secretary] Robert Rubin, the apostle of financial deregulation". And Krugman is right to do so. Beyond being mere proteges, Obama's economic advisers were in the room with Rubin as he pushed for the Financial Services Modernization Act before bailing government service for a $15-million-a-year job at Citigroup. (Citigroup itself having been created in a merger made legal by the Financial Services Modernization Act--it's dealings like that which earned Rubin a spot on Market Watch's 10 most unethical people in business.)

Let's take a look at the Rubin proteges who shape Obama's thinking:

• Larry Summers, Rubin's Deputy Treasury Secretary and successor, is now Obama's Director of the National Economic Council. Summers pushed Congress to deregulate the derivatives market on the basis that financial institutions are "eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies"--financial speak for "they can police themselves". As it turns out, they couldn't.

• Timothy Geithner was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the Clinton Treasury Department and is now Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. According to a Wall Street Journal bio, Geithner "learned from Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers". As previously reported in this blog, Geithner was in the room with Lehman Brothers as they engaged in fraud, knew it, and failed to take commensurate action. What a stand-up guy.

• Gary Gensler's official biography as Obama's Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission states that, as Under Secretary of the Treasury, "Chairman Gensler was the principal advisor to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and later to Secretary Lawrence Summers on all aspects of domestic finance." Ah, so he was Rubin's Rubin. According to The New York Times, Gensler also played a "significant role in shepherding through Congress deregulation measures that led to the explosive growth of the over-the-counter derivatives market."

And, of course, there are more, lower-profile Clinton era (read as: deregulation era) economic advisers surrounding President Obama. Not quite the "Change" we were promised.

President Obama has oft-repeated a line about Republicans driving the country into a ditch. He ought to level with us and mention that the car had faulty steering and brake lines, and that they were installed by his own economic team. That doesn't make for a very rousing stump speech, however.

Sadly, our local trial lawyer won't press our case and demand restitution from the negligent technicians who put us here. Apparently, the Democratic cause has already paid her a hefty retainer for her services.

We can take heart that the tow truck is coming this November.

Since You Asked...The Answer is HELL YES: Mary Jo is Anti-Israel

In a desperate attempt to convince voters that Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy is not an opponent of the strong, friendly relationship that exists between the United States and Israel the Congresswoman's campaign recently launched a new website, http://ismaryjoantiisrael.com/. The dull and uninspired website, which is un-sourced and provides veritably no useful information to voters, poses a solid white background with the question "Is Mary Jo Anti-Israel?" in black lettering, and then in large, bold-faced type: "NO" with a link to contribute to the Congresswoman's campaign. (However you needn't worry about contributing even if you are so misguided as to support her; she's already supplemented her campaign with your tax dollars.)

Kilroy's denial is very adamant, and I think the lady doth protest too much. An examination of the Congresswoman's record demonstrates that she has not been a "100%" supporter of Israel as she claims. In fact, Mary Jo Kilroy is one of the most anti-Israel Members of Congress. Period.

Congresswoman Kilroy's record of disregard for the U.S.-Israel alliance predates her tenure in the United States Congress. In 2002, during the height of the second Palestinian intifada, then-Franklin County Commissioner Kilroy was the lone vote against a three-part resolution expressing determination to 1) stand behind the efforts of the president in support of the government and the people of Israel in their time of crisis; 2) stand behind the State of Israel in its campaign against terrorism; and 3) support the State of Israel in its efforts to live in peace and security.

It is unclear to which innocuous provision(s) Ms. Kilroy objected: standing behind the president, supporting the people of Israel in a bloody conflict that cost them the lives of 1,063 of their countrymen, or supporting our ally in its quest to live in peace and security. Regardless of from which provision her objections stemmed, in dissenting to any she expressed disdain and disrespect for the people of Israel.

After being elected to Congress, Kilroy continued to exhibit her disdain for Israel. Congresswoman Kilroy was one of only 54 representatives to sign a letter urging President Obama to pressure Israel into easing blockade restrictions on the HAMAS-controlled Gaza Strip. Additionally, Kilroy was one of only six representatives to sign a letter asking Attorney General Eric Holder to hold a meeting with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group the FBI has found to be linked to the terrorist group HAMAS, the primary goal of which is to "obliterate" Israel.

Now, why would Mary Jo take such positions so far out of the mainstream? Gosh, surely this can't possibly be another example of Kilroy being bought and paid for by disreputable characters....

Yep. It's that again. She's sold herself so many times you'd think she was on the other end of the Craigslist scandal.

As it turns out, Mary Jo Kilroy has a long-standing donor/puppet relationship with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. When then-Commissioner Kilroy voted against the resolution supporting Israel in 2002 CAIR was there to praise her for her "responsible stand by abstaining from voting on this very disturbing resolution." And then, in four years time, when Kilroy decided to make her first run for Congress, CAIR National Vice Chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras rewarded Kilroy for her anti-Israel sentiments with the first of many campaign donations.

If Kilroy's collection of bizarre out-of-state and out-of-the-mainstream donors can be likened to a compost heap, Ahmad Al-Akhras might well be the biggest weed growing out of it. Check out the picture of him below pressing the flesh with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.

(Picture originally from CAIR's 2006 Annual Report)

Beyond being the No. 2 man at a front group for HAMAS, Al-Akhras has been known to serve as a character reference for convicted terrorists. Take, for example, Christopher Paul, an Ohio man who was charged and later plead guilty to "conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosives to be used as bombs" against U.S. citizens and property outside the United States as part of an al-Qaeda plot. Al-Akhras, who claimed to know Paul, said of him: "From the things I know, he is a loving husband and he has a wife and parents in town. They are a good family together." Paul was such a fine family man and father that investigators seized a letter from his apartment instructing his wife to raise "little mujahideen," or holy warriors. (The children are our future--even for jihadis!)

Kilroy donor Al-Akhras vouched for another suspected terrorist when he asserted that Nuradin Abdi, a Somali national accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall, was "unlike how he [was being] portrayed" by the FBI. Al-Akhras went on to predict a dismissal of the charges, "This may be one of the cases also that may not have enough evidence or there's no evidence at all." Abdi later plead guilty to providing material support to terrorists.

With Congresswoman Kilroy sitting on the House Homeland Security Committee, it's deeply disturbing that she's accepting money from a guy who, at best, associates with terrorists and, more likely, is one.

It's equally disturbing to consider that she's so mentally warped as to make an argument that she supports Israel while palling around with folks who are nothing more than front men for a terrorist organization that's sole purpose is to destroy Israel.

The national Democrats want to make this election a choice, not a referendum on the legislative overhauls passed by the sitting Congress. In the case of Ohio's 15th Congressional District, the choice could not be clearer: Lt. Colonel Steve Stivers, who has worn the uniform of his country in the fight against terrorists, or Mary Jo Kilroy, a politician funded by terrorists.