McCaskill calls for review of spending in Iraq war

[Judi Lynn]

McCaskill calls for review of spending in Iraq war
By Jo Mannies
POST-DISPATCH POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
05/08/2006

In her first major policy address for her U.S. Senate bid, Missouri Auditor Claire McCaskill called for the creation of a new "Truman Committee to investigate the waste and mismanagement going on in Iraq."

McCaskill, a Democrat seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Jim Talent, said Monday that such a panel is needed to uncover and correct military misspending that she said is endangering the nation's troops stationed in Iraq.

She cited the case of a soldier from Monett, Mo., who had written to a local tool and die shop to ask "for the tools he needed to install the armor on the vehicles being used by his unit."

"Something is very, very wrong," McCaskill said in a telephone interview later. The spending on the war in Iraq "is screaming for accountability, with all the overspending, the no-bid contracts, the indictments for bribery."
(snip/...)

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/6D13DC0E3331C06686257169001BCD27?OpenDocument

[Vidar]

1. Basically we need FDR & George Marshall to begin cleaning up this mess.

[w13rd0]

2. This will actually go over very well in Missouri...

...although Missouri has been trending conservative, they dislike government corruption and waste, and the Iraq war is not a popular war, even with the more conservative segments of the population.

[xchrom]

3. good move on her part.

and one that conservatives would find it hard to argue with -- that is until talent starts screaming ''terrror, terror, terror!'' and setting his hair on fire.

[William Seger]

4. "Waste and mismanagement"

Guess what; that money isn't just disappearing down a black hole. Call it what it is: war profiteering.

[Adelante]

5. McCaskill is a very tough budget hawk

She pulled in $681,067 in the first month of her campaign, including $100,000 over the Internet, and spent $35,929. This is a woman we want dipping her fingernails into the federal deficit and clawing our way out again. A Truman Committee is just the right thing.

[Seedersandleechers]

6. Claire has my vote. Don't forget

we're the State that voted for "the dead guy".

[Adelante]

7. Hey, are there any new poll numbers locally?

I remember about six months ago they were statistically tied.

[Judi Lynn]

8. I'm looking. In the meantime, here's something amusing I just found:

From: E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Washington Post Writers Group
05.08.06

Breakfast with Rick Santorum
Recasting the Republican image

~snip~
And the issue of stem cell research is causing a spate of conservative headaches, most notably for Sen. Jim Talent, R- Mo., who is in a re-election battle with the Democratic state auditor, Claire McCaskill.

Earlier this year, Talent dropped his sponsorship of federal legislation to ban the cloning of human embryos. That move enraged many of his supporters in the right-to-life movement, so Talent then came out against a state ballot initiative that would add a provision to the Missouri Constitution protecting the right to conduct stem cell research.

Then on Wednesday, Talent said that position was his own and he was not really urging voters to join him since “everyone has to reach their own personal judgment and make a decision based on that.” If someone published a book called “Profiles in Parsing,” it would become this year's best-seller among Republican candidates.
(snip/...)

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20759

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding article on Claire's opponent, creepy old Jim Talent, who has backed himself into a corner on stem cell research:

Posted on Tue, May. 02, 2006
Amendment would protect research
Talent opposes stem-cell measure
By STEVE KRASKE
The Kansas City Star

Breaking weeks of silence on one of the state’s hottest issues, Sen. Jim Talent said Monday he opposed a November ballot measure aimed at safeguarding early stem-cell research in Missouri.

The announcement caps speculation about the Missouri Republican’s position on the issue, which has generated passionate feelings and fueled a barrage of criticism from his likely November opponent for re-election, Democrat Claire McCaskill. McCaskill, the state auditor, backs the measure.

Talent’s stand was announced the same day that supporters of early stem-cell research turned in 288,991 signatures to place the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. That’s nearly twice as many as were required.

In a three-sentence statement issued late Monday afternoon, Talent said, “I personally cannot support the initiative because I’ve always been opposed to human cloning and this measure would make cloning human life at the earliest stage a constitutional right.”
(snip/...)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/news/politics/14477202.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On edit:

I can't find any poll data on Claire McKaskill and Jim Talent. Sorry.