MTBE, Peter King and You

Last week in central Nassau, over 32,000 residents could not use their tap water due to high levels of MTBE contamination. According to Newsday "In the largest MTBE-related health alert to date on Long Island, more than 32,000 Nassau residents were warned Tuesday not to use tap water for drinking, cooking or brushing their teeth because levels of the banned gasoline additive exceeded the state public drinking water standard.
The contamination in the West Hempstead-Hempstead Gardens water district is the latest incident of contamination by a chemical -- methyl tertiary buytl ether -- that was supposed to lessen pollution by making fuel burn cleaner but ended up wriggling its way into the groundwater that supplies most of Long Island's drinking water.
" Banned in New York State since 2004 because of water quality concerns, MTBE will continue to pose a problem because many of the gasoline spills and leaks that released it into the environment have yet to be detected, said Bruce Brownawell, a biochemist and associate professor at Stony Brook University's Marine Sciences Research Center. "Long Island is especially susceptible because it's one of the higher population areas that relies exclusively on groundwater, and we have very permeable soils," Brownawell said.
" Walter Hang of Toxics Targeting, an Ithaca-based company that compiles environmental information, disputes that figure, saying his analysis of DEC records shows that 47 public water supply wells in Nassau and 108 in Suffolk have been contaminated with MTBE.
"The DEC has not cleaned up gasoline spills all over Long Island," Hang said."
Who will pay for MTBE clean-ups and who will be held accountable for the spills?
You the taxpayer.
We followed King on this issue earlier when King voted to exempt companies from liability for MTBE contamination and place the cost of the clean-up on taxpayers
From May 10, 2005
"According to Newsday, King explained he "based his vote on pledges by GOP energy committee officials to consider an MTBE trust fund. He said such a fund could make immediate payments for MTBE pollution rather than forcing water suppliers to sue." Yup. Because that always works. "Pledge" to "consider" a trust fund doesn't sound like it's gonna happen. Back in 2002 Bush was trying to increase taxpayer liability for the Superfund trust. On the Hudson River, GE is fighting tooth and nail to avoid clean-up of PCB contaminants. And now the Town of Oyster Bay is suing defense contractor Northrop Grumman and the Navy to recover costs of environmental clean-up in Bethpage Community Park which was once part of the contractors property. When will the energy committee create a trust fund and where will the money come from. We shouldn't hold our breath that that will ever happen.
King tells Newsday "Being in the majority party requires judgment calls.... My judgment was to let the process go forward and see if we can come up with a trust fund that works."
And if they don't? Oops, too late.
Paul Granger, Superintendent of the Plainview Water Distict said "This really is disappointing, it's not helping New York, and I hope that our representatives rethink the picture here."
King in his usually prickly attitude replies to his critics "It's unfortunate when people shoot their mouths off and they don't know what they're talking about."
Suffolk County Legislator David Bishop says it best "I don't trust the trust fund... I guarantee you it will be pennies on the dollar as to what we can get in the court."
King vows to vote against the final bill if it does not include an MTBE trust fund, "If the final package is not satisfactory, I will vote against it as I have in the past."
So he voted for it before he's going to vote against it?
We'll see."

Once again, King comes out against the people and for Tom Delay backed business.

Getting No Love

Here's a letter to the Glen Cove Record-Pilot newspaper from what seems to be a now former King voter. There are more and more of them as we get closer to November.

"Will Take New York Times Over Peter King

For years I have voted to re-elect Peter King and keep sending him back to Congress. Party affiliation has never been an issue for me. I believed Mr. King was an intelligent, thoughtful representative, and I appreciated the fact that he had attained a stature in Congress which benefited our congressional district.

Now, I think Mr. King has literally lost his marbles. Yesterday, I viewed several news reports highlighting the fact that Mr. King had called for the criminal investigation of the New York Times, because it, along with other papers, including the conservative Wall Street Journal, had reported on a government program involving banking transactions. It certainly seems odd that Mr. King, while terming the Times article and act of treason, did not call for any criminal investigation of the Wall Street Journal.

