I love this guy - Washington is full of crapheads, too!!!
Coburn is one of a small number of Senators with gonads.
Posted on 04/28/2005 9:23:35 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma for less than four months, last week was up to old tricks he started playing in the House a decade ago. He was making colleagues' lives miserable by exposing wasteful, unnecessary spending that is supposed to stay hidden. The Senate establishment, like its House counterpart, has retaliated by bringing ethics charges against the obstetrician-senator for going home to Muskogee, Okla., to deliver babies.
In a legislative body where members spend much of their time off the Senate floor begging for money, it is worthy of Kafka that the only pending ethical proceeding involves Coburn's concept of the citizen-legislator. Unless the rules are changed, Coburn must either break his campaign pledge of continuing baby deliveries or leave the Senate.
His early departure from the Senate would occasion rejoicing there, as he showed April 20. Not observing a freshman senator's customary silent period, he proposed reducing the $592 million for a new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad provided by the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Coburn argued that because only $106 million could be spent over the next two years, ''we are going to have $486 million hanging out there that will be rescinded and spent on something else.'' Instead of settling for the usual voice vote, Coburn insisted on a roll call (which he lost by only 54-45).
The Oklahoma GOP establishment thought it was finished with Coburn when he fulfilled his term-limit pledge and left Congress after three terms, ending in 2000. His subsequent memoir showed his contempt for Capitol Hill mores. When a Senate seat opened for the 2004 election, Coburn withstood vicious attacks in both the Republican primary and general election campaign.
On Dec. 2, a Senate staffer handed Sen.-elect Coburn's chief-of-staff a letter signed by Sen. George Voinovich, the Senate Ethics Committee's GOP chairman, and Sen. Harry Reid, then the panel's ranking Democrat. The letter ordered Coburn to stop practicing medicine.
The staffer was no stranger to Coburn: Robert L. Walker, staff director of the Senate Ethics Committee. He held the same post for the House Ethics Committee the year after it made the same demand in 1998. House rules were not as firm, and the ethics panel backed down in 1998 when Coburn made clear he would quit Congress before he quit medicine. But Senate rules prohibit ''substantial'' outside income.
During six years in the House, Coburn's campaign against pork-barrel spending made him anathema to Republican leaders. He planned a lower profile in the Senate, but the ethics complaint made that impossible. He also had an agenda ensuring him more attention than ordinary freshmen: bringing free market principles to health care, oversight of federal programs (as chairman of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee) and assaulting congressional pork. For the first time since Phil Gramm left the Senate, Sen. John McCain had an anti-pork partner.
In the April 20 debate on the supplemental appropriations bill, Coburn was the only senator to support McCain against Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who was mandating that a $40 million project go to a ''Philadelphia-based company.'' ''I believe this is the wrong way we should be doing things,'' Coburn told the Senate. ''We need to stop. Our future depends on the integrity of a budgeting and appropriations process that is not based on politics but is based on having the future best will for our country.''
It is hard to exaggerate how much Coburn's rhetoric riles pork-loving colleagues, explaining the absurd ethics proceeding against him. In answering charges that he is a part-time senator, Coburn wrote constituents that he will continue to ''devote at least 60-70 hours per week to my Senate duties.'' Other senators spend as much time as Coburn back home but mainly for fund-raising. They are not stopped from padding their bankrolls with book royalties, farm income and investments.
With little chance Voinovich will bury the complaint in the Ethics Committee, Coburn can hope that the Senate Rules Committee under Chairman Trent Lott will save the Senate from embarrassment by amending the rule. What is sure is that Tom Coburn will neither yield nor shut up.
I have never been prouder of my Senator. Keep up the great work, Dr. Coburn.
Amen to that brother! Tom Coburn don't scare worth a damn!!
Hopefully, the only way he will resemble McCain is in fighting to get rid of "pork".
Add this to the growing list of things that are really pissing me off about the Republican Party. Kudos to Senator Coburn! We need 99 more like him. Actually, we need 543 more like hime.
