Archive for Defeat Buck McKeon

Buck McKeon Applauds President for Support of Gay Marriage

Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (CA-25) today told a group of constituents how pleased he is that President Obama “stepped up to the plate” and affirmed his support for gay marriage.

“Gays and lesbians in this country have been treated like second-class citizens for too long,” said the eleven-term Republican congressman. “Every American should be treated equal under the law, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, and I congratulate the President for taking this courageous step.”

McKeon said he hopes the day will come when gays and lesbians can enjoy the benefits of a committed, married relationship in all fifty states.

“A man should be able to marry another man and a woman should be able to marry another woman,” stated McKeon. “To say otherwise is discrimination, clear and simple.”

If elected for a twelfth term, McKeon said he will make civil rights for the GLBT community a top priority.

“I fully support equality for everyone,” said McKeon. “Gays, lesbians, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, women — it makes no difference.”

According to McKeon, those who would deny gays and lesbians the right to marry are guilty of allowing their personal prejudices to influence policy.

“Marriage equality is inherent in our fundamental constitutional rights,” added McKeon. “The government has no business telling anyone who they can and cannot love.”

 

(Editor’s note: Yes, we know this story is completely ridiculous and unbelievable — and that’s the point. In reality, Buck is anti-everyone, and has the record to prove it. Do not allow this embarassment to continue representing us. Twenty years of his poison is enough. When you go into your polling place, please vote for someone else.)

The Buck Stops Now. Defeat Buck McKeon.

Boxer Stunned By McKeon’s Lack Of Support On Cemex

boxer

(from www.hometownstation.com, written by Carol Rock)

The issue of the Cemex mine looming over Soledad Canyon residents is something that frustrates Senator Barbara Boxer – and what’s one of the most irritating elements of the issue is the lack of support she’s received from local Congressman Buck McKeon.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE.

 

McKeon-Endorsed Candidate Defeated

Laurie Ender and Buck McKeon

In the local elections held on April 10, 2012 for the Santa Clarita City Council, incumbent councilmember Laurie Ender — who was also serving as mayor, a position that rotates among the council members — was soundly defeated by her opponent, TimBen Boydston, despite receiving a glowing endorsement by Rep. Buck McKeon.

Ender began her short-lived career as an elected official in 2008 as McKeon’s seemingly  hand-picked candidate for the city council. “After taking a good look at all the candidates,” stated McKeon at that time, “I strongly endorse Laurie Ender for city council. She is the one candidate most qualified to stand with me in our battle to stop CEMEX.”

Really? CEMEX? Given McKeon’s unwillingness to subsequently step up to the plate in Congress to resolve the CEMEX mining issue, the endorsement seems, in retrospect, almost laughable. Of course, when McKeon endorsed her again for 2012, he conveniently left out any mention of CEMEX.

“When Laurie Ender ran for council in 2008, I endorsed her because she strongly advocated expanding Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital,” reads a quote by McKeon on Ender’s still-active 2012 campaign website, “even though it was very controversial at the time… Mayor Ender listens to the residents and puts their needs first.”

It should come as no surprise that McKeon’s statement contained no reference to “battling” CEMEX or that his endorsement ultimately carried no weight for Ender. Citizens on both sides of the political spectrum have grown weary of his ineffectiveness and empty rhetoric.

Ender’s loss made her the only sitting mayor in the history of Santa Clarita to ever be defeated.

A once highly sought-after endorsement by Buck McKeon is today tantamount to political poison, and anyone running for office is wise to distance themselves from his tarnished reputation, rather than sip from his rancid chalice.

The Buck Stops Now

Defeat Buck McKeon

Did McKeon Order Publisher to Remove Negative Poll from Newspaper?

thesignal

SANTA CLARITA — A poll appearing in The Signal last week that reflected voters’ eagerness to defeat Buck McKeon in November mysteriously disappeared from the paper’s online edition.

The poll not only documented constituents’ dissatisfaction with McKeon and his corruption, but its removal serves as a sad commentary of the sorry state of journalism at The Signal.

Talk about having the press in your pocket! While we have no proof that McKeon or his staff ordered the poll taken down, there is no refuting that it no longer exists on the website. A shadow of doubt now looms large over everything The Signal publishes. How can readers ever depend upon its independence and reliability as a source of honest reporting?

Fortunately, we have a screen capture of the poll and are reproducing it here for your review:

Poll Showing Negative Views of Buck McKeon Gets Mysteriously Pulled from The Signal Newspaper

If you go to The Signal’s page of ”Latest Polls” http://www.the-signal.com/polls/ and move your cursor over the questions, you will see that each one has a unique number. For some reason the paper uses even numbers only — 2,4,6,8, etc.  You’ll notice there is no number 324 — it’s gone. Vanished.