I fear that Mr. King has made a seriously bad judgment in his decision to buy into the transparently obvious Rove/Cheney/Bush strategy of declaring anyone a traitor, guilty of treason, who does not agree with the national government's continuing unconstitutional usurpation of power at the expense of our individual freedoms.

Who is Mr. King kidding here? He knows full well that the vast majority of the American public views the Republicans now in power as a bunch of incompetent "screw-ups" who got us into a war that very few people support. Now, in order to avoid accepting responsibility for what they've wrought, the administration, and unhappily the likes of Peter King, are on the warpath against the New York Times. They are calling anyone who questions their motives traitors, and they are making the astounding declaration that if you don't support these wholly unqualified politician boobs in their handling of our nation's affairs, that somehow means that you don't support our troops. Shame on all of them and shame on Mr. King in particular.

I dare say that if there are people to be charged with not supporting our troops, maybe, just maybe, it's the buffoons who sent these young men and women into harm's way with no plan to protect them. It's not a matter of whether you support this war or not, but a matter of putting people in charge who, by most accounts, have never been successful at anything except getting elected to public office. It's time for them to go.

As just one voter among millions, I'm quite aware that my vote might not have much of an effect. However, I am equally aware that if I don't vote against Mr. King in the upcoming election, it will guarantee that I'll have no impact at all. So, I'm going down to the polls in November to let Mr. King know that I intend to be reading the New York Times long after he's left office, and that I'm more likely to continue believing what's in that newspaper than I will believe the gibberish that these politicians from Washington feed us as if we're raving idiots. Perhaps they should take a harder look in the mirror if they're looking for fools.

Michael A. Levy"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And from the Long Island Press section "The Target."

PETER KING—OFF TARGET Wants journalists "shot." Damn. We
wanted to be around to see Legis. Dave Mejias kick his ass in November.

Before King and scream about the "LIBERAL MEDIA!!!!!!!!" with this one, the owner and publisher is a republican who ran for mayor in Glen Cove in 2003 and the paper is a frequent critic of Kings suposed arch-enemy Newsday.

Update: King Alerts Terrorists to FBI Surveillance

Here is Peter King letting the terrorists know they are being watched. He got this info from FBI briefings he gets as Homeland Security Commitee Chairman.
Aren't those briefings confidential?


Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9NlyLhMQgU

A New Addition

Posting may be sparse as we welcome a new addition to our family.
Jonathan Patrick was born tuesday at 4:03pm weighing in at 10.1 lbs. and 22 inches long.
Mother and baby are doing very well.

Hypocrite Extraordinaire

"There is a war going on. This puts American lives at risk and they did it for no good reason."
Peter King regarding the NYTimes story on Bush policy of financial snooping quoted in Newsday 6/26/06

"No, in fact, I think Karl Rove should get a medal, Joe. I really mean that."
Peter King regarding undercover CIA agent Valerie Plames name being exposed speaking on Scarborough Country 7/12/05

What a difference a year makes.
Or rather what a difference personal political priorities make.

On Scarborough County, King was challenged to defend the national security breach and this is the exchange;
"SCARBOROUGH: If I were a Democratic senator, what I would say was, the last thing you want to do, because you keep talking about the fact we are at a time of war.

KING: Right.

SCARBOROUGH: The last thing you want to do at a time of war is reveal the identity of undercover CIA agents.

KING: No.
Joe Wilson, she recommended—his wife recommended him for this. He said the vice president recommended him. To me, she took it off the table. Once she allowed him to go ahead and say that, write his op-ed in “The New York Times,” to have Tim Russert give him a full hour on “Meet the Press,” saying that he was sent there as a representative of the vice president, when she knew, she knew herself that she was the one that recommended him for it, she allowed that lie to go forward involving the vice president of the United States, the president of the United States, then to me she should be the last one in the world who has any right to complain."

So it is perfectly fine to expose an undercover CIA agent working on WMD's to get retribution on her husband?

Oh, and King is lying through his teeth (as usual) because Wilson never said the VP sent him.

Long story short, for Peter King some treason is better than others.
It just depends what the politics are.

