The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Reader Rich sends a Letter to the Editor [pdf] from the Finger Lake Times about Randy Kuhl's trip to Brazil.  Written by the mother of a page nominated by Kuhl intern in Kuhl's office, it says that earlier letters criticizing Kuhl's trip were "mean and wrong".  

No, the congressman didn't travel by private jet, stay at a 5-star hotel, spend time at the pool or beach. You don't have to take my word for it, check for your­self. Congressman Kuhl's of­fice will be happy to supply you with the real facts.

I don't know if Kuhl spent time by the beach, but he did take a private (military) jet, and his itinerary shows that he stayed in a number of five-star hotels.

Another variation on this theme can be seen in the Steuben Young Republican blog post Respect for Randy. The post has a couple of videos showing the slings and arrows launched at Randy:  "Take a look at this town hall meeting Randy held in Branchport. He had to sit there and listen to more than 5 minutes of attacks."   It sounded like five minutes of gentle questioning to me.

There's something a little disturbing about the version of "respect" being peddled in these two examples.  Randy Kuhl is a politician, and everything he says and does should be questioned closely by his constituents, the press, and any other interested party.  There's nothing disrespectful about doing that, and it should happen more often, not less.

Update:  Meghan Tisinger of Kuhl's office wrote to say the following: 

FYI…the editorial in The Finger Lakes Times was written by the mother of a page that Randy appointed. The page did not work/intern for us. All pages work for the Speaker’s office.

I've corrected the post.  Here's a Wikipedia article about pages.

Randy Kuhl voted against the latest version of the Energy Bill yesterday.  The Washington Post has a good summary of the major components of the bill.  This bill was originally passed by the House in January.  Kuhl voted for it at that time, but the current version of the bill contains Senate amendments, and House amendments to those amendments. I assume the bill will now go back to the Senate for another tune-up, so this story isn't finished yet.

The Hornell Evening Tribune has a story on the whole "apology" issue, which says that both parties agree that Massa did not apologize.  Massa says he called Engel's office to verify details of the trip.  Kuhl says he called Engel's office to apologize, but didn't since he didn't get Engel on the phone, he didn't do it.  How Kuhl knows what Massa was going to do isn't explained in the article, but it certainly assumes "facts not in evidence" (as lawyers say on TV).

Ontario GOP has a couple of posts on that challenge Democrats on Iraq.  Both relate to some comments made by John Murtha earlier this week.  Murtha said the following:

I think the 'surge' is working [...] But the thing that has to happen is the Iraqis have to do this themselves. We can't win it for them.

I agree with this assessment.  At the moment, we are at the peak of our deployment in Iraq, and we've also changed tactics by working with whatever faction wants to work with us.  Violence is down.   But, as I said in mid-November, the issue is the Iraqis.  The surge was sold as a way to give Iraqis "breathing room" so they can form an effective government. All they've been doing lately is squabbling among themselves. 

Read today's Washington Post story on Iraq, and you'll find the current spat is over a Sunni member of parliament who is under house arrest because one of his security guards was found with keys to a car bomb.  The little conflicts change, but the big story remains: the Iraqis haven't decided how to divvy up the land or the resources in their country.  And it's not clear that our presence there is making them work any faster.

The surge is a successful tactic in support of a strategy that's been a failure for years.  The government in Iraq just isn't working, and the question is how much longer we can afford to pour the vast majority of our military and diplomatic resources into one tiny country.   The Democrats' answer in Iraq is no more, and Massa and others are saying that our presence is just delaying an inevitable partition into Sunni, Shiite and Kurd regions.  The Republicans' answer is more of the same will someday lead to a strong central government.  I think the Democrats' position is the better choice between two crummy alternatives, and the polls say that most of the country still agrees.

Politically, the success of the surge will only hurt Democrats if they fail to make the distinction between tactics and strategy.  If the Democrats are afraid to acknowledge tactical facts, such as a decline of violence in Iraq, then they leave themselves open to the charge, which GOP makes against MoveOn.org, that they're burying their heads in the sand.  GOP also calls Murtha's change of opinion a "flip flop".  From the quotes he uses, I think Murtha is just stating facts, not changing position.  In June, he said that he saw no evidence that the surge is working, as a military tactic.  In November, he now says he sees evidence.  In both cases, he points to the real strategic issue:  progress by the Iraqi government.  He knows the difference between strategy and tactics, one that Republicans constantly blur in their quest to spin the latest news from Iraq.

