To all those who continue to think there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats please take a look at who voted to continue funding the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq:
The Senate (note: the only senator who voted no was Russ Feingold)
The House (note: one of only 14 congressional reps who voted no was Dennis Kucinich)
As a final note, of the presidential candidates in the House and Senate, the only two who bothered to vote were Kucinich and Paul.
I have found a terrific site. The Sunlight Foundation as a page of what it calls Insanely Useful Web Sites. Stop by and check it out. People like this give me some hope that we can take our government back.
Here is a handy chart to keep track of where the candidates stand on the issues.
Hat tip to Gryphen.
Type rest of the post here
The last election was more than a referendum on the Iraq invasion (I refuse to call it a war). It was also a call for more transparency in government. Now the elections are over and the promises are yesterday's news. CNN has requested from each representative a report of the earmarks that each senator has inserted into various bills. How many have been forthcoming?
Not many.
On Thursday, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, a member of the Illinois delegation, posted his more than 100 earmark requests on his Web site, the first presidential candidate to do so.
And 11 more House members released their earmark requests.
Six members of the House said they had no earmark requests.
Of the remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 315 either didn't respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn't. (Find out how your representative responded)
"As long as we are not required to release them, we're not going to," said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana.
All we want to know is where does our money go. Why is that too much to ask? There is more on the Senate side here. There is also a link to a pdf of how each senator responded. I found the pdf a bit confusing after watching the report on CNN. Russ Feingold is listed as "No Request" as is Jim DeMint but Feingold was one of the 6 who requested no earmarks at all while DeMint told CNN it was illegal for his office to divulge the information.
Sound like it is time for a Freedom of Information Act request.
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Thursday to require average fuel economy of 35 miles per gallon for new cars, pickup trucks and SUVs by 2020, raising efficiency standards that have not changed significantly for nearly two decades.
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Republicans earlier blocked Democratic efforts to raise oil taxes by $29 billion and use the money to promote renewable fuels and other clean energy programs.
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The most fuel-efficient cars in Europe all have fuel efficiency over 64 miles to the gallon, which translates to 27 kilometers per liter.
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...American automakers actually make more fuel-efficient versions of their top sellers for the European markets.
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An interesting site that a coworker brought to my attention is MAPLight.org.
MAPLight.org brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, providing an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics. We currently cover the California Legislature and U.S. Congress.
You’re forgetting it’s not about the two parties. Vote theft is mainly a racial issue in America, and it’s a class issue. The white caucus is a lot bigger than the black caucus. They don’t call the Congress a millionaire’s club for nothing. There aren’t many guys in there -- or women -- who are not millionaires. So it’s the millionaires versus us. It’s the white caucus versus the black caucus, which is of great concern. So the vote is along racial class and economic lines, not along party lines. Party lines are pretty much meaningless. There’s pretty much one party -- the party of the cash. But I’m not one of these people that says there’s no difference between the Democratic and Republican Party. The question is: is the difference meaningful? That’s all. When it comes down to voter issues, remember that the Democrats in power there were elected under the racist, broken, classist system. If you fix the voting system, a third of those Democrats could never win a primary. The last thing that they want is poor people to vote.
Greg Palast, author of Armed Madhouse
Both parties are winking and nodding and giggling behind your back that the way to save jobs is to change the value of China’s money. It’s a brilliant cover for the bi-partisan banging the American worker received with the one-two punch of NAFTA and ‘Most Favored Nation’ trade status for China. There are 700 Wal-Mart plants in China — zero in the USA. Hillary Clinton was on the board of Wal-Mart when that shift went into full swing. No wonder she’s joining George Bush in talking about baloney like “exchange rates.”
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This is why I am totally fed up with the Democrats.
President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq.
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