From a quick read of my archives, you'd think I'm one of the most pessimistic people where concerns Congressman Mark Kirk, but sometimes, he even outdoes my low estimate of him. He did that on Saturday afternoon in Winnetka at his first real town hall style meeting. I say the first, even though he says the tenth, because this is the first one where a real person could ask an unfiltered question.
After the stage show I described last night, the questioning finally began, but only with a little help from Michael Deheeger of Winnetka who interrupted what looked like was going to be a downhill spiral into Kirk's hand picked questioners from a particular corner in the stageleft side of the room. Deheeger apologized for interrupting, but firmly stated that most people in the meeting wanted to hear from the Congressman on the topic of the Iraq War and asked Kirk when he would pledge to set deadlines to bring the troops home. Kirk tried his old tired answers about wrapping and winding the mission up, down and sideways. People got mad at the insult and there was a brief tense moment of shouting until Kirk imposed what he called "North Shore" or "Winnetka" rules and berated Chicagoans in a most uncalled for manner attempting to imply that most of the room was from Chicago. It wasn't, and Kirk's comment didn't go over too well, but the discussion continued.
Then, he said it: 9/11, 90th floor Sears Tower, most Americans have chosen to give up their freedom for security. I didn't think he'd be that brazen in trying to connect Iraq with 9/11 to this district that he admits is one of the best educated in the country. Then, he went even further adding proof to what we already know about this war and oil. He said that before we can leave Iraq, we have to secure our oil interests there and come up with a less oil dependent energy policy failing to mention that his party always rejects same, but adding that we'd all be out of work from the lost oil upon a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, and he couldn't help himself I suppose, he had to mention the holocaust.
There was an heroic attempt to pin him down on the standards for and particulars of a withdrawal based on the Iraq Study Group as Kirk has touted with Lipinski which lead Kirk to make the ridiculous accusation that those who want to end the war are planning to just hit the road, leaving military supplies and equipment behind for the future use of terrorists. What was finally pried out of Kirk was this: we would leave Iraq when the Iraqi government can control its own boundaries, when it is clear that it won't become an ally with terrorists and it is clear that it will not invade its UN neighbors. Then, he moved on to some girl's glucose level, I'm sure a very important to her, but not a topic of national interest for Kirk to be discussing at a town hall meeting considering he's dead set against a reasonable health care plan for this country, but that's tomorrow's blog.
So, Kirk leaves us with the chicken and the egg in Iraq. Our presence in Iraq has raised tensions to a point where Kirk's conditions for leaving will not be met and, according to him, we won't leave until they are. Not discussed was the Bush/Cheney plan for Iran which Kirk seems to have signed onto with his legislative push to antagonize them under the laughable guise of Kirk's commitment to labor issues.
Several audience members stood to scold Kirk for his email claiming that most of the 700+ attendees of the August Iraq town hall were bussed in from Chicago. While there were a few SEIU members supporting their guest speaker, Kirk's emailed statement to the district that most were from Chicago was simply not true. He's very unapologetic about the lie.
Tomorrow, my question on the Fourth Amendment (why not, Kirk brought it up) and that wonderful doctor.
18 comments:
My favorite highlights from the meeting:
Someone asks Kirk about protecting our Constitutional rights here. Kirk's initial response: His first responsibility is to ensure we don't die in a terrorist attack on the Sears Tower. Simultaneously trying to scare us and implying that that supercedes our rights and freedoms and the US Contitution (freedoms which form the basis of our entire system of government like habeus corpus). Of course, his voting record clearly shows he has little regard for the Contitution, but hearing it implied directly from his mouth was shocking.
His position on Iraq: He THINKS we will continue to gradually withdraw troops after the surge has finished being withdrawn. And he went to the president to discuss Iraq policy. Wow, I am SO glad I have a congressman who has a prediction about the future and who still believes George W. Bush can be convinced of anything using rational argument. I have never heard anything that ridiculous in my life. Did we elect Kirk to make predictions, or to legislate?
Kirk also discussed how some Iraqis suspect that the coming elections here might cause the US to begin pulling out of Iraq within the next couple of years, and that this has put positive pressure on them to improve the political situation. He then later said it would be a bad idea to implement a timeline for withdrawal... it makes no sense at all that he could simultaneously believe both things.
