A firefighter speaks on his radio while battling fires in Canyon Country, California. Firefighters battled out-of-control wildfires in southern California that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and prompted the deployment of National Guard soldiers.(AFP/J. Emilio Flores)
Move America Forward blasted Barbara Boxer for her outrageous and false comments on the Senate floor about the War in Iraq and the fires in California.
Earlier on Tuesday in comments on Capitol Hill, Boxer attacked the mission in Iraq, laying blame on America’s effort to destroy terrorism with the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq for hindering fire-fighting efforts in California.But, unfortunately the truth means nothing to Democrats who see any tragedy as an opportunity for political gain- whether it is true or not.
“Shame on Barbara Boxer for trying to take a political shot at the missions and abilities of our troops during a time of crisis in San Diego,” said Howard Kaloogian, San Diego County resident and founder of Move America Forward.
Former State Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian was part of thousands of people evacuated from their homes in San Diego County on Monday. Kaloogian lives in San Elijo Hills. Move America Forward’s Vice Chairman, Lt. Colonel Buzz Patterson (USAF, Ret.) has prepared his family for evacuation in Simi Valley, CA, as the Malibu fire is threatening to come over the mountain into populated parts of Ventura County. The family of Move America Forward Grassroots coordinator, Joe Wierzbicki, was forced to evacuate from their homes in Fallbrook to the ocean after flames approached.
“Now is a time for people to come together to help one another during this awful natural disaster. Thousands of Californians have lost their homes, or may lose them in the next 24 hours, and the focus should be on how to help these people, not play petty and pathetic political games,” said Colonel Patterson, Move America Forward Vice Chairman.
Patterson also pointed out that if, “Senator Boxer was so concerned about insufficient military equipment, she should stop voting against military appropriations.”
Besides being shameless, Senator Boxer’s comments are also inaccurate. As Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale declared today:"I can tell you unequivocally that the ongoing war-fighting activities ... have had no negative effect at all (on) our ability to provide sufficient forces to assist civilian authorities in fighting the wildfires.... There is no manpower shortage,” McHale has publicly stated.
Instead of quoting other blogs, maybe you should try to find out, and quote, what Boxer actually said. Is Kit Bond also "shameless"? Here's someone who actually did a little research.
ReplyDeleteIs Kit Bond also "shameless"?
If you're going to criticize Boxer's comments, don't you think you owe it to your readers to actually reprint what she said so that we can decide for ourselves whether the comments were as offensive as you claim? Or are you scared that, by reprinting her exchange with Kit Bond in the Senate hearing, you'll expose yourself as a political tool seeking to create controversy where none exists? Go on - I dare you. Print her comments and explain why she's so wrong (and if you can distinguish her point of view from that of the Republican Bond, you get bonus points).
ReplyDeleteBoxer: "Thank you so much for your offer of help. It is so important right now for California. So I know we have differences on climate change, but there's no difference in helping each other when our states are in trouble. Right now, we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they're all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment. So we really do need help. I think all of our states are down in terms of equipment."
ReplyDeleteThis is what you wingnuts are shitting yourself over? Jeez. Find some 12 year old to ruthlessly attack or something, thats pretty pathetic.
That link to McHale's alleged claims that the war hasn't affected the CA Guard's ability to help in the current emergency doesn't actually have anything about McHale, so maybe you should ask the pearl-clutchers at Move America Forward to get their facts a little straighter.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if he did say it, it's in direct contradiction to a July letter to Boxer by the then-acting Secretary of the Army. From the link in the first comment above: "He said that, while California's National Guard has 'adequate capability to respond to small and medium domestic missions. . . equipment shortages could potentially limit their capability to respond to large-scale emergencies such as a catastrophic earthquake or major flood.' "
But, of course, the current GOP playbook is to do everything possible to distract from things like actual facts, since reality has such a well-known liberal bias....
Hmmm, must have a raft of public school trolls out and about today...
ReplyDeleteApparetnly these skeptics don't want to believe what they read assuming they have the ability to read: California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer complained on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the ability of the state's National Guard to respond to disasters like the fires has been compromised because too much of its equipment and personnel are committed in Iraq
It was an AP story run in the Union Tribune...
If you have a bitch about the story why not contact Jennifer Loven of the AP?