If Buck McKeon thinks he can keep information from getting to his constituents, he is mistaken.

TheBuckStopsNow.org will continue to bring you the truth about Buck McKeon.

There is no doubt Buck has to go.  And he can take The Signal with him.

The Buck Stops Now

Defeat Buck McKeon

 

 

McKeon Paid for Campaign Mailings with Government Funds

McKeon Used Government Funds for His Campaign

McKeon Used Government Funds for His CampaignOkay, this should really come as no surprise. We already know about Buck McKeon’s corruption: the preferential loans he received from Countrywide, the kickbacks he receives from the defense industry, the salary he pays his wife from donor contibutions. So, when it came to our attention that his partisan, political campaign crap was “prepaired [sic], published and mailed at taxpayer expense,” it wasn’t really much of a surprise, at all.

If you’re going to rip off the taxpayer for tens of thousands of dollars, however, the least you could do is utilize proper spelling.

CANDIDATE LEE ROGERS CALLS ON MCKEON TO RELEASE THE TERMS OF HIS PREFERENTIAL MORTGAGE

SANTA CLARITA, CA  — A report published in the Wall Street Journal exposes Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) as the recipient of a special, discounted VIP mortgage from the now defunct Countrywide Financial Corp. The loan amount was $315,000. Such preferential treatment may be considered a gift under House rules, which would be prohibited. According to congressional investigators, the VIP loans were often at a lower rate and with lower fees than available to the public.

McKeon received this discount loan while Countrywide was charging higher fees and rates to more than 200,000 minority borrowers across the country. Bank of America, who acquired Countrywide in 2008, agreed to pay a settlement of $335 million in a statement released by the Justice Department.

Dr. Lee Rogers announced, “We’re calling on Representative McKeon to release his mortgage documents so that the public can see the terms and determine for themselves if they believe McKeon when he says he ‘had no inkling’ he was receiving preferential treatment.”

Additionally, Rogers sent a letter to the House Ethics committee asking for an investigation. The letter points out that McKeon also received over $12,000 in campaign contributions from Countrywide and Bank of America PACs since his 1998 loan.

“How can we trust our legislators who are supposed to be watching out for their constituents when they’re taking financial favors and turning a blind eye to egregious predatory lending by some in the financial services industry,” Rogers said.

Dr. Lee Rogers is a candidate for US Congress in California’s 25th district. He lives in Simi Valley with his wife Susan and daughter Emma.

McKeon’s Hate Speech

I find this latest editorial by Rep. Howard McKeon, “The Real 1%,” to be absolutely disgusting and reprehensible. Completely lacking in hard facts or statistics, this mean little hate speech cynically panders to what he apparently believes are the basest emotions and prejudices of his supporters in our District. Although I am not one of his supporters, I don’t agree with him that any of us, supporter or not, are that stupid, naive and easily manipulated.

He paints in broad sweeping stokes about the stark contrasts between what he calls “these two different youth movements,” as though both the Occupy Movement and the United States Defense structure were comprised entirely of young people. After setting up these two “straw men” he proceeds to disparage the motives and intentions of each and every protestor while romantically glorifying the motives and intentions of anyone who has committed to military service.

He supports this ridiculous contention with a series of comparisons; depicting the protestors as spoiled brats, who after graduating from private universities with their elitist “expensive degrees in academic fields” are now whining about their student loan debt and poor job prospects using $300 smart phones. He contrasts this with our nation’s military service men and women, selflessly placing their lives on the line “in the name of our flag and our freedom.”

He concocts this cynical calculation to whitewash an entire generation of our own sons and daughters; grossly oversimplifying and misrepresenting what is, in reality, an extremely broad and complex range of personal motivations and economic circumstances that dictate the direction of each of our lives.

Then he uses this despicable charade as his continued justification for pouring vast amounts of our nation’s blood and treasury into the most enormous war machine the world has ever known. He laments the fact that Congress’s own “Super Committee,” having failed to raise taxes on the top 1% or enact draconian cuts to vital social programs, is now compelled to turn its attention to the massively inflated defense budget. What Mr. McKeon refuses to acknowledge is the unalterable fact that military spending has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, is higher than at any point since World War II, and the cuts he and Mr. Panetta claim will result in a “hollowed-out military” will actually just bring DOD back to 2007 spending levels.

Last month, Buck defended the war machine’s bloated budget and broke into tears during a hearing about soldiers in Afghanistan. Almost on the same day, a Stimson Center study demonstrated how the U.S. military had used money, pegged for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, on $1 trillion for tanks, ships and jets since Sept. 11, 2001.

Twenty-two percent of that $1 trillion came from “supplemental” war spending bills. In other words, $232.8 billion of taxpayer money that would’ve provided our young fighting men and women with better body armor, for example, was spent on Abrams tanks and jet fighters, both projects enrich war contractors while doing nothing to bolster the safety of our troops or our nation’s safety at home.