Oh and one more thing....
Back in 2004 King as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy he held a hearing on of all things "Combating International Terrorism Financing."
The hearings topic was described by King as "The Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy and the Subcommittee on Oversight chaired by my colleague from New York, Mrs. Kelly, meet jointly today to receive testimony from Treasury and State regarding their efforts in the global fight against terrorist financing."
The hearing was spent on discussing ways the US Government is tracking and stopping terrorist financing.

Welcome New Readers

Are you as fed up with King as the rest of us are?
There's a candidate who can defeat King named Dave Mejias and he can use your help.
Dave Mejias is a Nassau County Legislator can get the job done.
On the right is a link to fundraising for the congressional race.
Got $5, $10, $25 lying around?
Maybe a couple hundred?
Help defeat Peter King.
Contribute today.

For more info on Dave Mejias, go to davemejias.com

e-mail From a Reader: " Thomas Jefferson Has a Tip for Peter King"

"The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (January 16, 1787)

King Hates the Constitution and Defends Another Warrantless Act

Once again the Bush administration does an end-run around the constitution and decides that warrants are so pre-9/11 and once again, King stands up for Bush.
According to the NYTimes "Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.
"The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.
That access to large amounts of confidential data was highly unusual, several officials said, and stirred concerns inside the administration about legal and privacy issues."

What is so difficult in getting a warrant from a court to search suspected records?

So King steps up to the plate to defend Bush on FOX News (hat tip Crooks and Liars.)
Seems King wants the NYTimes to be charged with espionage!
I guess he was playing to the far-right kook FOX News viewer with that one.
"Peter King: Chris, I think the administration acted entirely appropriately. The 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case gives them, to me, the absolute right to do this. They’re in full compliance with all statutes. To me, the real question here is the conduct of the New York Times by disclosing this in time of war, they have compromised America’s anti-terrorist policies. This is a very effective policy. They have compromised it. This is the second time the New York Times has done this. And to me, no one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitist left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I’m calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times — its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher. We’re in a time of war, Chris, and what they’ve done has violated the Espionage Act, the COMINT act. The time has come for the American people to realize, and the New York Times to realize, we’re at war and they can’t be on their own deciding what to declassify, what to release. If Congress wants to work on this privately, that’s one thing. But for them to, on their own, for the editor of the New York Times to say that he decides it’s in the national interest — no one elected them to anything. Remember, this is the newspaper that brought us Jason Blair. Going back a few years ago, they’re the ones who gave Fidel Castro his job in Cuba. They have no right to do this at all. The First Amendment is not absolute, especially when it comes to something like this, which is a clear violation of statutory law."

King ought to check the congressional record and look up the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 before he spouts off about the 1976 Supreme Court ruling.
The long and short of it is that a Warrant or a Subpeona is needed to access financial records.
The Bush administration just like the wire-tap case ignored the law and did what it wanted to do.
King as usual backs Bush and the law-breaking.
Its funny how King throws in former Times reporter Jason Blair to attack the paper. Blair got in trouble for making things up in his stories. Is king saying the Times is making things up in this story? If so, how can they be charged with espionage if what they say isn't true?
King is all over the place in his attempt to defend this program and every route he takes shows how little he really knows.

And while King is spouting off on COMINT, let's remember just the other day King was on News12 Long Island letting local terror cells know they are being watched by the FBI.
Maybe King should be locked up for that.
§ 798. Disclosure of classified information
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government;

Dave Mejias for Congress Website Up and Running

Mejias for US Congress
www.davemejias.com

Doing a Heckuva Job, Petey! King Alerts Terrorists to FBI Surveillance

After the arrests in Florida of home-grown terrorists, our very own Peter King does his part for homeland Security right here on Long Island; he lets terror cells know they are being watched!
King was interviewed by News12 Long Island "Congressman and chairman of the Homeland Security committee Peter King (R-Seaford) says there are cells of suspected terrorists being watched by the FBI on Long Island. He adds there are similar types of operations in New York, New Jersey and throughout the northeast. The suspects in Florida are accused of plotting to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI offices in Miami."
So if the group or groups being watched by the FBI weren't sure if they were being secretive enough, now they do. Even a group or groups that weren't on the FBI radar will now go deeper underground.
Here is Peter King trying to sound like he is oh-so important and "in the loop." He gets FBI briefings and brags about what he knows.
If there are undercover agents or an informant in a group, King is doing his part to get them killed.
You're doing a heckuva job, Petey.
We've argued before why King should not be Commitee Chairman and this is just one more reason.
Were these FBI briefing King brags about classified?
Perhaps the FBI should look into what King likes to blab about.

