Boy, the news for John Sununu just keeps getting worse!

The Washington Post reports, that in a January 26 Jan. videoconference, Karl Rove deputy J. Scott Jennings, directed to the chief of the GSA and as many as 40 agency officials stationed around the country listing the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need help.

Such a blatant political presentation to government staffers and using government resources may have been illegal.

But because congress is now investigating the propriety of such behavior we now have access to thinking current thinking of George Bush’s Brain and his most influential political advisor: a one Mr. Karl Rove.

The Congressional committee investigating this monkey business has released Karl Rove’s PowerPoint slides. A map from Rove’s slideshow clearly shows Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire one of the eight Republican Senators who will be on the “defense” in their re-election bids for 2008.

It gets even worse for Senator Sununu. Yesterday, the American Research Group released a poll showing John Sununu trailing former Governor Jeanne Shaheen in a re-election match-up.

The following results are based on 551 completed telephone interviews among a statewide random sample of registered voters in New Hampshire.

Question wording and responses: “If the 2008 election for US Senate were being held today between Jeanne Shaheen, the Democrat, and John Sununu, the Republican, for whom would you vote - Shaheen or Sununu?” (names rotated)

It may just be over before it starts for Mr. Sununu.

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John Sununu

GOP should catch up with constituents

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You can usually tell when a politician is going into defensive mode. Yesterday Senator John Sununu attacked me in a letter to the the editor of the Nashua Telegraph.

Today, the New York Times published an article from North Conway, New Hampshire talking about how Sununu is feeling the heat.

even among the ladies and gentlemen of the Carroll County Republican Committee, more than a few of whom wore elephant neckties and broaches to celebrate the symbol of their party, the vexing issue of Iraq was the real elephant in the room. “Nobody is happy with the way the war is going,” said a loyal Republican who attended the event. “It was a Republican project, so my guess is that he’s in trouble. Senator Sununu has been such a big supporter of George W. Bush, the Democrats will take a good shot at him.”

more than a dozen Republicans in attendance said they were concerned about Mr. Sununu’s re-election prospects. New Hampshire has been trending Democratic, with both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office out of Republican control for the first time since the 1870s.

a Republican state senator, delivered a bleak outlook for his party’s prospects in the state. He said he feared being “caught up in this anti-Iraq message,” but said voters spared him because he served a six-month stint in Iraq as a Marine Corps reservist.

“At this point,” Mr. Kenney said, “it’s going to be a challenging election for John (Sununu).”

It certainly will not help when people begin to learn that despite his call for the resignation of Alberto Gonzales last week, Sununu both supported Gonzales‘ nomination to the post of Attorney General and defended Gonzales‘ horrific stances on torture and disregard for the Geneva convention.
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In response to my Letter to the Editor of the Nashua Telegraph, John Sununu writes his own letter to the newspaper and accuses me of fabrication.

My response is below.

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Sununu: Letter had erroneous information

The Nashua Telegraph: Published: Saturday, Mar. 24, 2007

I write to correct a series of false statements in a letter to the editor from Mr. Stephen Nodvin that appeared in The Telegraph on March 22 regarding climate change. As Congress examines this issue, your readers deserve the most accurate, objective information available.

The letter states, falsely, that prior to my election to the U.S. Senate, I headed an organization funded by Ex­xon Mobil, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Philip Morris, and that I ran a disinformation Web site regarding global warming funded by Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris. Both points are patently untrue.

Before being elected to the Senate in 2002, the residents of New Hampshire’s First Congressional District elected me to
three consecutive terms in the U. S. House of Representatives. Prior to 1996, I held the position of chief financial officer and director of operations for the Manchester, N.H.-based Teletrol Systems Inc., a manufacturer of information systems and networks.

The letter’s author and his colleagues did meet with my staff in Washington. However, at no time did they discuss global warming with my chief of staff, to whom Mr. Nodvin inaccurately attributes a quote in his letter.

Last year, I wrote legislation adding wilderness protection to 35,000 acres in the White Mountain National Forest. I have voted against the administration’s unfair new source pollution policy and supported tougher standards for mercury emissions from power plants. In 2005, I received recognition from Taxpayers for Common Sense, a bipartisan coalition, for my work on environmental issues.

