It is past time to vote Pompeo out of office

By SJ Otto

There have been a lot of supportive letters to The Wichita Eagle lately, supporting Rep. Mike Pompeo, Republican 4^th district US Representative race. Some of the letter writers may actually be shills. But anyway here is an example, from J. Mullen:

We know Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, supports our Constitution. He took the oath to defend it while wearing our nation’s uniform and helped safeguard the rights of us all.

But this is simply not true. He does not support the Fourth Amendment to the constitution, unreasonable search and seizure. Such searches require a warrant and/or probable cause. But that is not what Pompeo believes.

Pompeo believes our wars and military are more important than us. We are supposed to just trust the government. Here is whathe has said:

As a veteran, I want our soldiers in the field to have the intelligence they need to perform their missions effectively. As a conservative, and member of the House Intelligence Committee, I take the balance between privacy and protecting American lives very seriously. I believe these anti-terror programs are crucial.”

But he doesn't take it seriously. He has gleefully supported the spying on innocent American citizens by the NSA. In fact he has supported the NSA when it has engaged in massive, illegal dragnet surveillance of the domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001. 

Pompoe even supports the use of drones for surveillance of American citizens.

“When it comes to domestic surveillance, sometimes Congress seems like it’s expressing shock and outrage about something it already knows—or should have known. Take the use of drones on U.S. soil.
FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted at a hearing this week that his agency uses unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance on U.S. soil. Mueller insisted the FBI used drones “in a very, very minimal way.”

Then there was this letter from Justin Thompson:

Though the debate lacked the drama and excitement we have seen from this cycle’s presidential debates, one thing stood out to me: Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, was the only candidate who had any legitimate foreign policy views.

Pompeo has a foreign policy but it is reckless and amounts to ‘I never met a war I didn't like.’ He has opposed the diplomatic negotiations that led to an end of hostilities with Iran.

Around the same time, we all learned about the shocking $400 million payment to Iran that by shipping pallets of foreign currency being flown to Tehran secretly while U.S. hostages were being released.  The world knew this was a ransom payment.  I wrote a letter to the Treasury Department demanding to know what legal grounds they had to make such a transfer.  Then, just this week, the State Department confirmed it – the $400 million was contingent on Iran releasing the American hostages!  I explained all of this to Trish Regan on Fox News on Monday before the State Department confirmed our suspicions."  

His seems to want to stay at war or go to war with Iran.

Another issue is his continues support for the Guantanamo Bay camps. At one point he suggested the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to deliberately defy President Barack Obama's policy to shut down the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp:

“As the urgency of the threat presented by Islamic extremism grows, we cannot afford to have the commander-in-chief issue executive orders in direct contravention of laws that he enacted,” Pompeo said in a statement. “I encourage the Joint Chiefs of Staff carry out an exhaustive legal review before implementing any executive order transferring these dangerous terrorists to the United States.”

For these reasons it is important that we vote Pompeo out of office and put someone in with a moderate stand on the military and someone who does not want to permanently keep us at war.