Posted on 08/28/2007 5:33:11 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
ITHACA — U.S. Congressman Maurice D. Hinchey, D-22nd, decried federal debt, income inequality, corporate-owned media, lost manufacturing jobs, gaps in insurance and the war in Iraq at a legislative briefing Monday morning at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Ithaca.
Hinchey said the war in Iraq is part of a larger plan perpetrated by “the political right wing nationally in America going back to the 1970s” to fund military endeavors to divert money from domestic programs. “The situation that we're facing today is not accidental,” he said. “It's a conscious idea of this administration and others like it with the same philosophy ... Take as much money as you can, raise up the debt, so you can make the argument, ‘We can't afford national health insurance, we can't afford to do Medicare anymore.' ”
Rank-and-file Republicans throughout the country are not aware of or in favor of this philosophy, Hinchey said.
Hinchey said Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, in which he called Iraq, Iran and North Korea the “axis of evil” was enormously detrimental to relations with those countries and might lead to war in Iran.
“After establishing the axis of evil, they attack one-third of the axis of evil,” he said.
Hinchey said Iranians reacted to the attack on Iraq with fear that they would also be attacked.
“What did the Iranians do? They elected the Iranian version of George W. Bush, (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad. Somebody out there wacky, running around, creating a culture of fear in his own country,” he said.
Hinchey said that the Bush administration wants to “keep this what they call war, but what's really a military occupation, going until Bush can go back to Crawford, Texas ... on permanent vacation.”
Hinchey favors cutting funding for the war in Iraq, which would force the president to end the war.
But he said many members of Congress, Democratic and Republican, are afraid to cut funding because they're “afraid that when they go home, people are gonna say to them, ‘You're abandoning our troops.' ”
Hinchey said cutting funding for the war in Iraq does not equal abandoning troops, as the Bush administration has argued.
“I'm not abandoning military forces, I'm trying to save their lives,” Hinchey said. “I'm trying to get them out of there.”
Hinchey also lambasted corporate media as one-sided, particularly in its coverage during the run-up to the Iraq war.
“If you control the information people receive, you can control the ideas they have and the actions they'll take,” he said. “That's one of the reasons they were able to sell the invasion of Iraq.”
Hinchey advocated for the new president in 2008 to hold talks with countries such as Iran and North Korea, to focus on alternative energy, especially solar, to reduce the federal deficit and to fight for universal health care.
If only. But domestic spending keeps on going up, up, up.
Really?? I thought this clown got the ball rolling on Iraq!
"CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people."
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Was in Ithaca last week visiting family. They own (or I should say rent a home from the state) a home valued at approximately 180K to 200K. Their annual property tax for this home is $7,500. That is half the mortgage payment on a $200K house. Looking around the town, I tried hard to find out what all this money buys and could not detect anything special. As a matter of fact their roads are subpar for the area. On top of the property tax they pay an additional school tax, and sales tax, and don’t forget State income tax. It is not surprising to find out that most of the housing in town needs repair and upgrade, but nobody has any money left to invest into their homes, it all goes to the village. Also not surprising is they have seen very little appreciation on their property. It must be because they really don’t own the property. My conclusion is upstate NY is a self selecting Darwinian sink hole. I cannot understand why people do this to themselves.
Testing - Testing
Now that he’s had his say, this champion of the fairness doctrine will no doubt step aside and hand the microphone to a representative of the other point of view, all in order to provide citizens a balanced view of the issue.
Sure.
U.S. Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R-New Hartford) and Maurice Hinchey (D-Hurley) today announced they were able to secure $13.89 million to complete construction of a $23 million, state-of-the-art U.S. Department of Agriculture Center for Grape Genetics Research in Geneva, NY.
Boehlert and Hinchey Secure $13.89 Million May 5, 2006
Big bucks coming for solar venture
By Paul Kirby, Freeman staff
08/07/2007
LAKE KATRINE - U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey is expected to announce today a multimillion-dollar government investment to be used as part of an effort to develop a solar research center at TechCity.
Hinchey, D-Hurley, refused Monday to discuss further details of his effort to secure the federal funds for the planned Solar Energy Consortium that is expected to be set up at TechCity, the largely vacant former IBM facility
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18670288&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=74969&rfi=6
“Rank-and-file Republicans throughout the country are not aware of or in favor of this philosophy [funding military to defund domestic programs], Hinchey said.”
Of course not, because it doesn’t exist.
It is a complete and utter fabrication on his part.
“My conclusion is upstate NY is a self selecting Darwinian sink hole. I cannot understand why people do this to themselves.”
They have been sucked into a vortex due to the democrats in NYC dominating the state. Think about it. New York could be a politically competitive state if the 5 boroughs of New York were floated out to sea, and/or combined with rhode island.
NYC doesn’t set Ithaca’s property tax rate. They do this to themselves. The wonder of it is they seem to think this makes them smart. Shoosh!!
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