SHAME: 18 DEMOCRATS BETRAY THEIR PARTY AND THE PEOPLE

18 Democrats voted in favor of the bankruptcy billed aimed at protecting billionaires from the poor. Despite the fact that credit card companies have seen their profits rise 167% in the last five years, 18 members of the party that is supposed to represent the most vulnerable in our society voted on the side of big business. The shameful 18 are:

Baucus, Mont.
Bayh, Ind.
Biden, Del.
Bingaman, N.M.
Byrd, W.Va.
Carper, Del.
Conrad, N.D.
Inouye, Hawaii
Johnson, S.D.
Kohl, Wis.
Landrieu, La.
Lincoln, Ark.
Nelson, Fla.
Nelson, Neb.
Pryor, Ark.
Reid, Nev.
Salazar, Colo.
Stabenow, Mich.

The complete roll call is available by clicking here.

NH GOP DIRECTOR SENT TO PRISON

"A second Republican figure is headed to federal prison for jamming Democratic telephone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day two years ago."
(WCSH)

Action Needed To Save Darfur

The situation in Darfur is one of continued horror. The massacres continue, and a "final solution" of man-made famine is looming over the 2 million refugees crammed into towns and camps.

We can stop this crime, but it will take effort. A first step is to join together to stage the largest one-day hunger strike in US history on Wednesday, March 16th. Please demonstrate your solidarity with Darfur and sorrow over enforced starvation in Sudan. Click below to sign up for the fast and put your dot and testimonial on an online map of America:

www.darfurgenocide.org/MarchStrike.html

Political pressure is needed now and together we can make a difference. Next week is a big week for Darfur: new legislation (the Darfur Accountability Act) is being introduced in Congress with new measures to pressure the Sudanese government, the UN will be voting on whether to impose additional sanctions on Sudan, and Congress is also voting on how much money to budget for food aid and peacekeepers in Darfur. The moment is crucial, and yet recently our government has been easing up on pressure on Sudan. A nationwide fast sends a strong message to our leaders that we want real results for the suffering people of Darfur. Click below to participate:

www.darfurgenocide.org/MarchStrike.html

Once you sign up, you can also help spread the word by forwarding this message to 5 friends, writing letters to your Congressperson, distributing a flyer (available on our website) in your community, or telling your local press about your decision to participate in the fast.

Thank you so much for doing something about this horrendous tragedy. We CAN stop it.

Sincerely,
The Res Publica Team
www.darfurgenocide.org

More Ethics Problems for DeLay

We told you recently about new alleged ethics violations raised against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay involving an expensive foreign junket taken by DeLay and his wife and allegedly paid for by a lobbyist, a clear violation of House rules.

But in the last 48 hours another serious allegation has emerged implicating DeLay. This one involves a delegation of Republican House members, including DeLay, accepting an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign service agent, despite House Rules that bar the acceptance of travel expenses from foreign agents.

The allegations reported this morning by The Washington Post were serious enough to prompt, Jan W. Baran, a highly respected former Republican National Committee lawyer to call the trip "a problem," and say that this is a situation that will likely trigger an investigation by the Ethics Committee.

We need to keep strenuously lobbying the Ethics Committee members to make sure they launch that investigation. You have already been calling them since Tuesday, when we sent our last email to you about DeLay, and we know that they are feeling the pressure of your calls. Please keep them up.

We also want you to call Republican congressional leadership offices. Please tell them that the Ethics Committee has an obligation to look into the allegations that have been raised, and that as leaders, they must make sure that happens:

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL): 202-225-2976
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Majority Whip: 202-225-6536
Rep. Eric J. Cantor (R-VA), Deputy Majority Whip: 202-225-2815
Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH), Conference Chair: 202-225-2015
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), Conference Vice-Chair: 202-225-5831
Rep. John T. Doolitte (R-CA), Conference Secretary: 202-225-2511
Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), Policy Chairman: 202-225-3361
Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Chair, National Republican Congressional Committee: 202-225-5265
The members listed above who make up the Republican leadership are accountable to all Americans, not just the citizens who live in their districts. The same is true for Ethics Committee members - they may not be your representatives in Congress, but as a citizen concerned about the ethical behavior of Congress, they are accountable to you.

Please forward this message to as many family members, friends, and colleagues as you can by clicking on the link below this letter. Let us know how your calls are going by posting on our blog . Make sure to check our blog and our website, as we will keep you updated as there are further developments.