A quick glance at Salon.com shows that citing them as a credible source is laughable at best...
SHOCKER! right-wing bootlicker gets it wrong, again.
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ReplyDeletelol.. progressives cherry pick, misquote & spin ad nauseam,.. but let someone they perceive to be not of their ilk and what do you get from the barking moonbats??
our guano doesn't stink!!
go figure..
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@juandos:
ReplyDeleteLet's see...
The AP story attempts to summarize what Boxer said. Salon actually quotes her and Kit Bond from the Senate hearing. They also provide a source for those quotes. Regardless of whether you agree with Salon's point-of-view, it's clear that by using a primary source they are the more reliable source of information here.
Read what Boxer and her Republican colleague had to say, and then tell me that my skepticism for Move America Forward's take on this is unwarranted.
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ReplyDeletei've no clue what some posters are whinnng about.. perhaps they just lack comprehensive reading skills??
To dramatize federal efforts and head off any suggestion of indifference of the kind that dogged Bush after Katrina, Perino showed slides at her daily briefing that detailed Washington's contribution so far in California. It includes 32 firefighting crews and dozens of fire engines from the Agriculture Department, 1,239 federal firefighters, 25,000 cots and 280,000 bottles of water.
California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer complained on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the ability of the state's National Guard to respond to disasters like the fires has been compromised because too much of its equipment and personnel are committed in Iraq.
absolutely no conflict between what Boxer was said to have stated & what Boxer literally stated..
whether or not her entire "quote" was quoted or not.. the bottom line is.. Boxer was not only not being truthful, but par for the Dems course, Boxer deliberately tried spinning a non political issue, go fig..
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ReplyDeletegee, i wonder why Boxer didn't "quote" her own "quote" at her official web site?? i think Boxer knows she put her foot in her mouth ala: Kerry, Reid & Murtha et al..
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How was Boxer not being truthful? If she was lying, then so was the then-Secretary of the Army back in July, and so is Kit Bond.
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ReplyDeleteJB @ 7:32 AM
if that is what you call "research"..
then "little" is an overstatement..
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just another contrived, selective case of the vapors from those sensitive folks at the GOP.
ReplyDeleteno biggy
I see the problem now... Said trolls can't seem to read and comprehend what is printed on the screen...
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing that out jb...
Sen. Boxer: "Right now, we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they're all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment"...
Gooly gee! Maybe Loven of the AP got it right after all...
Apparently so did Jim...
jb says: "If she was lying, then so was the then-Secretary of the Army back in July, and so is Kit Bond"...
Gee jb, just exactly what might that lie be? Is it this: "Sen. Leahy and I on the National Guard caucus will welcome your help because the Guard has traditionally been underfunded"?
Could it have been that Bond wasn't lying?
The biggest risk for maintaining a strong defense and adequate homeland security comes from the growing cost
of entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The challenge posed by long-term entitlement
spending is daunting. Between now and 2050, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs are projected to surge
from 8.7 percent to 19.0 percent of GDP. Consider that an equivalently sized tax increase today—raising taxes by
10.3 percent of GDP—would amount to $13,457 per household.
Socialist programs pandering to the parasites (Bush IS also guilty of contributing to the problem) could end up dooming us all..
I don't read Salon, but I have to agree that you are trying pretty desperately here to gin up a controversy where none exists. Can't you find something else to occupy your time until the Official post Halloween kick-off to your defense of Christmas against the socialist, ACLU, and secular humanist hordes?
ReplyDeleteBetween MovOn.org's NYT ad, to Pete Stark's comments to Barbara Boxer's non comments, to Barack Obama's non lapel pin, nobody collapses onto their fainting couches in a tizzy like today's GOP.
ReplyDeleteHave at it, ladies. We'll bring you your snuff box and a sassafrass to revive your delicate selves.
"Boxer was not only not being truthful, but par for the Dems course, Boxer deliberately tried spinning a non political issue, go fig.."
ReplyDeleteWell, someone posted the actual quote, but not how its wrong. If you've got some figures from primary sources and not something you copied from a right-wing blog then let's see it.
Michael Czeiszperger whines: "If you've got some figures from primary sources and not something you copied from a right-wing blog then let's see it"...
