Comments on: Kucinich or Cummings for Oversight

By: boygabe

boygabe — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:29:24 +0000

As a constituent of Ed Towns, I can unfortunately guarantee he will completely fail to live up to the standard set by Waxman, or live up to even minimal expectations.

Towns is the definition of a modern, do-nothing congressman. He’s been in Congress for 26 years and hasn’t chaired one committee. He hasn’t co-authored one piece of major legislation, nor has he even been a part of a significant issue/movement. Simply put, he’s intellectually incurious and motivationally-challenged.

Our district is desperate to vote him out, but we haven’t been able to put up a decent enough candidate in the primaries. We are a heavily Democratic district, meaning there is never an independent or a Republican to challenge him. He’s part of the Brooklyn Democratic Machine, which means he has money and establishment behind him every two years.

Towns doesn’t represent his (extremely liberal and African American) community well at all. He hasn’t even managed to improve our atrocious string of post offices. What could be lower hanging fruit than improving the post offices in order to pacify your district?

As a fun fact there’s this: no Congressman from a non-tobacco-producing state takes more money from the Tobacco Lobby than Towns does. And yet his district (NY-10) has an extremely high smoking rate. Nice one Ed! He voted against net neutrality. He voted for the bankruptcy bill. He has one of the poorest attendance rates on the Hill.

On behalf of our district, I apologize for not voting this do-nothing guy out of office before he could assume chairmanship of a very important committee.

Mark my words, this guy will disappoint.

By: NMvoiceofreason

NMvoiceofreason — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:26:12 +0000

This is a man who I greatly respect (Kucinich), who is most noted in the debates for having seen a UFO. I’ve seen lots of UFO’s (Aircraft I can’t identify), but just the “Moonbat” association alone will be used to discredit his work.

Cummings is more like Perry Mason. He will get you to admit seemingly innocuous stuff, until you realize you have assembled the four walls of your own prison cell…

Waxman was great and he will be missed.

By: laurastrand

laurastrand — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:13:10 +0000

I favor a tag team. Luchadora masks preferable. Why, oh why must we choose? Congressional savants, what’s the rule on committee chairmanships?
Kucinich floats like a vegan, and Cummings stings like a King-Bee!

By: barbara

barbara — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:02:19 +0000

Well, crap. My tiny mind was all set to get behind Kucinich (because he’s done a lot of heavy lifting for the Dems, however imperfectly), until you reminded me/us of his reputation. I know very little about Cummings. Which is why I am an FDL denizen. All y’all make me smart.

By: daemon

daemon — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:01:19 +0000

OT abit…

Mukasey’s in WSJ OpEd:
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....46291.html

Other federal courts hearing the approximately 250 Gitmo habeas cases have sought to answer similar questions. But as different judges reach different answers — and as some of those answers, I fear, create risks for our national security — there ]remains a pressing need for Congress, working with the administration, to establish one set of rules that is both consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision and recognizes the important national security and intelligence interests of the United States.

There’s more. Worser.
Seen this w/FISA already.

By: cbl2

cbl2 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:45:21 +0000

thank you William Ockham - both Cummings and Maloney stepped away

Empty - hadn’t really heard much of him before today - hope he’s got the muscle to keep Issa at heel

Evenin’ All

By: Votus

Votus — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:42:49 +0000

I favor Kucinich.

By: selise

selise — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:40:15 +0000

if it’s issa, i’d say kucinich would be an excellent choice - as they can work well together. and yeah, i know that sounds crazy… unless you saw them last week.

By: bobschacht

bobschacht — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:39:30 +0000

EW,
The folks here in Hawaii welcome the possibility of Kucinich, who is a local favorite (after Obama, of course). I discussed your post on our local blog.

Thanks!

Bob in HI

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:35:17 +0000

Wow, Nadler at HJC would be an improvement.
And it would also be smart of a Congress that’s going to have more scrutiny from the (CSPAN and CNN) viewing public.