Tiahrt wants the new Republican whip job. Says he’ll take a new direction. Where?

According to The Wichita Eagle, 1-10-06:

WASHINGTON - Todd Tiahrt announced Monday that he's running for the No. 3 leadership post in the U.S. House of Representatives, calling himself a new face and a voice for change in direction for House Republicans.

"I think it's clear we need to have a new direction in the Republican conference," said Tiahrt, R-Goddard, who is seeking to become majority whip. "To make that happen we need to have new faces."

Let’s look at where Tiahrt has taken us so far:

Corruption:

November 03, 2005

The Center for Public integrity has made some important observations on Wichita’s own Koch Industries and their ability to buy elections. Among the findings:
“Koch Industries (pronounced "coke") is a huge oil conglomerate controlled by brothers Charles and David Koch, two of the country's richest men and among the biggest backers of conservative and libertarian causes. With estimated revenue of about $40 billion last year, Koch is bigger than Microsoft, Merrill Lynch and AT&T.
Koch is the leading campaign contributor among oil and gas companies for the 2004 election cycle, giving $587,000 so far.

“Koch has rained the most campaign cash, almost $121,000, on Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican who represents Wichita, where Koch is headquartered.”

January 02, 2006

Michael Scanlon, a Republican political operative, publicist and former press spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, pled guilty November 21 to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to bribe a Republican congressman and cheat several American Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars.

The Associated Press named eight more congressmen and senators who received contributions engineered by Abramoff in return for political favors, four Republicans and four Democrats. The Republicans were congressmen Charles Taylor of North Carolina, J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas and Dave Camp of Michigan. The Democrats included three senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota (the senior Democrat on the committee now investigating the Abramoff affair), and Congressman Dale Kildee of Michigan.

September 29, 2005

A grand jury in Austin charged DeLay, 58, and two associates already facing criminal charges with a single count of criminal conspiracy, accusing them of improperly funneling corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature. (Read the indictment )”

According to data in a "Report Card" compiled by Public Campaign Action Fund:
‘The tangled web of backslapping relationships between DeLay, other Republicans, and lobbyists is becoming exposed to the light. So we've taken the best information out there on the connections between Republican members of Congress and Rep. Tom DeLay and we're sending it to you as your own personal Report Card on Rep. Todd Tiahrt’:
Tiahrt's Connections to Tom DeLay - he accepted $10,071 from Tom Delay's PACs and donated $10,000 to Delay's legal defense fund. He voted with DeLay 95.14% of the time (3,229 of 3,394 votes).

"TomDeLay did nothing wrong," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan, last May. "There is no evidence of any breaking of the House rules, no evidence of breaking any laws of the land or of the laws of Texas."

September 09, 2005

The new bankruptcy changes that Rep. Todd Tiahrt just helped pass in Congress, may force Hurricane Katrina victims to pay for homes and vehicles washed away in the ocean. They will not be able to file bankruptcy as people who have lost everything to such disasters have done in the past. They must spend much of their life paying for things that the disaster has taken from them, according to a report in The Wichita Eagle, Sept. 7.
When congress passed the new law, they were only trying to make bank and credit card PACs happy. The banks now have protection from ordinary citizens who try for debt relief. It saves the banks and credit institutions lots of money, but will just about ruin the lives of the victims in these tragedies.
Bank PACs bought their congressmen’s votes with millions in PAC donations. Tiahrt accepted $24,500 from
AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION PAC (BANKPAC)

June 21, 2005

After complaining that a sign was put on public property, for partisan reasons, The Wichita Eagle, June 20, 2005, announced that Todd Tiahrt and his wife attend an annual conference in Hawaii at a cost from between $5,000 to $15,000, and all of it is taxpayers money. The American Association of Airport Executives puts on the conference.
Even if Todd can justify this, why does he need his wife along? She would probably argue that it is OK because she doesn’t actually get involved in politics. She just parties it up at the taxpayer’s expense. For her it’s not politics – it’s time to PAAARRTTYY!
So it’s a rip-roaring fun time for all- and all is paid for by the taxpayers.

May 13, 2005

"When I go back to mycongressional district, the question [from] a lot of people is the price ofgas ... whereas you come here and it's 'Tom Delay, Tom DeLay.' And I go backto my district and they don't know who Tom Delay is,"

Tiahrt defends pro-torture stand:

December 23, 2005

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R) sent a rebuttal to The Wichita Eagle, Dec. 23, 2005, defending his stand in support of torture.
In “REP. TODD TIAHRT: REVEALING TACTICS” Tiahrt said:
“What the board and others either refuse to recognize or fail to understand is how this so-called "anti-torture" provision puts our national security in jeopardy. In addition to calling for a ban on activity that is already illegal under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the provision requires that all U.S. interrogation procedures be documented in the Army Field Manual. This means that terrorists could learn how we will attempt to get information from them, which allows them to be fully prepared for U.S. interrogation if apprehended. This is clearly not in the best interest of the security of our country.”

Defends sending our young people to die in Iraq:

Dec. 11, 2005
“The Eagle editorial board has recently opined about both the debate regarding troop withdrawal in Iraq and whether America is safer since the horrific terrorist attacks in September 2001. Though they were written about separately, these two topics are unavoidably intertwined.”

Todd, how many of your family members are over there fighting? None? Oh… so you favor the rest of us sending our children over to finish the job.

“By rooting out the terrorists and making Iraq the central battleground in the global war on terrorism rather than the United States, we are indeed making America safer. However, we must support our military and allow it to finish the job it has started to ensure our country's future security.”

Do you have any idea how cowardly that makes us look? So kill lots of people in Iraq, even our own sons and daughters, as long as the rest of us feel safe and cozy.