Take this one with all the usual caveats - the election is far away, who knows if this is a good sample, Gillibrand has months to improve her name ID, etc. Still, Carolyn Maloney has the ability to raise lots of money and there is no doubt that her views are more in line with the extreme leftist views of New York Democrat primary voters. Given those facts, Gillibrand ought to be extremely concerned that she already trails Maloney in a trial heat for the 2010 Senate nomination:

The 2010 Democratic primary for U.S. Senator remains in play as 27 percent back U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney and 23 percent back U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, with 4 percent for Jonathan Tasini and 44 percent undecided…

Voters know little about the possible Senate candidates: 63 percent don’t know enough about Gillibrand to form an opinion; 67 percent don’t know enough about Maloney and 66 percent don’t know enough about King.

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President Obama has basked in the international glow of his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but he’s never yet answered the hard question at the core of opposition to this decision: what are you going to do with the detainees? It’s a question some of our allies have proven much less interested in asking themselves (witness France’s announcement that it would take one detainee - one can practically hear the French snickering “I told him we already had one!”). It’s also a question of great concern to ordinary Americans who may not be thrilled that Al Qaeda detainees are coming to their own home town.

Congressman Peter King, the ranking Member of the House Commitee on Homeland Security, released a letter today to Attorney General Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, co-signed by 12 other Members, asking that question and a variety of detailed followups. From King’s statement:

[President Obama] made this decision without an exit strategy, without a plan of what to do with these 245 enemy combatants once Guantanamo is closed. The Executive Order to close Guantanamo was signed over three months ago, and the American people are still waiting to learn what their government plans to do with these deadly terrorists.

The ball is in the Obama Administration’s court now to level with the voters about its plans to bring terrorists into the United States. A copy of Congressman King’s letter is below the fold.

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The GOP has been in a defensive crouch for too long on the war on terror. But one of the Republicans who hasn’t been afraid to lay the stakes of the current debate about interrogation procedures is Long Island Congressman and possible Senate candidate Peter King. King argues that if the Democrats try to prosecute Bush Administration officials for approving coercive interrogation techniques against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other high-value Al Qaeda detainees, the GOP should pursue a “scorched earth” policy of shutting down Congress - and make the Democrats take full and complete responsibility for the consequences of pulling punches in the battle against terrorists:

“If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and [liberal philanthropist] George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say your son was vaporized because we didn’t want to dump some guys head under water for 30 seconds.”

If they aren’t willing to do that…well, maybe they should rethink their position before we get to that point, shouldn’t they?

Long Island’s Peter King is being criticized by liberals in New York for his response to DHS’s recent report on right-wing extremism. His critics want him to offer an apology for remarks viewed as insensitive or even racist:

In response to a Department of Homeland Security report about domestic right-wing extremism, King (R-Seaford) told MSNBC Friday that the department “has never put out a report talking about look out for mosques. Look out for Islamic terrorists in our country. Look out for the fact that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police.”

For some, it was reminiscent of when King made national headlines in 2007 for saying there are “too many mosques in this country.” Friday’s comments were called “bigoted” by the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

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McCain is raising money for his 2010 run. He’s been damn good on the stimulus issue.

On Tuesday, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee sent out a fundraising solicitation to subscribers to johnmccain.com asking for donations to his 2010 Senate re-election campaign.

Jim Gerlach (R-PA) may run for Governor in 2010:

Rep. Jim Gerlach’s (R-Pa.) possible departure from the House to run for governor in 2010 may finally be the opening that Democrats are looking for to pick up his suburban Philadelphia seat.

That’s probably not a terrible thing, though it could be a Democrat pick up. His district will probably cease to exist in 2011 after the census. Pennsylvania will lose one seat.

Read on for more race roundups.

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In a what-was-he-thinking move, Representative Peter King (R-NY) has recently introduced H.R. 414, the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act which is aimed at preventing “predators” from taking illicit photos of others in public with cell phones. The bill will force cell phone manufacturers to make the camera feature of a cell phone emit a noise so that it will be audibly obvious when a picture is taken.

As the bill summary at Thomas.loc.gov states:

Requires any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken with the camera’s phone. Prohibits such a phone from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Treats the requirement as a consumer product safety standard and requires enforcement by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Really? So now we are mandating sounds here? Should we begin to make laws that devices of every kind emit some sort of sound to alert everyone in the vicinity that something has been used in their presence, and predicate it all on “public safety”? And, what if someone doesn’t like the particular sound chosen? Are we going to sue to get the sound we like? Will the government then make rules of what kind of sound is made, how loud, how long? Will there be great volumes of the sorts of sounds “allowed” for one thing or another? Clicks for cameras? Star Trek-like swooshing sounds when doors open?

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