This sums up Coleman’s biggest failure to our country in under two minutes. The url at the end of the video: alfranken.com/normsdodge
Archive for the 'MN 2008: Senate' Category
Dean Barkley, the candidate that some in the media thought came out of nowhere when his name on Senate polls changed from “Other,” just flipped his position on the bailout. From the Star Tribune, less than 48 hours ago:
Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley, who practiced real estate law and once owned a mortgage brokerage firm, said that he would hold his nose and reluctantly vote for the bailout. “I just hope it doesn’t become a Christmas tree,” he said.
Wow. Before you could start singing O Tannenbaum or come up with a better analogy his decision to vote for something that might become a $700 Gazillion Balsam Fir changed:
Barkley Says ‘No’ to Immediate Action on Bail-Out Bill
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PLYMOUTH, Minn.—Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate for U.S. Senate, said today that Congress should not vote on a bail-out package before adjourning at the end of the month.
So why the reversal? Figured he could work with Bachmann on this one? Or maybe he’s seeing he can cater to Ron Paul supporters? Or is this just part of his flailing-arms “look, I’m even more different than those two are different because I truly have no idea what’s going on here” strategy?
Addendum: So who do you want as a Senator in a time of tragedy? Someone who understands the situation inside and out and is clear where he stands, someone who can’t talk to anyone for two days until he gets his White House talking points or someone that still is figuring out where he stands?
Featuring Iraq War veteran Sam Scott:
This basically blows Coleman’s latest ad out of the water. Without further commentary I am posting this release in full:
Statement from Senator Frank Lautenberg on Senator Coleman’s Record
SAINT PAUL [9/25/08] - United States Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) issued the following statement today regarding Senator Norm Coleman’s record as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“I served as a member of Norm Coleman’s subcommittee while he was chairman. I was eager to get to the bottom of the serious allegations against Halliburton and other contractors – potentially the biggest wartime rip-off in our country’s history.
“But Norm Coleman and the Republican leadership of the committee simply refused to to investigate. Even after multiple requests from me and my colleagues to get the committee to do its job and get to the bottom of it – they refused.
“As an Army veteran, the committee’s failures were infuriating, especially because it was undermining the well-being of our troops in Iraq.
“By turning a blind eye to Halliburton’s transgressions in Iraq, Norm Coleman refused to protect billions in taxpayer dollars. And the reason he refused is tragic: merely to protect Vice President Cheney from embarrassment.
“The people of Minnesota deserve a leader in the Senate who will stand up for what’s right – not just for what party leaders want you to do. I know Al Franken will stand up for everyday people in the U.S. Senate.
“Al Franken cares as deeply about this issue as I do. We both know that when taxpayers’ money is wasted – in this case billions of dollars – we need to take action.
“While Norm Coleman sat on the sidelines, Halliburton and the Bush Administration committed a series of outrageous transgressions:
- The Bush-Cheney Administration gave Halliburton a no-bid contract to run Iraq’s oil fields. Halliburton eventually charged taxpayers two-point-four (2.4) billion dollars under that sweetheart deal. No hearing or investigation.
- Halliburton bills the taxpayers one-point-four billion dollars in what the Defense Department’s auditors deemed to be questionable charges. No hearing or investigation.
- There were credible allegations that Halliburton charged taxpayers for meals it never served the troops. No hearing or investigation.
- Halliburton burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire. No hearing or investigation.
- The Army Corps of Engineer’s top contracting official is demoted after blowing the whistle on improper Halliburton contracts. No hearing or investigation.
“The list goes on and on.
“Even after I wrote nine letters to the committee leadership, no action was taken – not by Committee Chairman Susan Collins nor Subcommittee Chairman Norm Coleman.
“When it was time to choose between protecting taxpayer dollars and our troops or protecting Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Norm Coleman chose Dick Cheney.”
