RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Terrorist Army Marching on Baghdad

The Iraqi military simply may not be capable of launching a sufficient counteroffensive.

We’re losing Iraq. Mosul, a great city in northern Iraq, now belongs to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The world has changed overnight as a former al Qaeda affiliate wrested a major city from a state by force—and without a fight. Within two days of taking Mosul, ISIS pushed south toward Baghdad, collapsing the Iraqi security forces like dominoes in cities from Mosul to Tikrit. ISIS also attacked the Shiite holy city of Samarra. Baghdad is within their sights.

It is already clear that, regardless of whether Baghdad falls, the ascendancy of ISIS is going to redraw and redefine the Middle East. The Kurdish Regional Government, seeing the rest of Iraq in turmoil and government troops pulling out of Kirkuk, moved on Wednesday to secure the oil-rich province—a prize the Kurds had long sought. With the city now controlled by the Kurds’ Peshmerga military, conditions are ripe for the Kurdish region to secede from Iraq. If that happens, the effects are likely to cascade across neighboring states, erasing Middle East borders established in 1916 by the Sykes-Picot agreement. Nevertheless, the greater threat to Middle East sovereign states is ISIS itself, which seeks to establish a transnational emirate. Yet the government in Baghdad would still need the Kurds even if they splinter off: With the Iraqi army in retreat, Iraq may have to enlist the Peshmerga to try to retake the north from ISIS.

These jihadists present a formidable military foe. Disavowed by al Qaeda for unsanctioned advances into Syria, ISIS is a vicious religious organization that possesses daunting military power. Unlike al Qaeda, ISIS has designated its own Islamic state and is expanding it through force. Seated in the city of Raqqa in northern Syria, ISIS has just gained a second regional capital in Mosul and a third in Tikrit, making their cross-border state a reality. The ISIS military campaign in northern Iraq is already a mighty victory—well-designed, well-prepared and well-executed. The question now is how far ISIS can go.

The extremists are encircling Baghdad and likely planning an offensive. But ISIS may move again to strike Samarra, 70 miles to the north and close to the ISIS front line. If these Islamists, who are Sunnis, seize Samarra’s al-Askari mosque—a revered Shiite monument—the country will be thrown into another sectarian civil war. That has long been ISIS’s aim. In a civil war, ISIS thinks it can emerge as the stronger military power. Then the group would have a state, would be fully armed and ready to expand westward, into Syria’s northern cities beyond ISIS-held Raqqa.

David Hume used to extol “the calm sunshine of the mind.” It radiates a gratifyingly clear and uplifting nimbus, that cognitive luminosity, all the more precious on account of its rarity. My friend Kevin Williamson has been a conspicuous source of such refreshing clarity, and his essay “Catholics Against Capitalism [1]” at NRO is a work of particular scintillation.

The occasion for Kevin’s piece was the meeting in Washington, D.C., last week of some Catholic intellectuals and clergy under the leadership of the Honduran cardinal, His Eminence Oscar Andrés Maradiaga [2]. The title of the conference was “Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case against Libertarianism,” though as Kevin points out, the real object of criticism was not libertarianism particularly but free market economics generally. And as Kevin also points out, the Church has no special grace to pronounce authoritatively on such secular matters and, in the case of its reflections on matters economic, “the best that can be said of the clergy’s corporate approach to economic thinking is that it is intellectually incoherent, which is lucky inasmuch as the depths of its illiteracy become more dramatic and destructive as it approaches coherence.”

Kevin’s longish essay is worth reading carefully, for it is full of wisdom and is expressed with patient brio. The basic position of Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga is the familiar leftist litany: “Capitalism” is bad because it creates great wealth, while it also “destroys wealth, value and jobs. Those ‘wondrous technologies’ also manifest as wrathful deities, efficiently eliminating or reducing the need for labor.” (Kevin quotes from a truly obtuse review [3] of Conscious Capitalism, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s book, in Tricycle). “The implicit economic hypothesis here,” Kevin points out, “is that producing a certain amount of goods more efficiently — in this case, with less labor — makes the world worse off. . . . The reality is the opposite, and that is not a matter of opinion, perspective, or ideology — it is a material reality, the denial of which is the intellectual equivalent of insisting on a geocentric or turtles-all-the-way-down [4] model of the universe.”

Here’s the bottom line: Capitalism is the greatest engine for the production of wealth the ingenuity of man has ever invented. Are you interested in helping the poor? Embrace capitalism. Do you want to help clean up the environment? Embrace capitalism. Are you interested in obliterating the scourge of malnutrition or some ghastly African disease or illiteracy or [fill in your personal do-good desideratum here]: yep, embrace capitalism. The global poverty rate, Kevin reminds us, has been cut in half [5] in the last 20 years. Think about that. Then think about the sorrowful history of our species up to about 1830. How much progress against widespread — really, near total — poverty had there been from the beginning of time until then — until, that is, capitalism started to take off? Not much.

