Tag Archives: Mike Castle

Mike Castle Votes Against 9/11 First Responders

I’m sure by now everyone’s seen Congressman Anthony Weiner’s famous rant after the failure of a bill to provide additional health care for 9/11 first responders. (If not, it’s worth a watch).

The bill that was defeated was HR 847. Here’s a summary of the bill:

2/4/2009–Introduced.
James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2009 – Amends the Public Health Service Act to establish within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health the World Trade Center Health Program (WTC program) to provide:
(1) medical monitoring and treatment benefits to eligible emergency responders and recovery and cleanup workers who responded to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; and
(2) initial health evaluation, monitoring, and treatment benefits to residents and other building occupants and area workers who were directly impacted and adversely affected by such attacks. Requires the WTC program administrator to:
(1) implement a quality assurance program;
(2) establish the WTC Health Program Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee;
(3) establish the WTC Responders Steering Committee and the WTC Community Program Steering Committee;
(4) provide for education and outreach on services under the WTC program;
(5) provide for the uniform collection of data related to WTC-related health conditions;
(6) conduct research on physical and mental health conditions that may be related to the September 11 terrorist attacks; and
(7) extend and expand arrangements with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to provide for the World Trade Center Health Registry. Authorizes the administrator to make grants to the Department to address mental health needs relating to the terrorist attacks.Amends the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act to:
(1) make individuals eligible for compensation under the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 for harm as a result of debris removal; and
(2) extend the deadline for making a claim for compensation.

The bill was defeated 255-159. It needed a 2/3 majority to pass because Democrats were trying to pass the bill unamended. They were afraid of Republicans adding “poison pill” amendments to the bill to put Democrats on the spot by voting against them, so the majority tried to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules. The Republicans were angered by their inability to amend the bill so most voted against it – meaning the bill was defeated. I guess helping 9/11 first responders isn’t all that important when your feelings are hurt.

Everyone who voted against the bill was a Republican, including Republican Mike Castle.

h/t Rob Tornoe for bringing this to my attention.

He Likes It! Hey, Mikey! . . . Wait, Not So Much

Why I open the Opinion page of the News Journal, I’ll never know. Yesterday was no exception as I got to read a piece about protecting the Delaware River Basin Watershed by Mike Castle.

Over 8 million people call the basin home and over 15 million rely on its waters for drinking and industrial uses and yet, it lacks a coordinated conservation strategy on par with major watersheds around the country, most notably the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

While there are a number of organizations doing outstanding work, the basin lacks a coordinated framework and dedicated federal support to conserve and restore the natural resources, fish and wildlife.

Good point. Hmm, maybe if we had a someone in public service for 30 years, they could have gotten right on that. Maybe if they were let’s say the Governor for eight years, they could have worked with other neighboring governors to work out a plan. Maybe if they were Delaware’s lone Congressman for almost 20 years, they could have introduced legislation building that framework.

Turns out Mike Castle is jumping right on this issue by introducing legislation to protect the watershed.

I introduced The Delaware River Basin Conservation Act (H.R. 4698), which employs a voluntary, non-regulatory framework for coordinating conservation efforts, and increases federal resources for on-the-ground projects that get results.

What? Voluntary? I guess that the watershed might not be that important.

The basin has important living resources that need protection, including oysters, migratory birds, fish, wetlands and forests, to name a few.

OK, it is important. So, maybe a voluntary approach is the right way to go.

While this legislation is an important step towards fostering coordination, it will not be effective without the backing of the agencies, organizations and communities that we heavily rely on to be the stewards of our cherished waterways and land areas in the Basin.

” . . . it will not be effective . . . ” Sweet Jebus, Mike, next time one of your staffers writes a piece for you, you might want to read it first.

Tornoe’s Toon: Chris Who?

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, Chris Coons is narrowing the gap with Mike Castle, whose support has fallen below 50% for the first time in this race.

Castle, who had previously led Coons by more than 20 points, now leads the general election match-up 47-36, which is only marginally better than Christine O’Donnell’s 41-39 match-up with Coons.

However, Coons suffers from a lack of familiarity with likely voters. Only 13% have a favorable opinion of the NCCo Executive, while 9% view him unfavorably. However, a whopping 23% don’t know enough about him to venture any kind of opinion.

Even worse, Coons picks up just 57% of the vote from his own party. Yikes!

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Daily Kos Writes Up Coons-Castle Race

Daily Kos has noticed an ominous trend in Mike Castle’s poll numbers (which we discussed yesterday).

The dkos post also mentions a new development today. Christine O’Donnell was endorsed by a conservative anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List (yes they try to steal all the heroes).