I understand that no one will agree with my vote on every issue. But it is inexcusable for critics to resort to fabrication to score partisan, political points. The voters of New Hampshire deserve better.

U.S. Sen. John Sununu
R-New Hampshire

My response is below:

In a letter published in the Nashua Telegraph on March 24, 2007, Senator John Sununu accused me of "fabrication to score partisan, political points."  His statements were in response to my Letter to the Editor, published on March 22 in which I questioned the Senator’s motivation for being the first Republican Senator to call for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Every citizen has the right to question the motivations of her or his elected officials in Washington, whether they be congresspersons, senators, or the president.  That is one of the things that makes America such a great country.  However, I think it is another thing when a Senator accuses one of his constituents of purposely spreading partisan-based falsehoods.  I would like to take this opportunity to respond.

In his letter Mr. Sununu said that my "letter states, falsely, that prior to my election to the U.S. Senate, I headed an organization funded by Ex­xon Mobil, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Philip Morris, and that I ran a disinformation Web site regarding global warming funded by Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris. Both points are patently untrue."   

My training as a scientist compels me to not make any statements without having a basis either by direct observation or reference source. I my letter to the editor I sourced several published articles and the book Washington Babylon (page 13) which stated "John Sununu" headed Consumer Alert, the industry funded front group that had fought against improved automobile safety standards and had helped the establish and maintain the disinformation web-site: http://www.globalwarming.org .  I have now spoken with Ken Silverstein, one of the authors of the book Washington Babylon, who has informed me that the "John Sununu" referred to was actually the Senator’s father and former Chief of Staff in the first George Bush Whitehouse. 

I apologize to Senator Sununu for the incorrect attribution.  Both the father and the son go by the same first and last names and one of the sources that I used incorrectly attributed the association with Consumer Alert to the younger Sununu.

However, my observation that the Senator is a long-time climate change denier remains unchanged.  In a letter the senator sent to me on January 26, 2005, the Senator stated "scientists have been unable to agree that there is a direct increase between … temperature increase (during the second half of the 20^th century) and human activity."  This statement is, and was at the time, untrue or misleading at best.  While there are a handful of vociferous dissenters with scientific credentials, the overwhelming majority of scientists worldwide have reached the conclusion that human activity has been the primary cause of global warming during the past 40-50 years.  

In the Senator’s letter to the paper he states: "The letter’s author and his colleagues did meet with my staff in Washington. However, at no time did they discuss global warming with my chief of staff, to whom Mr. Nodvin inaccurately attributes a quote in his letter".  Mr. Sununu’s statement implies that we did not discuss global warming with his staff during our meeting.  The Senator’s statement is misleading because we did indeed discuss that issue. In my letter I did err in stating that I and two other scientists from New Hampshire met with Mr. Sununu’s "chief of staff."   I should have used the title "Legislative Assistant."

The staff person that we met with in the Senator’s office in Washington at 3:30 pm on September 20, 2005 to explicitly discuss global warming was Peter Phipps, the Senator’s Legislative Assistant for Environment, Energy, Elections, Telecom, and Agriculture.  It was Mr. Phipps who told the three New Hampshire scientists sitting in front of him that day that there was no scientific consensus on the cause of global warming.  It was astounding to us to hear such a statement from our Senator’s Legislative Assistant for Environment when we had explicitly traveled to Washington to inform our representatives that exactly the opposite was true.

The Senator’s implication that my questioning of his motives and actions were "partisan" and "political" follows a popular refrain among elected officials to cry "partisanship" when a citizen questions her or his representative’s actions.  My visit to the Hill on September 20, 2005 included meetings with staff members of all four of New Hampshire’s representatives in the House and the Senate.  It was only in Senator Sununu’s office that we scientists received a lecture on what scientists believe about global warming.  In fact, during our visit to Senator Gregg’s office, I was particularly impressed with the depth and awareness of Mr. Gregg’s Legislative Assistant for the Environment, with whom we spoke, about the problem of global warming. 

There were some unintentional errors in my letter to the Telegraph.  However, in his letter to the paper, Mr. Sununu never addressed the main issue of my concern which was why Mr. Sununu is now calling for the resignation of the Attorney General when he had formerly provided strong support for Gonzalez and his policies. 