GIDEON KING: LOEB KING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Has anyone thought deeply about Gitmo lately? The leader of our nation is taking action that may very well
endanger our lives, and more importantly the lives of our children.

On March 7th, 2011 it was established that Executive Order 13567 would be carried out
under the framework of section 1023 of the National Defense Authorization Act.
A Periodic Review Board process was established wherein government appointed
officials examine whether or not Guantanamo detainees continue to pose a threat
to our country. Each detainee is appointed a personal representative and
witnesses may provide testimony at the behest of any relevant party.

Once a recommendation is made a review committee will determine whether it is
warranted to keep a detainee in “law of war detention.” The review committee is
made up of the Secretary Of State , the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney
General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National
Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The very first review was completed on or about January 9, 2014; it was
determined that Mahmud Abd Al Aziz Al Mujahid was no longer a threat to our
country. He is known as a member of the “Dirty Thirty” which included 30 UBL
bodyguards. He is a committed jihadist, originally recruited by Yemeni Shaykhs.

He has familial ties to UBL. He was trained at the al-Qaida al-Faruq training
camp. He was present in fights against the U.S. in Tora Bora and is reported
to have had knowledge of planned terrorist attacks. A hearty congratulations to
the team that is letting this demonstrably militant enemy of our state go
free(I couldn’t think of another way to express my sense of desperate sarcasm).

Wait, more congratulations are in order.

The Periodic Review Board has helped to clear 78 of the remaining 149 prisoners
and more hearings are to come. The prisoners are claiming psychosocial reform.
They have cited yoga and Martin Luther King books as their inspiration for moral
enlightenment. They profess a desire to get back to farming with their families.

Intelligence officials admit they are very limited in ability to track released
prisoners. There is vast evidence that roughly 1 out of 3 prisoners returns
to war against us; Obama’s own director of intelligence noted that 178 of the
614 prisoners transferred away from the prison have re-engaged in terrorism
including the Benghazi attacks, numerous roadside attacks, and other high
profile misdeeds. One of the five Taliban prisoners recently released in
exchanged for Bergdahl has already pledged to rejoin the fight against us.

Obama is not by any means squarely to be blamed for the misguided release of
those who would kill us. George Bush Junior released 500 Gitmo detainees. But
it is Obama, in a fit of moral indignation that only graduates of our finest ivy
league institutions can gin up, that made it his raison d’etre to shut Gitmo
down.

It is Obama that issued executive order 13567. It is Obama that recently
released a commonly alleged traitor to the U.S. Army in exchange for human dirt.
Obama is the architect of the institutional process to free these bastards.

Without doubt Obama raised legitimate human rights issues when decrying the
behavior of the top brass at Gitmo. But one should seriously question why it is
so terribly important for Obama to free the Gitmo prisoners. If his respect for
the law is so fierce then we must be missing something, as he has subverted the
law on numerous occasions in reversing elements of the ACA, illegally
circumventing(as Diane Feinstein recently pointed out) the process by which
congress approves prisoner swaps, trampling on settled bankruptcy laws to
appease unions during the impending insolvency of General Motors, and presiding
over an administration that is addicted to hyperbole, prevarication, and poor
comportment in Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the V.A. flap, the Internal Revenue
Service scandal, and so much more.

Why is Obama so deeply committed to freeing
these prisoners? Just plain why? We don’t have many detained and we have
hundreds of thousands of people in jail for minor violation at the tax payer’s
expense.

One hopes the explanation is that he is just not a serious man—that his
puerile obsession with left wing peccadilloes such as carbon emissions, Gitmo
human rights violations(I know I know I know those are serious issues and I
wouldn’t like it if my son was subjected to such indignations), equal treatment
in the White House(notwithstanding that this is already settled law and that the
document he signed in one of his morally righteous spasms brought on by low
approval ratings was a cosmetic limp paper with no effect whatever), eclipses
what should be his focus on the fact that the world is burning around us with
the profusion of radicalism from Latin America to the Middle East to Florida to
United States jail cells, and on the fact that America is spending itself into
oblivion.

Put another way, pounding the proverbial table over a series of issues
which get people excited but which are not elemental to the standard of living
of our citizenry and our national security, is easy populist pickings for a man
too small to tackle the truly existential and thorny issues of our time such as
radicalism, national security, sluggish GDP growth, and the fact that too many
citizens are becoming economic wards of the state.

It is ever so comfy to whip the populace up into moral indignation in a diversionary tactic that shifts
focus away from our slippage as a world leader on so many fronts. We are mired
in politically explosive and psychologically radioactive dialogue about income
inequality and the Keystone pipeline and Obama is vociferous about these issues
because they are easy fodder for ideological division.

Yet, as radicals reabsorb Iraq into their fold, Obama is surprisingly silent. We telegraph our
departure from every war, pay the consequences for such a silly public
projection, and then slip into quiescence when everything we worked for
dissolves into chaos.

