Coakley Claims There's No More We Can Do in Afghanistan, Our Job There is Done or Something

The special election to replace the recently departed Sen. Ted Kennedy is set to take place in Massachusetts a week from today, January 19th. It has been a brief but intense battle in between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown. Polls have it anywhere in between a Coakley blowout to a Brown 1-point victory. However, it's going to be very tough to turn the very liberal state purple. If the Republicans pull it off it'll break the Democrat's filibuster-proof majority, after holding it for only one year.

They had their final debate yesterday. Coakley, of course, played the "Bush Sucks" card that all Democrats have been using to garner support for the past three years.

Brown went after Coakley for being soft on terrorists, which is a normal talking point to hit Democrats with during campaigns. However, Coakley said something about the War on Terror that seemed to justify all of Brown's accusations:

Coakley, the state attorney general, said she disagreed with Obama's decision and believes there are better ways to fight terrorist organizations than sending troops into every country where they have a presence. She also said it's time to bring home the troops still in Afghanistan.

"This is not about sending troops everywhere where we think al-Qaida is," she said. "I think we have done what we can in Afghanistan."

She is, basically, wanting to waive the white flag in Afghanistan. This would be a disaster as the Taliban and Al-Quaeda would no doubt return more emboldened then ever. They would claim a victorty over their "Great Satan", the United States. There would be no stopping them as they would feel like they could get away with pulling off further attacks as America would eventually cave.

In contrast, Brown supported the troop surge in Afghanistan and spoke out against letting captured terrorists "lawyer up".

Healthcare reform bill was, also, debated as, predictably, Brown opposed and Coakley unequivocally supports the bill, but it was the Afghanistan issue that really brought out how liberal Martha Coakley really is.

PS: Here's a video that I thought was really telling of this point:

Government Waste Watch: Massachusetts-Homeless Put in Hotels Indefinitely to Keep Off Streets

While this is a worthy cause, this is still a massive amount of government waste:

A record number of families are being put up in motels in Massachusetts. High unemployment and the rising number of home foreclosures is the reason the state is taking this action.

Housing Massachusetts’ homeless is costing tax payers around $2 million per month. It costs an average of $85 per night to have families, including nearly 1000 children, stay in motels.

A daily rate of $85 per night is outrageous. Their monthly rent ends up being $2635 per family. That is about 1/3 of the price of an apartment with much more square footage.

There are many ways to get families off the streets without resorting to hotels. They should rented an apartment for a fraction of price. If they would have done this, the $2 M per month spent would have been reduced to $667 K. It is still a huge amount, but at least it would have been easier to swallow.