Voice For Liberty

Category: United States government

  • Voice for Liberty Radio: U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo on Benghazi, Ukraine, and Boko Haram and the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism

    Voice for Liberty Radio: U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo on Benghazi, Ukraine, and Boko Haram and the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism

    Voice for Liberty logo with microphone 150United States Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita has been appointed to the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. I spoke with him today in his Wichita office on this topic and a few others.

    On the composition of the committee — seven Republicans and five Democrats — Pompeo explained that the majority party usually has a majority on committees of this type. A “Select” committee like this has a very narrow charter. The committee will have staff and counsel, and will deliver a report. After that, the committee will disband.

    Critics of this committee point to the several committees that have already held hearings on this matter and the thousands of documents produced. What can this committee accomplish? Pompeo said that despite all the previous activity, we do not know everything. The Ben Rhodes email that was supplied just last week is an example.

    Pompeo said the administration has not been very cooperative. The committee wants to learn what decisions were made on September 11, 2012, how were the decisions made, and by whom.

    While the committee operates in a political environment, Pompeo said that the six other Republicans on the committee (the Democratic members have not been named) are “workhorses,” who will work to come to a factual conclusion. It may be, he said, that conservatives will disappointed in the output of the committee, in that the facts show that there was no wrongdoing or malfeasance. If that is what the facts show, that’s what will be in the committee’s report, he said.

    It is not known whether Democrats will boycott the committee. Pompeo said it’s important that Democrats participate in the committee proceedings, as this will best serve the American public interest. The decision will be made by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader.

    As for the committee being a “witch hunt” or simply a political operation, Pompeo reminded me that Speaker John Boehner was reluctant to call for the formation of this special committee. Pompeo said that the Republican members of the committee, except for chair Trey Gowdy, are members with low profiles, and not widely known by Americans.

    On the situation in Ukraine, Pompeo said the situation remains incredibly intense. The Russians have fomented strife in the region, with a propaganda campaign to create the predicate for a Russian invasion. Western Europe has begun to recognize the risk and has started to implement a few more sanctions. Putin’s goal is to reconstruct Greater Russia, he said.

    On the subject of Boko Haram, the radical Islamist group that has captured young girls in Nigeria, Pompeo said this is another example of how the war against Islamic terrorism is not over. He said that today there are 8,000 Al-Qaeda in Syria. In 2001, on September 10, there were 200 in Afghanistan. The threat today is far greater than it was 13 years ago, and the Obama administration has thrown in the towel, he said.

    Shownotes

    Mike Pompeo Congressional office.
    Twitter at @RepMikePompeo
    H.Res. 567: Providing for the Establishment of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi

  • Club for Growth scorecards

    Club for Growth scorecards

    United States Capitol, July 2011
    United States Capitol, July 2011
    Organizations like Club for Growth produce scorecards of legislators. I’ve gathered results from Club for Growth for all years available and present them in an interactive visualization.

    You may select which members to show. By clicking on a member’s name in the legend, their line will be highlighted from the others.

    Scorecards such as these and others, including the ones that I’ve personally constructed, have caveats. For example, some members have not been in office very long. Issues in which you have an interest may not have been voted on during the member of interest’s tenure. Or, the vote may not have been a recorded vote, which is common. Also, the mere fact of a vote for or against a bill does not measure or account for leadership on the issue, or intensity of interest and involvement. I’ve not seen scorecards that incorporate work and votes in committees, which is an important part of legislating.

    Using the visualization.
    Using the visualization.
    Further, the selection of votes to be included is an issue. Organizations that create scorecards generally have issues that are important to them, and may focus on a subset of issues to the exclusion of all others.

    To use the visualization I created, click here to open it in a new window. A nearby illustration shows how to use it.

  • Pompeo on Obama budget

    Pompeo on Obama budget

    U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo appeared on Stossel and told the host that President Obama’s budget will leave the U.S. begging for money down the road.

  • Pompeo responds to Washington’s attacks on Koch Industries

    From the office of U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo.

    Statement from Congressman Mike Pompeo on Washington’s Attacks on Koch Industries

    WASHINGTON — Congressman Mike Pompeo issued the following statement on the unwarranted attacks on Koch Industries in light of the efforts to reform the Internal Revenue Service:

    “The IRS’s targeting of individuals demonstrates the administration’s lawlessness at its worst. Public officials have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution and use their office to protect the rights of Americans, rather than attack them for their political advocacy. Silencing critics through government muscle, as the IRS has done, runs counter to every founding principle of the United States of America.

