Open letter from the Raj Goyle campaign

Dear Friends,

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And on June 19th, 2010… poor Tony Hayward did, too. If you’re like Raj Goyle, you probably saw it on TV: Tony “I Want My Life Back” Hayward, the disgraced CEO of British Petroleum, blissfully racing his yacht last Saturday in the open waters of Great Britain. While here in America, millions of barrels of oil continued to spew from Hayward’s deepwater well into the closed waters of our Gulf of Mexico. When Raj saw Hayward helming his yacht, he went ballistic. Are you kidding me?!? Where’s the accountability? Who does this guy think he is? As the momentum continues building in Raj Goyle’s campaign for Congress, you won’t find the accountability with his Republican opponents here in the 4th District of Kansas. Not even close. Raj Goyle needs your help now to keep the momentum going! Donate $500, $250, or $100 online at

http://www.goyleforcongress.com/.

The GOP frontrunner is self-funding multi-millionaire oil tycoon Wink Hartman. Sailing just behind Hartman is Club for Growth favorite Mike Pompeo. You don’t hear a peep out of either of them. Not when Tony Hayward went yachting. Or when Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas issued his nationally-televised apology to the BP CEO earlier last week. There isn’t a single Kansan who believes apologies are in order for Hayward and BP as they wreak havoc on America’s economy. So the silence from Hartman and Pompeo is deafening… but it shouldn’t be surprising. Hartman made his multi-millions as an oil company CEO. Now Republican Wink Hartman is using those millions to run for Congress – when he isn’t busy flying private planes back and forth to his residence in Florida, of course. Hartman probably saw Hayward on TV and got a bad case of yacht envy. And GOPer Mike Pompeo? Like you read, he’s backed by the Club for Growth – a shadowy Washington special interest group, funded by Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists who might as well call themselves the Club for Greed. If Hartman or Pompeo get any wind in their sails, they’ll steer Congress the exact same direction guys like Tony Hayward poster boy. Go to

www.goyleforcongress.com

and donate ASAP before our fundraising deadline of June 30th – every contribution – $500, $250, $100 or even $50 – will go toward demanding accountability in are headed. Raj Goyle won’t let that happen. But Raj needs your help right now to beat the multi-millionaire oil tycoon and “Club for Greed” Washington! Sincerely,

Kiel Brunner

Campaign Manager

Record earmarks and related campaign contributions for Tiahrt

From
Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner

For years I’ve kept track of US Representative Todd Tiahrt, Republican from Kansas, and his finances. The fact that he is conservative and supported by the religious right is not as important as the contention that he has used his office for his own personal gain.
It’s not really exaggerating to say that he seems to vote in favor of businesses that have contributed heavily to his re-election campaigns. He makes good money and has wonderful perks. For example, he spends taxpayer’s money to fund vacations for him and his family to Hawaii and Europe. He can justify taking the trips by attending business meetings by aircraft companies. But is he justified in taking his wife and kids at the taxpayer’s expense?
Then there is Koch industry. He gets more money from them than any other politician. In return he opposes any regulations on pollution that Koch might produce. Tiahrt has been given a zero by almost every serious environmental group.
Other bloggers have also noted Tiahrt’s contributions. According to Forward Kansas
Tiahrt raised roughly $19,750 from PMA’s PAC and employees from 2003 through 2008, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, and According to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly and Taxpayers for Common Sense, Tiahrt secured $5 million in earmarks to PMA clients in 2007, and with others helped secure $2 million.
However the latest news for Tiahrt comes from Steve Kraske, writing for the Kansas City Star. He reports that Tiahrt helped dole out nearly $24 million in earmarks this year to private companies, school districts and universities in Kansas.
He also writes “A new study has found that individuals and political committees tied to those special-interest groups made more than $46,000 in campaign donations to Tiahrt — the second-highest total among all members of Congress.”
"It's related to building the economy in Kansas," Tiahrt said of earmarks, which call for federal money to be spent on specific projects, usually in a lawmaker's home district. "I feel like the people of Kansas sent me to Washington to try to do something about their problems. One of them is the tough economy."
As the August 3 primary nears, Tiahrt’s earmarks are becoming a real liability in his Senate race against US Representative Jerry Moran. Moran is making this a major issue of his campaign.

Brownback investigated by Congressional Ethics

As the primary elections grow closer, it appears we may lose Todd Tiahrt. But not to worry. I will simply change the name of this site a little and cover the other idiot politicians conservative people keep electing to miss-represent us.

Another Kansas Republican is under investigation for ethics violations. He may be running for governor of Kansas, but Senator Sam Brownback, Republican, is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for possibly receiving an improper gift in the form of below-market rent during his stay in the C-Street House.
The C-Street House is already a controversy in itself. It is infamous for being headquarters to an ultra-secret society of high powered politicians calling themselves “The Family”. C-Street recently made national news for its use of Congressional interns as servants and its relationship to admitted adulterers Senator John Ensign, Republican from Nevada and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Republican.
According to the Associated Press;

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - CREW for short - cites news reports that say House members and some senators have paid below-market rents to live in a house on C Street SE that is owned by a Christian prayer group known as the Fellowship. CREW wants the House and Senate ethics committees to determine whether the monthly rent, reported to be around $950, is below the market value. If so, CREW says, the discount could amount to an illegal gift.

Other Kansas politicians have also stayed there including Todd Tiahrt who gave examples of men who he believed understood the way power should be wielded, (Adolf ) Hitler, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and (VI)Lenin. Also Brownback has been called into question over his relationship with Lou Engle, a homophobic extremist who in 1999 applauded Uganda’s President Yowerie Museveni when he declared that Uganda’s homosexuals should be rounded up and imprisoned. Engle is the founder of TheCall and he is known for his antigay, sexual purity obsessed mass prayer rallies.
Once again we see the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party and their hypocritical “family values.”

Elections are the same all over

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner:

In Kansas, our primary is not until August. But the political ads are popping up everywhere. The amazing this is how much they all sound alike:
“I’m the pro-life pro-family candidate.” “I’m a leading conservative in the senate (or house).” “Congress is out of touch with the American people.” “I plan to take back our government.”
So who isn’t all of those things? Nothing they have said is new. They all claim to be open to new ideas. Yet they campaign on old ideas. And who are they taking the government back for?
A lot of people are already getting sick of seeing Wink Hartman campaign TV Ads. The ads run every hour on most TV stations, Hartman tries hard to look like a serious business leader who is “just like you” and wants common sense solutions to the problems in Washington. “I’m not a career politician,” he said in a recent ad.Some simple questions come to mind with this guy immediately. How many of us have an arena named after us? Hartman does. Were is all that money coming from for all of those ads? The TV is saturated with them and they are not cheap. If he is against spending money so much, why is he spending an exorbitant amount for these ads? If he’s not a career politician why is he paying more in advertising than this job will pay him?
These politicians just assume we are all pro-life. But at a gathered for a memorial for abortion Dr. George Tiller on Memorial Day, Kari Ann Rinker, had a lot to say in favour of legal abortions.“This is not just a choice issue,” Rinker said. “This is a medical issue, an issue of women’s safety. It is a need.”
The real wild card in all of this is the Tea Party. What do they really stand for? There members have pushed for everything from an armed insurrection to ending the department of education and ending social security. Is all of this really in the best interest of the American people?
Rep. Todd Tiahrt was the nimble brain representative of the US House to introduce Sarah Palin to a Wichita crowd a few months ago. She is known for her slogan “drill baby drill,” as a cry for deregulating the drilling of off shore oil wells. After the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, who takes such a stance serious today?