Charles Taylor Honored By Pro-CAFTA Lobbyists
Via the Asheville USA Today Jr.:
The National Association of Manufacturers will present its Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence to U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor during a ceremony from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. today at the manufacturing facility of Volvo Construction Equipment on Hendersonville Road in Skyland.
The award is presented to members of Congress who vote in the best interest of the manufacturing economy at least 70 percent of the time on key votes, as determined by a committee of the association’s member companies.
Taylor, a Brevard Republican, voted with the association 91 percent of the time during the 109th Congress.
“On behalf of all manufacturers and their employees in North Carolina, I offer Congressman Taylor our deep gratitude for his commitment to us and to our nation’s manufacturing sector as a whole and take great pleasure in recognizing him for his work on behalf of all manufacturers in North Carolina,” said Dave Million, vice president for Volvo Construction Equipment.
You know, there are so many National Association of Fill-In-The-Blanks crawling around K Street these days, it's hard to keep up. Part of me even thought that the NAM was something fictional, a non-entity created just to help boost Sorry Charlie's sorry-assed poll numbers, create a photo-op for another meaningless campaign ad, and to keep his name in the paper. But, yes, Virginia, as it turns out there really is such an association as the NAM. Here's their website. And here's their mission statement:
The NAM’s mission is to enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers by shaping a legislative and regulatory environment conducive to U.S. economic growth and to increase understanding among policymakers, the media and the general public about the vital role of manufacturing to America’s economic future and living standards.
The NAM is the nation’s largest industrial trade association, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NAM has 10 additional offices across the country.
I smelled something funny, so I punched the word "CAFTA" into their built-in site search function, and found some pretty interesting stuff:
The NAM, a leading member of the Business Coalition for U.S.-Central America Trade, strongly supported CAFTA because it will reduce barriers to U.S. exports and investment in that vital region.
Now, if you'll hop into the ol' Wayback Machine with me, let's see if we can get Peabody to set the dials to July 28, 2005, where our fearless leader on Capitol Hill had this to say:
"I voted NO on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) in the vote last night. I informed the Majority Leader and the Appropriations Chairman I was voting no, as I had informed my constituents I was voting no. Rep. Howard Coble and I voted “no” together. Due to an error, my “no” vote did not record on the voting machine. The Clerk’s computer logs verified that I had attempted to vote, but it did not show my “nay”. I am re-inserting my “No” vote in the record. But even with my NO vote re-inserted, the bill still passed."
So, no matter which of the five different stories that Taylor's office offered as explanations and/or excuses, if any of them, you believe regarding his "vote" on CAFTA (take your pick - he either voted with Howard Coble, voted near the end of the vote, it was the machine's fault for not registering his vote, his electronic card that allowed him to vote from a remote location in clear violation of House rules was malfunctioning, it was the staff's fault because they couldn't find him sitting in his office with Coble...), it still passed. With textile mills, manufacturing facilities and furniture companies going under left and right throughout the region, it was good politics for Taylor to come out against CAFTA. In fact, in a press release from 2005, he even said “I have voted against all of these trade pacts and will vote against CAFTA.”
(He must have forgotten about his vote - HR 2644, Vote #570, 11/4/97 - in favor of giving President Clinton fast-track authority to expand NAFTA into Latin America, but I digress...)
Anyway, I'm not going to pretend I have any answers for this... I just find it really, really interesting that a bunch of Washington lobbyists who were so gung-ho to get CAFTA passed are coming all the way to lil' ol' Asheville to honor a Congressman who said out of at least one side of his mouth that he was gung-ho against it in the first place.
So, I guess congratulations are in order for the Distinguished Gentleman from Brevard for receiving the Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence. Way to go, Charlie! You probably earned it.
On your feet or on your knees, you probably earned it.
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There's probably some Russian bank
connections in there somewhere.
One thing that really stands out
as I'm researching CAFTA is how incredulous most journalists were at Taylor's reason for his vote not registering. Nobody believed him.
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On behalf of all manufacturers and their employees
in North Carolina....they still have employees in North Carolina? When are they scheduled to be "Outsourced"?
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
The CAFTA vote story
Public Citizen: "Taylor released a statement the day after the vote claiming that he did in fact vote against CAFTA but blamed his “lost” vote on a machine error.[3] Soon after his initial statement, Taylor’s staff offered different and contradictory stories of what happened. Originally his press secretary claimed that Taylor had not been on the floor during the customary voting time and cast his vote only at the end of the allocated time, suggesting that as a result, he had no opportunity to realize the technical problem. [4] However, the office quickly changed its story, announcing that Taylor had voted during the official 15-minute voting period and then had left the House floor with Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.) in an attempt to escape GOP House leaders who might pressure them to change their votes. [5] Taylorclaims that he and Coble “voted ‘no’ together.” [6] However, Coble recollects that he and Taylor met up after Coble voted. “I didn’t see him [Taylor] insert the card,” Coble said. [7] Taylor says he and Coble then retreated to an Appropriations Committee office in the U.S. Capitol and watched the voting on C-SPAN with the sound turned off and that it was not until the next morning he discovered that his vote went uncounted, although Coble’s chief of staff reportedly did hear Taylor’s name mentioned on C-SPAN and tried to contact Taylor. [8]
The next version of the story, also offered by his staff, involved yet another new claim: that Taylor had mistakenly used the wrong voting card, somehow taking last year’s voting card to the floor with him for the CAFTA vote. [9] This seems unlikely, considering that Taylor successfully voted on numerous resolutions earlier in the day on July 27 and even managed to register his vote on the resolution calling the CAFTA bill up for a vote at 8:15 p.m., which is the vote that initiated debate on the measure. [10] Furthermore, the following morning, shortly before his office released a statement on his CAFTA non-vote, Taylor successfully cast another vote, this time on agreeing to the conference report on the energy bill. [11]
However, assuming that Taylor had been extremely careless with this important vote and that his vote was not counted because of any one of these explanations, the notion that an hour could elapse during which Taylor could not be located to remedy his mistake is unbelievable. All members of Congress wear official beepers that are used to contact them for legislative business which, as representatives often joke, makes it nearly impossible for those who do seek to avoid being found to escape. Washington press reports covering the lack of support for CAFTA had cited Republican House leaders’ plans to persuade some Republican representatives who planned to oppose CAFTA to miss the vote. After the CAFTA vote, Congressional Quarterly reported that House Republicans had expected only “a total of 432 votes to be cast because one House seat is vacant. … and because the leaders were willing to allow two reluctant Republicans to sit out the vote.” [12] They needed to line up 217 yes votes to ensure a victory. And indeed, CAFTA was passed 217-215 with two representatives who had indicated they would oppose CAFTA not voting.
“People at home are wondering whether Rep. Taylor took a walk after caving in to GOP House leadership pressure to either vote ‘yes’ or not vote,” Wallach said. “It is hard to believe that a seven-term congressman really could have mistakenly failed to have his vote recorded on such important, high-profile legislation. But even assuming he did not intend to take a walk on this important vote and somehow did not see on the TV broadcast he was watching that his was one of the missing votes, what kind of representation are folks in the 11th district getting if Taylor’s staff did not have the competence to find him and fix the problem over the course of the extra hour the vote was held open?”
Yes, that story
he is such a lying moron....allegedly....
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To my knowledge.
:)
As far as I know...:)
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