We walk on the hot coals of politically correct polite
fictions about income inequality but neglect to point out that income inequality
is more aptly measured by the disparity in what one member of society can
consume of goods and services versus another member of society. In dollars, the
disparity has grown, no doubt, but what can be bought is what counts, as
billions of dollars does nobody any good if they live out in the middle of the
ocean where no consumable goods and services are available.

The gap between rich and poor is actually narrowing when one analyzes the issue through the
revealing lens of relative buying/consuming power. If only we had a serious man
or woman at the helm! Then at least we would introduce some balance into our
national dialogue. Either he is not sophisticated enough for this balance, or
it does not serve his political bent well to do other than take bellows to the
flame of our divisions. He should get a rebate from Harvard or be excoriated
for having a disingenuous soul.

If he is not a serious man, that’s a shame. If there is another explanation for
his willingness to engage in things that seem inapposite to our desire to
protect our nation from attack, then his hideous approval ratings should be even
worse.

That he is a bad leader presiding over a mendacious and craven White
House is obvious(how many lies has the press confirmed now? one needs a math
degree to count that high)…….but what truly are the intentions of a man that is
so passionate about the release of our worst enemies? And knowing how
vulnerable New York City and the rest of our country is to attack , should we
be worried that Obama does not have the best interest of our children in mind as
he releases those who would harm them. The Bergdahl deal is perverse on so
many levels it is almost not addressable.

No doubt, some that read this will stomp on my words as gross
oversimplifications and misguided accusations. But even Shakespeare had it
wrong sometimes, for things are often as they appear. And it appears to me that
our president is “hard at it” when it comes to freeing our enemies and dividing
us as a nation.

What should we do with Gitmo detainees? That’s a discussion better had offline.
Gk.

Disclosure: Adam Andrzejewski is founder of OpenTheBooks.com where 1.1 billion lines of government spending is posted online. All spending figures cited in this editorial are posted online at our website.

A month after Congressional hearings and the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, the VA finally disclosed just how systemically routine the delays in treatment were for veterans. Their internal audit showed 70% of facilities used non-compliant appointment scheduling to make their official numbers look better. Since 2011, 56,000 returning veterans had to wait three months for a doctor’s appointment and 65,000 vets never actually got to see a doctor.

So for the last three years, where was the VA’s highly compensated auditing apparatus? Since 2008, $103 million was paid to Big Four accounting firm Grant Thornton and just in the last three years, executives at the Inspector General Office in Washington, D.C. collected $56 million in salary plus bonuses.

Then there’s the case of the $9,345 rescinded bonus to embattled Phoenix VA Director Sharon Helman: then Secretary Shinseki cited “administrative error,” but CEO of the Southwest Region Susan Bowers had vigorously defended the bonus as the “result of a highly successful rating.”

What’s going on in the executive suite at the VA with their well-paid armies of Inspector Generals, Quality Assurance Officers and third party contracted auditors who are supposed to shine the light and correct malfeasance? Of the 400,000 job bonuses totaling $300 million since 2007, how many were not deserved and also due to “administrative error”?

Data collected via the Freedom of Information Act and posted at OpenTheBooks.com shows that the ongoing mistreatment of veterans isn’t a question of money but instead questionable practices and mis-allocation of resources. Since 2007, $136 billion in salary was paid out to employees of the VA, but less than 1 in 10 employees are doctors.

In an interview during a media tour to promote her latest memoir, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that she kept extensive notes during the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi but said that she won’t turn them over to congressional investigators if asked.

“Did you keep a diary during your time?” NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden asked Clinton in an interview on Tuesday.

“I kept a lot of notes,” said Clinton.

McFadden followed up, asking the former secretary of state what she would do with the notes if they were requested by a House Select Committee appointed to investigate the attack — which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

“If the committee wants your notes, would you turn those over?”

“They can read it in the book,” said Clinton, referencing her book “Hard Choices,” which was released amid much buzz on Tuesday.

“Let’s see whether this is on the level or not because that really matters to me. I don’t want to be part of something which, in any way, politicizes or demeans the sacrifice that we saw happen there.”

Clinton has already caused a stir with other comments she’s made about the Benghazi attack. In an ABC interview on Monday, Clinton said that the acrimony surrounding Benghazi provided “more of a reason to run [for President] because I do not believe our great country should be playing minor-league ball.”

“We ought to be in the majors,” she said. “I view this as really apart from — even a diversion from — the hard work that the Congress should be doing about the problems facing our country and the world.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio disagreed.

“I don’t think the issue of Benghazi is ‘minor-league ball’,” he told CBS This Morning. “Four Americans have lost their lives serving our country. We need to investigate it to understand what went wrong so that the people responsible for those decisions can be held accountable.”