OMIGOD! They have an honorable conservative in the Senate and he must be destroyed before he contaminates the other 99.
Yes, that will be the only way. Dr. Coburn is very conservative and will back ending the filibuster of judges, etc.... The only way Dr. Coburn is like McCain is when it comes to fighting pork. I hope that Dr. Coburn actually takes to the Senate floor and names names about those wanting to waste our money.
One thing the Republican Party doesn't want is an elected conservative. Simply goes against corporate policy.
I must read this. BTW, Coburn was just wonderful today during the Judiciary Committee hearings on the asbestos fund legislation. He confounded them with facts and science. It was priceless.
Stupid Party lives....
Yeah, tell that to Herb Kohl.
I'll bet if he were flying home on weekends to perform abortions nobody would be saying anything.
Coburn is a hero - one of the only ones in Congress, especially the Senate, who isn't a thief.
It would seem that Pubs_R_Losers, too.
I think it's great that they made his quote larger than their request to get him to apologize.
I wonder how many people, reading that sign, agree with him?
I bet it's more than the people who are against him will admit.
I'm sure that sign gave the people a good laugh before they went to the polls and voted for him overwhelmingly. LOL.
I just wish one of the Louisiana senators, Landrieu, had the same perspective...I think Vitter does but he is not as confrontational as Coburn...if we had 100 Coburns in the Senate, this country would have a much brighter future. Doc, keep up the good work....
BTW, how much was SENATOR Clinton's book advance? And how much did she earn from the book in royalties?
How much does Jon Corzine earn annually, excluding his Senate salary?
This is a crock...and Voinovitch leads the charge. What's with this guy? First Bolton, now Tom Coburn. We continue to eat our own. We continue to look rudderless.
I love this guy. We should all write the other 99 thieves in the Senate and tell them we support his ideology wholeheartedly.
But they'll piss and moan when their RINO candidate loses because conservatives opted to vote for the Libertarian or Constitution party candidate.
"But they'll piss and moan when their RINO candidate loses because conservatives opted to vote for the Libertarian or Constitution party candidate."
We conservatives are suppose to kiss arse and just be happy someone with a (R) behind their name gets elected. Today's Republicans are not conservatives and should be identified as such and votes cast for real conservatives regardless of party affiliation..
After a bad statewide election, issues with Tabor, and some marital problems, the Club For Growth is shying away from their initial endorsement of CO Governor Bill Ownes and has fallen behind Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, another strong government slashing Conservative. I'd been hoping SC governor Mark Sanford would get in the race, but it appears he is adamant about not running. Pence may be the best bet for 2008. Why do I like Mike Pence? Because this past week he stood up to the 'Conservative' leadership in Congress and now any Representative can force a vote on any aspect of the budget. This will force lawmakers to go on record when they steal, say, $500,000 for the International Coffee Organization (true story), instead of being able to hide all their pork deep in large appropriations bills. Pence is also strongly in favor of opening our socialistic public school system up to private competition and was the only house member to serve as a plaintiff against the unconstitutional and failed campaign finance 'reform' bill.
Why do I take the Club For Growth's endorsement so seriously? Because they bankroll the election of people like Senator Tom Coburn of OK who believes in the radical concept that families will spend their money better then government. "There isn’t going to be an appropriations bill that I don’t go after,” Coburn vowed. Robert Novak reports: The Oklahoma GOP establishment thought it was finished with Coburn when he fulfilled his term-limit pledge and left Congress after three terms, ending in 2000. His subsequent memoir showed his contempt for Capitol Hill mores. When a Senate seat opened for the 2004 election, Coburn withstood vicious attacks in both the Republican primary and general election campaign. [The Club For Growth's financial backing was a primary reason he won] Dr. Tom Coburn, a U.S. senator from Oklahoma for less than four months, last week was up to old tricks he started playing in the House a decade ago. He was making colleagues' lives miserable by exposing wasteful, unnecessary spending that is supposed to stay hidden. The Senate establishment, like its House counterpart, has retaliated by bringing ethics charges against the obstetrician-senator for going home to Muskogee, Okla., to deliver babies. The Washington Post reports that thieving Senators are stuffing a must pass emergency military spending bill with tons of pork: Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will go against the flow by attempting to strip out funds that he deems are not urgently needed. As Mark Twain said: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
What do you mean, "we", paleface?