Thank you again for all you do for Common Cause.

Sincerely,

Chellie Pingree
President & CEO, Common Cause

Anne Lewis' Weekly Rant

How's that whole mandate business working out for you, Mr. President?

Remember a month ago when George Bush was trying to convince us he has some mythical "mandate" to dismantle Social Security? Turns out that even some members of his own party didn't really believe it.

Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both from Maine, have refused to endorse Bush's privatization scheme. Even one of Bush's top White House advisors was quoted anonymously today as concerned that losing on Social Security now will cause Republicans to lose Senate races next year.

My question is where's the vaunted Republican party discipline when they really need it?

Rick Santorum, Man of the People?

A new and improved Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) was in the news this week offering a proposal to raise the minimum wage. Well...sort of.

Actually, Slick Rick's proposal would have made it harder to collect overtime pay by abolishing the 40-hour work week and replacing it with an 80-hour two-week accounting period. It would have forced waiters and other tipped employees to work for tips only by allowing employers to pay those employees zero actual salary.

Despite all that, we just might go along with Santorum's new-found "compassionate conservatism." Except that his minimum wage proposal was so stingy that even Sen. Arlen Specter, another Republican from Pennsylvania, rejected it in favor of Sen. Ted Kennedy's much larger proposed increase. That's right. Santorum's proposal is so bad that some Republicans are supporting Ted Kennedy instead.

The truth is that Rick Santorum is no friend of working families. He's voted against increasing the minimum wage at least half a dozen times. Now that his 2006 reelection bid is shaping up to be the fight of his political life - Presto! - he is trying to recast himself as a dedicated man of the people. We're not going to buy it. Of course, with the minimum wage so low, I'm not sure we can afford it.

Pennsylvania Polling

More good news from the Keystone State just today. SurveyUSA has Santorum losing 49-42 to leading Democratic candidate and current state Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. It's a good thing Sen. Kennedy is trying to enact a real minimum wage increase. A two-term senator with numbers this low this early is likely to be looking for a new line of work real soon.

Senate Republicans Oppose Everything

Senate Budget Committee Democrats are doing their best to make the Bush budget into something tolerable. It's not working.

Yesterday, Budget Committee Republicans voted against Democratic efforts to do the following: save Social Security first, restore fiscal responsibility, put more cops on the streets, equip and train first responders, revitalize communities, provide full funding for veteran's health care, and let Medicare negotiate better prescription drug prices for seniors.

There's still one more vote left on preventing the kicking of puppies. We'll see where the Republicans come down on that one.

Quote of the Day

"We don't do Lincoln Day dinners in South Carolina. It's nothing personal, but it takes awhile to get over things." -- Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), speaking to the annual Knox County Lincoln Day dinner

Well, at least it's nothing personal.

Sincerely,

Anne H. Lewis


Want to help us beat Rick Santorum and elect more Democrats to the Senate in 2006? Make a contribution to the DSCC today!


http://www.dscc.org/contribute

GOP Abandons The Working Class Yet Again

"Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who supports an increase of the $5.15-an-hour base wage, put it in perspective.

'Since 1997,' he said, 'the last time we raised the minimum wage, members of Congress have raised their own pay seven times in the last eight years, by $28,500. Think about that: We vote to raise our pay seven times in eight years by $28,500, but for minimum-wage workers earning $10,700 a year, we can’t vote to raise their minimum wage. Shame on the Senate.'"
(American Prospect)

THE GOP's SHAMEFUL ATTACK ON THE HAVE-NOTS

"Erasing medical bills, credit card charges and other debts in bankruptcy soon will become more difficult under landmark legislation that has vaulted its last major hurdle before Senate passage."
CBS)

The Torture Cover-Up Continues

"Carl Levin, the panel's top Democrat, said the report failed to explain the role of the Central Intelligence Agency, which hid detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the policy of “rendition”, in which the US hands terrorism suspects over to countries with records of torturing prisoners, such as Egypt and Jordan."
(Financial Times)

The "Clear Skies" Act Stalls

"The Environment and Public Works Committee deadlocked on a 9-9 vote on Bush's "clear skies" bill, a name that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., described as "akin to calling Frankenstein Tom Cruise."
(Salon)

The Good Part of Bush's Social Security Scheme

"President George W. Bush’s decision to make Social Security privatization his top second-term priority is proving to be an extraordinary gift to liberals. At the very least, his plan to fundamentally transform the nation’s most successful governmental program has unified and energized a progressive community that otherwise seemed destined to be fractious and despondent after a crushing electoral defeat."