    “Yet opponents of the House’s effort to hold the IRS accountable have doubled down and continued to attack two private citizens, Charles and David Koch, as deserving of such government abuse. Senator Reid’s attacks today from the Senate floor are reprehensible.  This cannot be tolerated — not for these two great men or for any individual who disagrees with those in power.

    “The Kochs’ Wichita-based company employs close to 60,000 people in manufacturing jobs. These predominantly middle-class employees live in nearly all 50 states and are a benefit to the communities they work and live in. They are good people and good neighbors, my neighbors, and deserve protection under the law that is equal to those lawmakers who seek to marginalize them.

    “The jobs created by this company are a far greater benefit to the middle class than any wasteful Washington program. We should be taking lessons from hardworking Americans in the private sector instead of continuing to play politics with people’s lives.”

    Earlier today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused the Kochs of funding ads critical of the Affordable Care Act’s disastrous implementation that he claims are “completely untrue,” a claim that contradicts the thrust of most news coverage of the rollout.

    For more information, contact:
    JP Freire | Director of Communications and Speechwriter
    Office of Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas)
    107 Cannon HOB| Washington, D.C. 20515
    Office (202) 225-6216 | Fax (202) 225-3489
    JP.Freire@mail.house.gov

  • Kansans vote for and against Ryan-Murray budget

    U.S. Representatives from Kansas split on voting for the budget bill produced by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray. Lynn Jenkins and Kevin Yoder voted in favor, while Mike Pompeo and Tim Huelskamp voted against the bill. It passed 332 to 94.

    In a statement from his office, Pompeo said:

    Washington — Congressman Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, voted today against adopting a budget that would increase spending in 2014 and 2015 over the hard-fought Budget Control Act’s (BCA) limit.

    “Despite opposition at the time, I supported the Budget Control Act because it was a compromise that represented the first real cut in discretionary spending in over a generation. While I agree Congress should replace cuts to national security with reforms of mandatory spending, we cannot abandon the progress we’ve already made in cutting spending. I greatly respect Chairman Ryan’s efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement to fix our spending problems, and agree with many of its provisions, including protecting doctors’ payments against needless reductions, ensuring hospitals are paid fairly in Medicare, and requiring federal employees to contribute more to their pension plans. But this new budget would stymie the progress we’ve made in reducing spending through sequestration. Kansans understand the need to budget fairly and live within our means. Washington must be held to the same standard.”

    (@RepMikePompeo, pompeo.house.gov)

    Huelskamp issued this statement:

    “Just two years ago, Congress and the President made a promise to cut spending through the sequester. With this bill, they are abandoning this promise with a massive $63 billion in new deficit spending. So much for ‘if you like your spending cut, you can keep your spending cut.’ But no worries, after the 2022 election, a future Congress and President are certain to do what Washington refuses to do today. Sure.

    In addition to this bipartisan agreement to raise spending for all sides and violating their own sequester, it would also assist Senator Harry Reid in passing tax increases through the Senate. It further also divides the House Republican Conference by abandoning our agreement reached in Williamsburg last January, rejects nearly all of the provisions passed by the House in three successive Ryan budgets, and does nothing to oppose ObamaCare.

    Washington insiders are fond about saying, ‘this must be a good deal if I didn’t get everything I wanted.’ The real solution would be — the American people getting what they want.”

    (@CongHuelskamp, huelskamp.house.gov)

  • Pompeo votes against debt ceiling increase

    From the office of U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district.

    Pompeo Votes Against Unlimited Government Spending
    “We can’t keep raising the debt ceiling without addressing the drivers of our debt.”

    Washington — Congressman Mike Pompeo released the following statement following his vote on the debt ceiling:

    Washington has once more kicked the can down the road by raising the limit on the government credit card without dealing with the drivers our national debt. This means fewer jobs, higher taxes, and ordinary Kansans suffering under the ever-increasing, costly burden of Obamacare that will achieve few, if any, of its goals. We cannot afford this new entitlement and the President is now on track to double the national debt. Every American family has to live within its means, and Washington should do the same. Today’s legislation may well have averted the “crisis of the moment,” but it did nothing to avert the much greater crisis that is inevitable with our current rate of spending that we must fix immediately.

