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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (291837)	6/21/2006 2:36:30 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570833

How Congress Is Shafting the Middle Class Katrina vanden Heuvel Tue Jun 20, 3:17 PM ET The Nation -- In 2005, Congress failed the middle class. This is the blunt assessment of the nonpartisan Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI), which today released its third annual scorecard, Congress at the Midterm: Their 2005 Middle-Class Record. Aimed at assessing Congress's voting records on issues of concern to the nation's middle class and "those who aspire to a middle-class standard of living"--surely the vast majority of Americans--Congress at the Midterm is a forceful indictment of Congress's performance and the party in power. "In vote after vote," the scorecard notes, "Congress disdained the concerns of middle-class Americans and opted instead to favor the already wealthy and powerful: a surefire recipe for a shrinking middle class." From the passage of a bankruptcy bill that benefited credit card companies but squeezed middle-class families already overwhelmed by debt, to the failure of legislation to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in nearly a decade, to the House's vote to repeal the estate tax on the nation's most privileged heirs, the scorecard paints a grim, but devastatingly accurate, picture of what our elected representatives have been up to under the Capitol Dome. First and foremost, the scorecard illustrates the utter failure of the Republican rank-and-file to support their middle-class constituents. Embattled incumbents like Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (who earns a zero grade for casting not a single pro-middle-class vote) resolutely voted against a bill to reject deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt in any Social Security "reform" plan. And he was far from alone: 99 percent of GOP House members failed the scorecard completely. 95 percent failed in the Senate. And only four Republicans--Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey--even manage to earn a mediocre "C" grade under the scorecard's generous scoring system. While the party in power clearly comes out looking the worst, Democrats also fall in for their share of blame. Democratic backing for the middle class was very good when it came to things like increasing the minimum wage, saving Social Security and averting dangerous budget cuts, but the same strong level of support was not in evidence on bills like the Energy Policy Act, the Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act, and the Class Action Fairness Act--cases where, as DMI notes, "powerful industries lobbied for legislation that would increase their profits at the expense of the middle class." While there are nine scores of 100 percent among the Democratic Senators, and more among House members, 11 percent of Democratic representatives failed completely. As we head into the 2006 elections, voters looking for a concise way to evaluate Congress on basic, bread-and-butter issues would do well to be armed with Congress at the Midterm: Their 2005 Middle-Class Record. And more of them than ever will find out about it. With DMI's pioneering embrace of Google AdWords, web surfers from around the country will be alerted to their Congress member's record whenever they do a Google search for their representative's name in the next month. A search for "Katherine Harris" for example, reveals a little blurb in the upper left-hand corner of the screen linking to the 2005 House record of the woman Florida voters are considering sending to the Senate.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (291837)	6/21/2006 10:07:36 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1570833

Quit mixing Iraq and the war on terrorism. That was Bush's original sin, his original lie, to try and morph Osama Bin Laden into Saddam Hussein. It was a real crime. The only reason there are terrorists in Iraq now is because Bush bogged our troops down there providing wannabe terrorists with juicy targets. Bush also egged the terrorists on to come in and kill Americans when he blurted out "Bring it on!" So in they came. And Bushies ridiculously spun that as "fighting them over there instead of back home". We all admire and applaud our brave troops. But the soldiers don't have a clear mission in Iraq now. Neither does Bush in fact except endless war and oilfields for Halliburton. It's the same as Vietnam. The only clear mission is to survive and get home alive, and also to occasionally go out after a target we can ID. But there are very few confirmed terrorist targets. Mainly it's just a big maze of confusion and paranoia. As a result, the troops no longer support Bush and agree with Murtha and/or Kerry. The vast majority of the troops, that is. There are always some who like quagmires. There were some who wanted the Vietnam War to go on forever. Go figure. And it is a grave insult to the majority of our troops when the rightwing chickenhawks (who never served) say they want to "cut and run" and are "cowards". Ship the entire rightwing to Fallujah and see how they like it.