Kirk also made a point to emphasize that the Democrats want to make it necessary to obtain a warrant for foriegn-to-foreign communications that are routed through the US. This is blatantly false, as I understand it. I don't have time to research it right now, but I would appreciate it if anyone could clarify this. I'm pretty sure the Democratic position is that foreign-to-foreign communications routed through the US should NOT require a warrant... and that Kirk lied. I am open to being proven otherwise.
One person stood up and complained about Kirk claiming most of the people at the fake townhall were from Chicago. And her oh so scientific method for proving that most of the 700 were constituents was "people she talked to".
I also take issue with your claim that without the loudmouth, Michael Deheeger I guess his name is, Kirk never would have answered any Iraq question. The first question asked about Iraq, as was the second as I recall. But I can understand your frustration, obviously Kirk didn't know that he was only allowed to call on 10th dems members and he was only allowed to discuss Iraq. We should make sure he knows the rules next time.
One last thing, whine all you want about Kirk implying that a lot of his detractors are from Chicago, the 10th dems and Seals caused that. Chicago volunteers were a huge part of Seals' workforce in 2006 and at the lone debate I personally saw two school buses full of them.
There were 3. Pay attention better next time.
Re the Chicago connection, you are simply spreading myths for Kirk. Can I sell you some swampland in Florida?
Here is some good information on what the telecom companies have been doing with your communications. Not Osama bin Laden's communications, but yours. I wonder if Mr. Choudhury would have that warm and fuzzy feeling toward Mark Kirk if he knew that Kirk supports the government's actions in wholesale taking of our private communications.
Here are documents from EFF's AT&T class action lawsuit in which you can find evidence collected from AT&T on their activities in collecting your information for the Bush machine. These documents contain much of the technical explanation for what is being done to collect information between American citizens within the United States. AT&T isn't Ma Bell any more. More like Big Brother Bell.
Here is my article about what the FBI is up to with your communications.
Here is my article about the secure rooms. The quote you should pay attention to:
"The deployment, however, is neither modest nor limited, and it apparently involves considerably more locations than would be required to catch the majority of international traffic."
Ellen, you should mention that another reason the spying is illegal is that it was done on unilateral orders from the Bush administration without any action from Congress, a clear violation of separation of powers. Then, remind your readers that all this started BEFORE September 11th.
I attended Kirk's townhall meeting in Palatine a few months ago. I am a "real person," and I got to ask my question. You can dislike Mark Kirk, Ellen, but your ridiculous statements portray you as a conspiracy theorist. Even when you present factually correct information, you do it in such a way that few people will take you seriously.
Obviously, you can write whatever you want on your blog but, if you have any sincere desire to "inform the public," you might consider overhauling your presentation skills.
Kirk's MOs are to take questions on cards and edit them to his liking, gather at a safe meeting place or severely limit questions to one or two and from known sources.
It was a tough crowd for him in Winnetka and his pre-arranged buffer zones failed him. He tried to limit the questions by loading up the agenda, but it just didn't work for him even with the two presentations and a human rights discussion his folks tried to create that just fell flat under the weight of its own insincerity.
I was only surprised he didn't take better advantage of the opportunity to speak with the opposition. I had been giving him more credit for cleverness and thought he'd come up with explanations that at least sound more sensible and are less easy to deconstruct. When he chose to go down the Bush path of falsely linking Iraq and 9/11, he lost the entire audience save 2 or 3 of his buddies.
I almost could have felt sorry for him but for the 7 years without any real discussion and his arrogance and apparent conviction that his district is full of idiots who don't ever check a fact.
More claptrap from Kirk's staff - the only buses at the debate were the schoolkid's. Dan didn't need to import people- by then he had almost 3,000 active, daily volunteers working for his campaign- ALL from the Tenth District. His pal, Dennis Byrne and the complicit Tribune editorial board as well as the racist RNC worked hard to promote that myth- and you heard Kirk use his own racist, elitist bias repeatedly, this Saturday, as if people from Chicago are lowly worms. The people from the Iraq Townhall were from the district and it has Kirk so freaked that he has held his first townhall in Winnetka since he took office. His staff were in the parking lot at the Iraq townhall, checking the numbers or some paranoid, Nixonian kind of thing - and they like to perpetuate that "bussing" myth. There were a couple of buses there, but the hotel was also fully booked with business conventions, because we couldn't get an overflow room. Kirk wouldn't be holding these townhalls, however contrived, if he wasn't so inextricably linked to Mr 24%.
