take19 - TAKEN!!!

With Congress still on its two-week Thanksgiving break -- you mean you didn't get two weeks off for Thanksgiving? -- Sue seems determined to prove she's hard at work here in the Hudson Valley. And there's nothing like an upcoming campaign -- and numerous stories about her multi-faceted competition -- to make Sue dance just a little bit harder and make it seem like she's actually working.

On Monday, for example, fresh off the puff piece in the Westchester section of the Times about how she's fighting hard on Indian Point, Sue issued this press release on a meeting she held at her Yorktown offices with Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials. Of course, the online Mid-Hudson News posted the press release practically verbatim.

Then on Tuesday, Sue issued two releases -- one for Orange, the other for Dutchess -- about her efforts to secure FEMA funds for damages caused by last month's flooding. It's almost as if she's saying, "See guys, I'm really working. So pay no attention to all those other candidates circling around me like sharks."

Speaking about those candidates, now that they have all formally announced their campaigns, we've added links to each of their sites on the left hand side of the blog. Be sure to check all of them out. After all, isn't it time the Hudson Valley had a Congressman/woman who was actually working instead of pretending to work?

Lately, there's been an increase in people commenting on the blog about specific candidates who are running for Sue's seat. While all comments in support of a particular candidate are welcome, only comments that include the poster's name will be posted to the site. It's simply unfair to allow anonymous posters to tout a specific candidate, much the same way Amazon doesn't allow anonymous people to post book reviews.

Thanksgiving may have been a few days ago, but the NY Times' Westchester section served up something sweeter than a pecan pie, as least as far as Sue was concerned. In this article that ran on the front of the Westchester section today, the reporter actually made it seem like Sue was doing something concrete about Indian Point.

Of course, given that the reporter made a huge mistake in the fourth graf of the story -- she said that Sue recently voted to cut $50 million from vital programs in the federal budget such as Medicaid and federal student loans when in fact the real number is $50 billion with a B -- it's hard to take the rest of the article all that seriously.

Still, readers not all that familiar with Sue's spinning might be led to believe that she is fighting hard, or as the article notes, is "the outspoken conscience" on Indian Point. But other than writing a few letters to the NRC and FEMA and putting out a press release or two, her conscience amounts to little more than lots of talk.

Over the past six weeks, there's been a dramatic change in the way people perceive the war in Iraq. Last week, for example, Rep. John Murtha dramatically called for the U.S. to withdraw, despite the fact that he's long been a hawk. And, of course, the number of dead American soldiers reached the 2,000 mark. One would think, or at least hope, that Sue, or at least one of her minions, might pick up on this. But two letters from Sue that were kindly forwarded to Take19 prove otherwise.

Letter #1 was received via email on Oct. 3 and was in response to a constituents' concerns over the handling of the Iraq war:

From: "Rep. Sue Kelly" ny19ima.pub@mail.house.gov
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 10:26:23 -0400
To: xxx@abc.com
Subject: Responding to your message

October 3, 2005

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns for U.S.
military action in Iraq. I appreciate having the benefit of your
views on this matter.

I appreciate your concerns on this critically important issue. As
you well know, there are many aspects of Operation Iraqi Freedom
that merit continued examination and debate. As a legislator, I
believe that a top priority must be ensuring that American soldiers
and citizens working in Iraq right now are given all necessary
support for completing their job successfully. It has been and will
continue to be a tough job for our forces and for Iraqis who are
committed to achieving a democratic, secure Iraq, but their
courageous efforts have resulted in progress: Iraq is now a
sovereign nation with the first democratically elected government
in over fifty years. That said, there remain significant challenges
ahead, and it's essential that we approach them properly. Please
know that I am committed to supporting our efforts in a way that
best protects our forces on the ground and our national security.

Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to
contact me again if I can be of any assistance in the future.

Sincerely,
Sue Kelly
Member of Congress

Letter #2 was received via email on Nov. 18, the very same day that Rep. Murtha made his views known:

From: "Rep. Sue Kelly" ny19ima.pub@mail.house.gov
To: abc@xyz.com
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 5:51 PM
Subject: Responding to your message

November 18, 2005

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns for U.S.
military action in Iraq. I appreciate having the benefit of your
views on this matter.

I appreciate your concerns on this critically important issue. As
you well know, there are many aspects of Operation Iraqi Freedom
that merit continued examination and debate. As a legislator, I
believe that a top priority must be ensuring that American soldiers
and citizens working in Iraq right now are given all necessary
support for completing their job successfully. It has been and will
continue to be a tough job for our forces and for Iraqis who are
committed to achieving a democratic, secure Iraq, but their
courageous efforts have resulted in progress: Iraq is now a
sovereign nation with the first democratically elected government
in over fifty years. That said, there remain significant challenges
ahead, and it's essential that we approach them properly. Please
know that I am committed to supporting our efforts in a way that
best protects our forces on the ground and our national security.

Once again, thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to
contact me again if I can be of any assistance in the future.

Sincerely,
Sue Kelly
Member of Congress

We'll save you the trouble of printing this out and comparing the text of the two letters side by side. Other than the addresses, which we've deleted, and the dates, they're exactly identical.

While we certainly don't expect Sue to get out a pen and write long-hand, it's more than fair to expect her to change the text of her ready-made letters when events change as dramatically as they have over the past six weeks. We'll be charitable here and ignore the fact that the letters provide no indication on Sue's position. But we'll consider this as more evidence that Sue's heart just isn't in it anymore.