WASHINGTON, DC – Today the Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund, a national pro-life political action committee, announced its endorsement of Christine O’Donnell, candidate for U.S. Senator of Delaware.

“Delaware families deserve the pro-life leadership Christine O’Donnell so capably provides,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List Candidate Fund. “Unlike her primary opponent who has an explicitly pro-abortion voting record, O’Donnell has expressed her strong determination to be a vocal advocate for women and unborn children in abortion debates on the floor of the U.S. Senate.”

“A new women’s movement which affirms its original pro-life roots is making its way to the U.S. Senate and O’Donnell is one of its brightest new stars.”

Christine O’Donnell is a marketing consultant and nationally known as a regular political commentator and a strong voice for Life on cable and network television. She promoted Life as a member of the Board of Directors for Birthright of Delaware until May 2008 and has led delegations to the U.N. to lobby on behalf of Life. In these roles, she has successfully debated Cabinet members, lawmakers and international leaders on the Life issue.

Castle’s voting record shows negligible support for laws protecting the unborn. He voted for the Foreign Relations Authorization Act which funds abortion overseas through the Office of Global Women’s Issues and supported the public funding of abortion in the District of Columbia.

Christine O’Donnell will face Mike Castle in the September 14th Republican primary.

Are there really enough hard right conservatives in Delaware to make Castle worry? Judging by the results of the Republican convention this year, probably not. However, could a Castle candidacy mean that Delaware conservatives get discouraged and stay home?

Coons Gains Ground In New Rasmussen Poll

Rasmussen released a new poll today showing that Coons is gaining some ground on Castle. This comes on the heels of the news that Coons had a good fundraising quarter, raising $700K to Castle’s $850K (Castle still has a huge COH advantage $3M to $1M).

Congressman Mike Castle’s support has fallen below 50% for the first time in his race with Democrat Chris Coons for the U.S. Senate in Delaware.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Delaware finds Castle with 47% support, down eight points from late April. Coons gets 36% of the vote, his best showing to date. Six percent (6%) favor some other candidate in the race, and 11% are undecided.

In April, Castle held a 55% to 32% lead over Coons.

This part is interesting, but it’s Republican Rasmussen so I always take this with a grain of salt. The survey says that Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons are tied and puts O’Donnell’s support at 41% (with similar name recognition and favorability).

Delaware has been rated Solid Republican in the Rasmussen Reports Senate Balance of Power rankings but on the basis of this survey shifts to Leans Republican.

Castle is being challenged in the state’s September 14 GOP primary by conservative activist Christine O’Donnell. Coons runs virtually even with O’Donnell who picks up 41% of the vote to the Democrat’s 39%.

The undecideds in this poll were 11%.

Castle Votes YES On Financial Reform

The new Financial Reform legislation just passed the House of Representatives 237-192. Mike Castle voted yes on this bill, despite previously voting no (Two other Republicans voted yes – Ahn Joseph Cao and Walter Jones). I guess Castle is not worried about Christine O’Donnell or the teabaggers. Judging by the turnout at the Tea Party rally at Dover today, Castle is right to ignore them (photo by Mike Matthews).

Castle Previews His November Strategy

On Saturday, Mike Castle’s campaign tweeted a link to a Politico article without much comment. This article was obviously based on some opposition research that Castle’s campaign is doing on Coons. He’s telling us his strategy right now. It’s all about taxes.

Cognizant that his decision to raise taxes as a county executive will become fertile ground for Republican attacks, Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons is attempting to soften the potential blow by embracing the move and explaining it as fiscally responsible.

“Chris Coons raised your taxes. Absolutely. Guilty as charged, your honor,” Coons told POLITICO Friday when asked about the biggest potential vulnerability he carries into his race against GOP Rep. Mike Castle.

The New Castle County executive said the 10-3 vote he helped engineer in May to pass a budget without a deficit included deep spending cuts and a $100 property tax increase.

…

Coons said he would answer the charge, potentially in television ads, with the message that the balanced budget he crafted delivered his county a Triple A bond rating and a $47 million dollar reserve without a deficit for the first time in a decade. The plan also included an $1,800 pay cut for the county’s 1,450 employees, which prompted public employee unions — a traditional Democratic constituency — to protest outside of Coons’ home.

“By explaining it, by saying, are you kidding me? Really? That’s it? So in other words, I should’ve laid off cops, closed down libraries, sold parks instead of raising taxes a hundred bucks a year?” Coons said, formulating his answer to expected tax hike attacks.

Of course, the answer to Chris’s question is “yes.” Mike Castle is a part of what Paul Krugman calls the “pain caucus” that believes the American people need to suffer because of Washington Republicans mismanagement of the economy. If you don’t believe me just look at Chris Christie in New Jersey. The pain of the New Jersey budget crisis must no be borne by millionaires, only by cops, teachers and students.

