R.I.P.

House Democrats (and some Republicans!) vote to fight gas price gouging

Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you know that the price of gas has passed $3 per gallon. Some worry it will soon eclipse $4 per gallon.

In response, US Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) introduced HR 1252, the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act. This bill would provide penalties for those who take unfair advantage of consumers at the pump. (Read more here.)

The bill passed 284-141 - a veto-proof majority - with 56 Republicans joining all but one Democrat in supporting the bill.

How did Michigan's members of Congress vote?

YES:
Bart Stupak (D)
Dale Kildee (D)
Candice Miller (R)
Thaddeus McCotter (R)
Sander Levin (D)
John Conyers (D)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (D)
John Dingell (D)

NO:
Pete Hoekstra (R)
Vern Ehlers (R)
Dave Camp (R)
Fred Upton (R)
Tim Walberg (R)
Mike Rogers (R)
Joe Knollenberg (R)

Two Michigan Republicans joined all six Michigan Democrats in supporting the bill. The other seven don't seem to care about the pain being inflicted on American drivers. Yet Republicans in the State Legislature oppoose the idea of raising taxes to fix the state's budget crisis. (While painful, a tax increase would go a long way in avoiding the alternative: cuts to education and higher tuition. More on that later.)

I don't know about you, but I'd rather see my money go to help our schools than help oil industry executives who don't need it.

URGENT - Tell Carl & Debbie to Save Our Troops ASAP

Our troops desperately need us.

If you go to Daily Kos or Democratic Underground, the big story on both of those websites is ‘the deal’ in which certain Democratic leaders abandoned their party, the troops, and our country by backing down on including benchmarks for bringing our troops home to safety in an Iraq spending bill.

Some would have us give up and concede that this bill will be passed without a fight.

The fact is, the battle is not over yet. The spending bill has not yet been passed. We cannot be like those aforementioned leaders and cower. Our troops need us.

We must make one last-ditch effort to support our troops. While our brave men and women fight over there in a war that was not of their choosing, we must fight for them back here.

Call Carl Levin’s Washington office at (202) 224-6221.
Call Debbie Stabenow’s Washington office at (202) 224-4822.
And don’t forget your Representative.

Carl and Debbie supported our troops at the beginning, opposing this war when it wasn’t popular to. Now the American people want our troops home; indeed our country needs them home.

So Please, folks, I implore you: For the sake of our brave men and women overseas, urge Carl and Debbie to oppose this ill-conceived spending bill.

White House opposes pay hike for troops - so much for 'supporting' them

One has to wonder how some people like to proclaim their ‘support’ for the troops when in reality, current Administration policy reeks of being anti-troop.

First there was the idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place - a decision which has cost nearly 3,400 American lives and God knows how many Iraqi civilians’ lives, not to mention our standing in the world and several-hundred-billion-dollar jump in the national debt.

Then came the Abu Ghraib scandal. Then Walter Reed. Then Bush’s recent veto of a bill that would have brought our troops home to safety.

And now comes this:

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises. (emphasis added)

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

I added some bold to show yet another difference between Republicans and Democrats - the Democratic-controlled Armed Services Committee voted to pass a pay hike, while the Administration opposes it. Actually, truly supporting the troops would involve bringing them home, but since such efforts haven't worked yet, this will have to suffice for now. Anyway, back to my rant.

Mr. President, do you really believe it unnecessary to treat our men and women in uniform to a fair wage? These people are putting their lives on the line in a war that you started, and your idea of 'supporting' them is to oppose giving them just a 3.5% pay hike?

What exactly is your idea of 'suporting the troops,' Mr. President? Because evidently it's not the same as mine.

Presidential campaign news

In about 13,000 hours we should have a president-elect. Here are a few bits of news regarding some of the candidates.

• It's time to de-authorize the war, say Biden, Richardson, and Clinton.
• Some big names are backing Chris Dodd's energy plan.
• The governors of Maryland and New Jersey are endorsing Hillary.
• Edwards is proposing an $8 billion program to make college more affordable. A drop in the bucket compared to the $425.1 billion price tag for the war.
• On the other side, Rudy Giuliani and Ann Romney (Mitt's wife) have both donated to Planned Parenthood. Oh, the conservative Republicans will not let them get away with this!

The College Democrats have not endorsed any of the candidates yet. You are, however, encouraged to follow the campaign closely and make an informed decision as to whom you will support in the Michigan Caucus (currently set for February 9, 2008).

School and local elections this Tuesday!

Many people believe that young people simply do not care about politics - or if they do, they only do so during presidential campaigns. But every election is important, including elections for governor, state legislature, city office... and school boards. And other than K-12 students and teachers, I don’t know of any group that has more at stake in these school elections than people our age.