How flattering to see so many people with house.gov addresses reading this modest little blog! A quick skim of our stats shows that we're attracting something of a regular following amongst people 200-plus miles south of the 19th CD. Could it be Sue or one of her minions checking out what Take19 has to say about her? So we're watching her and she's watching us. How very Orwellian!

What a delight to wake up this morning and see The Journal News bash Sue in an editorial on her late-night budget antics. As the editorial noted, Sue's vote was for "a sham reduction hailed as fiscal responsibility by the House Republican leadership." We at Take19 couldn't have said it better ourselves. It's not clear why the Poughkeepsie Journal or the Times Herald-Record -- the other two large papers in the 19th -- chose not to write about this significant vote. Why not contact the Record or the PoJo (you'll have to scroll down for the news/editorial contacts on the PoJo site) and ask them why they haven't written anything about this important vote?

Of all of the votes over all of her years in Congress, the one that Sue took early this morning shows just how out of step she is with her constituents in the 19th.

While the bill has a pleasant-sounding name -- The Deficit Reduction Act -- like a lot of other crud served up by the House leadership lately, it makes deep cuts to programs that many people in the 19th rely on. And it shows that no matter how many times Sue clicks her heels and calls herself a moderate, when push comes to shove, she's more than willing to sell-out her constituents. We don't know yet exactly what she was able to get from the Republican leadership in exchange for her selling her soul, but it must have been something really really good, given the closeness of the vote: 217 to 215 and the fact that Republicans didn't want to lose another key budget vote. Fourteen other Republicans crossed party lines to vote against the cuts, which will cut nearly $15 billion from federal student loan programs, among other things. Among those 14 Republicans crossing party lines were two New Yorkers: John Sweeney and John McHugh.

So what else besides student loans are being cut? $11 billion from Medicaid, a $5 billion cut to child support enforcement programs and deep cuts in food stamps that are expected to cut 275,000 people from the program. But even more troubling is that the legislation does absolutely nothing to reduce the deficit. Why? Because the $50 billion in cuts were made to pay for additional tax cuts for the wealthiest at the expense of poor and middle-class people.

Even though it was the middle of the night, 14 Republicans were clear-headed enough to vote against this legislation. Sue was not. If it wasn't clear before, it should be crystal now: it's time for Sue to go!

Sue Kelly was present at an American Legion breakfast that a veteran friend of ours attended last Friday. Our friend spoke to her briefly afterwards, and reports the following conversation:

He asked what she thought about the Connecticut library that is waging a court challenge against an FBI subpoena under the Patriot Act for the library's user records, billing information, and internet logs - a subpoena obtained by the FBI without the approval of a judge. By the way, the section of the Patriot Act used to obtain this subpoena has been struck down as unconstitutional by a Federal District Court. And no one can know the identity of the library that is suing because revealing that is prohibited under the Patriot Act.

Without answering his question, Sue registered her support for this section of the Patriot Act, in spite of the fact that the Justice Department has acknowledged it can be used to obtain information about innocent people.

Next our friend asked Sue what she thought about the bill recently passed in the Senate, which would eliminate the right of Guantanamo detainees to challenge their captivity in the Federal courts - approximately 300 lawsuits. The bill strips the detainees of the rights granted to them by the Supreme Court in a June 2004 decision. Although she did not answer his question - why are we not surprised? - and failed to hint at her position, she said that the outcome may be different when a similar bill is taken up by the House next week. Whew! Sue dodged another bullet - she probably figures, no reason to expose your moral values when it isn't necessary!

And then our friend started talking about how Bush plays the "fear card" every time he gets in trouble. Sue didn't even bother to "not answer" that one - she simply walked away.

Our friend, intrepid and not despairing that he might - some day - get a viewpoint from Sue, let her know that he would be contacting her office for some further discussions. Stay tuned.

On the day after elections, when an ultra-conservative like Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who represents an overwhelmingly Republican district in an overwhelmingly Republican state says he'd prefer if President Bush kept his distance, it's got to mean that Sue Kelly, who represents an overwhelmingly moderate district, is starting to sweat.

Although Sue might like folks in the district to believe she's a moderate, a quick skim of her votes shows they bear a remarkable similarity with her indicted patron, Tom DeLay and other hard core Conservatives. Take this one earlier today or this one yesterday. Both votes (and literally hundreds of others) show that when push comes to shove, Sue consistently votes with her party instead of voting with the best interests of her district in mind.

We have a year until Election Day 2006. It may be November, but things are heating up in the 19th!

UPDATE: As this article in today's Record notes, Democrats made significant gains in Orange County. It's starting to look like a downright heat-wave!

Last month, when Tom DeLay was indicted, we asked that Sue give back the more than $12,000 she had collected from one of DeLay's Political Action Committees. So far, four of her fellow House colleagues have decided that the right thing to do is to send DeLay's dirty money back. But Sue shows no signs of forking it over.

We'll be generous here and assume it's because nobody has come up with a good suggestion on exactly what Sue should do with that money. So here's a very good suggestion, courtesy of a group called Campaign for America's Future: send it to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. A check for $12,000 ought to help a needy family stay in temporary housing awhile longer. Or provide a used car for a family who lost theirs in the storm. One can only imagine the possibilities.