Lack of Updates

Where are the updates to the site?
Coming soon.
What happend?
On Baby Watch.
What?
Baby due any day now and it's been a rollercoaster the past week or so.

Newsday Letter Writer on Powerless Peter

Wednesday June 7
Rep. Peter King's (R-Seaford) performance in Congress has been embarrassing enough over the years, but his mock indignation at the cuts to New York's share of homeland security money is truly breathtaking ["Anti-terror cuts," News, June 1]. He is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. If his influence over the Department of Homeland Security and the Bush administration as a whole is so minuscule that he cannot prevent cuts to terror-prevention funds for the most at-risk state in the country, then what purpose is he serving in Congress, exactly?I cannot fathom how anyone can vote to re-elect King to Congress after the disgraceful actions of him and his party last week.
David Sugarman
Woodmere

From the NY Daily News Daily Politics Blog

"Blaming Pete King

So Pete King, the Long Island Republican who chairs the Homeland Security subcommittee in the House, has been out there with the New York Democrats denouncing the recent federal cuts to New York's homeland security funding.

But a Democratic reader thinks King should be taking more of the blame than he is, and sends on a quote from King on CBS's local news in January, when the new formula was devised:

“This is definitely a plus for New York because the more risk based and the more competitive the grant process is, the better New York should do. Having said that, we always have to be vigilant and we have to make sure New York gets more of the money it deserves."

$20.06 to Defeat King

Got $20.06 to spare?
Let's start there to support Dave Mejias.

DHS Funding Cuts by Congress Helped Lead to NYC Cuts

While DHS is to blame for saying that NYC doesn't have any icons or monuments being one of the reasons for cutting 40% from NYC, it's not DHS that holds the purse strings.
As an example, funding for the State Homeland Security Grant (SHSG) program has been steadily decreasing over the past few years. The funding cuts were implemented by congress. Next year there is 550 million for the program, down from $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2005 and $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2006. That's a 50% cut.
The funding level for the 2006 Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security assistance programs is $2.6billion. The 2005 funding was $3.6billion.

Where was King on these cuts? As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee what did he do to fight the huge cuts from DHS by congress?
King voted YES for the appropriations bill.

Place blame for the idiot explainations for the cuts squarely on the shoulders of DHS but blame must also fall on each and every member of congress who voted to cut appropriations.

Powerless Peter is a Hypocrite

King opponent Dave Mejias went after King for his ties to Bush and Kings powerlessness when it comes to anti-terror funding.
Mejias says "Bush has declared war on New York, but Peter King, who has said he thanks God every day that Bush is in the White House, turns out to be one of his generals.
...he's (King) voted 'No' when it comes time to put our money where his mouth is."
"He's either ineffective, irrelevant, or just plain asleep at the switch,"

King responds "It's really sad that candidate Mejias is using a life and death issue for the state for petty partisan purposes when every New York member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, is standing together on this issue."

Really Peter? It's "sad" use Homeland Security issues "for petty partisan purposes?"

From Peter King himself as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee"Let's not forget, a number of Democrats have consistently voted against providing proper funding for the War on Terror and provisions important to our homeland security, such as the REAL ID Act. Many even voted against the creation of a Department of Homeland Security in the first place," he concluded. "they think a little partisan grandstanding is going to make up for being soft on this issue, they are mistaken. I hope that in the future they can choose to put politics aside and work with us in a bipartisan manner to make certain our homeland remains secure."

What a hypocrite.
And this isn't the only instance of King being a hypocrite.