The Middle East is rapidly changing. Indeed, it is convulsing. After generations of stasis, where strong, despotic central governments ruled with an iron fist and everyone knew who he was and who he was not, today everything – borders, regimes, identities – is in flux.
Take Iraq. Last week, residents of Mosul lived under Iraqi government control. On Tuesday, they lived under al-Qaida control.

Today national governments throughout the Islamic world are incapable of defeating strategically minded and aggressive jihadist militias like al-Qaida and proxy forces for the likes of Iran.

The most prominent example of an organization that is strategically flexible and capable of evolving and learning is Hezbollah. Since Iran founded the Shi’ite terrorist organization in 1982, Hezbollah has operated on multiple levels simultaneously.

Today it is an international terrorist organization with cells throughout the world. It is Iran’s foreign legion. It is a member of the Lebanese government.

It controls south Lebanon. And it fields its own formidable military force that now serves as the core of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s military forces in the Syrian civil war.

All of these disparate tasks require an enormous capacity for organizational flexibility and learning.

This brings us to Israel.

College tuitions continue to rise in excess of inflation. Student loans have doubled over the past seven years. Unemployment and underemployment among college graduates aged 22 to 27 stands at 45%. On Monday, President Obama signed an Executive Order expanding the 2010 “pay as you earn” (PAYE) program. In doing so, he made it clear that tuitions would continue to rise. With easier terms for borrowers, he has assured that loan volume would increase; however, terms will be easier, though not for taxpayers. And he did nothing to alleviate the employment situation.

What he did was to ensure college administrators that federal money would continue to flow, that taxes will continue to rise and that personal responsibility and thrift would not be part of students’ curricula.

While we must acknowledge the importance of a college education, we must also recognize that not everyone need go to college, nor is a college education necessary for a fulfilled and happy life. As many of today’s college graduates know, there are many jobs that don’t require knowledge of Chaucer or the Pythagorean Theorem. We should also keep in mind that while college costs have risen in excess of inflation, they have risen less than the Dow Jones Industrial Averages over the past 54 years. For example, tuition and fees at Harvard College cost $1,520 in 1960 and $42,292 in 2014 – a compounded increase of 6.3%. In the same period the total return to the S&P 500 has been about 8.5%. However, if Harvard’s tuition had risen in line with CPI (2.3%), today’s tuition would be $5,200 – such is the power of compounded returns, which are to our advantage when they reflect assets, but to our detriment when they represent liabilities.

The environment is tougher today. Starting salaries for college graduates have declined as a percent of tuition. In 1960, beginning salaries were about $4,000 – 70% above the cost of tuition. In 2013, they were about $45,000, or 6.5% above tuition costs. Life was simpler, and a moral sense was prevalent, including obligations toward debt incurred. Expectations for the future were more open-ended in those distant days. People expected their lives to be better than that of their parents. The world was at relative peace. The economy in the decade and a half since the end of World War II was strong, and the U.S. was the unquestionable leader of the free world. On the other hand, much of the Country was segregated and women were distinctly treated as second-class citizens, particularly in terms of the workplace. That period could be termed, “the calm before the storm.”

The other key reason for the growing threat, the report says, is due to American disengagement and a significant scaling back of counterterrorism efforts.

“A complete withdrawal of U.S forces from Afghanistan by 2016 could seriously jeopardize U.S. security interests…. The United States should also consider a more aggressive strategy…. The failure to weaken… jihadist groups will likely have serious repercussions for the United States.” — RAND report.

The European report also calls attention to the misuse of charities and other non-profit organizations to collect funds for terrorist entities.

In keeping with strict conformity to European multiculturalism and moral relativism, the European Union refused to classify two of the most high-profile terrorist attacks in 2013 as “religiously inspired terrorism.”

The threat to Europe and the United States from Islamic terrorism is serious and growing, and new attacks with unexpected targets and timings are increasingly likely, according to two new reports that provide insights and predictions about the threats posed by al-Qaeda and other Salafi-jihadist groups.

The reports — one by the US-based RAND Corporation and another by the EU-based Europol — show that al-Qaeda and related jihadist groups are evolving, splintering and morphing, and that the number of Islamic militants, especially from Western countries, is growing apace.

Taken together, the two reports thoroughly dispute claims by members of the Obama Administration and other policymakers that al-Qaeda has been severely weakened and no longer poses a major threat to the West.

The first report, entitled, “A Persistent Threat: The Evolution of al-Qaeda and Other Salafi Jihadists,” was prepared for the U.S. Defense Department and published on June 4 by the RAND Corporation, a public policy think tank based in California.

As the title implies, the report focuses on the Salafi-jihadist movement, a particular strand of militant Sunni Islamism which emphasizes the importance of returning to a “pure” Islam: that of the Salaf (an Arabic term which means “ancestors” or “predecessors” and refers to the first three generations of Muslims, including Mohammed and his companions and followers).

