As some of you may know, Jason Pye, the Chairman of Georgia’s Libertarian Party, was the very first person to answer this blog’s challenge to send in a question, any question, via videom and we’d have Jack answer it.
Jason’s question: “Congressman Kingston, why haven’t you joined other Georgia Republican Congressman and the Club for Growth in cutting government spending?”
While I usually prefer to stay in my own little piece of Heaven called South Georgia, I do make the occasional trip to the “home office” in DC to do a few things. This time, I planned my trip to coincide with an annual event called “The Congressional Baseball Game.”
Believe it or not, Members of Congress actually field teams - of course, Republican vs. Democrat - and play baseball. Not slow pitch softball, but real fast pitch baseball on the big diamond at RFK Stadium in Washington. It’s for Members only, no staff ringers, and they take it very seriously. You have to have skills to play and you better bring your “A” game.
Fortunately for Jack, he keeps himself in good shape - running, bicycling - so he is a natural for the team. The GOP counts on his “wheels” to run the bases and they put him in to do just that. And that is what he did. In the 3rd inning, the Dems were up 1-0. Jack hit the basepaths and once he got to third, all it took was a short pop-fly to make him tag up and dig for home, easily beating the throw. In the 5th, Jack was on base again when Mike Conaway hit a single to bring him in. At the plate in the 6th inning, Jack worked an 0-2 count into a base on balls where he promptly sped to second and then third on a wild pitch.
It’s been a long week.
Feel free to vent here.
As Jack continues to point out, the Appropriations Committee is making progress, in reducing Member earmark requests, calling for across-the-board earmark reform, and reducing the size of the federal government by de-funding programs.
Look. As the Members of the RSC noted in 2004, Congressman Kingston knows a thing or two about being a fiscally conservative Appropriator. And he’s probably taken a few lumps for it.
It’s not easy, but he’s also not going to hide under a rock like some would prefer and not expose this sunlight to the process. And he’s going to continue to support legislation like the line-item veto act to ensure that the President has the tools he needs to cut irresponsible programs which find their way in to the bills.
Weigh in on the Supreme Court’s decision today “that the administration lacked the power to hold military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
With permission, we post this letter from a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army reacting to this news:
In Jack’s first MailTube, he mentions that the Appropriations Committee has eliminated (or de-funded) 95 federal programs. We discuss this point at length here.
Here is that list of programs which is a good start for where we need to end up:
After the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Over the past few months, Jack has asked us to fully embrace available technology to help make him more accessible and available to anyone and everyone who can access a website.
Welcome to MailTube, one of our first answers to Congressman Kingston’s challenge.
Remember, this is your website and your blog. Do you MailTube?
UPDATE (9:58 PM): Jason has weighed in on Jack’s response.
The findings of a classified overview of chemical munitions found in Iraq since 2003 by the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center reveals a pattern of systematic deception by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Some of the key findings include the recovery of about 500 shells, canisters and other munitions that contain degraded mustard gas or sarin nerve agent.
Saddam Hussein’s refusal to comply with the 1991 Gulf cease fire agreement and subsequent UN resolutions presented a discernable pattern of behavior with which the United States government was to base the decision on to go to war. The fact that such munitions remain in Iraq show an obvious attempt by Saddam to defy the United Nations and the world at large. Such munitions had been used by the Hussein regime against innocent civilians in the past. Why would anyone believe that such actions would not occur in the future?
Saddam had a personal stake in maintaining his WMD programs as a national strategic goal. According to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, also known as the 2004 Duelfer Report, “Saddam Hussein so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.”
The sanctions that were imposed upon Iraq as a result of Saddam’s actions in 1991 were clearly beginning to erode. According to the Duelfer Report, “By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support.” Following the 1991 Gulf War Saddam actively sought to reconstitute his WMD programs while simultaneously seeking sanctions relief by misleading the UNSCOM and UNMOVIC.
The findings by the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center reveal that the conclusions made by both American and foreign intelligence organizations–that stockpiles of weapons remain in Iraq–were both sound and accurate.
