Lincoln Hates America and Its Values

It's clear that Americans generally favor more progressive values most of the time. Not Lincoln. With a lifetime Progressive Punch voting score of 14.7%, it's clear he hates Americans and their values.

Lincoln is Wasting Your Time in Washington

According to Congress.org, Lincoln is the 358th most powerful member of the House and as part of the hugely ineffectual Florida Republican delegation in Washington, helps make Florida one of the least powerful states in Congress. Thanks for the great work!

Busted: Diaz-Balarts in politics of corruption

It’s out in the open, thanks to the Miami Herald. Bravo for the Herald’s “watchdog” report on Monday under Dan Christensen’s byline detailing how Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) parlayed their seats in the U.S. House into fat campaign donations . Read it at this link.

This sort of stuff is why Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia are running strongly against, respectively, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.

Joe Garcia’s campaign issued a statement saying:

“These are the politics of corruption that have plagued South Florida for far too long. People with disabilities shouldn’t have to wait for the Diaz-Balarts to receive $10,000 in campaign contributions in order to receive the medical care they deserve. Unfortunately, our veterans and troops didn’t enjoy the luxury of big corporate PAC’s and lobbyists pushing for them when Mario Diaz-Balart voted twice against the new GI Bill.”

Raul Martinez reacted powerfully Monday night in a speech to the Miami-Dade Democratic Party monthly meeting. He said that Lincoln Diaz-Balart had acted oddly a few days earlier when asked about corruption in Washington. “He knew there was a reporter looking into a bill he put up three days after he got a donation,” Martinez said.

This affair made me think of the Diaz-Balarts’ explanation for voting against the SCHIP bill expanding children’s health insurance coverage. They weren’t against children’s health, they said, they were just opposed to the way the bill was to be financed through increased taxes on tobacco products, which would hurt little cigar rollers in Florida. They failed to mention their fat campaign donations from Big Tobacco.

In that case campaign donations led to the Diaz-Balarts’ voting against a bill, while in this case of the Maryland prosthetics company, campaign donations led to proposing a bill.

A strong argument for getting money out of politics.

Don’t neglect to read the Herald’s sidebar story about the company in this case: under investigation for Medicare fraud in Brooklyn, NY, plus a “parallel inquiry” by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Debating chickens

Annette Taddeo and the empty chair

The photo shows the bravery – lack of it, I mean – in our Republican congressional incumbents. They assert willingness to talk, set a date, ask to change the date, agree to a new date, and finally cancel. It’s a little dirty trick, taken, no doubt, from the Richard Nixon political playbook.

Some choice words of reaction from Annette Taddeo, whose date with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the AFL-CIO arena last week was a bust: “Her not being here is inexcusable. … I really believe you have been ignored. … On Saturday she’s to be at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, but she didn’t have time for you.”

It was a fine display of temper from the Democratic challenger in District 18, which spans the beaches to Key West. Her event on Thursday marked three days in a row that the Republican incumbents blew off the Democratic candidates: Joe Garcia vs. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) on Tuesday and Raul Martinez vs. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) on Wednesday.

Here's how Joe Garcia describes it on his website:

For two hours, our community heard me discuss my plans to bring a safe and responsible end to the War in Iraq, revitalize our economy and pass a health care plan that covers everyone and lowers premiums. All they got from Mario Diaz-Balart was an empty podium.

Where was Diaz-Balart during this important debate? On an AM talk radio show to talk about his strategy of "dividing Cuban, and Jewish, voters."

That's not the kind of politics we need when our community is facing so many problems.

And over at Raul Martinez' website, they're accusing Lincoln Diaz-Balart of "elitist tendencies" for refusing to appear with Martinez at the labor forum. Dee-licious!

Fred Frost, who heads the union grouping, introduced Taddeo to a crowd of about 50 by noting that there are 14,000 union members in District 18. “I truly believe she (Ros-Lehtinen) has disrespected the South Florida AFL-CIO for the last time,” Frost said.

We will see. And this is not only a race for us in South Florida. The Sunday NY Times had us under the lens again. “Democrats see Cuba travel limits as a campaign issue in Florida,” was the headline.

That may be a little out of date already. Listen to Joe Garcia talking with people at last week’s naturalization ceremonies, and health care and gas prices are the first topics he pounds. But anyway, it’s at least interesting to see the national media paying attention to Cuba policy and the nuances of SoFla democraphics.

The Times article devotes a lot of space to the view that Cuba travel restrictions are on the way out. But at the end it quotes a contrary view from pollster Sergio Bendixen, who ventures that the Democratic challengers may be mistaken if they focus on Cuba policy.