Castle is responsible for a lot of the economic pain that people are feeling right now. Castle sat as a member of the Banking Committee while the Congress slashed regulations and protections that led to the economic collapse. He’s also voted for budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, for unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for unfunded Medicare Part D drug coverage. What’s worse is he’s now turned into a preening budget peacock, participating in the useless Republican earmark moratorium.

Mike Castle will run in November as nice guy Mike Castle, moderate Republican. Chris Coons has a harder task in front of him – introducing himself to the voters and showing that Mike Castle is just another George Bush/John Boehner/Mitch McConnell Republican.

Has Castle Lost the News Journal?

Yesterday the News Journal published an editorial criticizing Mike Castle for earmark hypocrisy. Castle’s earmark moratorium is a subject that interests the News Journal quite a bit because they produced at least two articles (here and a longer one here) and one blog post. It’s clearly an issue that concerns them.

That time has changed. The national uproar forced Congress to reform its methods. Today’s earmark process is open; projects are screened and must pass muster.

The Republicans claim that refraining from such requests will save taxpayers money. Delaware’s Rep. Mike Castle, running for U.S. Senate, agrees with the ban. He has a history of delivering earmarks to Delaware. Despite this he says, “We’re just not in a financial situation in this country where we can continue to spend.”

This is true. We should cut the spending. But declining to request an earmark doesn’t take the money out of the budget. An earmark today focuses the money on specific targets — housing grants come from the housing budget. A federal budget without earmarks would be no smaller than one with them.

Banning earmarks is a stunt.

I guess Mike Castle’s blatant hypocrisy was so obvious that even the News Journal couldn’t continue to ignore it. Plus, the NJ is right – an earmark ban is a stunt. Earmarks make up less than 1% of the total budget. Stopping them will do nothing for the budget deficit. It’s just another way for Republicans to pretend to care about deficits, which only lasts until another Republican becomes president.

Castle’s Ear(mark)s Are Burning

Castle's a Republican First

Representative Mike Castle’s hypocrisy is coming full circle. The News Journal has an indepth article simply entitled, “This Year Castle Opposes Earmarks”. Unstable Isotope wrote about this last week:

You see, Castle’s actually helping Delaware by not funding any projects in Delaware. Because not providing money to Delaware actually provides jobs to Delaware, right? Mike Castle is really going all out on helping Delaware by not actually doing anything to help Delaware. Luckily for us, the stimulus is working and we have adults in charge of our state so we’re getting out of the economic downturn, without Mike Castle’s help.

If Mike Castle is going to turn into a boilerplate Republican who thinks balancing the federal budget is like balancing a household checkbook, that’s his decision. However he really needs to fight his addiction to appearing at federal funding announcements.

Some interesting facts from The News Journal article which reiterates that Castle is only following order from the Republican Party:

Castle sought $196 million in earmarks over the last three years
Castle has provided earmarks for Delaware for the 17 years he has been in Congress
Earmarks for Delaware help non-profits like the Ministry of Caring and the Mary Campbell Center

Chris Coons who is running against Castle for US Senates said:

Either earmarks are a great thing that help direct funding to support Delaware businesses that help grow technology, or they’re a bad thing that we ought to all be working against. But he’s literally trying to have it both ways.

Memorial Day Hypocrisy from Mike Castle

Not like this hypocrisy is a new behavior or anything.

On Castle’s website, he posts up the obligatory Memorial Day salute to men and women in uniform. This is the hypocrisy:

In putting on the uniform day in and day out, the men and women of the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines and Navy put everything on the line in order to protect the many freedoms, rights and liberties we hold dear.

This is from a man who voted the way his party wanted — against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. From a man who specifically voted against the freedom of gay and lesbian Americans to be able to serve their country without having to live with the bigotry and fear of a few. These soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines are not engaged in protecting freedom, rights, and liberties for everybody *except* gay people. They are there for All Americans and specifically excepting gay and lesbian Americans from being able to openly serve is not about freedoms,rights or liberties. Which,of course, wasn’t the point of Castle’s DADT NO vote in the first place. His vote was about supporting his party. Which is specifically looking for ways to display and capitalize on their bigotries.

Huge majorities of Americans support repealing DADT:

70% support repeal according to Gallup

57% support repeal according to Qunnipiac in February (66% say it is discrimination)

75% say that gay people should be allowed to serve openly according to this WaPo/ABC News poll

And I think it is fair to expect that Delawareans support letting gay people serve openly in large majorities too. You’d think that Mike Castle would have gotten the hang of representing the wishes of Delawareans after so many years of claiming to do so. But here he is — again — supporting his party over the interests of the people he represents.