Saddam’s confidence in the ability to ride out inspections can be seen not only in his irrational and aggressive behavior after 1991, but in the fact that chemical and biological weapons continue to be found in Iraq today.
The dangers that the Saddam regime posed to the world called for immediate and substantive actions. The consequences of inaction would have allowed such a threat to grow and would have only led to a reoccurrence of Saddam’s crimes against humanity.
-milipundit
The best headline of the day award goes to:
Senate warms to ‘border first’, Washington Times
As early as today, the House of Representatives will take up a House Resolution responding to the outrage we are hearing from constituents and Members regarding the leaking and publication of subsequent information which has now tipped off the terrorists to surveillance efforts (Jack discusses this below in his latest JackCast).
Today’s Associated Press has the latest:
Rep. Jack Kingston, a member of the House GOP leadership, said it will be clear that Republicans are mainly concerned about The New York Times because of what he said was a record of publishing classified information.
“Somebody clearly broke the law in leaking this to The New York Times. The New York Times in my opinion has simply acted irresponsibly,” Kingston, R-Ga., said.
If you haven’t been closely monitoring this issue, here’s a few items to help bring you back to speed:
Michael Barone
Treasury Secretary John Snow [via Michelle Malkin]
Jack Kelly
Hugh Hewitt
John McIntyre
Add any good reads in the comments…
“Somewhere a terrorist has changed his operations and saved his life thanks to the New York Times, and somewhere an American is in danger because of that same article in the same newspaper.” -U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston
iTuners subscribe to the JackCast by clicking the poster above. All others can find the audio file at the podcasting station.
Today, Congressman Kingston organized an “Intern-Only” event in a room in the Capitol. The room was overflowing this morning with about 75 eager interns waiting to “Better Know” some Republican Members of Congress.
Although Jack could not make the event due to two days of flight delays, Rep. Patrick McHenry from North Carolina (the youngest Member of the 109th Congress) stepped up and got things going by speaking to the group for a few minutes about his “underdog” story and how he eventually rose to success through organization, a dedicated staff, and hard work.
Rep. McHenry spoke about his experience on the Hill only 11 years ago noting, “I’ve worked on the staff side…I have a different perspective than most members of Congress on how this place works…It’s you, the interns and staff, that actually make all difference and get things done.”
To be sure, all of the interns in the room appreciated his empathy and acknowledgment.
Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina came in next, broken arm and all, and talked about her path to becoming the third woman from NC to ever be elected to serve in Congress.
Finally, Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia joined the group and all three Members fielded questions from the interns for about 40 minutes.
The interns were enthusiastic and attentive, asking a number of interesting and thoughtful questions. Reps. McHenry, Foxx, and Gingrey expressed deep concern with the growth of the Federal Government. When asked about the biggest issues they are currently facing in Congress, they all said immigration and fiscal irresponsibility.
Rep. Foxx also mentioned defense, highway maintenance, and National Parks as essentially the only areas that the Federal Government should play a role in, saying that, “Even Republicans have fallen into the trap” of federal power. The event left everyone in the Kingston office excited for future intern events to come, as we are working on several for the rest of the summer.
Special thanks to Reps. McHenry, Foxx, and Gingrey for taking the time out of their extremely busy schedules to speak with us. And of course, thanks to Jack for putting all of this together.
When people brave a pouring rain to fill a room on a Monday at noon, the topic of discussion must be important. And it was.
Monday, in Savannah, a packed room came to talk about gas and gas prices with Jack. Primarily, Jack focused on solutions to the energy problem that are readily available like growing our own energy in the form of ethanol.
Ethanol - In addition to being a renewable American-grown fuel source that can displace gasoline in the supply chain – also reduces tailpipe emissions. It’s good for the environment, good for American energy security and good for the domestic economy. Using corn or other products like sugar, we can reduce our oil consumption.
Thanks to GM and Savannah’s JC Lewis Ford, we had different types of “flex-fuel” vehicles on display. The Sierra below is a Hybrid, which uses gasoline and electricity or a gas/ethanol/biodiesel blend and electricity.