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
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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.”
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.
…
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.
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.
Just got off a conference call with Al Franken and reporters on the financial crisis. From the accompanying press release:
FRANKEN OUTLINES CONCERNS ON “BLANK CHECK” BAILOUT PACKAGE
Challenges Coleman To Explain Prediction That Bailout Will Net $14 Trillion
Franken: No More Blank Checks For This Administration - Not After Billions Spent In Iraq With No Oversight
SAINT PAUL [09/23/08] - With Minnesota’s middle-class families, already struggling in the Bush-Coleman economy, now being asked to foot the bill for a trillion-dollar bailout of the financial services industry, DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken today announced the principles that he would demand in any bailout package.
Al Franken:
“If we’ve learned anything during the Bush-Coleman era, it’s that when we hand over tax dollars to these folks, we’d better get a receipt. We need to take action to avoid economic disaster - but the era of putting powerful special interests first and ignoring Minnesota’s middle class has got to end.”
This weekend, Coleman asserted that if the bailout was approved, “the government could make 10 or 20 times what it pays on this.” Franken today called on Coleman to explain his reasoning for such an estimate, as no economist has suggested such a “rosy outcome,” according to the Politico.
Franken announced that he would only support a bailout plan if it adhered to these principles:
1. No blank check. ”Not one dime should go to this bailout without independent oversight, real accountability, and complete transparency.”
2. Taxpayers get a stake. ”If we’re footing the bill for keeping these companies afloat, taxpayers should get an equity stake so that we can share in the benefits when and if they get back on their feet.”
3. No golden parachutes. ”In the public sector, there’s no such thing as a golden parachute. And if we’re going to sacrifice $2,000 for every Minnesota taxpayer to bail out these companies, these executives are going to learn about sacrifice, too. So, all excessive compensation, bonuses, and severance agreements are hereby cancelled.”
4. Bring back oversight. ”We need to restore the regulatory framework dismantled with George W. Bush in the White House and Norm Coleman in the Senate so that this doesn’t happen again.”
5. Help homeowners. ”The foreclosure crisis caused this problem, and we still haven’t taken the steps I’ve been proposing for months to address it. We have to freeze foreclosures and allow bankruptcy judges to re-set mortgages on primary residences.”
6. Protect consumers. ”I’m calling for a new Financial Products Safety Commission with similar duties and powers to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
Franken understands this crisis and wants to fight on behalf of Minnesotan taxpayers, while Coleman simply doesn’t get it. Listen to the main portion of the conference call here. (MP3)
Franken’s latest ad:
More press coverage on Coleman’s failure on the PSI by Matthew Stolle at the Rochester Post-Bulletin, Northland’s NewsCenter, Rachel E. Stassen-Berger with the Pioneer Press, Kevin Duchschere with the Star Tribune.
Democrat Al Franken held a news conference today to criticize GOP Sen. Norm Coleman for not conducting an investigation into miltary contracts in in Iraq and Afghanistan (read Franken release here). When the GOP controlled the Senate, Coleman was the chair of the Permanent Subcomittee on Investigations.
MPR’s Mark Zdechlik also provided full audio of the conference.
“The truth is that Norm Coleman was the Senate’s oversight czar, and he did nothing while at least ten billion dollars in taxpayer money went missing,” Franken told reporters on the steps of the Minnesota Capitol Monday morning.
It’s not the first time Franken has raised the PSI issue, charging that Coleman overlooked waste and fraud on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan while he chaired the powerful committee.
The implication is that Coleman didn’t want to uncover any waste that would put the invasion of Iraq or the Bush administration in a bad light. He noted Coleman has received campaign contributions from defense contractors and their subsidiaries which received no-bid contracts.
