Say Anything Blog

Excellent post, Josh.

I think its hilarious that they praised Conrad for his work in bringing tax dollars home to North Dakota.  Since when is the amount of Pork a legislator brings to his home state a good thing?  Ted Stevens, Senator from Alaska, brings home something like $4.00 for every $1 in taxes sent by Alaskans to Washington D.C.  Most of those millions in additional dollars go for ridiculous projects like $1 million dollar bus stops and hundred-million-dollar bridges to sparsley populated islands.  Does this make Stevens a good Senator?  I’m sure the contractors and bureaucrats back home, who are getting all the money, love him but these tax dollars should go to where they’re needed.  The same applies to Conrad.

As for BRAC, the military’s first and foremost duty with regard to its bases is to ensure that those bases can keep America safe, effectively and efficiently.  The economic impact of those bases on the communities they’re placed, which is what Conrad was pushing, shouldn’t even enter into the equation.

Conrad is a party line Democrat.  Except near election years or on big-ticket issues where he thinks his constituents might be watching.  Then he’s a “moderate” or, even, almost a Republican.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I’m jealous.  Good post.

[...] Josh over at Say Anything has an excellent post debunking today’s Grand Forks Herald’s informercial for Senator Conrad. I can’t really improve on his post, but I’ll throw my own two cents in at the end.(Blue is Josh, Green is the GF Herald.)I knew the Grand Forks Herald had a reputation as being a major Sen. Kent Conrad cheerleader, but I think they may have topped themselves and thrown any sense of objectivity out the window with this one.Here’s the highlights:Here is what the senator did do - so far, to great effect:• Choose your national battles with care. Conrad made national news twice in the past few months. The first was when he brought the case of comatose Terry Schiavo to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Conrad argued in favor of a bill to let Schiavo’s parents take Terry’s case to the federal courts. The bill passed. Right. I distinctly remember everyone across the nation abuzz about how North Dakota’s own Kent Conrad was leading the charge to save Terri Schiavo’s life—or not. Kent Conrad wasn’t even in attendance when the bill passed the Senate. And what happened when it went to the House? It narrowly passed 203-58. Couldn’t have done it without ya Kent. A week ago, Conrad’s co-sponsorship of a piece of legislation also made national news. The bill makes it tougher for children to access pornography sites the Internet; ask video-game decency crusader Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., about the bipartisan appeal of such family-friendly issues. Wow, making yet another meaningful stand. Maybe next week the Grand Forks Herald can write up an editorial about how Kent Conrad thinks Martin Luther King Jr. was a great American or how Kent thinks world hunger should be stomped out or how Kent wants peace in the Middle East.And since when did Hillary Clinton become a “video-game decency crusader?” I know she took any easy-as-pie stand against a pirated version of a video game, but I guess I didn’t get the memo anointing her to “crusader”- status. She must be though, the Grand Forks Herald doesn’t spin political stories in any particular direction. Nope, they’re as objective as they come.Conrad did not take a lead role in either the Democrats’ opposition to President Bush’s Social Security reform… So what the GF Herald is saying is that Sen. Conrad is lying when he says on his website, “We have a duty to make good on our Social Security promises to current and future generations. The sooner we address these challenges, the better.”They are essentially applauding Conrad for doing nothing. Hats off to Kent. Way to lead the No Ideas Party Democratic Party in proposing your own plan to help save social security. Maybe if the issue was a little more pressing to the nation he would have a definitive idea—you know like video games or comatose women in Florida. North Dakota gets more than $2 back for every $1 residents send to Washington in taxes. How does that fit in with his warn-out mantra about being a budget-hawk? Maybe a budget-dove is more accurate. How much would everyday Americans need to pay in taxes to satisfy the hungry spending appetites of career politicians like Kent Conrad? He is the #1 proposed spender in the Senate. And he has 2nd beat by a mile— $506,000,000,000 to $311,000,000,000. In fact #2 and #3 barely propose more than North Dakota’s budget-buster. More impressive has been the delegation’s work on BRAC…No North Dakota bases were closed - and although Grand Forks Air Force Base is losing people, it’s gaining a highly prized new mission that’ll put it at the Air Force’s cutting edge.I wouldn’t call the BRAC work “impressive” by any means. One of our two major bases suffered severe cuts to the tune of a 70%+ loss of jobs—or 7.4% of the total employment over in Grand Forks and Polk counties. But I’m sure the 5,000+ workers that lost their jobs will sleep easy knowing that the ‘unmanned aerial vehicles’ at the GFAFB are on the “cutting edge” of technology. When the GF Herald puts it that way maybe losing thousands of jobs and millions of dollars isn’t so bad after all.A big , screaming-headlines filibuster fight over a Supreme Court nominee could have hurt Conrad back home.And why is that? Because Kent Conrad does not share the same values as his constituents back in North Dakota.So why does he get re-elected time after time in North Dakota? Because of Conrad cheerleaders like Tom Dennis of the GF Herald back home. Gimme a “C”, gimme an “O”, gimme an “N”……….Excellent points all. I do need to point out that rather than doing a good job on BRAC Senator Conrad drove the tankers out of town with his anti-military stand. The only reason why the UAV’s are coming here is because we have the most uncongested airspace in the nation. All Senator Conrad did was to come up with a petition drive to save our base.While I agree with Josh when he talks about pork I also want to amplify something. It’s not how much money you get it’s how well you spend it. For example Senator Conrad has obtained four hundred MILLION dollars for the Devils Lake disaster. However the problem didn’t get fixed. Apparently Kent Conrad doesn’t have the political will or clout to accomplish that. Governor Hoeven on the other hand built the soon-to-be opened outlet for twenty-eight million dollars. That’s a lot of dollars spent for Conrad’s photo-ops.Brenarlo’s take: Tom Dennis wrote one thing that I agree with: “In fact, the past few months have been a lesson in how Democrats can succeed in “red” or Republican states.” I couldn’t agree more. Senator Conrad has stayed away from policy issues (like social security reform), and will NOT take a stand on anything controversial. His all talk no action leadership is weak. Since Josh and the Whistler have already produced an in-depth analysis (and because it’s 5 in the morning and I just got done writing a big research paper) I will only comment on one more thing.Tom Dennis believes that the fact that Sen. Conrad brings backs $2 for every $1 that we send to the federal government “says a lot.” Yes, it shows yet another depth to Sen. Conrad’s double-speak on budget policies. Since Sen. Conrad believes that it’s fine to bring home double the money ND sends in, shouldn’t it be all right for every Senator to do the same? If that’s the case, then wouldn’t that only add to the national debt? The debt that Sen. Conrad talks and talks about. Why should anyone take Sen. Conrad seriously on these issues.*it’s also funny that Dennis notes that Sen. Conrad needs to play politics. If he stood for North Dakotan values, he shouldn’t have to play politics at all. [...]