Voted YES on promoting free trade with Peru. (Nov 2007)
Voted NO on assisting workers who lose jobs due to globalization. (Oct 2007)
Voted YES on implementing CAFTA, Central America Free Trade. (Jul 2005)
Voted NO on requiring negotiated Rx prices for Medicare part D. (Jan 2007)
Voted YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad. (Aug 2007)
Voted NO on restricting no-bid defense contracts. (Mar 2007)
Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Voted YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)
Voted YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad. (Aug 2007)
Voted NO on restricting no-bid defense contracts. (Mar 2007)
Voted YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant. (Sep 2006)
Voted YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)

THAT'S A START

I haven't done the research you have, but a quick read of your list, doesn't show me a lot of wasteful spending, or PORK.

Maybe a Dem would suit you better. Good luck with that.

to help your district get funding for projects like roads, bridges, schools.
If he's not getting some pork it's not an indication he's a good congressman. It's an indication your paying taxes to Washington and getting little back in return.

Westmoreland on spending, we would be in a LOT better shape budget wise than we are now. He's far from perfect, but on spending issues, I feel he has a good grasp on things.

I don't see it as a "pork grab" myself. That's some of the problem.

If it isn't costing you money you don't care if civil rights are being voted away?

Obama will fix it all.

Where are all of the US Citizens who are complaining about wire tapping, etc? From what I've read, these calls originate outside the US and don't involve US Citizens.

That said, I would be interested in reading about US Citizens who have been violated by the things on the list. I can assume there are thousands.

the phone calls and emails are not just those originating from outside the USA but all phone calls and emails scooped up in a huge net ane dumped for analysis.
This includes this email post ..

Pretty stupid way to find a needle in a haystack (to make it bigger) but these are the guys who in 7 years have found only ways to make airport lines longer and more time consuming.

We are waiting until congress investigates the phone spying by Bush.
Although all of these calls are from foreign spies calling other foreign spies in the US. it is still illegal!
They seem to say that they have someway to know which calls are from spies to spies!
By the way who are all of these lives that spying of our calls has prevented?I'll bet Cal or somebody reads everything we write to each other! Maybe even knows our name!

In fact they are probably monitoring everybody by now.

Here are the illegal wiretaps:

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

Here is the illegal data mining procedures:

NSA's data mining explained

Mark Klein, a AT&T technician testified that he installed equipment to copy all internet traffic:

big brother machine

Here is the statement of a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and of computer science at Carnegie Mellon verifying Klein’s statements:

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Here’s the evidence transcript testified to in the US District Court:

Klein exhibit Unredacted

Here is a Wall Street Journal article discussing the domestic spying:

NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data

Nothing shocks me more politically that people who purport to be conservatives extending this kind of unchecked power to the Federal government.

Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Neither party is perfect, and in my opinion, both are getting worse. People that only spend their time calling out one party, are not to be taken seriously in my opinion. They both have serious flaws.

I guess you didn't hear the recent interview on NPR with Lawrence Wright, a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has been wiretapped and has spoken publicly about the incident, when FBI agents showed up at his home quizzing him about telephone calls intercepted by U.S. intelligence:

"The encounter came, mind you, amid the constant assurances from the Bush administration that the U.S. has not, and is not, “spying on Americans” or running a “warrantless domestic spying program.”

Here's a link, plus Google 'Lawrence Wright Wiretap' for more info:

FISA - WIRETAPPING WITHOUT A WARRANT

Hey, we don't torture either!!!! Them folks what got tortured are terrorists. They don't count cause they cut heads off.
We don't spy on US citizens. Just caterpillars.

I read the article. When you start talking overseas about al Qaeda, you seem to be on the edge.

I still don't think there are cases of American Citizens talking with American Citizens inside the US. There may be some, but I haven't seen them.

That said, I never said Westmoreland was perfect, but he strongly stands against most PORK laden bills, something that can't be said for many elected officials.

But sadly, with his demonstrated score of three on reciting the "Ten" Commandments, Lynn wouldn't even be able to tell the difference.

Cheers,

Kevin "Hack" King

need to have in the region to agitate the Iranians? I would contend that there's ample US Naval presence there now and to date, the Iranians still defy them whenever the opportunity exists.

What upsets me is the cranial deficit actions of pure bravado that folks like Westmoreland demonstrate from time to time only to get a little "face time" or yet another soundbite. Sadly, this disorder of sorts is not limited to only one side of the aisle in Congress.

Just think, he ran unopposed in the Republican primary only now to face a challenge by a democrat in one of the strongest Republican strongholds in Georgia. I wonder if he is favored.

Just my two cents worth.

No way. The last NIE undercut the Bush administrations rational for bombing Iran or imposing a blockade. Israel won't attack, not when they are on the verge of deals with Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

However, if Abrams and Cheney decide to blockade or attack Iran we'll know it because the military will leak it in time to mount a public outcry against the neocons.