Al Franken sharply criticized Sen. Norm Coleman today for failing to hold any hearings on contractor fraud in Iraq during his time as chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “Our troops and our taxpayers needed a watchdog in that seat,” Franken said at a press conference this morning on the steps of the Capitol. “Instead they got a lapdog for George W. Bush and his cronies at Halliburton. Norm Coleman’s dereliction of duty stands as an indelible stain on his record. He let our country down. We paid a steep price. Now it falls to the people of Minnesota to hold him accountable.”
Franken laid out a litany of fraudulent practices that have sabotaged the reconstruction effort from the outset: $12 billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills that vanished into the war zone; 50,000 pounds of nails dumped in the dessert by Halliburton employees because they were the wrong size; Mercedes trucks set on fire and abandoned because workers lacked the right wrench to make repairs. “Money flowed every which way, usually into the pockets of greedy contractors, often with little or no idea where it was going,” Franken said. “Norm Coleman was the Senate’s oversight czar and he did nothing while at least $15 billion in taxpayer money went missing.”
Associated Press’ Patrick Condon:
But Franken said Coleman was in a unique position to catch and punish defense contractors who schemed to overcharge the government for services linked to the rebuilding of Iraq. Franken pointed to Harry S. Truman’s work as a U.S. senator in the early 1940s to root out fraud in defense contracting as the U.S. entered into World War II.
Truman’s work ultimately spawned the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Coleman took leadership of in 2003 as a freshman. It’s the only post in the U.S. Senate that gives its holder sole power to issue subpoenas.
Speaking of instances of fraud by Halliburton and other companies during the early days of the Iraqi reconstruction, Franken said: “If Harry Truman had been chairing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2003, this would not have happened … He would have put a stop to the corruption and saved taxpayers billions of dollars by preventing fraud before it happened.”
This is huge. As I’ve said before, this is the issue that proves Norm Coleman should have never been a Senator and certainly should not be a Senator for the next six years. It illustrates some of the highest levels of government waste and fraud in the history of the United States, all under Norm Coleman’s nose. I recommend reading the full breakdown on this from the Franken campaign. It’s extensive and the voting public needs to know about it.
Looks like the Franken campaign is going to be touring the state again and the media advisory indicates that the topic is my favorite one — the topic that I feel is most pivotal in this race: when Norm Coleman was trusted as a Freshman Senator with the powerful role of the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations, one of the most powerful positions in the Senate, he completely failed our country.
Coleman failed our state. He failed our troops. He failed in fighting fraud, he failed in fighting waste and he failed in fighting abuse. He allowed for blatant war profiteering, even by some that contributed to Coleman. He didn’t investigate the billions lost in Iraq, even after it was publicly reported. There’s a lot more. As Garrison Keillor put it:
The simple truth is that, while more than 4,000 Americans gave their lives in the war in Iraq, the war was an enormous financial opportunity for neocons and their friends, and Sen. Coleman was a passive observer of one of the biggest heists in history. The cynicism is staggering to the normal person. He was the cop who busted the hot dog vendor for obstructing the sidewalk while the McGurks were cleaning out the bank. This is no joke. A crook is walking around looking for votes. And the truth is marching on.
More details on this as they’re released today but the Coleman campaign has to be sweating bullets because there’s no running away from the facts.
How is the Coleman campaign going to respond? As owning up to the truth is political suicide for Coleman, their only option is to lie and distract. Will they say that Norm Coleman’s job wasn’t actually Norm Coleman’s job? Will they say that they actually investigated when they didn’t? Will Norm Coleman say there’s nothing wrong even in the light of billions wasted? Will they say it’s just a “negative attack”? Will Norm Coleman say that he did fight against fraud even though he did nothing regarding the fraud in Iraq? Will they talk about the UN’s Oil-for-Food program when it was actually a distraction from the real problem? Will they try to distract by arguing about a particular wording or figure that is inconsequential to the big picture? Will they try to paint Franken negatively when Coleman lacked the temperament to stand up for his country instead of his friends that put him in his seat?
