Encinitas is currently part of the 50th Congressional District, represented by moderate Republican Brian Bilbray. It's rated +3% voting edge to the Republican Party, meaning it's a competitive district. Bilbray had a serious threat from liberal Democrat Francine Busby in 2008, and a better candidate could easily have beaten Bilbray in the Obama landslide.
Welcome to your new Congressional district.
That's right, miles and miles of wealthy coastline with a giant Camp Pendleton full of Hooah! Marines in the middle. Think a Democrat stands a snowball's chance in Hell of winning this district?
Meet your new Congressman, conservative Republican Darrell Issa.
Issa scored 100% in the 2010 Club for Growth scorecard of voting on fiscal conservative issues, compared to Bilbray's 77%. He's the Chairman of the Government Oversight Committee, which he's used to investigate scandals such as the "Friends of Angelo" Countrywide Congressional bribery scandal and the current Project Gunrunner scandal where the Obama Administration deliberately allowed thousands of semiautomatic weapons to go across the border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Now that our votes for Congress don't matter in an uncompetitive district, let's hope that Encinitans start paying a little more attention to the City Council race instead. It's important.
As for Bilbray? He's carpetbagging back to Clairemont, where he'll run for a new district covering Poway to downtown and Coronado. He'll have a very slight registration edge in that district, and could lose. People aren't just pissed at Obama this year. They're pissed at Congress and incumbents everywhere. Let's hope that spills over to the City Council race too.
Thanks for spreading the good news! Hopefully Busby will think twice about littering her signs across beautiful Cardiff by the Sea.
ReplyDeletePlus he digs earmarking. Maybe he'll nibble ours here in Encinitas, and hook us up with some of the Federal wealth redistribution.
ReplyDeleteOh wait. It seems he prefers to direct the money towards projects that will increase the value of his properties and businesses:
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2011/aug/15/ny-times-probes-issas-business-deals/
Eh, don't believe everything you read in the New York Times.
ReplyDeleteSounds like it was a partisan hit piece full of factual errors.
I thought we made it into the new 52nd district. Am I wrong on that?
ReplyDeleteSure, Issa will spin it as a hit piece. Does he own the properties that have appreciated significantly since the earmarks improved the roads? Does he still manage his investment portfolio and use committee hearings to influence businesses that he has interests in?
ReplyDeleteI don't care if the lede had something about a golf course. Issa's a hypocrite just like most of the other monkey's in the Congress.
Oh gee Dr. Lorri. You often post authoritatively when you really don't know what you're talking about. You rarely do any lifting. Go look it up and come back with something definitive to offer the conversation. It is a matter of fact. What is the fact?
ReplyDeleteDr. Lorri,
ReplyDeleteHere's the latest. We are deep in Issa territory.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteHere is the building location.
It is right on the freeway, and not even close to the golf course. The reporter is clearly a partisan hack completely distorting the place. Read the story about Issa's palatial offices for his "multi-billion-dollar" empire and then look at the actual office in low-rent Vista.
I don't know whether Issa has done anything dirty, but this reporter is obviously a lying scumbag with a partisan axe to grind.
And raising the property value 60%? That's absurd! You think local road widening would make a Vista office building 60% more desirable?
This is the lamest hit piece I have seen in a long, long time.
If Issa is actually dirty, they ought to send honest reporters after him.
From the U-T, doing a story about the Issa rebuttal, wrote this:
ReplyDelete"The story questioned his ties to satellite radio company Sirius and the former investment house Merrill Lynch, and his participation in federal policymaking affecting those companies. Other members of Congress, the Times noted, place much of their wealth in blind trusts to avoid conflicts. Not so with Issa, an active businessman."
Issa is happy to be Mr. Businessman while he's writing laws seem to favor his financial holdings.
Then there's the whole issue of earmarks, which conservatives have been railing against. Issa seems happy to take them. That makes him a hypocrite.
The U-T notes the NYT writer has won a Pulitzer Prize, so he's got some cred. But the right wingers like to trot out all that crap about the liberal media. Maybe Issa should have sat down to talk to the reporter?
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/20/issa-comes-out-fighting-against-the-times/
Pulitzer Prizes are for aggressive, advocacy "journalism," not for fairness or impartiality.
ReplyDeleteThis story fits that pattern perfectly.
Ever see the video of Issa being hand fed figs off a plate by Arafat? Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteI can't find that video on YouTube or LiveLeak. Do you have it?
ReplyDeleteIt's clear that the NYT and the writer missed on several important facts, which gave the right wing defenders of people like Issa the opportunity to attack the messenger about the article. Maybe if Issa had agreed to be interviewed, the article wouldn't have been so factually challenged. But the NYT is late to the game. Back in April, the U-T was writing about Issa's advocacy for earmarks that would improve the area where he owns commercial property:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/02/issas-earmarks-questioned/
Google "earmarks Issa" and there's plenty to read about as another one of our hypocritical, slimy politicians was using his position as congressmen to improve his own financial standing. It's nothing new (see Duke).
Here's an essay that I think sums it up pretty well:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_1c1f2303-6a3a-51b3-88cc-b85cd9a40cd4.html
Issa clearly has a history of earmarks, as do most pre-2010 members of Congress.
ReplyDeleteBut the allegation of personally profiting is absurd. He bought the building after the earmarks and road improvements, meaning the value increased before he bought it and he paid more than he would have without the earmarks (to the extent that a modest $800,000 in roadwork has any impact on the value of neighborhood buildings at all).
This is a great illustration of how earmarks can create at least the appearance of conflict. The Tea Party has made some progress banning earmarks during the current Congress, but some politicians are still trying to find ways to weasel around them.
To his credit, Issa appears to have repented with the Tea Party revolution, and is one of only a few Representatives who didn't request earmarks last year.
W.C., you clearly like Issa. You support his approach to legislation. You are happy he is your new representative in congress. Good for you.
ReplyDeleteBut calling the idea that his earmark for improvements to a street that he owned property on didn't increase the value of that property absurd, is a bit disingenuous. Did it increase the value 60%? Probably not, but I go by the penny standard, and I'm pretty certain he increased the value of his real property investment by at least a penny, so he had a conflict of interest. As evidenced by the fact that he didn't put his holdings in a blind trust like most politicians do, and he's still very actively involved in DEI Holdings, it's clear he doesn't worry much about what appears to be a conflict of interest. Classic arrogance and egoism, common characteristics of the political class.
However, let me state for the record that I am not opposed to earmarks. In my opinion, it's part of the job of a congressman to fight for the funding of projects in their district. (Normally these efforts for Federal money would be for projects that weren't as local as the Vista road project, but who am I to quibble?) It is important that the earmarking be transparent, and to his credit, the congressman seems to agree with that approach. Although now that he's more focused on winning the favor of Tea Baggers, I guess he's sworn off earmarking.
That's too bad. We could use his help getting grade separation of the railroad tracks through town.
Dr.Lorri
ReplyDeleteYou are so often wrong on so many things it's not worth the time or trouble to respond to your posts.
Dr. Lorri,
ReplyDeleteI too will post anonymously. I like your posts and appreciate your opinion. Other anonymous, you are obviously a jerk, and it doesn't take ten anonymous posts to realize it. (And, no, i'm not Dr. Lorri -- she has the guts to post under her own name.)
-Anonymous
Ummm....it seems that the New York Times has some crow to eat:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/26/times-makes-2-more-corrections-issa-story/
Heck, the NYT probably will get a pulitzer prize for their "aggressiveness" on this story.