Blockade Iran? Can you imagine oil at $400 a barrel? Westmorland and his supporters probably have never considered that there would be repercussions. I wonder what they think would happen in their fantasy world.

.

Wouldn't that be something like fencing out Mexico? How do we get a Navy into Iraq or Russia?
Or will we just put in no-fly zones like we did for Iraq?

.... and before you had completed the work in that window, you opened another... and kept it open while opening yet another? Pretty soon your controller and CPU are dragging and locking up because you have overtasked them. Just how many wars do these gentlemen feel we can initiate without seeing them through to completion, while pushing the bill off to our children's children, and rolling the completion dates to their political successors? The saddest reality in all of this is the separation between those who make these decisions and those who bear the physical, financial, and emotional cost of those decisions.

Cheers,

Kevin "Hack" King

The war with Iran will pay for itself by increasing the oil supply. It’ll be a cakewalk. They will great us as liberators. It’ll be short, a week, two weeks, maybe a month. No way it’ll last three months. It will bring stability to the region. There won’t be any casualties.

Relax.

Don't forget shock and awe! Also mission accomplished.
We are winning every week! There won't be 3000 killed and 25,000 mangled and brain rattled.
The oil will flow someday from Iraq and the banks in Switzerland and Cozumel will be full of Arab money from it!
We will spend our first TRILLION DOLLARS very soon there---but we will get it back in cheap oil.
We will raise another fine army in some way for Iran.

Bill Kristol said this weekend something to the effect that if Bush believes Obama is going to win the election, then he will attack Iran prior to November.

This is outrageous. Our economy cannot support another war.

I don't think there are any plans to have a "war" with Iran, but a plan to use targeted air strikes to level some stuff surely is and has been for quite a while. Ground troops? Why? If you as a country have a problem with another country's nuclear program, you surely have plans on how to destroy it at any time prepared just in case it ever gets to that point.

I don't know if Bush has any serious designs on bombing Iran, but Israel isn't bluffing about it and the recent military exercise in the air wasn't just to intimidate as much as it was a dry-run at doing similar to when they left Iraq's nuclear ideas in a smoldering pit back int he early 1980's.

As you well know, attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities would be much different than taking out a single reactor in Iraq was twenty five years ago. It would be major confrontation which would inevitably destabilize the region. Here’s an interesting article from Global Security about the facilities, many of which are hardened targets:

Iranian Nuclear Facilities

And here is an article you might be interested in discussing a preemptive attack:

Preemptive Attack on Iran's Nuclear Facilities

Scroll down; it has a section addressing this particular topic: “A Preemptive Attack on Iran Compared to the Osirak Example”

Interesting stuff.

Your expert opinion please.

If Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear plants and Iran lobs missiles at Israel.

What are the odds Israel goes nuclear on Iran?

Wulf

I'd have to say zero because Israel's military is so vastly superior. They could take out most of the missile bases at the same time and then we would jump in with whatever else they needed, including air defense from the gulf. Nukes would upset people.

But thanks for the nightmare scenario!

I would hope that Israel could handle Iran without our help.

We don’t need to fight that battle we have enough on our plate now.

Using nukes would upset people but it might be the only way to actually do enough damage to put a stop to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

If he does, our grandchildren will study the Republican party in history books along with the Whigs and the Bull Moose party.

your last sentence says it all. Irregardless of one's political leaning, we deserve much better and being the eternal optimist, we'll get it.

During his first term in the 109th United States Congress, Westmoreland was appointed to the U.S. House Committee on Small Business, U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, and the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

In 2005, Westmoreland received criticism for spreading a memo to fellow House members that consisted of auto-industry talking points, verbatim, even using the same font as the auto-industry document. An aide defended him, saying, "such behavior is standard practice."

As a U.S. congressman, Westmoreland cosponsored a bill to place the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Westmoreland also sponsored a bill that the Ten Commandments could be displayed in courthouses in a historical setting. In May of 2006, political humorist Stephen Colbert interviewed Westmoreland for The Colbert Report show segment Better Know a District. The congressman was only able to name three of the 10 Commandments he sought to legally put in public display.

In 2008, Westmoreland ran unopposed in the Republican primary. He will be challenged by Newnan Democrat Stephen Camp in the 2008 general election.

Oh Wait !!! When a team from his district won the Little League World Series, he did introduce a resolution to honor that occasion.

Really not much else to be found.

Great comments, but what is the alternative? 'Pass' on that vote??

to vote no. Whoever supports the warmongering of the current administration is wrong.

in regards to troop deaths. I realize one death is too many, but obviously, that's not realistic.

I'm not sure any one POTUS is any better at this thing than others.

http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/003564.html