Bruce Fealk talks to MDP Chair Mark Brewer about Joe Knollenberg

Bruce Fealk, host of Michigan Progress asked Mark Brewer about Joe Knollenberg's campaign strategy, about 10 minutes into the show.

Joe Has Lobbyists to Tell Him What His Opinion Is

Joe Knollenberg's Chief of Staff -- who also happens to be a Washington DC LOBBYIST -- said that raising fuel economy standards for automobiles would "be the death knell for the domestic auto industry". [Oakland Press, 4/3/07]

Funny thing though, the auto industry doesn't agree with him. Earlier this week, the major trade group for the Auto industry, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, was advocating that both cars and manufacturing plants reduce emissions of air pollutants like CO2 that cause global warming.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group representing General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and five others, said in a statement that "there needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases."

Knollenberg's Positions Are Defined By Lobbyists
This week, Lobbyist Wisecup said:

CAFE (Corporate Average Funeral Economy) mandates would cost the Big Three $85 billion at a minimum, Wisecup said.

But less than 3 years ago he said:

President George W. Bush has proposed CAFE reforms based
on recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences, which would increase fuel efficiency without a negative impact on the U.S. automobile industry.

How could CAFE be a "death knell" today when just a few years ago it could have been implemented "without a negative impact"? Seems Joe just needed a phony crisis to harp on.

Knollenberg's Position is Whatever Lobbyists Tell Him It Is.

Joe & Gonzo

Calls for the resignation of the U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, are ringing out from both sides of the aisle in Congress. Members of the House and Senate -- both Democrats and Republicans -- have been calling for his resignation amidst the scandal of his firing 8 U.S. Attorneys and replacing them with Karl Rove's political cronies.

Congressman Vern Ehlers, a Republican from Grand Rapids, has called for Gonazales' resignation.

Joe Knollenberg, the Congressman with the amazing knack of finding the wrong side of every issue has yet to make any public declarations about his position on the issue. He hasn't said he supports Gonzales. But he hasn't called for his resignation either.

Why is Joe Knollenberg silent on important issues of corruption and cronyism?

Knollenberg Loses Power

The non-partisian Congress.org has put out their 2007 power rankings. Many Michigan Republicans took a big hit, especially Joe Knollenberg.

"Joe Knollenberg (MI-09) is 220th". This is HUGE considering Joe was all the way up at 12th just a year ago. We already know that Joe was fakin' the bacon, but will he be able to deliver at all for us anymore? Smart money should flock to the Democratic nominee, to deliver for our moderate district in a Democratic Congress.

How Knollenberg's Economics Have Hurt Middle Class Families

Joe Knollenberg has consistently supported economic policies that harm middle class families.

He has been a big supporter of George Bush's tax cuts for the rich -- which we were told would create jobs and drive economic growth.

Part of that is true, those tax cuts certainly drove economic growth -- but the growth was only in the net worth of the wealthiest of individuals.

Under George Bush & Joe Knollenberg's economic policies -- we'll call them "Knollenomics" -- the inequality between rich and poor has grown dramatically.

The Rich Have Gotten Richer Faster Under Knollenomics
A March 29, 2007 article in the New York Times reported on a professor's analysis of IRS data. According to the NYT, some of the conclusions are:

• In 2005, the top 1 percent of Americans (i.e., make over $348,000/yr) got their largest share of national income since 1928
• Those in the top 10% of income levels (i.e., over $100,000/yr) also got their largest share of national income. Everyone else LOST income.
• Total income increased almost 9 percent in 2005. But those gains went primarily to the top 1%

Those in the top 1% saw their incomes go over $1.1 million (a 14% increase).

There are approximately 300 million Americans now.

It takes half of them (150 million in the bottom income tier) to earn as much as the top 300,000 Americans.

The income inequality gap has almost doubled since 1980 -- with the top earners making 440 times what the average person in the bottom half earned.

We Were Warned

Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when Al Gore kept saying that George Bush's tax cuts were only going to benefit the top 1%. Well, the data now shows that he was correct.

The NYT article also reported that the "share of income taken by federal taxes" for middle class Americans has been essentially the same for 40 years. But the weathiest of Americans have seen their tax burdens drop by 50%.