The Mess In Iraq

"Now the administration tells us that we had to attack not because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, but because he wasn't a democrat. Sadly, however, the costs of trying to make Iraq a democracy probably would have been lower, and the chances of succeeding better, if we hadn't gone to war with flimsy evidence and wishful thinking."
(Knight Ridder)

TLS Editorial: THE BANKRUPTCY BILL

Like all of the schemes that the Bush Administration has perpetrated against the people of the United States (Clear Skies and Healthy Forests included), the Bankruptcy Bill that is set to become law is an unabashed attack against average Americans on behalf of corporate America. Consider the following:

In the past five years, the number of bankruptcies in the United States have risen about 7%. Sounds like a real problem, doesn't it? Well, does it still sound like a problem for the poor credit card companies when you consider that over that same time period their profits have increased by 163%.

It seems obviously that the credit card companies are thriving, despite the ne'er-do-wells who don't pay their bills. And who are these irresponsible people? 50% of them are honest, hard-working people who fall into bankruptcy because a catastrophic illness has struck them or a family member.

Recognizing this, Senator Edward M. Kennedy introduced an amendment to grant an exemption from the bill to those who have been bankrupted due to medical bills. That was rejectd by the Republican majority.

Then Democrats introduced an amendment exempting military veterans from this bill. Surely the flag-waving, troops-loving Republicans will not put corporate interest before military heroes, right? Nope, the GOP shot that down, too.

So Senator Russ Feingold sought to protect another class of vulnerable people: the elderly. He introduced an amendment to exempt $150,000 of equity for seniors from this law. Sorry, the Republicans didn't go for that, either.

It seems that military veterans and seniors will have to lose their rights under Chapter 7 so that the executives at credit card companies (they of the 163% profit increase) can live yet more comfortably.

"No Billionaire Left Behind" continues to be fully funded, with public donations by Bu$h Co.

Bush Administration Not Interested in Human Rights for Women

"Our own delegation, by contrast, is a blush-making collection of hacks and fanatics with no bona fides in women's rights or international development."
(The Nation)

Dems Retain House Seat in California

"With all precincts reporting Tuesday, Matsui had nearly 72 percent of the overall vote and 88 percent among Democrats in a race marked by low turnout. She is expected to be sworn in Thursday."
(CNN)

Verdict is In: Arnold Not Keeping Campaign Promises

"You can put any flim flam on the ballot you want and call it reform, but all the things he said he'd do in the 2003 election he has not done."
(Associated Press)

Clinton Ready for Surgery

"I've had an unusual life. If something happens if I get struck by lightning on the golf course today I'd wind up ahead of where 99.99 percent of the people that ever lived," he said. "I'm just grateful for every day when the sun comes up. But it is not a dangerous procedure, unless something totally unpredictable happens."
(Associated Press)

Government Inconsistent in its Perception of Al Qaeda's Threat to America

"'Limited reporting since March indicates al-Qa'ida has sought to recruit and train individuals to conduct attacks in the United States, but is inconclusive as to whether they have succeeded in placing operatives in this country,' the report reads. 'US Government efforts to date also have not revealed evidence of concealed cells or networks acting in the homeland as sleepers.'

It also differs from testimony given by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who warned in the past that several sleeper cells were probably in place."
(ABC)

The Neo-Con Attack on Families Continues

"The bill would disqualify many families from taking advantage of the more generous provisions of the current bankruptcy code that permit them to extinguish their debts for a 'fresh start.'"
(New York Times)

CBS Continues Move To Far Right

"CBS' 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and Fox News host Bill O'Reilly both misleadingly suggested that the Bush administration's use of "rendition" -- the practice of transferring suspected terrorists from where they are captured to other countries, including nations known for torturing prisoners, while bypassing formal extradition procedures -- is merely a continuation of Clinton administration policy."
(Media Matters)

US Infrastructure Suffering Under Bush

"A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure.

The overall grade slipped from the D+ given in 2001 and 2003. Overall conditions remained the same for bridges, dams and solid waste, the group said, and worsened in roads, drinking water, transit, wastewater, hazard waste, navigable waterways and energy."
(MSNBC)