We knew Coleman would be sweating bullets over being called out on his lack of oversight. Coleman even tried to get Joe Lieberman to help, even though Leiberman was critical of the oversight performance. What do they do? They scrambled to put together a defensive ad touting Coleman’s oversight. As Rachel E. Stassen-Berger writes:
At first, the Coleman campaign dismissed the complaint saying others were better equipped to handle such an investigation, Coleman has a strong record on oversight and he supported the idea of war funding oversight. His campaign also sent two notes to supporters rebutting Franken’s claims. On Wednesday, the campaign added a new line of defense — in the person of Sen. Joe Lieberman.
But Franken’s line of attack must have gotten under the campaign’s skin because now it has bought air time in order to defend Coleman’s record.
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Nothing in the ad pops out as immediately false although it does make some opinionated claims that are tough to verify one way or the other.
Well, false or not, it certainly distracts from the big story on Coleman here.
Coleman’s desperate campaign as well as groups buying ads on Coleman’s behalf have released at least five TV spots attacking Franken on overpaying his taxes in two states.
From Pat Doyle in today’s Star Tribune:
How do the ads stand up to an audit?
The phrases accurately describe Franken’s tax problem only in the most literal sense. They’re misleading for what they don’t say and the implication they leave.
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Franken said that he had paid federal and state taxes on all of his income but that his accountant had failed to properly distribute the state payments. Instead, Franken said, he overpaid his taxes in New York and Minnesota, where he had lived, while failing to pay in the 17 other states where he earned income.
The redistribution of the state income taxes means he and his wife, Franni, should receive a refund on their overpayments in Minnesota and New York, Franken said.
I can’t tell you how bored I am with this stupid tax non-issue. Franken paid tax on every penny he earned. This was taken care of a long time ago and I’m glad the media is finally stepping up to say that the entourage of misleading attacks from Coleman are, indeed, dishonest. For Coleman to continue to try to drag this out is another clear sign that Coleman cannot play on actual issues.
KSTP’s Truth Test has deemed an attack ad from Norm Coleman’s allies at the NRSC to have “several misleading statements…” The ad earned a “D-” rating. Norm Coleman wrote in a fundraising email yesterday that his campaign was “part of a team that gets the facts right, and treats voters with respect.” Coleman can’t claim this anymore.
Sound the alarm!
What a horrible week for Coleman so far. Then he makes this grave mistake:
Washington, D.C. - United States Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) issued the following statement today regarding Senator Norm Coleman’s record of aggressive oversight as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“As Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, I know that during his time as Chair and Ranking Member of our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Norm Coleman has uncovered over $80 billion of government waste, fraud and abuse. Norm has been aggressive in protecting taxpayers, and rooting out corruption. His leadership is marked by groundbreaking reforms in Medicare, the United Nations and border security.
Joe Lieberman standing with Coleman on oversight? That’s weird. Turn back the clock just two years to hear Lieberman tell a different story on oversight subtitled “Massive Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Goes Unexamined”:
“Waste, mismanagement and corruption undermine America’s mission in Iraq,” the Senators said in their letter. “And in some instances, the failure of contractors to fulfill their obligations has jeopardized the health, welfare and safety of American troops and civilian personnel…
We ask that the Committee exercise similar oversight more broadly of the Iraqi reconstruction contracts to prevent further waste of precious tax payer dollars and to hold accountable those who misused Iraqi funds entrusted to U.S. government management.
…The Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation is currently looking into one example of contractor abuse involving allegations that U.S. troops were exposed to contaminated water in Iraq. We ask that the Committee exercise similar oversight more broadly of the Iraqi reconstruction contracts to prevent further waste of precious tax payer dollars and to hold accountable those who misused Iraqi funds entrusted to U.S. government management.
It was sent to Susan Collins, chairwoman of the HSGAC which is the parent of the PSI, chaired by Norm Coleman. It’s the PSI, as Leiberman noted, that was asked to exercise more broad oversight in Iraq.
Lieberman pleads for more oversight in and then turns around and “praises” Coleman’s work on oversight on the campaign trail. Whoops. Did they think the press and bloggers would simply forget?