It’s should come as no surprise then that Lockheed Martin’s biggest political benefactor is Rep. Howard McKeon, who made this all possible. He is looking out for the safety and well being of his real 1% alright, they are not our young men and women however, but his fabulously wealthy defense contractor CEO sponsors.

If Mr. McKeon were truly interested in the safety of our fighting forces as well as the long-term prospects for the nation they will some day be returning home to he would do well to dispense with all of this divisive nonsense and start doing his job as the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Cut the defense budget where the real bloat is. End massively expensive weapons systems that don’t work and stop these now decade long wars we should never have been fighting to begin with.

Doing this would save over $300 billion a year and do more to provide for the long-term safety of our young men and women in uniform than hundreds more F-35 jet fighters and Abrams tanks ever could.

 

Jeff Courtney
Proud and Hopeful Citizen of the 25th District

 

Buck Admits: ‘I Hate You All’

SANTA CLARITA, CA — In a recent email to his constituents, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon revealed his contempt for the “99 Percent,” those working-class, middle-class folks of his district who are fed up and frustrated with the abuses of power on Wall Street – abuses that have pushed the American Dream further and further away from their grasp.

McKeon states:

“Their villain is the 1 percent — the purveyors of power who the movement holds accountable for our fiscal woes.

As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I support a somewhat different 1 percent. Despite ten years of war, we have been kept safe by 1 percent of Americans who have volunteered to wear the uniform, volunteered to stand a post and volunteered to keep us safe.”

McKeon’s premise is that the 99%-ers are wasting their time, futilely battling some non-existent corruption perpetrated by the financial elite, and the real 1% they should be paying attention to are the men and women who volunteer to serve in uniform.

He does not understand that volunteering to hold a sign, exercising one’s First Amendment rights to petition the government for a Redress of Grievances, is just as important to our democracy as volunteering to serve one’s country to defend those rights. He brushes aside the legitimate issue of corporate malfeasance as if it doesn’t exist, stating:

“It is the 1 percent, not the 99 percent, that will bring its integrity and its character into law, government and business and spread it to all corners of society. They are our greatest hope, and they are our way forward.”

With these two sentences, McKeon insults a majority of his constituents, completely discounting their concerns and aspirations. For an elected official to display such animus toward his own constituency exposes as much about his lack of humanity as his lack of intellect.

There is so much wrong with McKeon’s letter, it can hardly be explored in a single article.

For starters, McKeon’s prose is as befuddled as his mind. Exactly what is the analogy he’s trying to make? Is he really comparing the 1% of America’s wealthiest individuals to the 1% who serve in the military? (How many servicemen do you know who make over $350,000 a year?) He’s trying to associate two disparate things that have nothing to do with one another. The 99%-ers don’t have a beef with the men and women in the military.

Perhaps he thinks he is being clever, linking these two groups together because, well, they both have that “1%” denotation in common.

The problem is that his math is wrong. There are currently about 1.5 million active members of the United States Armed Forces. The 2010 census shows the total U.S. population at about 309 million. That means about .48% — less than one-half of one-percent — of the total population serves in the military.  It is clear these two groups have nothing in common, not even the percentage.

There is no analogy here, no clever litarary device. Buck lacks the brain-power required for such thought-provoking exposition; he shouldn’t even try. If the purpose of his email was to show his contempt for the protestors in the Occupy movement and pander to the extremists in his consituency, then he has succeeded. But why? In an election year where he will have more serious challengers than he has ever faced, why go to such lengths to piss off a majority of voters? Once again, he demonstrates his ineptitude and his hatred in the same breath.

But if one chooses to muddle through his mixed metaphors and poor grasp of syntax and mathematics, it seems McKeon’s message to the 99%-ers is:

Instead of:

a) protesting against those who have perpetrated great economic crimes, by exercising their first amendment rights of free speech and peaceful assembly,

they should:

b) distract themselves by honoring those who serve in the Armed Forces.

Apparently, McKeon believes those two concepts are mutually exclusive. They are not.

We can be proud of the men and women who serve our country, while at the same time protesting the abuses and injustice of a system corrupted by the greed of the rich and powerful.

The 99 Percent Occupy Buck McKeon's Office

99%-ers Pay a Visit to McKeon's Santa Clarita Office

McKeon also wrongly insinuates that military personnel are somehow above the “Occupy” movement or do not identify with its causes. To the contrary, our veterans have experienced as much as anyone, if not more, the disastrous effects of Bush-era deregulation. How many veterans have lost their homes? How many have been unable to find employment once they reenter civilian life?

(Fortunately, Congress finally passed a small portion of President Obama’s American Jobs Act that provides tax credits to businesses that hire veterans.)