The Senator’s current stance on the Attorney General contradicts the support Mr. Sununu provided to Mr. Gonzales in a letter the Senator sent to me on February 28, 2005.  In that letter, Senator Sununu not only supported Mr. Gonzales appointment to the post of Attorney General but, to my amazement, the Senator also defended Mr. Gonzalez’s and President Bush’s justifications of their circumvention of Geneva Convention protections.

Stephen C. Nodvin, Ph.D.

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Is Senator Sununu Running scared?

Published in The Nashua Telegraph: Thursday, Mar. 22, 2007

Sununu has some serious problems. He has received a “D” rating by a veterans group on his congressional voting record on issues that affect U.S. troops, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and military families.

Sununu is a long-time climate change denier. He boasts about having an engineering degree from MIT. Yet, two years ago I sat in Mr. Sununu’s office on Capitol Hill as his chief of staff told me and two other New Hampshire scientists to our faces that there was “no scientific consensus on climate change.”

The reason that we traveled to Washington from New Hampshire was to make sure that our congressional leaders were, in fact, aware that there was and is indeed scientific consensus on recent climate change and its causes.

Before being elected to the Senate, Sununu was in charge of an organization that was funded by organizations such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Phillip Morris, and ran a disinformation Web site on global warming funded by Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris. (Funny how after the November 2006 election, Exxon Mobil stopped funding such groups and Sununu’s site, globalwarming.org, was removed from the Internet but has since been reactivated.)

What is worse, in March 2005, I received a letter from Sen. Sununu in which he condoned the use of torture in his support for Alberto Gonzales being appointed as Attorney General of the United States: blog.nodvin.net/wp-content/Sununu2.jpg .

So now Sununu is calling for the ouster of Gonzales as attorney general when two years ago he wrote me a letter supporting Mr. Gonzales’ appointment to the same position and defending Gonzales’ horrific stands on torture and the Geneva Convention? What has changed? My only guess is that the results of the 2004 and 2006 elections have got John Sununu running scared.

Stephen Nodvin, Nashua, New Hampshire
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As I posted to this blog earlier, New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg and John Sununu are 2 of the only 13 Senators who failed to sign the recent anti-lynching legislation.

As reported in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, New Hampshire’s senators gave absolutely lame excuses for not co-sponsoring the anti-lynching legislation that was signed by 87 of their fellow senators.

CapitolBuzz reprinted the story listing Gregg’s and Sununu’s excuses.:

Judd Gregg (N.H.) “The fact that this amendment passed unanimously showed the depth of the support this resolution rightfully received, and Sen. Gregg was pleased to offer his support.”John Sununu (N.H.) “Sen. Sununu supported the resolution, and was on the Senate floor Monday evening when the resolution passed unanimously by a voice vote.”

New Hampshire state Representative Claire Clark (D), who is African-American, issued a statement condemning Granite State Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu for not co-sponsoring the measure.

Below is Clark’s statement as published in Foster’s Daily Democrat:

“As a person of color, I know this bill is an important first step towards healing the long shadow of slavery and discrimination that still hangs over our country. Out of one hundred Senators, only 13 refused to sponsor it. Frankly, I don’t understand why both John Sununu and Judd Gregg chose to be in that small and hurtful minority”.

This letter to the editor appeared in the June 17, 2005 Nashua Telegraph.

In today’s Nashua Telegraph it was reported that there was a “voice vote in which the Senate apologized for refusing to enact legislation against lynchings and mob violence that terrorized blacks well into the 20th century”.

This voice vote was on a Senate Resolution : S. RES. 39 “Apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.”

Senate Resolution 39 was co-sponsored by a majority of U.S. Senators (78 Senators). Conspicuously absent from co-sponsorship are New Hampshire’s two Republican Senators: Senator Judd Gregg and Senator John Sununu.

Of the almost 5,000 documented lynchings, none appeared to have occurred in New Hampshire.

However, it was a failure of the U.S. Senate that during the lynching era it failed to act to prevent those lynchings that were occurring in every state in the nation except for Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont.

It is a disgrace that Gregg and Sununu did not stand as co-sponsors of this resolution in which the ENTIRE Senate is apologizing for past inaction to prevent lynchings in this country.

Stephen Nodvin, Ph.D.
Nashua, NH