T.S. Eliot thought that the first requisite for being a literary critic is to be very intelligent. The second, I should say, is to have a well-stocked mind, which means having knowledge of literatures and literary traditions other than that into which one was born; possessing several languages; and acquiring a more than nodding acquaintance with history, philosophy, and theology—to be, in brief, learned. To be both highly intelligent and learned is not all that common. Eliot claimed for himself—and this by implication, for he was a modest man—only the former.

Erich Auerbach (1892-1957) had both great intelligence and great learning. Born in Germany, Auerbach, along with other Jewish scholars of his time, was another of Adolf Hitler’s intellectual gifts to the United States. After being expelled from his academic post as professor of Romance philology at the University of Marburg during the Nazi purges, he spent 11 years, between 1935 and 1946, at the University of Istanbul. Arriving in the United States in 1947, he first taught at Penn State, was briefly at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and ended his career at Yale.

While in Istanbul, Auerbach wrote Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, which is the greatest single work of literary criticism of the 20th century. Auerbach worked on the book between 1942 and 1945, and it was first published in 1946. Part of the mythos of Mimesis has been that he wrote it without the aid of a serious library. This is somewhat exaggerated. The University of Istanbul was far from academically primitive, and Auerbach was in touch with friends who could send him such literary materials as he required.

That he didn’t have access to a library that stocked scholarly periodicals probably worked in his book’s favor. Mimesis is a scholarly work unencumbered by footnotes or other critical apparatus. At the close of the penultimate paragraph of the epilogue, Auerbach writes, “[I]t is quite possible that the book owes its existence to just this lack of a rich and specialized library. If it had been possible for me to acquaint myself with all the work that has been done on so many subjects, I might never have reached the point of writing.”

Erich Auerbach was a philologist. Once a standard academic discipline, philology is no longer in currency, let alone in vogue. In its traditional form, philology dealt with the structure—the grammar, syntax, and semantics—of language and its historical development. Philology has always seemed a more Continental than English or American enterprise. In America, scholars who in an earlier era might have taught philology taught, instead, what became known as comparative literature. In time, comparative literature fizzled out, taken over by literary theorists who turned out to be not all that much interested in literature in any language.

What distinguished philologists and comparativists was their polyglotism. They knew multiple languages, and an article of belief among them was that literary works can only be truly comprehended in the languages in which they were composed. If you read works in translation, you are, from the philological standpoint, a schmoozer, a potzer, a kibbitzer, and fundamentally unserious. In the prologue to his recent Musings on Mortality: From Tolstoy to Primo Levi, Victor Brombert, who for many years taught comparative literature at Princeton, notes that “in all cases, I have discussed only authors whose works I have read in the original.”

Erich Auerbach read eight languages: Greek, Latin, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew. In Mimesis he remarks that he scanted a detailed discussion of the rise of realism in Russian literature because “this is impossible when one cannot read the works in their original language.” (I, the reader should know, read Mimesis in the excellent English translation from the German by Willard R. Trask.)

In his 1952 essay “Philology and World History,” Auerbach asserted that “the intellectual and spiritual history of the last several millennia is the history of the human race as it has achieved self-expression. It is with this history that philology concerns itself as a historical discipline.” The task of philology, he held, was to evaluate literature and language in such a way that it might contribute to that history, “and thus to realization of a unified vision of the human race in all its variety.” Auerbach felt this task all the more pressing given “the impoverishment of understanding associated with a concept of education that has no sense of the past”—an impoverishment, he added, that threatens to become “hegemonic.” He also accepted as “inevitable that world culture is in the process of becoming standardized.” About this, at a time when people are claiming the nation-state an anachronism, he was surely correct. Every time I hear the word “globalization,” I reach for my copy of Mimesis.

New Mexico: 2014 Candidates for Congress – Where They Stand

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/new-mexico-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand?f=must_reads

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

US SENATE LOGO SQ
Martin Heinrich (D) Next Election in 2018.
Tom Udall (D) Incumbent

http://www.tomudall.com/ http://www.tomudall.senate.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/tom_udall.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

IMMIGRATION – Enacting a Fair Immigration Policy – People from around the world come to the United States in search of a better life for themselves and their families. They bring with them a hope for the future, a desire for success, and cultural vibrancy that makes America great. One of our greatest traditions as a nation, I believe, is our history of welcoming legal immigrants to our land to contribute. Comprehensive immigration reform is necessary to fix our broken borders and I believe that solutions to this problem need to also take into account the interests of families who have put down roots in our country.

I am encouraged by the Senate’s bipartisan proposal to secure our borders, bring undocumented individuals from the shadows and enhance our visa and employment verification systems. We have an extraordinary opportunity to pass a long-term, comprehensive solution to fix our immigration system. The law on the books today does not work and a piecemeal approach to reform will not result in the overhaul we need. There is much work ahead, but now is the time to work together to take meaningful action. America loses if we do nothing.