Veterans across the country are declaring themselves part of the 99% and joining the Occupy movement, sometimes at their own peril. Kayvan Sabehgi, a former marine who served in Iraq, was beaten by police at the Occupy Oakland rally on November 2, 2011. Does McKeon respect this service member any less because he held up a sign and took a stand for equality and fairness?

McKeon’s letter continues:

“Several months ago, I visited Fort Jackson, S.C., to watch 500 new recruits graduate from U.S. Army Basic training. They stood quietly and proudly at attention, with adoring families looking on, having volunteered to serve their nation during wartime. Eight of those young men and women were immigrants, earning their citizenship through their service. I am very proud that my granddaughter was among them.”

While we are all proud of our fellow citizens who choose to serve their country, McKeon should consider that many of those young recruits volunteered to defend our nation because they couldn’t get jobs anywhere else.

(If McKeon really wanted to show how proud he is of his granddaughter, he would have supported the very first bill that President Obama signed into law: The Lilly Ledbetter Act, guaranteeing women equality in the workplace. He voted against it.)

Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon has been teetering on the downside of public opinion for quite some time. With this latest email he has etched his hatred for his constituents in electronic mail for all to see. There can be no doubt whose side he is on, and it is not the side of 99% of those he claims to represent.

 

Braddon Mendelson, Editor-in-Chief
The Buck Stops Now

“Defeat Buck McKeon”

 

McKeon ‘Passes the Buck’ on Cemex Inaction

SANTA CLARITA, CA – In an article this week in The Signal, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon cites the Republican ban on earmarks for his failure to introduce a bill into the House of Representatives which would engage Cemex in a land swap to prevent mining in Soledad Canyon. In the same breath he praises, then chastises the earmark ban.

However, McKeon is no stranger to earmarks. Between 2008 and 2010 McKeon requested $78.5 million in earmarks, 76% of which were directed to defense projects, including a $9.6 million payday to the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Additionally, he is responsible for loads of fat in the National Defense Authorization Act, including a $650 million slush fund that earned him the title “Porker of the Month” from Citizens Against Government Waste in July 2011.

McKeon passes blame for his inaction onto Rep. Doc Hastings, chair of the house committee on natural resources, who labeled the Cemex deal an earmark. McKeon has previously stated that he personally doesn’t believe the land swap is an earmark. McKeon and Hastings are equals in the House, both chairs of committees. McKeon could pressure Hastings by threatening to reciprocate the earmark label on defense-related allocations that would benefit Hastings’s district.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that even with the earmarks ban lawmakers are still funding hundreds of pet projects. Lawmakers generally try to fund projects in their home districts, but as can be seen from the statistic above, McKeon is funding defense projects that benefit his main source of campaign contributions.

There are a lot of things that McKeon could do, but that does not explain why he hasn’t done anything in the past. In five of the past seven congressional terms, Republicans had majorities in the House, and there was no ban on earmarks in any except the latest. Yet with the deck stacked in his favor, McKeon didn’t even get a committee hearing on the Cemex bill in any of those sessions.

McKeon may blame the earmark moratorium for his inaction on Cemex, but he’s really just passing the buck.

Dr. Lee Rogers,
Candidate for US Congress
25th District, California
www.LeeRogers2012.com

Readers of ‘The Signal’ Voice Dissatisfaction with McKeon

Every month, readers of The Signal, the largest daily newspaper in the Santa Clarita Valley, express their disdain for Congressman Buck McKeon in letters and editorials.  The links below offer a sampling of actual letters available online at The-Signal.com.

Many thanks to The Signal for giving voice to the “Defeat Buck McKeon” movement over the years. The people of the 25h District are tired of the lies and corruption of Congressman Buck McKeon, and will stand together this November to remove him from office.

The letters and opinions expressed therein speak for themselves.

 

September 2011, The Signal

      McKeon, who were you elected to represent?

      McKeon puts party loyalty ahead of SCV

August 2011, The Signal

      McKeon is part of the problem in the U.S.

      McKeon doesn’t really represent Santa Clarita

September 2010, The Signal

McKeon gives low priority to American Citizens

July 2010, The Signal

McKeon has ‘short memory’

June 2010, The Signal

McKeon is ‘disgrace’ to district

May 2010, The Signal

 McKeon’s lack of response

March 2010, The Signal

McKeon misrepresents his constituents

Thanks for nothing, McKeon

The GOP: still not principled leadership

February, 2010

Shame on you, Mr. McKeon

November 2009, The Signal

Why I’ll no longer vote For ‘Buck’ McKeon

October 2008, The Signal

Buck McKeon shows poor judgment

February 2008, The Signal

Buck McKeon Spews Manipulation, Fear Tactics