ReplyDeleteAre YOUR HANDS broke or something?
I've done some homework, how about you?
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ReplyDeleteforget about comprehension, as it's more than
obvious they don't even freakin' read.. duh!!
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ReplyDelete"i said it before i didn't say it" is apparently a bad habit progressive Dems can't seem to break..
Poor Harry Plotter
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It's not just the trolls here defending the position in lousy form
ReplyDeleteaccording to Brian Maloney via Radio Equalizer here are the claims of the reality based left so far
Harry Reid claims Global Warming
Randi Rhodes says its that nasty BlackWater who did it
Mike Malloy says its because of the Bush Crime Family
Ok I got all that.
Yep, you're really on to something there, quoting an advocacy group's email rather than, uh, WHAT SHE SAID.
ReplyDeleteSo the Senator from California, who has an obligation to the citizens of California, says that the National Guard is down 50% and their equipment levels are down. Anything inaccurate about that? She says thanks for the offers to help, that they need help. Pretty much the usual things that politicians say when disasters strike, no? There is nothing the slightest bit incendiary in any of that and I just love the post about R's collapsing onto fainting couches. That's exactly what you guys are like. God forbid any of you should actually have to fight Al Qaeda if you can't handle Barbara Boxer. If you don't have a substantive issue to write about, just stay in bed and write love letters to Bush, I hear his approval ratings are the lowest sustained approval ratings in American history and I'm sure he could use the cheering up.
Yep, you're really on to something there, quoting an advocacy group's email rather than, uh, WHAT SHE SAID.
ReplyDeleteSo the Senator from California, who has an obligation to the citizens of California, says that the National Guard is down 50% and their equipment levels are down. Anything inaccurate about that? She says thanks for the offers to help, that they need help. Pretty much the usual things that politicians say when disasters strike, no? There is nothing the slightest bit incendiary in any of that and I just love the post about R's collapsing onto fainting couches. That's exactly what you guys are like. God forbid any of you should actually have to fight Al Qaeda if you can't handle Barbara Boxer. If you don't have a substantive issue to write about, just stay in bed and write love letters to Bush, I hear his approval ratings are the lowest sustained approval ratings in American history and I'm sure he could use the cheering up.
Josh, Jen, Alex & Molly Boyer whines: "So the Senator from California, who has an obligation to the citizens of California, says that the National Guard is down 50% and their equipment levels are down. Anything inaccurate about that?"...
ReplyDeleteWell sirs, madams, et al, if Boxer is whining about the lack of Guard Equipment she and her fellow travelers could've quit spending money on federal socialist programs (as I've already noted but apparently you couldn' or wouldn't grasp) and directed the funds to defense instead...
Or better yet if Boxer and her fellow travelers (now in the majority) could've cut off the funding on the war on terror and spent it on clearing brush in California...
Political cowardice came into play and now Boxer is of course acting the fool...
As I already pointed out, this problem is hardly a new one...
Thanks for playing and maybe you'll do better the next time out...
Then we have jenn2 stumbling over herself to prove she is at least as clueless as J,J,A,M,B: "Anything inaccurate about that? She says thanks for the offers to help, that they need help. Pretty much the usual things that politicians say when disasters strike, no? There is nothing the slightest bit incendiary in any of that and I just love the post about R's collapsing onto fainting couches"...
Nice try toots but again you weren't paying attention...
Boxer (and everyone else serving in Congress since at least the ninties) has known this to be a problem since '95 if not earlier...
Sorry, back to the end of the line for you too...
Man, what a bunch of silly chumps you wingers are. Why don't we take a look at what the latest outrage from Boxer is?
ReplyDelete"Boxer: Thank you so much for your offer of help. It is so important right now for California. So I know we have differences on climate change, but there's no difference in helping each other when our states are in trouble. Right now, we are down 50 percent in terms of our National Guard equipment because they're all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment. So we really do need help. I think all of our states are down in terms of equipment.
Bond: Sen. Leahy and I on the National Guard caucus will welcome your help because the Guard has traditionally been underfunded, when Iraq started, when Katrina hit --
Boxer: You're right.
Bond: ... The Guard had only one-third of the equipment it needs. This is a battle we fight with the Pentagon, and our colleagues have been most helpful.