GOP also mentions the recent MoveOn campaign against Brian Baird (D-WA-3).  MoveOn spend $20K in Baird's cheap media market to chastise him for changing his position on Iraq, based on the effectiveness of the surge.  I think the MoveOn campaign is a waste of resources, but that's nothing new for that ham-fisted bunch.   MoveOn's ads in the 29th last cycle contained a error that gave Randy Kuhl an excuse to play the victim.  As a political movement, MoveOn is mostly a noise machine appealing to a core constituency who are already politically active.  Real change will come from political movements that are able to get new faces to the polls.  I see no evidence that MoveOn is able to do that.

The Washington Post's Al Kamen has an update on Randy Kuhl's junket.  Yesterday, the delegation cruised the Amazon river.  Kamen also reports that one more congressman, Clifford Stearns (R-FL-6) also tagged along.  For those keeping track, Cliff is in his 10th term and won re-election by a safe 20% margin last election.

Randy's official blog also has a post, dated Thursday, that discusses his trip.  He makes the following point:

It is important to note that while Brazil developed ethanol from sugarcane, the natural resource available in Brazil, the US can learn to develop our natural resources, such as switch grass and other cellulosic feed stocks, in a similar fashion.

This is a bit of spin.  As Massa explained in his press conference on Wednesday, the process to produce ethanol from sugarcane is much different than the cellulosic process.  The cellulosic or enzymatic process uses bacteria to break down the cellulose into sugars that are then turned into alcohol.  This first step is the "big deal", because it lessens the amount of energy used, and allows us to use many more crops to make ethanol. 

(h/t: to Rochesterturning on the Kamen column)

[We interrupt our regular programming to add this important memorandum to Randy Kuhl's chief of staff.]

Dear Bob,

I have to say that I'm surprised by this junket blow-up.  Up until now, I was pretty impressed with how things were going on planet Kuhl.  Your new press secretary is doing a good job, and Randy's blog is a nice addition to his website.  After a bumpy start, the town meetings went well.  I was figuring that things would be quiet around here until after Christmas.

But, Bob, I'm afraid you missed the principal lesson of the last campaign, which was to keep Randy the hell off of military airplanes.   The last time he went up on one of those damn things, he gave Massa quotes that the guy still repeats today.  This time, he's in trouble before even opening his mouth.  I'm guessing that Massa's already planning campaign ads about Randy's first-class vacation South of the Equator.

I've added a little table after the jump that you should study very carefully.  It's a list of everyone who headed down to Rio for a little sun and distilled sugarcane (and I don't mean ethanol, if you get my drift.)  You'll notice that one of these things is not like the other, and that one thing is your boss Randy.  Unlike the rest of the motley crew that went down to shop and see waterfalls, Randy isn't in a safe seat.  Everyone else kicked double-digit ass in 2006, so they've earned the right to screw the taxpayers any way they want.  Randy doesn't have that luxury.

See, the way it works in the House is that you take these trips when you have what they call a "safe seat".  That's the kind where you need to end up in bed with a live boy or a dead girl (or the other way around for the ladies) before you start worrying about losing your seat.  Randy doesn't have it that good, not by a longshot.  He needs to watch his p's and q's, especially since they're going to elect a new Decider next year, which always gets more  Democrats off the couch come election day.

So, Bob, I think you need to tighten things up at Chez Kuhl if you don't want to be polishing your resume this time next year. 

Sincerely,

Your Internet Pal, Rottenchester
table.votes { border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: outset outset outset outset; border-color: ; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: white; width: 90%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } table.votes th { border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; padding: 1px 1px 1px 1px; border-style: solid solid solid solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204); background-color: #FFF5EE; } table.votes td { border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; padding: 1px 1px 1px 1px; border-style: solid solid solid solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(204, 204, 204); background-color: white; }P.S. Here's the table I was talking about:


Vacationer
Party District # of Terms Re-Elect %

Marsha Blackburn	R	TN-7	3	34%
Ben Chandler	D	KY-6	2	70%
Eliot Engel	D	NY-17	10	52%
Virginia Foxx	R	NC-5	2	14%
Bob Inglis	R	SC-4	3+2	32%
Sheila Jackson-Lee	D	TX-18	7	58%
Randy Kuhl	R	NY-29	2	4%
Gregory Meeks	D	NY-6	5	Unopposed
Randy Neugebauer	R	TX-19	3	38%
John Salazar	D	CO-3	2	24%
Cliff Stearns	R	FL-6	10	20%

Update: The original table left out Bob Inglis.  Why 3+2?  Bob ran on a term limits platform, so he took a break in the late 90's. After term limits weren't an issue anymore, he got right back in. 

Ladkiddo at Rochesterturning has been having some fun with Randy Kuhl's junket to Brazil.  Kuhl is in Brazil right now, as part of a bi-partisan trip to understand Brazil's successful ethanol industry.  At his Allentown town meeting, Kuhl said that he was making the trip to be "fully informed".