The DFL with their second best headline of the season today, “Irony Alert: After Year of Not Paying Utilities, Utility Industry to Pay Coleman”:
Lobbyists who wrote 2005 industry-giveaway energy bill to reward Coleman at D.C. fundraiser today.
St. Paul (September 24, 2008) - Today, the utility industry is hosting a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. for Republican Senator Norm Coleman. The event is co-hosted by some of the key lobbyists involved in writing the 2005 industry-giveaway energy bill that Coleman supported. Coleman has already accepted $291,000 in campaign contributions from the electric utility industry.
Ironically, and as many Minnesotans remember, Norm Coleman did not pay
utilities for one year on his sweetheart housing deal with landlord and Republican operative Jeff Larson, in clear violation of the Senate’s ethics rules.Today’s fundraiser is not the first time that Coleman has met with the utility industry. As the Pioneer Press reported in February 2004, Senator Coleman had to apologize to the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting a $1,000 campaign check in his St. Paul Senate office, in an apparent violation of federal law.
DFL Party Deputy Communications Director Frank Benenati released the following statement:
“Coleman just can’t seem to help himself from skirting the law when dealing with the utility industry. First he makes a ‘rookie mistake’ by illegally accepting a campaign check in his federal office, then we find out he has violated the Senate’s gift ban by not paying his utilities for over a year.
“If Coleman is serious about keeping clean, the utility industry is a crowd that Coleman might want to steer clear of. But based on his track record of supporting their special interests, we won’t hold our breath.”
How timely of Norm Coleman! Based off of this week’s stuff from the Coleman campaign, I’m not sure if Coleman is truly even aware that there’s a crisis going on.
Rest of the DFL press release after the jump.
Coleman today more desperate than ever. He just sent out an amazing email to supporters this morning completely ignoring the crisis that is headlining this week. He is completely ignoring the fact that Franken is working like a Senator and Coleman is cowering from showing that he’s not ready for prime time on this crisis.
He urged his supporters today for money based on stuff he just made up. Here is the entire fundraising letter and for your convenience, I have color coded it. Yellow means “not a completely honest statement” and red means “absolutely bold-faced lie.”
An amazing sign of Team Coleman’s desperation. Wow.
Common Cause is chiming in on the current financial crisis and released an extensive report following the money. Common Cause Minnesota released a press release putting this situation into perspective on a local level.
Most interesting was the local breakdown showing that Coleman received over ten times the money Klobuchar has from mortgage bankers and brokers:
On my drive home from the office today I heard a fantastic story by MPR’s Mark Zdechlik, “Coleman defends bailout comments.” Coleman already proved he has very little understanding of the current financial crisis but I would have thought he would have gotten himself some quick schooling. Looks like all he got were talking points. That and he actually defended his earlier statement:
Coleman is not disputing the accuracy of the quote. But Coleman said in his own call with reporters, he “presumes” he was referring to past government bailouts, not the current proposal to fund the Treasury Department with $700 billion to buy bad debt.
“I believe that it was a reference to a discussion about bailouts and government involvement in general, and I believe that the context was talking about Chrysler,” he said.
Coleman went on to say he was also referring to last week’s federal takeover of insurer AIG and the savings and loan crisis.
He believes he was talking about Chrysler? Does he have any clue about this at all?
Rachel E. Stassen-Berger adds:
On his call, Coleman when given the opportunity, didn’t say that the quote was inaccurate but said he was largely talking about the AIG bailout, in which the federal government bought a part-ownership of the massive insurer at fire sale prices, and compared that to the Chrysler bailout and the Resolution Trust Corporation situation. That’s not quite the context the Mankato Free Press puts on the Coleman quote.
So Coleman doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Another thing that’s interesting to compare is that Franken has been talking about this for a long, long time. He was even fielding questions about this at a different press event this week and gave a conference call about it this morning. This was before he was meeting with other Senators in Washington. Meanwhile, Coleman kept “unavailable for comment” Monday and Tuesday until after he had his Republican luncheon with Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson before talking with press. Can’t he get questioned by the press before he gets his talking points from the White House? Sounds like Sarah Palin’s tactics to me.