  • Obama’s debt speech, not really a speech

    united-states-senate-seal

    In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama was critical of raising the debt ceiling in order to allow the U.S. to borrow additional funds, a contentious issue that we are facing again. I present his full remarks here, and they are often excerpted thusly:

    The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

    So where can we go to view the future president’s speech on this topic?

    The answer is: Nowhere.

    Senator Obama never spoke these words on the floor of the United States Senate. Instead, he just mailed it in, submitting his text to be inserted in the Congressional Record.

    But you’d never know that by reading the Congressional Record alone. If you’d like to follow along, here’s a link to page of the Congressional Record where Obama’s remarks appear. Note where Senator McConnell says “Congratulations, Senator Sarbanes.”

    In the printed Congressional Record, the next item is Obama starting his “speech” with “Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.”

    But in the video from the C-SPAN video library (see below), Obama doesn’t appear. That’s because he never spoke these words on the Senate floor.

    The Senate’s explanation of the Congressional Record states: “The Congressional Record is a substantially verbatim account of the remarks made by senators and representatives while they are on the floor of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”

    While members may insert written material in the record — that’s what Obama did — it would be nice if there was a way to distinguish between actual floor proceedings and written material submitted for inclusion.

    By the way, Snopes gets this wrong. It explains: “In 2006, then a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made the remarks attributed to him above during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit. … The shortened quote now attributed to him is a verbatim capture of the opening and closing paragraphs of his remarks of 16 March 2006.”

    Snopes bills itself as “The definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.”

    The Washington Post Fact Checker thought it was a speech too, in its article Annotating Obama’s 2006 speech against boosting the debt limit.

  • A letter to the U.S. Senate regarding the federal government shutdown

    From KochFacts.com.

    Dear Senator,

    A great deal of what you read and hear about Koch Industries is erroneous or misleading. Indeed, there was false information presented about Koch on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Reid, who claimed yesterday that Koch was behind the shutdown of the federal government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare.” Because several of you have asked what our position is on this issue, we want to set the record straight and correct this misinformation.

    Koch believes that Obamacare will increase deficits, lead to an overall lowering of standards of health care in America, and raise taxes. However, Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tactic of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare.

    Instead, Koch has focused on educating the public about reducing our nation’s debt and controlling runaway government spending. We believe that Congress should, at a minimum, keep to sequester-level spending guidelines, and develop a plan for more significant and widespread spending reductions in the future. We also believe that Congress should work to rein-in rampant government spending so that it becomes no longer necessary to continually raise the debt ceiling.

    Congress should focus on these efforts: balancing the budget, tightening and cutting government spending, curbing cronyism, and eliminating market-distorting subsidies and mandates.

    We are hopeful this sets the record straight and that in the future Senator Reid and other politicians will stop misrepresenting and distorting Koch’s positions.

    Sincerely,
    Philip Ellender
    President, Government & Public Affairs
    Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

  • Pompeo addresses ObamaCare, debt ceiling, government accountability

    Today U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district addressed the Wichita Rotary Club.

    He told the audience that despite is not just about what we’ll do next week or even in 2014. The challenge, he said, is changing the nation’s long-term financial trajectory.

    On the rollout of ObamaCare, he said that he tried to enroll but failed. He said he was sympathetic with the challenges in rolling out the information technology that implements ObamaCare, but it’s a challenge that should never have been undertaken.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/audio/mike-pompeo-wichita-rotary2013-10-07.mp3″]Mike Pompeo, October 7, 2013.

    He said he recognizes the risks to the economy that the debt ceiling issue poses. He said we have to take on the obligations of the next 10 to 15 years and we have to do it now.

    Pompeo also spoke about government accountability. “It is so easy to spend your money,” he said. “You can be a hero, you can go to ribbon cuttings, … but I have to tell you that when politicians do that in today’s financial situation, they are doing nothing short of lying to you. I use that term intentionally, and with malice aforethought. Because to say they’re misleading you would imply there’s some chance they don’t know that. And they do. This is not politics. This is math.”

    On Syria, Pompeo said he’s heard Republicans say we should stay out of the Middle East. But Pompeo said there are from 10,000 to 30,000 soldiers there today. When politicians imply that if we don’t launch some missiles into Syria we’ll be “out” of the Middle East, that is untrue, he said, and “perpetrated with malice aforethought.”