Securing our Borders – I serve as the head of the New Mexico Border Security Task Force. The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol work hard to protect our national security, often with too few staff and limited supplies. I am fighting to see that Customs and Border Protection personnel receive the necessary surveillance equipment and resources to effectively monitor our nation’s borders. I helped pass bipartisan legislation to toughen penalties for smugglers using ultralight aircraft to bring drugs across the border. I also worked to pass an amendment to make it easier to fund the construction and maintenance of patrol roads along the border.

As Chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee in charge of fighting the narcotics trade, and a member of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, I will continue to press for international cooperation to stem the flow of drugs in the United States.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Afghanistan & Pakistan Our troops have served with distinction and honor in Afghanistan. The killing of Osama bin Laden marked the completion of a major goal since 9/11 and today Al Qaeda and their allies are both disrupted and damaged. I believe the progress we have made has paved the way for an accelerated transition of security in the country to Afghan forces.

We can’t deploy large forces of combat troops in Afghanistan forever. It’s simply unsustainable. An accelerated transition of our troops will give Afghans the incentive to take control of their country, while also showing the world that the U.S. is not an occupying power. It will also allow us to refocus our efforts on counterterrorism and other regional issues vital to our national security.

Middle East As a member of the House of Representatives, I voted against the war in Iraq. I believe it shifted our focus from the more important mission of targeting and disrupting the terrorists who attacked us from a Taliban-sponsored haven in Afghanistan. In 2009 we began a successful redeployment of combat troops out of Iraq and concluded combat operations in 2010. Across the Middle East, change is happening. Peaceful calls for democracy gave rise to new governments in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, but have also led to violent reprisals in countries such as Syria. I believe we must continue to engage with countries, and supporters of democracy, in the region and work to ensure that the new democracies have the support they need to transition. We must also continue our work with all stakeholders in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process while supporting Israel’s ability to defend itself.

ENERGY Voted against construction of the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments.

Doing it all will allow us to take control of our energy security and spur job growth through a clean energy economy. A sustainable American energy future requires a diverse portfolio, including more renewable sources like wind and solar, efficiency and conservation, along with traditional energy sources like natural gas, domestic oil, and nuclear power. It also means facing the threat of global warming. As a member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, Tom supported creating a system of clean energy incentives and limits on pollution – policies that can reduce foreign oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions, while creating nearly two million jobs and billions of dollars in energy savings.

HEALTHCARE To provide every American with quality health care, control skyrocketing costs, and ensure that patients have choices, we need to improve our health care system. As the new health reform law, the Affordable Care Act, is being implemented, I continue to look for opportunities to assure access to affordable, quality health care, including health promotion and disease prevention opportunities, and building the health care workforce. Voted for and supports the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

Opposed voting for malpractice reform.
Allen Weh (R) Challenger

http://www.allenweh.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

NATIONAL DEFENSE In George Washington’s first annual address to Congress on 8 January 1790, he said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” This fundamental truth is as appropriate today as it was more than 200 years ago. Moreover, the consequences of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our nation’s enemies, who will not hesitate to use them, makes our vigilance and readiness more important than ever before.

Oftentimes, our national defense budget is the first place we look to cut to make room for non-defense spending. The Obama Administration cut the military and defense budgets to that of pre-WWII levels. According to the Heritage Foundation,” these cuts represent the largest and swiftest cuts to the American military and defense efforts that the world has seen in 75 years.” Fifty-percent of all budgetary cuts from the Budget Control Act of 2011 come from the Armed Forces, so our military is “suffering dramatically seeing as how only 17% of the overall budget is defense spending.”

The Heritage Foundation states that the Armed Forces will see $1.2 trillion in cuts to their budget over the next ten years under the Obama Administration. No other arm of the government has seen cuts this dramatic. In fact, every other arm of the government has grown exponentially under the Obama Administration.

The cuts to the military will hurt the United States’ ability to respond to a national crisis, terrorist attack, or global conflict. Our military leaders have warned that the budget cuts are preventing the Armed Forces from providing basic national security and defense. These warnings are not to be ignored. As soon as other countries see vulnerabilities in our national security, we become subject to conflict.

I believe the traditional role of military is what has served us best, so that our citizens and our allies are protected, and the United States Armed Forces preserves the reputation of being the strongest military in the world. Maintaining a strong national defense to protect peace and security is the best deterrence for a global conflict or threat to the United States and our allies.

HEALTHCARE Fixing the healthcare train wreck we’ve got now

GOVERNMENT AND REGULATIONS Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Excessive government spending, high taxes and irrational regulations kill jobs and make us less competitive. If we want a healthy business climate, we need to stand up for small businesses and everyday Americans by letting them keep more of the money they earn. And in New Mexico, we want to encourage them to reinvest that money here at home.