Check out Esme Murphy’s comparison. It includes:
In a conference call with reporters Senator Norm Coleman said “This is an economic 9-11.”
Sen. Coleman said after meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen and other treasury officials he is convinced that the impact of not acting will be devastating for ordinary citizens.
An “economic 9-11”? Is that codeword that we should be complacent with whatever the government wants to do? And who’s saying we shouldn’t act? It’s just fear-mongering talking points. Coleman has some more talking points compared to Franken’s actual informed thoughts and plan on the matter.
Then there’s Coleman’s campaign talking points. He says:
“This is about statemanship and not about partisan bickering not about fighting about what you against. Again, we are facing a crisis here,” Coleman said. “Bottom line is I work for solutions. The difference between me and Al Franken is he yells, screams and curses and argues against and I work for solutions.”
That last quote mimic the choice now being offered on Coleman’s campaign Web site, the home page of which has been given over, for the moment, to two ads: Angry Al vs. Coleman’s “Outrage isn’t leadership” ad.
Bottom line is that people that are paying attention today are seeing Al Franken working on solutions to defend taxpayers and Minnesotans while showing a very clear, detailed understanding of the subject. They’re also seeing Coleman not talking to the press until he gets his talking points downloaded and then sounding like he’s robotically talking the partisan line with no clear understanding of the crisis at hand.
It’s becoming more and more clear: Norm Coleman is proving he’s a lapdog and showing he’s not ready for prime time while Al Franken sounds like our Senator.
Here’s an MP3 of Franken’s conference call earlier today, the MPR story, Rachel’s post and Esme’s post.
A new DSCC ad drops today:
While this ad talks about gas prices, the key here is the last line: “whenever it counted, Norm Coleman was with Bush, not with Minnesota.”
Today, let’s see if Coleman stands up for Minnesotans on this bailout crisis.
“He should have been a watchdog, instead he was a lapdog for Bush and his cronies,” Franken said today during a campaign stop in Duluth. He also made stops in St. Paul and Rochester.
Accompanying Franken was Daryl Bong of Wrenshall, who served with the Army in Afghanistan from 2004-05.While there, he said, he saw construction equipment, construction materials and other supplies that had been thrown away or lost.
“People should be outraged about all this stuff, and I can’t believe Norm Coleman let them get away with it,” he said.
Senator Coleman was chairman of the permanent subcommittee on investigations in the U.S. Senate from 2002 until 2005. That is a time that we know now defense contractors were defrauding the federal government on many contracts in Iraq, much of which has never been found, billions of dollars are missing. It was also a time when the war was going badly, reconstruction going even worse, and billions of dollars in aid simply disappearing.
Rochester Post-Bulletin’s Matthew Stolle:
Franken said Coleman’s failure to hold a single hearing contributed to a culture of laxity in which greedy contractors overcharged taxpayers for services or committed outright fraud; no-bid contracts to favored companies lasted for years; and billions of dollars meant to put Iraqis to work and maintain civil society “just disappeared.”
He says Coleman cost American tax-pays more than $15 billion because he failed to pay attention to what was and wasn’t being done correctly during the Iraqi reconstruction.
“I would have been going to Iraq to make sure that reconstruction efforts were going well and that the contractors were doing what they were supposed to do and I’m talking about immediately after we set foot in Iraq,” Franken said, “now it turns out Norm Coleman did not go to Iraq until January or 2005.”
Pioneer Press’ Rachel E. Stassen-Berger:
Franken said Coleman was in a uniquely powerful position as the subcommittee’s chairman; the office of the special inspector general wasn’t created until after the Iraq war was well under way; and Coleman “slept through one of the greatest heists of taxpayers’ money in history.”
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations grew out of work then-Sen. Harry Truman did on war profiteering before World War II.
And if you haven’t read it yet, check out Franken’s Coleman and PSI document for more on this scandal.
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