The Bush tax cuts -- supported in full and rubber stamped by Joe Knollenberg -- have only made the very rich much richer while the middle class has been left behind.

"President Bush and "Karl Rove" show up to help launch RetireJoeKnollenbeg.com

"President Bush" and "Karl Rove" were nice enough to stop by at Joe's office in Farmington Hills to help launch www.RetireJoeKnollenberg.com today. Everyone that attended was really excited to meet Karl and President Bush. I hope you will visit the www.RetireJoeKnollenberg.com site often.

"Do Nothing Joe"

"Do Nothing Joe" Knollenberg is certainly living up to his nickname these days.

Looking back at his record over the first quarter of this year we can see that he hasn't done anything useful!!!

One could argue that given concerns over Knollenberg's competency, maybe it is better that he doesn't do much. Like his friend George Bush, Knollenberg is always on the wrong side of the issue anyway.

But there are times when leadership is important. And Joe provides no leadership whatsoever.

One such area has to do with our trade policies.

Knollenberg Supports Trade Agreements That Threaten Our Jobs & Our Health
We've reported before that Joe Knollenberg supports what he calls "free trade" with countries like China. He fails to recognize that there is no such thing as free trade. There is always a cost.

The cost to us in Michigan has been jobs. We have seen our high paying jobs -- both blue collar manufacturing jobs and the associated white collar engineering jobs get shipped overseas. And Knollenberg supports the federal policies that allow that to continue.

And we can now see another example of how Knollenberg's "Free Trade" agreements cause us harm -- look at the poisoned pet food problem that we are experiencing.

That poison has been traced back to a manufacturing plant in China that sold wheat gluten to the food manufacturers.

Not only is this tragic because it means many of us have been unknowingly poisoning our dogs and cats, but today DelMonte announced that the wheat gluten they used in their recalled foods was labeled as "human grade". That means that it may well have been used in human food products.


Another disturbing aspect of this crisis is that FDA's activities seem limited to posting information on their website and maybe helping with some forensic evaluations of the pet food.

Isn't this the sort of thing the FDA should be protecting us from in the first place? Why aren't they? Of course Joe Knollenberg has shown NO LEADERSHIP on the issue of FDA's failure to protect public health and welfare from bad drugs or bad food.

Is Knollenberg incompetent
or has he just been paid off
by lobbyists
to not do anything that could
cost their industry's money?

When is a Blog Not a Blog -- When it is Joe Knollenberg's

Joe Knollenberg now claims to have a "blog".

What is most interesting though, is that he doesn't allow anyone to leave comments on his "blog".

So, basically, Knollenberg's idea of a "blog" means he gets to censor free speech.


The Irony of it All
Of course there is even more irony on Joe's new website -- he doesn't allow you to contact him by email!!!

His "contact" page only provides snail mail addresses.

That is not a surprise to his Constituents who have tried to contact him already know that he doesn't meet with or correspond with, or even reply to constituents.

It is just ironic that he has a website, but won't allow anyone to make comments or contact him via email.


Joe Knollenberg Ignores Constituents But Meets With Lobbyists
He does meet frequently with Washington DC lobbyists from Big Oil, Pharma, etc. He particularly likes to have them host fundraisers for him. (We have more about that coming up in a future post.)

Too bad we as voters don't have a lobbyist. That would be the only way we could get Joe to listen. Well, if we had a lobbyist and we gave him lots of money towards his re-election campaign.

We have a different strategy for 2008 though. We are building a grassroots effort to replace Joe. We have been getting great support from the community.

If you want to help us
get Joe Knollenberg out of Congress,
contact us at
joe@knollenberg.org

Meanwhile, notice all the anti-Knollenberg websites that are popping up these days like www.retirejoeknollenberg.com and www.knollenberg.org. No wonder Joe is so nervous these days.

First Retire Hawaii Joe Knollenberg House Party a Success

The first Retire Hawaii Joe Knollenberg House party was held in Rochester Hills on Sunday. We had an enthusiastic group as we gathered for fun, food and politics. Here's a little video we recorded to express our feelings about Joe Knollenberg.