The Maggot Punks

April 17, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: Basic Math

There are so many ways Tiahrt is incompetent, I'm afraid I don't have the time to list them all. Here's the latest. Tiahrt was commenting about something or another and came up with this doozy:

"That is a lot of money. We don't write checks for $1 trillion. But to give you an idea, Mr. Speaker, of how much $1 trillion is, if you had started a business the day after Jesus Christ rose from the dead and made $1 million that first day with your business, and the next day you made another $1 million, and the next day until today, every day until today you made $1 million, in other words, $1 million a day for 2000 years is not yet $1 trillion. It is only about three-fourths of the way there. So this is a tremendous hit to our economy following September 11, 2001, a hit of over $2 trillion."

I'll spare some comments about zombie Jesus but the tale he refers to would have happened in the year 0. So let's do some basic math. Take the number 1 million and times it by the number of days in the year, 365. Then times that by 2000. Is the number that you come up with one trillion? No? It's actually 730 trillion. Tiahrt's mathetmatical figures were off slightly I suppose, less than one trillion compared to 730 trillion. I guess that doesn't matter much when you advertise yourself as a fiscal conservative and happen to be on the committee that makes the budget and spends trillions of dollars each year. It's no wonder with math geniuses like Tiahrt the Republicans have managed to get our national debt up to $9 trillion.

I checked into his opponent's record, Betts has completed elementary school and knows basic math.

Donate to Betts campaign and raise the IQ in Congress.

April 15, 2008

It's Tax Day!

Once again that day rolls around when millions of not rich Americans are required to pay their taxes. If you're rich or a major corporation don't worry about today, the chance you'll be audited is only 1 in 4 which is a huge decrease from 1990 when the wealthy had a 3 in 4 chance of being audited. Since the wealthy probably aren't going to pay as much in taxes as they should the working people who actually generate the wealth in this country have to make up the difference (so the government can give huge corporate welfare contracts to buy worthless ammo from China). About $345 billion will remain uncollected this year so the $430 billion deficit will be put on a much larger credit card bill. So it may be a good time to remind some people that they owe taxes.

Our first noted tax cheat is the self-proclaimed Rev. Terry Fox. You may remember Terry for leading hate filled rants on his radio show and his former job at Immanuel Baptist Church. He left that church will the agreement to not set up a church close to town, so he set one up closeby as a side show performance at a defunct theme park. Fox had no problem loaning his buddy $50,000 for the theme park so it's surprising that this upstanding, moral preacher has a large, unpaid tax bill.

Goodness, a $2,400 tax bill. When a sewer line breaks remember that if Fox had paid his tax bill then the local government would have had the funds to repair it. Hope you enjoy swimming in that sewage.

Let's not forget our other fan, tax cheat, wife beater, compulsive suer, and the guy who owes bills all over town, Mark Gietzen. Sure he owns an airplane, sure he has a business which claims $200,000 in sales, and sure he saves money by wearing the same shirt and tie he may have mugged a Mormon missionary for, but I'm sure he really needs the money to keep his candy jars filled.

Wow, a nearly $2,900 tax bill and only two years of unpaid back taxes. The sewage will be running knee deep thanks to Gietzen. Gietzen, we need that money so the government can pay it's lawyers to deal with all your pointless lawsuits.

Thanks to everyone who paid their taxes. Too bad the Bush regime has been ruining the economy for so long (McCain promises four more years of Busheconomics). If the Supreme Court allowed the winner of the 2000 election to get into office we'd have a huge surplus by now. Oh well Kansas, you get what you vote for.

April 02, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: Oil

Over at Blue Tide Rising, an excellent Kansas Blog focusing on politics, a story was written about two Kansas legislators being in the pocket of Big Oil. According to Opensecrets.org Senator Pat Roberts is the 6th largest recipient of bribes from oil companies in the Senate. However in the House Todd Tiahrt outdoes his ranking by being the fifth largest recipient of bribes from oil companies.