I’ll work to get as many irrational and burdensome regulations as possible removed or rescinded, to get government off the backs of our businesses so they can do what they do best – provide services and goods, grow their companies, and create jobs.
U.S. CONGRESS

District 1
Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) Incumbent

http://www.michellelujangrisham.com/ https://lujangrisham.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Michelle_Lujan-Grisham.htm **

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Benefits of the Affordable Care Act

You can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing health conditions.
Your child can stay on your health plan until age 26.
Your health insurance company can’t cancel your health insurance just because you get sick.
You may be eligible to receive financial assistance to help you pay for your coverage.
You have a choice between different types of health plans with easy to use comparison tools.
You are guaranteed the right to appeal your health insurance company’s payment denials.
Women cannot be charged more than men for the same health coverage.
Most health plans must offer a set of preventative care services at no cost to you.
Health insurance companies must spend 80% of their premiums on beneficiaries; no more than 20% may go toward administration and profits.
New Mexico has the some of the lowest health insurance rates.
Much more!

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Voted against the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments.

New Mexico prides itself in its pristine land, natural beauty and world-class energy resources. As a twelfth generation New Mexican, my deep-rooted values in our state have taught me to appreciate our natural resources and protect our clean air, water and land. New Mexico is in the middle of a climate crisis. Our drought conditions remain the worst in the nation, and we’ve experienced some of the most costly and destructive wildfires in history. We have an obligation to act on behalf of future generations of New Mexicans and Americans to reduce our carbon footprint and lay the foundation for a cleaner energy future. Congress should invest in projects that are good for the environment and good for the economy, such as clean energy, green manufacturing and mass transit. As the home to Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico is unique in that our state has the potential to become the nationwide leader in developing clean energy technologies. I am determined to champion the development of clean energy technologies to protect our citizens and preserve the planet for generations to come.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS Michelle is more than just an ally or a reliable vote against the Republican War on Women. She brings a lifetime of experience and hands-on activism that prepared her to stand up to Republicans in Congress who are giving corporations more personal power and more personal freedoms than they’re giving women. Michelle will carry the torch for the future of our daughters.

Right to Choose – The right to choose has been a fundamental right enjoyed by women for more than two generations. But today that right is more tenuous than it has ever been in the last four decades because of repeated attempts by this Congress to turn back the clock on women and families. Michelle is life-long supporter of women’s reproductive rights. She will stand strong against attacks on the right to choose, women’s health care, and Planned Parenthood.
Mike Frese (R) Challenger

http://votemikefrese.com/

I’m running to free the American economy from job-killing regulation from Washington, DC. Only if we make our own economic decisions can we hope to leave our children, their children, and their children’s children the opportunity to prosper the way we hope they will. If we vote to allow our economic decisions to be made in Washington, we will watch this nation spiral down from economic vitality into economic stagnation, and, as regulation tightens from seemingly benevolent to increasingly oppressive, finally into tyranny.

A good friend once said to me that economics was too hard for him, and he wished that he could just turn the economy over to five wise men. Lots of people feel that way. However, the economy of a nation is too complex an enterprise to prosper when managed by anything less than the entire population. To achieve prosperity for all, we must each be free to choose what to do, what to make, and what to sell at prices freely agreed to between seller and buyer. In that way, we will all do better for ourselves than distant “wise men” could ever do for us. I believe with all my heart that you are wise enough to make your own economic decisions.

I believe that you would be better off if fewer decisions were made for you by the wise guys in Washington. And I believe that when you are better off, we are all better off.

District 2

Steve Pearce (R) Incumbent

http://www.peopleforpearce.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Steve_Pearce.htm**

http://pearce.house.gov/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Supports construction of the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments.

New Mexico is an energy-rich state, and we must allow Americans the freedom to capitalize on these unique resources. Burdensome regulations are killing jobs and driving up energy prices at a time when we can afford neither. I am working to encourage a broad approach that creates jobs and lowers the cost of energy for families and business. We should increase the supply of domestic gas and oil, while also developing greener sources of energy like wind, solar and nuclear power. We can protect our environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil only if only we start harnessing all our sources of energy.

HEALTHCARE I am working to reverse the government takeover of healthcare and support careful, specific legislation that will help you get affordable access to the healthcare you need.

Finding affordable health care is a major concern for families in Southern New Mexico. But a massive government-run health care system is not the solution. Repealing the current government takeover of medicine is only one step-more work is still needed. I want to see careful, specific legislation that will fix individual problems with health care. We need to allow you to keep your insurance if you lose or change jobs. We need lawsuit abuse reform, and a ban on discriminating against pre-existing conditions. In Congress, I am fighting for Health Savings Accounts and have helped pass the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit program that lowered costs and saved money for millions of seniors. I voted to repeal the current Washington takeover of health care, and am working for the commonsense solutions that benefit New Mexicans.