Powerless Peter on Hardball

After being appointed Chairman of the Homeland Security Commitee, Powerless Peter said on WNBC "It has to be good for New York if I do my job because I strongly believe that all funding for homeland security has to be based on threat..... So to that extent, New York will be represented at the highest levels of the homeland security table."
Right after that, Congress voted to take back $125million from the 9/11 Relief Fund for New York. It took Senators Schumer and Clinton and other New York representatives to get the money back. Now we have anti-terrorism funding cut 40% by the Department of Homeland Security.
King appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris matthews thursday night to raise righteous indignation at the 40% cut. What we nee
d to know is why King with a seat at the "highest levels of the homeland security table" didn't know about the cut beforehand.
MSNBC reported David Schuster tells us "The anti-terror grants to Washington, D.C., are being cut from $77.5 million to $46 million. New York City’s grants are being cut from $207 million to $124 million. That’s a 40 percent decrease. And the cut, as well as the Homeland Security Department’s assertion that New York has no national landmarks, has left lawmakers infuriated.
"For months, the Department of Homeland Security has been warning that it was going to make changes. Officials vowed to force more regional cooperation, award the grant money based on risk and cut down on waste, like Segway motor scooters. Last year, police in Santa Ana, California, used part of their money to purchase four of them."
Did he say "months?"
Yes he did.
Where was the Chairman of the Homeland Security Commitee for months?
What does Chairman Powerless Peter know about what's going on?
"MATTHEWS: You’re well placed, you’re the chairman of the committee, Congressman — who in the White House have you talked to today? Name the guys?
KING: No, I haven’t spoken to anybody in the White House. I have sources within the Department of Homeland Security who told me that..."
All King has are "sources?"
That's not much for a Chairman to have or what he claimed he would have.
Matthews to his credit actually asks King about the congressional vote that cut Homeland Security funding...
"MATTHEWS: Let me turn the tables on you a little bit here.
Their defense over at homeland security is that you in Congress, because you have a budget squeeze that we’re all facing in this country — you could argue whose fault it is, but we got one with the deficits rolling up to about a half trillion dollars a year — that you on the Hill cut $600 million from funding for these programs and that each — that Homeland Security Department, they simply had to divvy it out; and you don’t like the way they divvied out the cuts, but you were the guys that cut it overall.
Is that a fair shot at you?

KING: Chris, they’re changing the story by the day.
The actual cuts were about 14 percent to 15 percent. Most of them were recommended by the president. So there’s a 14 percent cut and they cut New York 40 percent. So it doesn’t add up.
No, again, this is like their fifth explanation. None of them work. They’re phonies."

What a quick diversion. Congress cuts $600million, DHS cuts funding to NYC and King tries to wiggle out of it with numbers.
King admits funding cuts but says that those cuts don't add up to what was cut from New York.
But the numbers just don't add up in Kings favor.
New York funding went from $207million last year to $124 million this year. That is $83million, well within the $600million cut.
Kings percentage BS is just that.
King is one of the phonies he complains about.
The long and short of it is that King as Chairman touts his clout but in the ned he doesn't seem to have any.
More to come on this later....

King Powerless as New York Loses Anti-Terror Funds

King likes to make a big deal that he is the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Other then him getting his name mentioned more often and being interviewed on TV more, King has been incredibly useless.
Today comes word that the Homeland Security department is CUTTING funds to New York by 40% in order to increase funds to Atlanta and Omaha.
NYC mayor Bloomberg says "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 46 places or 45 places [that get funding],"
King is upset too. I would be upset if as Homeland Security Chairman funding for Homeland Security is cut in my own backyard. King tells the NY Daily News "This is a knife in the back... As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security has declared war on New York."
And where exactly is Kings "clout" to do more for the area?
Apparantly non-existant.
Now if funding is restored, King had best not try to take credit for it. It should have been up to King to make sure the cut never happend in the first place.
And if King thinks he can run his re-election on being Homeland Security Commitee Chairman, he can think again. Having a title but being powerless and completely useless for your area isn't something to run on.
King tells Associated Press "It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."
Maybe he should have tried to do everything he could to stop the cuts in the first place. It looks like "everything I can" isn't very much.

UPDATE: John @ Americablog.org has a post up about King.