Tiahrt received $68,100 in "campaign donations" from oil & gas interests for the 2008 election cycle. Ranking above him were congressmen residing in Oklahoma and Texas, two states that have a lot of oil producers. He also ranks higher than other congressmen from large oil producing states. Kansas does produce oil, but hardly as much as Texas. Heck, Alaska produces a heck of a lot more than Kansas but Rep. Don Young doesn't even rank in the top 20 despite being in the House much, much longer than Tiahrt. Of all the industries that donate to Tiahrt Oil & Gas ranks number one, even above Air Transport which is a major industry in Tiahrt's district.

So what has Tiahrt done to earn such huge paychecks from his bosses? Here's Tiahrt's record on his oil related votes according to Ontheissues.org. When it came to vote on to remove subsidies for the top oil companies and reinvest that money in wind and solar power (both industries Kansas could greatly benefit from) he voted no. When it came to investing money in biofuel research (Kansas can produce a lot of ethanol) Tiahrt voted no. When it came to increasing fuel efficiency on vehicles so people wouldn't be burdened with high gas costs Tiahrt voted no. When it came to joining the rest of the world by ratifing the Kyoto Protocol Tiahrt voted no.

Todd brazenly works for the oil companies. When it comes to improving national security by being less reliant on oil from unstable parts of the world (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria) where we have to send our military Tiahrt votes against our interests. People are dying because of Todd's votes. When it comes to increasing jobs and investing in our infrastructure by developing renewable energy Tiahrt votes no. Tiahrt voted no despite Kansas being so abundant in wind power that billions could be invested in this state (like Montana which received billions in investment for their wind power) and tens of thousands of jobs could be created and farmers and ranchers could receive a secondary source of revenue and be less reliant on farm subsidies. But Tiahrt voted no because the multi-billion oil companies which are more profitable than any company in history needed more tax breaks. When it comes to increasing fuel efficiency so working people won't have more and more of their limited income consumed by three or four dollar a gallon gasoline Tiahrt voted no, they probably don't donate enough to Tiahrt to get his interest.

Tiahrt claims his an advocate of the free market but continues to shovel billions towards oil companies in the form of direct subsidies, tax breaks, military protection and weak regulations that allow them to pollute our lungs, land and water. Tiahrt hates you because you don't produce oil and you don't donate enough to his campaign. The going rate for Tiahrt to care about you is up to $68,100, that's more than Betts has in his campaign coffers, but it won't take $1,000 dollar donations for Betts to represent your interests, he'll do it for free but he'll need to get in office first.

Donate to Betts today

March 18, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: Iraqi Occupation

In a couple of days (March 20th) we'll be mourning the 4th year anniversary of the illegal Iraqi occupation. Last year, Jan. 12th 2007, Tiahrt said he told Bush that he wanted the soldiers home as soon as possible. Not surprising his tune changed in a couple months when he demanded Congress fully fund the occupation and that we stay in Iraq until total victory is acheived.

To feel better about himself, back in 2004, he repeated every Republican talking point about Iraq when in his hometown of Vermillion, SD. Claiming to have the same intelligence as Bush he justified the occupation because:

1) Saddam had used chemical weapons against his enemies or own people on at least 10 occasions .

The truth is that he did use the chemical weapons that Donald Rumsfeld and the Reagan administration supplied. They were used in the Iran-Iraq war and was fully backed by the American government at the time.

2) According to a defector, Iraq had preserved some of its technological nuclear capability from before the Gulf War and was actively trying to acquire material to complete the program;

The truth is the defector has no role in the nuclear program and was an alcoholic cab driver named Curveball.

3) The CIA had intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubing with a special oxidized coating used only for the refinement of uranium;

Valerie Plame's (the CIA agent outed by the Bush administration hampering anti-terrorism efforts in the Middle East) husband conducted research into this claim and informed the Bush administration this claim was false, Bush and Tiahrt repeated the claim anyway.

4) Satellite photos showed the chemical factory, the Fallujah II facility, had heavy activity including excavation work nearby believed to be concealment of chemical weapons.

The truth is this facility was never fully rebuilt after the first Gulf war and was used in the production of chlorine to purify water. Clean drinking water was difficult to come by after war crime violations when water purification facilities were targeted. The plant was never up to full production and wasn't capable of creating chemical weapons.

5) Iraq was making a concerted effort to conceal capabilities for biological warfare including the manufacture of mobile biological labs.