Dittos. IIRC, Oklahoma didn't have a single county that voted democrat during the 2004 presidential elections, not one, and Dr. Coburn is representing his constituents well.
I like this guy.
No, those pretending to be our own (RINO's) continue to eat our own.
GO DR TOM!
COBURN FOR PRESIDENT!
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It would be just too good to be true. Could you imagine!
If anyone would be able to expose these litigious abestos scammers and their schemes-which are simply an extension of the fraudulent lawsuits launched against tobacco and firearms companies-it's Coburn.
He's the type of individual that the rest of the GOP should seek to emulate, not heap scorn upon.
He's the type of individual that the rest of the GOP should seek to emulate, not heap scorn upon.
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It tells you something about the 'Conservativeness' of the G.O.P. After all, hasn't Bush raised Federal Education spending by 40%, and passed a trillion dollar Medicare entitlement program?
I could not agree more, especially after watching him today. It was hilarious today when Feinstein asked him, with great scepticism in her voice, how he knew all this medical stuff. LOL.
Thanks, travis, that was excellent. I appreciate these brave men who actually work on our behalf, rather than to solely continue their careers as politicians.
HLL - I thought you'd enjoy the part on Owens
Don't spread this around, but I heard that Bill Frist knows a thing or two about performing surgery.
HOW COULD THAT BE?!
:^)
Gee, I wonder why. /sarc
I'm seriously thinking about sending a buck to this guy to GET him to run. He's a politician that does more than kiss babies. He helps deliver `em. If the Senate doesn't think it's right, they ought to get over themselves.
He apparently also knows something about politics. I think his resistance to being bombastic about the judicial nominees and about Bolton, and working behind the scenes, is going to reel these two matters in quite nicely.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
No, I don't.
I haven't had faith in the Senate Republican Caucus since former Senate Majority Leader Dole retired.
First Alan Simpson-who should have held that post, if there were any justice in this world-and then Thad Cochran were beat out for the position by lesser men.
Let's hope that they show some good judgment and spine for once!
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
Geez, and I hated sen V for being a dolt on Bolton ... now another reason to consider him a pest.
Senator Coburn is a True Hero!!!!
Maybe he ought to deliver babies, but take reduced income for it and/or have patients contribute to pro-life or adoption services charities instead ... that would shut up the complainers!
I am the Republican Party and Tom Coburn is my favorite Senator already...
"I am the Republican Party "
Wow, you're the entire republican party?
Tom isn't making a lot of friends amoung this fellow Republican Senators.
But somehow Teddy "The Swimmer" Kennedy keeps cashing in his trust fund checks, and Jean Fraude Kerri keeps collecting his weekly allowance from Theresa. This rule, like most in DC, is applied selectively. Besides that, it's dumb.
If the Senate is serious, Doc Coburn should set up a charity practice in DC and donate his time to keep his practice going.
"Wow, you're the entire republican party?
Tom isn't making a lot of friends amoung this fellow Republican Senators."
LOL - figure of speech.
As an active, RNC-dues-paying, party office-holding (precinct-chair), broken-glass-voting Republican, I feel that when I see or read "the Republican party thinks X" they are talking about me and thousands like me.
And you should now that folks like me think Tom Coburn is just fine and dandy. Let the RINOs and pork barrellers squirm.
"Let the RINOs and pork barrellers squirm."
Unfortunately it's Senators and Reps like Tom that are doing the squirming. When you have 45 RINO's in the Senate it's hard for Senators like Tom to be effective.
I did the "broken-glass" thing for 30 years, but the party in general was just one let-down after another. I'm a conservative. The (R) or (D) makes no difference to me.
Some good news from the district of criminals. Thanks.
Marking
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Tom Coburn is YOUR republican nominee for President, if not in '08....then DEFINITELY 2012.....
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