Norm Coleman, bought out by the Bush White House even before he was elected, was Bush and Cheney’s trusted Chair of the PSI from 2003-2006 when the Republicans controlled the Senate.
In my opinion, this is a lot worse than Coleman going on the defensive on his record on Medicare — which he had to lie about.
Place your bets. As the media tries to get a Coleman response out of this one, who knows what Team Coleman will say this time.
It has been covered here before: Norm Coleman’s ad on Medicare is basically a bunch of lies. This weekend, Pat Doyle with the Star Tribune adds:
Coleman’s ad misleads when it claims Franken opposed outright prescription drugs for seniors.
Regarding the law Coleman voted for:
…the 2003 law also prohibited Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, a decision Franken and Democrats say cost consumers and taxpayers millions.
Actually, it was the United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that says that, and it’s not millions: it’s $3.7 billion.
Coleman’s ad credits him for bucking his Republican Party in 2007 to let Medicare negotiate. He didn’t vote directly to authorize negotiations, but to take up a bill to do so by ending a Senate filibuster.
Coleman was among six Republicans to join Democrats voting to take up the bill. The effort failed.
Franken on Friday accused Coleman of gamesmanship on the procedural vote, arguing that Republicans knew the vote would fail and that Coleman could safely break from his party and cast a politically useful vote.
Franken’s assertation is absolutely true. Coleman has said in 2007 that he “would continue to oppose government involvement in Medicare drug prices “because negotiation would “add another layer of bureaucracy.” He reiterated this even as late as April of this year. Coleman only voted for it because he knew it would become a campaign issue, not because he was actually for it. It’s a campaign issue because unlike Coleman and his friends in the pharmaceuticals, 87% of people support negotiation.
It’s not just one vote either: In 2005, Coleman also voted against an amendment and voted to kill another amendment that would have allowed negotiation.
The most absurd claim, though, is that Franken ”opposed prescription drugs for seniors.” It is a vile, dishonest and ridiculous claim. The Star Tribune explains:
Franken’s insistence on a drug benefit bill more to his liking doesn’t make him an opponent of the benefit.
So why is Coleman even bothering running ads about these topics? He knows his record is not in favor of Minnesotans and he’s playing defensive — even if it means lying.
Coleman can’t win on any issue so he flat out lies about them. Today he came out with a new disgusting ad. The Pioneer Press’ Rachel E. Stassen-Berger explains:
The ad says that Coleman, “voted against his party to let Medicare negotiate with drug companies.” While that describes a 2007 bill, which Coleman indeed supported, Coleman also voted for the 2003 bill which created the Medicare drug benefit and banned the federal government from negotiating with drug companies for all Medicare beneficiaries. The 2003 bill is the law; the 2007 bill was blocked by Senate Republicans and did not pass. (Earlier this week, Coleman spokesman, Mark Drake said this to explain the 2007 vote, “The legislation included important protections for seniors’ access to drugs and pharmacies, as well as including critical transparency provisions, which previous drug price negotiation proposals did not.”
The ad also says Franken, “opposed prescription drugs for seniors.” That depends on your perspective — Franken has said he would have voted against the 2003 Medicare bill because, he said, it was”written by industry lobbyists.” He has also said that he wants to change the bill to allow negotiation.
The whole ad is horrible and leads viewers to actually think the opposite of what is true. Absolutely disgusting.
Matt Notes: I changed the time-stamp to put this at the top of the page; originally posted at 9:40am.
From the Washington Post:
Television stations in four states are asking the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Communications Commission for advice regarding allegations that Republicans in several Senate races are shortchanging viewers with the brevity of their stand-by-your-ad statements.
In case you’ve missed this continually developing story, Fox 9 this weekend had a piece on it:
Stations have still not publicly decided if they are going to abide by the law and discontinue giving Coleman the “lowest unit charge” or risk punishment from the FCC by not changing their pricing. As well, if stations give Coleman a discounted rate, the FEC may consider the difference an in-kind contribution.
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