The truth is these mobile labs never existed outside of drawings. Mobile labs that had been found were previously inspected by UN weapons inspectors and the conclusion was that they couldn't manufacture WMD. This was another claim from the drunkard known as Curvball.

6) American jets, while trailing an Iraqi jet, videotaped the testing of a distribution system that could disperse liquid from a flight vehicle.

In the real world we call these crop dusters.

7)Defectors reported Iraqi intelligence was training terrorist groups in bomb making and the manufacture of chemical weapons.

More Curveball intelligence.

8) Intelligence organizations in Europe indicated there was a connection between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaida.

The lack of a connection was known before the invasion because the two were notorious enemies. The Pentagon recently released a report (then unreleased it under orders from the Bush regime) which concluded what liberals already knew, there was never a connection between al-Qaida and Saddam.

He concluded by saying, "These findings have been confirmed by intelligence since the Iraqi war." In other words Tiahrt believed everything that was thrown in front of his face, just like many in the corporate media did. Tiahrt went gung ho into the war because it wasn't his children being sent in to die. He lavished no bid contracts upon war profiteers claiming to require bidding would hurt the war profiteers means of doing business. Either it's corruption or Tiahrt's inability to think critically that led him to eagerly support this unnecessary invasion based on fabricated intelligence. I'll wager it's both.

March 15, 2008

Tiahrt Donor Indicted

"Tom Delay did nothing wrong," whined Tiahrt in regards to Delay's numerous illegal activities. Some of those illegal activities involved Jack Abramoff who bribed numerous Congressmen and happened to be on the donor list of equally innocent Todd Tiahrt. The donations often came through Abramoff's lobbying firm Greenburg Traurig. Tiahrt received donations from the Greenburg group and happened to overlook filing that information and the cushy favors Tiahrt received like luxury skyboxes at sporting events (no wonder Tiahrt won't impose his own term limits, he'd have to purchase seats and sit next to common riff raff he pretends to represent).

Well today in Guam Greenburg Traurig was indicted on nine felony accounts including conspiracy and theft. The investigation had been slow going as Republican Presidential

candidate John McCain, the self-proclaimed mavrick and straight talker, kept evidence from coming forward including millions of documents that would reveal clues into illegal behavior by the lobbying firm that donates heavily to Republican campaigns (as well as a big donor to the Hillary Clinton campaign). But McCain received $100,000 in donations from Greenburg Traurig so his loyalties lie and the same place as Tiahrt's, with the biggest check writer.

Despite the corruption and despite McCain drafting an amendment to a bill allowing tanker manufacturer jobs to be outsourced to Airbus (McCain has Airbus lobbyists on his campaign staff), Tiahrt has this to say about McCain, "I'm going to learn to love him." Good ol' Tiahrt, kissing the ass of anyone in charge.

No thanks, I'll be placing my bets on Betts.

March 13, 2008

KRAA Under New Management

The colossal failure that is Mark Gietzen has added another failure to his list of failures. Not only is Gietzen wildly behind on paying his taxes, not only can he not manage to pay his bills from his failed campaign runs, and not only can he not win his numerous frivolous lawsuits against Dr. Tiller, the city of Wichita and those politicans who whup his ass in campaign races, but apparently he can't even maintain his useless political organization the Kansas Republican Action Assembly.

The KRAA under Gietzen's leadership lost it's business filing back in June, 2007. It was snatched up by Jared Suhn in November. Suhn works as a campaign consultant and, unlike Gietzen, is welcomed to work on Republican campaigns.

The KRAA served as a meeting of the deranged with loons like Gietzen meeting with terrorists like the Sullengers and Troy Newman. Mug shot maven Jan Beemer attended a meeting and ranted about how Dr. Tiller makes sacrifices to a god of agriculture. She was endorsed by KRAA, along with big losers like vote fraud fan Phill Kline, Kay O'Connor who doesn't think women should have the right to vote, Chuck Ahner who favors a fascist form of government, and Erik Carter who, like the other candidates, lost their election campaign. Perhaps Suhn won't provide the kiss of death by supporting a candidate.