Here's a little information:  Brazil uses sugarcane to make ethanol, which yields 8 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel consumed to make it.  Corn-based ethanol yields 1.3 gallons of ethanol for every gallon of fuel.   Brazil produces [pdf] 300 million metric tons of sugar per year.  The US produces [pdf] less that 24 million, and we grow it only in Florida, Hawaii and Louisiana and Texas. 

By the way, all but one of the links in the last paragraph are from US Government reports.  The last one is from a 78-page report by the US Department of Agriculture titled "The Economic Feasibilty of Ethanol Production from Sugar in the United States."  Randy sits on the Agriculture committee.  He could have just asked for the report instead of taking a six-day trip to Brazil.  If he did, he'd have learned that our entire entire production of sugar cane would make 468 million gallons of ethanol.  Brazil produced 4.2 billion gallons last year.  Our own corn-based ethanol program made about 4 billion gallons, too.  Sugarcane is literally a drop in the bucket, and it's not worth a six-day trip, or even a three-hour tour, to figure that out.

Update:  Eric Massa referred to this scathing Washington Post description of Kuhl's junket in today's press conference.  It is a damning piece, indeed.

Unlike Randy Kuhl's earlier town meetings, the current crop finished on a quiet note.  Besides a feel-good story about home-schooled kids, the only other media notice I've seen is a reprint of a press release by WXXI, Rochester's public radio station.

I'm guessing the reason for the calm is a combination of factors, including the holiday week and the lack of any burning issue coming to the floor of the House in the near future.  Location of the meetings probably wasn't a factor, since meeting places included the Monroe County towns of Chili and Perinton, as well as the neighboring Ontario County town of Victor.  Perinton, the site of Kuhl's northernmost district office, has see protests before.

In his recent post about Mortgage reform, Ontario GOP gives a reason why Randy Kuhl was right to vote against the recent reform bill.  GOP points out that the bill may end up punishing those with "decent but not perfect" credit, because the bill increases the amount of due diligence required by lenders.

I agree with GOP that borrowers are going to feel some hurt.  As he points out, "lenders are already adding many more hurdles to the underwriting process than ever before".  His observation mirrors my sense that, no matter what Congress does, the invisible hand is going to spank lenders who don't have perfect credit.  The reason is the huge correction that's occurring in the financial markets.

Today's news that Freddie Mac lost $2 billion last quarter is just the latest indicator of a market in turmoil.  One of the key mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), have been steadily downgraded.  Citibank's CFO, whose company holds $43 billion in CDOs, says his latest valuation of that paper is a only "reasonable stab".  That's because the crisis isn't over, and more writedowns are coming.  Amidst this turmoil, banks and other underwriters aren't eager to issue more mortgages.

Unless the requirements of the mortgage reform bill are completely out-of-control, it's unlikely that they'll be any stricter than the lending institutions that have been burned by the current lax environment.  For the near future, banks are going to be extremely tight with the mortgage buck, for reasons that have nothing to do with Congress, and everything to do with the markets.  That's unfortunate for lenders, but  the invisible hand is behind this smackdown.

I don't normally comment on newspaper editorials, but there's one in the D&C today that is full of muddy thinking.  The main point of the editorial is that the Democrats need to drop their current Iraq strategy and try to compromise with the President on the war.  The writers at Rochesterturning dissect this editorial pretty completely, but I want to focus on one additional point.  The D&C says:

The goal is, or at least should be, to begin moving in a direction that will allow greater control by the Iraqi government and people. Engaging in power struggles over funding, especially symbolic ones, for the remainder of Bush's presidency will be time wasted.

The first sentence is the most important one in the whole editorial, and it's a key point that's missed by those who tout the military progress being made in Iraq.  To date, military progress hasn't led to any appreciable political progress. The political apparatus that we've installed there hasn't been able to assert "greater control", because they're unwilling to make the compromises and deals necessary to form a viable central government.  This was true last year when violence was higher in Iraq, and it's true this Fall when violence has lessened.  

Since our military efforts aren't yielding political progress, what does it matter that Congress is embroiled in a power struggle over funding?   Whatever Congress does is clearly irrelevant, because if one thing is true about the whole Iraq mess, it's that the mis-application, over-application, under-application, or even Petraeus-perfect application of military force doesn't get us anywhere in enabling a government there.  When everyone's ready to acknowledge that, then maybe we'll get somewhere.

Update: The lede of Thursday's front-page Washington Post story on the war says it all:

Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

Judging from today's blog post, holding two conflicting thoughts at one time doesn't seem to phase Randy Kuhl.   In that post, Randy notes that the IRS is printing forms which assume that the AMT has not been repealed.  Through Randy's looking glass, this is somehow the Democrat's fault.

Either Randy doesn't suffer from cognitive dissonance, or he doesn't remember his vote last week against the repeal of the AMT.