This Tuesday, many communities will be holding elections for School Boards, while others will be voting on tax issues (i.e. millage requests) and the like. Click here to find out if there’s an election going on where you live.

If there’s an election where you live, but you’re not sure if you will vote, here are a couple of reasons why you should.

1. K-12 schools do matter to us. If you're reading this, you are probably a college student, and you probably don't care what goes on in your communities' K-12 schools (unless you want to be a teacher). Here's why you should. Companies generally choose to create jobs in areas where potential employees are well-trained to work for them. This means that in order for Michigan to emerge from the economic doldrums brought on by the decline in our auto industry, workers need to be well-trained and well-educated. It’s up to our schools to educate young people and to equip them with the skills they need in the 21st century world. Gov. Jennifer Granholm understood this, and was thus able to push a stronger high school curriculum into law last year.

School board members - including those who will be elected Tuesday - have the responsibility of making the schools in their communities educate children as best they can. The better the schools in your communities are, the smarter their students will be, the better prepared they will be for the workforce and the more attractive our communities will be to businesses.

2. Your vote has a big impact (relatively speaking). About 60 million people vote for the American Idol in a typical week. 3.8 million people voted in Michigan’s gubernatorial race six months ago. By contrast, no more than a few thousand people vote in School Board elections in many places. This means your vote will have a much greater impact on who wins.

3. Today’s School Board members = Tomorrow’s political leaders. A number of School Board members go on to serve as city council members, mayors, and state legislators. Former Grand Rapids Public School Board member Robert Dean now serves in the Michigan House, having won a hotly contested race last fall. The 2006 Democratic nominee for Congress in the Grand Rapids area, Jim Rinck, currently sits on the GRPS Board. Those are just a couple of examples. So if you see a candidate whom you know is a conservative... well, you know who not to vote for.

Polls are open from 7 AM to 8 PM on Tuesday. If you can, educate yourself (no pun intended) about the candidates running in your area... then be sure to vote!

US House Democrats pass bill targeting hate crimes (Bush, other Republicans oppose it)

The US House Thursday passed a bill designed to expand the nation's hate-crimes laws to include those crimes that are based on gender or sexual orientation. 25 Republicans joined with 212 Democrats (including each of Michigan's six Democratic Representatives) in voting for the bill, which President Bush is threatening to veto.

CNN has more on the bill:

Under current law, hate crimes are subject to federal prosecution only if the acts of violence are motivated by race, religion, color or national origin. Federal prosecutors get involved only if the victim is engaged in a federally protected activity, such as voting or participating in interstate commerce.

The White House says there is no need for the expanded bill because state and local laws already cover the crimes it addresses, and there is no need for federal enforcement.

In addition to allowing greater leeway for federal law enforcement authorities to investigate hate crimes, the House bill -- which was passed on a 237-180 vote --provides $10 million over the next two years to aid local prosecutions.

According to the article, critics of the hate-crimes legislation say it will target pastors who preach against homosexuality. Two points in that regard. First, the bill targets those who commit crimes based on gender and sexual orientation, NOT those who believe homosexuality is wrong.

Second, I'm a heterosexual man, but if one of my friends from the GLBT community falls victim to a hate crime, I would expect nothing less than for the perpetrator to receive swift justice.

But none of Michigan's nine Republican members of Congress see it that way. They believe that the current law, which criminalizes hate crimes perpetrated based on religion, race, national origin, or color, is sufficient enough.

But a hate crime is a hate crime, regardless of the basis on which it is perpetrated. Until Michigan's congressional Republicans realize this, many of them will probably keep receiving zeros on the Human Rights Campaign's Congressional Scorecard.

Mark Brewer lanches his first podcast

Mark Brewer, Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party and a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, has posted his first podcast on YouTube. Check it out!

Buckley agrees with Kissinger: The war is lost

Wait until the folks at YAF hear about this piece:

The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60 percent of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of accompaniment. The vote in Congress is simply another salient in the war against war in Iraq. Republican forces, with a couple of exceptions, held fast against the Democrats’ attempt to force Bush out of Iraq even if it required fiddling with the Constitution. President Bush will of course veto the bill, but its impact is critically important in the consolidation of public opinion. It can now accurately be said that the legislature, which writes the people’s laws, opposes the war.

[SNIP]

But beyond affirming executive supremacy in matters of war, what is George Bush going to do? It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.

[SNIP]

Students of politics ask then the derivative question: How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can’t see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, "I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort." The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.

So who wrote that article? Some 'left-wing surrender monkey?' Nope... That, my friends, comes to us from William F. Buckley, father of modern American conservatism.

He's not the first of his ideology to say that the war is lost; Henry Kissinger has also said so. Again I ask, as I did last week: Where are all the war hawks criticizing Kissinger and Buckley for saying essentially the same thing Reid has said?