March 04, 2008

Apply for Early Voting

Due to Ron Thornburg's (Republican of course) unwillingness to increase the number of polling locations it's necessary to inform people to apply for early voting ballots. After the last election Thornburg decided to drastically cut the number of polling locations despite increased voter turnout. As usual the claim was that they aren't needed. However, after the Democratic caucus turnout, over a thousand new registered voters, and plans for a huge turnout due to the Presidential elections more polling locations are needed. However, it's in the best interest of the Republican party to decrease voter turnout especially in predominately minority districts (you can bet the rich, white areas of town will have plenty of polling locations.

So you can go to the Sedgwick County election website and print off the early Advance Voting Application form to avoid the potential clusterfuck that can only be caused by a Republican in office. And don't forget to vote against Tiahrt when you send in that ballot.

March 04, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: Corruption

Let's take a trip on the way back machine all the way back to 1994 when Tiahrt got elected to the House of Representatives. Back then he pledged to support the Contract On America (or something like that) where he and his fellow Republicans promised such things as a balanced budget, audits to prevent fraud and waste, and term limits of no more than 12 years for Representatives. That, of course, was nearly 14 years ago. Tiahrt lied to you back then and he continues to lie now (or else he'd enforce his own term limits upon himself regardless of whether or not it's a law).

When Republicans took control of all branches of government they let their true colors shine. Corruption abounded, budgets soared, debts increased. As a result Republicans like Bob Ney went to prison as did many others connected to the Abramoff bribery scandal, including Tom Delay, a close person friend of Tiahrt's. Tiahrt wasn't clean himself.

While Tom Delay was in trouble for his numerous ethics problems Tiahrt continued to defend him claiming, "Tom DeLay did nothing wrong. There is no evidence of any breaking of the House rules, no evidence of breaking anylaws of the land or of the laws of Texas." Showing his support Tiahrt donated over $10,000 to Delay's legal defense fund.

Maybe the donation was helping to cover his own ass. After all, Tiahrt was connected to the Abramoff scandal having benefited from Abramoff fundraisers. Only until after Abramoff was convicted did Tiahrt finally release his grip on those donations.

Tiahrt loves dirty money. He received $1,000 from Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, the mercenary organization killing unarmed Iraqi civilians and dropping chemical weapons on American soldiers in Iraq. Prince likes Tiahrt, they are both fundamentalist Christians who want to wage war against the Infidels in the Middle East, and they both like no-bid contracts that fleece the American taxpayer. Tiahrt remarked that ending no-bid contracts would hurt companies ability to do business, in other words, engage in war profiteering which was considered an act of treason in WW2, for Tiahrt it's business as usual.

Don't worry, there's plenty more corruption; so much I won't be able to get to it all. Let's look at Tiahrt's campaign staff member Matt Schlapp and Tiahrt's campaign manager George Bruce . In a Maggot Punk exclusive I reported the dirty land deal where Troy Newman's church robbed the Wichita taxpayers of millions of dollars. The deal was managed by Sue Schlapp (Matt's mom) and Bruce, who is also an elder at the church. Also in that story was how Matt Schlapp was one of the "spontaneous" protesters who disrupted the Florida recount. This act of election corruption aided in the illegal appointment of George Bush as President despite Bush getting fewer votes after the recount. Matt left Tiahrt's staff to work for one of Tiahrt's largest donors, Koch Industries.

Re-elect Tiahrt and expect two more years of corruption.

Update 3/14/08:

Tiahrt voted against a measure to increase House ethics rules. As he was quoted in the Washington Post, "If you have a single ounce of self-preservation you'll vote no." Looks like Tiahrt is working to preserve his own job given his long history of corruption.

February 29, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: Health Care

The second issue in the Tiahrt series has to deal with Tiahrt's deplorable actions on health care, something Tiahrt believes only a certain segment of the population should be entitled to. Despite being the richest nation on Earth we can't provide a universal health care system like Cuba where buses are sometimes pulled by horses. People like Tiahrt will argue that America is better because there aren't long wait times like in Canada. True, you might have to wait for a check up like I have to wait six months to see a dentist but that's like saying the Scotch & Sirloin is the best place to eat in town because you don't have to stand in line. In reality it's because not everyone can afford to go there (not to mention the food is subpar as most resteraunts are because I'm so much the better cook). Like America's health care system there are smaller wait times because 47 million people are uninsured and those who are insured sometimes can't afford the care or are rejected by their health insurance companies because their CEO's want to take home a $124.8 million paycheck.