Boxer: That's another area where we can work together, and I think it's good for people to see it. I joined your caucus several months ago, and I'm really ready to go because I have a letter that states, from the Pentagon itself, that if there's a real catastrophe, such as the one we're having now, we're really in some kind of trouble. So thank you very much for that."
Some important analysis from Salon:
A few things worth noting here. First, we didn't see anything in the Move America Forward release attacking Kit Bond. Second, the exchange between Bond and Boxer -- on the fire issue, at least -- could not have been calmer or more cordial. Third, Boxer is right about that letter she got from the Pentagon.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates dated May 24, 2007, Boxer noted a recent press report that said that "state military officials" were worried that National Guard equipment shortages caused by the Iraq war would mean that they would be "slow in providing help in the event of a major fire, earthquake or terrorist attack." Boxer asked Gates to certify that the California National Guard was at a "full state of readiness" to respond to domestic emergencies -- "and specifically" to "fires."
On July 13, 2007, then Acting Army Secretary Peter Geren responded on behalf of Gates. He said that while California's National Guard has "adequate capability to respond to small and medium domestic missions ... equipment shortages could potentially limit their capability to respond to large-scale emergencies such as a catastrophic earthquake or major flood."
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ReplyDeleteNational Guard
National Guard helps attack California wildfires by air and land
excerpt:
[“(This has) been probably the most proactive response to a domestic event that I have seen in my 40 years in uniform,” said Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau. “And we continue to be flexible and agile to meet the needs of Governor Schwarzenegger and the citizens of California as they're ravaged by what is a very dangerous and unpredictable fire.”]
National Guard Status
Schwarzenegger Orders California National Guard to Southern California Fires
excerpt:
["It is a tragic time for California. I saw the tremendous devastation caused by these fires first hand today and I want to commend all of the brave firefighters that have been battling the blazes around our state. They have done an extraordinary job," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "We have the best-trained, the best-equipped and the most experienced firefighters in the world and I am committed to making all of the state's resources available to them to get these fires under control. That is why I have declared a state of emergency and directed the National Guard to support the firefighters in Southern California.
"I urge everyone to follow the directions and evacuation orders issued by the emergency personnel."]
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ReplyDeletebottom line:
[Asked pointedly about whether overall federal firefighting resources were slow in coming, Dargan and other state officials defended the feds. Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the governor 'is getting everything he needs from the federal government.']
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ReplyDeleteArson suspect killed, another arrested
excerpt:
["We don't know whether he was an arsonist," Patterson said. "What was related by the Cal State police was that they tried to contact him as a suspicious person in a brush area. Things being how they are, there was a suspicion that he could be an arsonist."
The area near the campus had been affected by the massive Old Fire of 2003, Patterson said, adding that "it's very fire-prone. It's an area that would be very devastated if a fire were to start there."
San Bernardino police joined campus authorities in pursuit of the suspect. He drove north on Waterman Avenue and up a dirt fire road into the foothills. When officers tried to take him into custody, he began to batter officers' vehicles with car, Patterson said. Officers shot and killed him.
"Both agencies' officers fired," said University Police Chief Jimmie Brown, who added that it was not known who fired the fatal shot. "But right now, we don't know too much more."]
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Well its nothing if not absolutely amazing just how thick, how incredibly dense you nut-root types are...
ReplyDeleteDo you people work at it or does it just come naturally?
Boxer is whining about half of the National Guard equipment being over in Iraq... Boo! Hoo!
How do you know that Boxer has a clue on much of the state's National Guard equipment is anywhere other than California?
Meanwhile California spends$10.5 billion per year on the care, feeding, and jailing of wetbacks...
How many pieces of National Guard, Forest Service, and just plain ole fire fighting equipment would that buy?
The state of California extorts a lot of money from their most productive citizens, what is the state doing with that money?
Then again Sen. Boxer has a history of making stupid statements...
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ReplyDelete1934, Not 1998, was the Warmest Year on Record
culture haunted by wildfires
Worst U.S. Forest Fires
sarc on\
dang!! what was the name of that nut who wanted to clear/preen our wild forests of deadwood to help control/prevent rampant fires (natural or otherwise set)??
/sarc off
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