Moderate: Unclear On The Concept

Yesterday, the Senated Armed Services Committee and the House of Representatives voted for an amendment that would repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of the U.S. armed forces. DADT repeal would allow GLB soldiers to serve openly without fear of reprisal. The repeal of DADT is favored by the overwhelming majority of Americans – 78% according to the latest CNN poll.

Delaware’s “moderate” Republican, Mike Castle, voted no, along with the far right. Apparently Mike Castle didn’t even think this an important enough issue to make a comment about it on his campaign page or his House page.

I must be really unclear about what “moderate” means because Castle votes in lockstep with his party on the important issues like DADT, economic stimulus, jobs and health care. Sometimes Castle will criticize Republican leadership but vote with them anyway. Is this how you get to be called a moderate? Just because Castle is on the left of the far right party, this doesn’t make him a moderate.

The Coons Campaign Hits Castle

Sometimes a campaign will send out a press release I wish I had written. Yesterday the Coons campaign sent out this press release:

Chris Coons’ U.S. Senate campaign today questioned Congressman Mike Castle’s appearance touting a $2.4 million federal investment only a week after withdrawing support for $366 million in investments for Delaware. Last Friday, the News Journal reported that the Congressman had requested 13 projects before withdrawing his support.

“If Delawareans had a quarter for each time Mike Castle took credit or said one thing here after doing another in Washington, Chris Coons might not have had to fill a $40 million revenue shortfall last year in New Castle County,” said Coons Communications Director Dave Hoffman.

In recent months, Congressman Castle has appeared at multiple events in Delaware to publicize investments after voting against them in Washington. In addition to hosting a “Grants and Resources Fair” on May 18, he has appeared at announcements of critical investments made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act after voting against the bill.

In April, Congressman Castle held his third Delaware Works! job creation fair following a steady string of votes against job creation and extending unemployment benefits.

The withdrawal of support by Castle for $366M in federal funding was featured in the News Journal last week. It’s part of a Republican party initiative to stop earmark requests. The Republicans are trying to run as the party of fiscal responsibility despite turning the Clinton surplus into debt through unfunded tax cuts for the rich, Medicare drug coverage and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Castle had requested the 13 projects — or earmarks — last year before voting in March for the moratorium, a step designed to position Republicans as the party of fiscal discipline. The authorization requests were for recreation trails, transportation improvements, water resource protection, oyster restoration and other projects.

In keeping with the moratorium, he requested no appropriations earmarks for fiscal 2011. The projects he withdrew May 10 were still listed Thursday on the Delaware appropriations page of his website under the headings “Delaware High Priority Projects Submitted for 2009 Surface Transportation Authorization Bill” and “Delaware Projects Submitted for 2010 Water Resources Development Act.”

Dialogue Delaware captures Castle’s reaction: They even have a handy poll asking whether Castle should stop attending federal funding events (Yes is leading 92% to 8%).

This nation is facing an economic crisis that has only been exacerbated by the relentless spending of taxpayer dollars in Washington. Delawareans know that we cannot spend our way back to economic prosperity and that’s why Congressman Castle is making the tough choices to protect them. Unfortunately, this Congress and Administration don’t get it. Big government spending continues to burden every American but has failed to create the jobs that have been promised.

You see, Castle’s actually helping Delaware by not funding any projects in Delaware. Because not providing money to Delaware actually provides jobs to Delaware, right? Mike Castle is really going all out on helping Delaware by not actually doing anything to help Delaware. Luckily for us, the stimulus is working and we have adults in charge of our state so we’re getting out of the economic downturn, without Mike Castle’s help.

If Mike Castle is going to turn into a boilerplate Republican who thinks balancing the federal budget is like balancing a household checkbook, that’s his decision. However he really needs to fight his addiction to appearing at federal funding announcements.

Tea Party Targets Mike Castle

Mike Castle may be seen as an almost-sure winner to take a Democratic seat in November, but that doesn’t make him popular with the Republican base. A Tea Party group in Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley Tea Party, has targeted Castle in their “Tea Party Playing Cards.” The SVTP is asking people to buy a pack of cards, find your targeted lawmaker in the pack of cards, sign it in permanent marker and send it to that lawmaker. Most of the legislators are Democrats, but a few Republicans are targeted. Mike Castle is the Jack of Hearts.

This does make me wonder how the November election is going to play out. Will Republicans be enthusiastic to vote for Castle? Can Chris Coons take advantage of the national dynamic, which is actually working against Castle in this election?

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