He is supposed to be the check and balance to the administration, instead, he relies on them for his lying talking points. He knows the people are against him or he would have called the press to cover the townhall.
Write a letter to the editor- and let them know what you saw and how you felt. This was the talk of the town the next morning - and the tenor of Winnetka is accurate. Bush- whoops, Kirk lost in the New Trier District and he hasn't recovered any ground since then. His staff knows his polls are tanking- now he's trying to make light of the netroots influence, and yet, he has his staff constantly doing damage control on Ellen's blog. Go figure.
And I was at the Palatine meeting- he had to beg people to come to make sure he was covered with enough softball comments, and did his usual stalling for time, diminishing the time we had for questions. Face it- he can't suddenly appear now in his 7th year when people are already enraged at his inaccessibility, and then pacify them with an orchestrated show.
Kirk staffers would have to be total morons to read your blog from a House computer or post on the blog after what happened to a number of staffers last year that were discovered via their ip addresses.
Seals is linked with the cesspool emanating from city hall, the cook county board and springfield and the leadership he wants to join has been ineffective at best and dangerous at worst (see the armenia resolution and the tax cuts they want to repeal). His progressive read: tax hikes and big government values are in line with the North Side, not the North Shore and he should try running for state senate there instead of foisting himself on us.
I don't see how Footlik represents anything but himself in Washington. I would buy his message of change if he had been a mayor in the district, but he's been in d.c. for his entire career and I am not about to send someone to Washington to represent me because they organized a hanukah party in the clinton white house, which is what the jewish liasion does, and I wish I was joking there.
When will you Kirk folks learn..."facts are stubborn things."
anon 9.33,
Coming from the guys who threatened to take away grants from Tel Aviv University if a board member kept supporting Dan Seals, is it so inconcievable that they're total morons? BTW, has anyone explained what happened there yet?
Seals linked with the city cesspool?? Where's your evidence, dude? He couldn't even scrape together a single nickel from the Rahmbo. Go look where Seals gets his money. Small donors. City ward heelers didn't put up all those North Shore yard signs last fall. Wait, I get it. Because he's ... half black? Your "North Shore values" sure make for nice code words. Nice kleagle you got there with Dennis Byrne.
Speaking of cesspools, have you looked at where Kirk gets his money? Just how does a man like Mark Kirk become the top fund-raiser in Congress? It's not because of his great libertarian, low-tax principles. It's not because of a great ideological fervor for milquetoast Republican moderation or Kenilworth douchebaggery.
It's not pretty, Mr. Grand Wiz. Four industries for ya: insurance, student loans/for-profit education, real estate/construction, and pharma. Industries not exactly known for having a lot of vestal virgins about. All, in fact, dependent on government subsidies, and what better place to have your man than the Appropriations committee.
And here's something that might getcha to jump outta your hood. Check out on fec.gov all the donations from Winston & Strawn. Center of the Chicago/Springfield combine. Pro bono defender of George Ryan. Gene & Georgetti regulars. So why are they giving to Kirk, Mr. Grand Dragon?
But maybe it's not the Winnetka way to look at the facts, hm?
You forgot Kirk's ties to energy and oil industries.
Anon 9:33,
Based on your post, I'll bet you're a republican-I know this not because you're obviously a Kirk supporter, I know it because your post is so full of untruths--(yes, LIES--there, I said it).
Seals is not affiliated with any of what you say. He's just an honest, more than capable guy who has seen enough and wants to change our country for the better.
And just who is Kirk linked with?
A republican party and president who, over the last 6 years, have littered Washington with corruption, a dishonest rush to war, fiscal irresponsibility, and colossal arrogance.
I don't want a Congressman that comes from that ilk.
Monday, October 22, 2007 9:33:00 PM
Anon 9:33 sounds like they hate Kirk's staffers, thinks they are morons, hates Seals and hates Footlik. There is something wrong with this person. Maybe this person laughs and handicapped people too!!
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