But Tiahrt loves the children. He often promotes himself as the champion of moral values and the family. That's true, as long as the family doesn't need health care and those values don't involve keeping your children free from harm. The Democratic congress thought it would be a great idea to expand the SCHIP bill to provide health care to millions more children. The cost would be paid for by increasing the cigarette tax (Republicans have a history of just borrowing money from China and telling the kids that they'll pay for it later in higher taxes). Since Tiahrt receives thousands of dollars from the tobacco industry he voted against the bill. He told lies like illegal immigrants would be covered (they weren't covered under the old bill and certainly not the new one), and that it would give rich people free health care (like he's not in favor of taking care of the rich? Anyway, this too wasn't true). Tiahrt gets taxpayer supported health care and that the only "socialist" health care program he can tolerate. Besides, Tiahrt said the cost was too much.

Was it really too much? Bush's medical prescription plan which Tiahrt supported was said to cost $400 billion dollars. It was later leaked that it was going to cost $700 billion but the guy who said that got fired so the official story was that it was only going to cost $400 billion (estimated later went up to $1.2 trillion). The reason it was going to cost so much was, unlike the Veteran's Administration, this new policy wouldn't allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices (like they do in evil Canada hence their drug costs are much lower but Tiahrt voted against allowing importation of Canadian drugs). So the drug companies get to sell at whatever inflated price they want. Keep in mind taxpayer money supports the research of these drugs at universities, so all that excess just goes towards corporate profits. Tiahrt received thousands in donations from the drug companies plus was aided heavily in his re-election bid by stealth groups financed by Big Pharma like the 60 Plus Association. If a few thousand in campaign donations means screwing the taxpayers for hundreds of billions in extra health care costs you know where Tiahrt's priorities lie.

Tiahrt's record on health care

February 22, 2008

Tiahrt Hates You: The Environment

It's election year again so the Maggot Punks will start their public information campaign about the failure that is Todd Tiahrt. Tiahrt hides from public debate since he can't defend his voting record. However, if he cares to rebut anything presented on this website I'd be more than happy to publish it since I, unlike Operation Rescue, don't need to resort to censorship or lies to support our position.

So the first in this series (which will end when this website ends, like in June) deals with Tiahrt's piss poor record on the environment. Kansas, which has the potential to exploit vast wind power opportunities, has a good rating for solar power, and is in the farm belt which can lead to great advances in biofuels, is completely ignored by Tiahrt. Instead Tiahrt favors the oil and coal companies which don't have much of a presence in Kansas (Kansas imports it's coal but could export it's wind power).

The League of Conservation Voters has given Tiahrt his highest rating on pro-environment votes for 2007. That amazingly high new record is 5%, beating out his previous high of 3% (last year he got 0% as the opportunities for new investment and jobs in Kansas went elsewhere).

Tiahrt's pro-environment vote came as a result of his support for environmental funding (HR 2643) which funded the department of the Interior and related agencies. Tiahrt voted against such things as investment in alternative energy (it would have been paid by removing subisidies on oil companies), funding to preserve native Kansas grasslands, clean water (because Tiahrt thinks nobody needs clean drinking water), higher CAFE standards (why be more fuel efficient if that means we can't give more money to theocratic regimes in the Middle East?) and cleaner air (because Tiahrt thinks people don't need to breathe clean air).

Thankfully with the Democratic run House of Representatives Tiahrt's anti-environment votes tended to be in the minority. Often the bills were blocked by the Republicans who filibuster everything that goes to the Senate, and Bush vetoes what gets past the Senate.

Removing Tiahrt from office will aid America in breathing cleaner air, drinking cleaner water, freeing ourselves from foreign oil, increasing national security, and lowering our utility bills. However Tiahrt received over $57,000 from energy companies in the 2008 election cycle, so when he votes he votes for the interests of his donors rather than the people of Kansas.

If you need to register to vote go to the Sedgwick County Election website. Tiahrt's opponent is the Honorable State Senator Donald Betts.

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