BORDER SECURITY The people of southern New Mexico have dealt with the challenges of border security for decades. The violence, drug and weapons smuggling, and human trafficking that plagues our border must be put to a stop. I am working to advocate human solutions that reflect the sensitivity of border security issues. This is a complex issue, and all related groups must be engaged in the process of developing a strong policy for border security. Washington has ignored the needs of the border states for too long, and it is time that the federal government gives New Mexico the resources and solutions we need for a strong, secure border.
Rocky Lara (D) Challenger

http://www.larafornm.com/

District 3

Ben Ray Luján (D) Incumbent

http://www.benrlujan.com/ http://lujan.house.gov/#dialog

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Ben_Ray_Lujan.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Rep. Ben Ray Luján voted in favor of health insurance reform that will lower costs, reduce the deficit, provide more insurance choice for families and small businesses, and stop insurance companies from denying and dropping sick patients. The Congressional Budget Office found that health insurance reform will reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first ten years and $1.3 trillion in the second ten years, and expand coverage for 32 million Americans, helping to ensure that 95 percent of Americans are covered. The legislation is the largest deficit reduction measure in 17 years, and it is fully paid for. The legislation was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.

ENERGY Voted against the Keystone Pipeline without limiting amendments.

As a leading proponent of renewable energy on the PRC, Luján worked to increase renewable energy production by New Mexico utilities to 20 percent of their total production by 2020. He also pushed to diversify the renewable portfolio to include solar energy. With his colleagues in California, Oregon and Washington, Luján signed on to the Joint Action Framework on Climate Change on behalf of the state of New Mexico, bringing states together to fight global warming and change the way they generated energy. Rep. Luján is committed to a clean energy future that will eliminate America’s dependence on foreign oil and produce affordable, sustainable energy. Rep. Luján believes that we are headed toward a clean energy economy, an economy where homes and buildings are designed to meet new energy efficiency standards and our vehicles run on clean transportation fuels. Rep. Luján also believes that investment in energy development from renewable sources like solar and wind will contribute to the growing green economy and bring jobs home to New Mexico. Rep. Luján is a member of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition and the Natural Gas Caucus.

Rep. Luján is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ Task for on Task Force on Green Economy and Renewable Energy. Rep. Luján voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which will create clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and save billions of dollars long term. The Act included language that Rep. Luján worked on to provide funding for clean energy job training and include Hispanic Serving Institutions and Tribal Colleges as Innovation Hubs for clean energy research. Rep. Luján also cosponsored the Solar Technology Roadmap Act, which will encourage job creation and innovation in the clean energy industry by requiring the Secretary of Energy to develop a comprehensive process for creating a roadmap for solar research and development activities.
Jeff Byrd (R) Challenger

http://www.jeffbyrdforcongress.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

REAL IMMIGRATION REFORM Our nation was built on immigrants coming from around the world seeking a better life for their families. I support legal immigration and will work to streamline our legal immigration system so that people from around the world can know and love the freedoms and greatness of America. New Mexico is a border state and we face the immediate threats that illegal immigration cause, such as drug running and other criminal activities. In order to begin dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants in this country, we must first secure the border. We can secure the border with the necessary technologies and ground support provided by our border security agents and National Guard troops. When the border is sufficiently secure we can begin to address the other issues including penalties for employers who actively hire illegal immigrants.

HEALTHCARE I believe Americans should be able to buy their own healthcare coverage at an affordable rate, but I am opposed to the Affordable Healthcare Act passed by Congress. Despite the name of the bill, it actually does not make healthcare more affordable. This bill actually raises taxes on lower income families and cuts Medicare by $500 billion.

I would like to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act and address each issue separately. I believe health insurance providers should be allowed to compete in order to reduce prices, much like car insurance companies do now. I believe insurance should cover those who have pre-existing conditions. I believe we need to address tort reform in order to reduce frivolous lawsuits. I believe that states should be allowed to implement their own healthcare reforms, because New Mexico is much different than states like California or New York.

KEEP AMERICA SAFE A “peace through strength” approach has served America well for many generations. Keeping America safe is one of the fundamental responsibilities of our federal government. A strong American military is not only crucial for security here at home, but for our allies around the world. We must support initiatives to combat global terrorism and address threats in the Middle East and elsewhere.

We must stand up for our allies such as Israel who are at constant threat from these same organizations. We must take the necessary steps to prevent countries like Iran from creating nuclear weapons and prevent Afghanistan from being a safe-haven for terrorists. We must stand strongly behind our military and give our men and women in uniform every tool and capability they need to successfully protect our nation. The armed forces of our country have my upmost respect and gratitude and I will work hard every day to insure they are properly equipped to face the dangers presented to our country around the world.

The positions expressed in this roundup of the views of political candidates should not, in any way, be construed as the views of FamilySecurityMatters.org, or of the Family Security Foundation, Inc., in endorsing or rejecting any candidate or bill or law. The views espoused by the candidates in this series published in FamilySecurityMatters.org are those of the candidates, and no one else, and have been quoted from their campaign or web sites. These views therefore should not be construed as an attempt on the part of Family Security Matters, or the Family Security Foundation, Inc., to help or prevent the success of any political campaign for any public office.
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