“What do you gain by focusing your campaign on travel restrictions and remittance restrictions?” Mr. Bendixen said. “I don’t get it. It’s turning off more than half the electorate that’s not Cuban, and the people who would benefit from a change are a very small slice of the Cuban electorate. It’s a mistaken strategy.”

Having listened to all the challengers (repeatedly), I have to say that they are not focusing on Cuba the way Bendixen seems to think. Yes, two of them (Garcia and Martinez) are Cuban Americans, and Cuba policy is part of their stump speeches. But they know their districts and just how much is Cuban. Taddeo told her union audience last week that District 18 is “under 30 percent Cuban” and it’s far from the makeup that sent Ros-Lehtinen to Congress 18 years ago. Voters, including Cuban Americans, now have health care at the top of their priorities, she said.

Her speech opened with a telling anecdote from her background as a business leader who would travel to Washington to lobby Ros-Lehtinen on what the business community saw as top legislative priorities. Health care, for instance. “Our list of priorities was getting longer,” she said. “We are being represented by someone who does not vote in the best interest of our community.”

And, she pointed out, it was a business delegation asking for a yes vote on children’s health insurance, not a labor delegation.

Taddeo also thought it was noteworthy that Ros-Lehtinen now is changing some of her votes and talking to the Chamber of Commerce. “They all know me,” she said of the Chamber. “She doesn’t have the labor community. She doesn’t have the business community. Who does she have?”

Good question.

Debate? Republicans run and hide.

Republican members of Congress in South Florida don’t look like debaters. The reference is to the Diaz-Balarts and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- track stars when it comes to running and hiding.

Joe Garcia, challenging Mario Diaz-Balart for District 25, said in a statement Wednesday that his opponent had backed out of a commitment to debate.

“This is an act of political cowardice. If Mario Diaz-Balart had time to vote to underfund our schools, three times against children’s healthcare and against medical benefits for veterans, then he better make time to explain himself to the people of South Florida,” the statement said.

Cowardice? Goodness, tough word. But that’s exactly what Raul Martinez said Tuesday evening at a meeting of the Democrats of South Dade Club. Martinez said his opponent in District 21, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, had accepted a labor union debate invitation but then changed the date and now seems unavailable. “Why is he hiding?” Martinez asked. Later he returned to the topic and said if there is no debate, “I’m going to call him a coward. Mr. Coward. Coward, coward.”

The crowd was delighted. Just think, there are still over five months of this before election day.

Annette Taddeo’s campaign was more polite, according to the Miami Herald, which quoted the candidate’s campaign manager, Anastasia Apa, saying she hopes for a change of heart.

Diaz-Balart brothers get laughs on their energy bill

Did you see it? Lincoln Diaz-Balart on Channel 7 at 10 p.m. saying “Speaker Pelosi promised to lower the price of gasoline. Since she’s been speaker, the price has gone up $1 a gallon.”

What a gas! I guess the Republican incumbent of Florida’s District 21 thinks that the Speaker of the House is in charge of gas prices. Delusional. As if anyone could hear him saying such tripe and not fall down laughing.

Raul Martinez should have this guy for lunch. All they have to do is record Lincoln D-B on the news and run it as an ad for Raul Martinez.

On the Joe Garcia side, they are reacting sharply to the joint appearance by the three Republicans Monday. Here’s the intro of a statement issued pointing out how Mario Diaz-Balart is a late convert to the energy cause:

Mario Diaz-Balart is six years late in addressing rising fuel costs. While Florida’s families watched oil prices rise, Rep. Diaz-Balart consistently voted against cracking down on price gouging and opposed bipartisan legislation to make our country less dependent on foreign oil.

Go to that statement and read down into the fine print where we learn of the big donations from Big Oil to the Diaz-Balart brothers: $24,000. It led to the brothers having a ZERO voting record on the good side of energy conservation.

This statement is a good resource for anyone looking into where the Diaz-Balarts come from -- and why their congressional careers must be brought to a stop.

Lincoln Hates the Environment

The League of Conservation Voters recently released scorecards for Congress. How did Lincoln do? Poorly:

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (REP), 20%

Not only did all of the Democrats do better than all of the Republicans, With one exception, all of the Democrats did more than twice as good as all the Republicans. And most of the Democrats voted in favor of the environment more than four times as frequently as most of the Republicans.

I wonder how many of these Republicans own property that will be beachfront property when most of Florida is under water because of global warming? I'm just saying...