McCain Voted to Kill the Federal Minimum Wage

I don't know if this got much coverage at the time, but it's so distressing that I thought I'd mention it. Senate Republicans tried to kill the federal minimum wage a couple of weeks ago. An amendment introduced by Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) to the minimum wage increase bill had this little gem buried deep inside it:

State Flexibility.--Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an employer shall not be required to pay an employee a wage that is greater than the minimum wage provided for by the law of the State in which the employee is employed...

Bob Geiger picked up on this

Here's the list of Senators that voted in favor of this amendment. Perhaps the most notable is preidential candidate John McCain. Just remember this the next time someone tells you how great McCain is.

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thomas (R-WY)

Are Republicans Evil?

Almost all Republicans have the same basic goals we on the left do, although they usually prefer very different ways to achieve them. But there are some things done by some Republicans that any rational neutral observer would have to conclude are evil in the sense that they directly harm individuals, or our country as whole, to further the interest of those Republicans, with no conceivable offsetting justification. Here are two recent examples from the news for you to think about.

The vast majority of us, right and left, would agree that illegal drug use by children is bad. And we would agree that anyone knowingly taking actions that promoted or caused drug use by children is evil.

By that standard President Bush, his administration, and a number of Congressional Republicans are indeed evil. Bush is proposing to increase funding for an anti-drug media campaign that a huge independent study, commissioned by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, showed actually increases drug use by kids. Not only that, but the administration hid the results of the study for a year and a half by claiming that it wasn't finished, while continuing to fund the campaign! This is shameful. I haven't found a link to the original study, but here's an extensive Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of it that concludes simply "We believe the Westat study is sound."

My other example is the deliberate subversion of our Democratic system of government. The true wisdom of our founding fathers was that they recognized that we are all deeply flawed, and any government built on good will or trust in individuals will inevitably fail. It's all about building a system of government that forces all those imperfect people to keep a watchful eye on each other by creating coequal institutions that compete for power and influence. Checks and balances, or, for the scientifically inclined, a somewhat rigged Darwinian system that forces competition while limiting its results. However you want to think about it, it's beautiful, and it works.

But perhaps not so beautiful to some Republicans. It seems that in 2005 an aide to Senator Arlen Specter secretly slipped a provision into the Patriot Act renewal that breaks a critical part of the system. Nobody noticed, not even Specter. Which is pretty bad in itself, but not what I want to focus on.

The change lets the White House appoint US attorneys to vacant positions permanently and without Senate confirmation. US attorneys are the people that prosecute corrupt politicians, and therefore they have traditionally been somewhat insulted from politics by the Senate confirmation process. Any administration that can find a way to own all of the US attorneys is effectively above the law, and this administration has now done that. They have fired and replaced, apparently without cause, seven US attorneys, and at least some of the replacements are pure political hacks, with one being a Republican operative with close ties to Karl Rove.

I'm not saying that the left doesn't have it's own faults and bad actors, but almost without exception the we believe in using science to help make wise policy decisions, and we support our democratic system of government. Republicans once shared these values, but for many Republicans politics now is just about winning, whatever the cost to our people or our country.

Air America Bought Out - Al Franken Retiring (to Run for US Senate!)

The Huffington Post is reporting that Air America had been purchased by NY real estate developer Stephen L. Green, and that Al Franken is retiring from radio to explore a run for Senate from Minnesota. Thom Hartmann will take over from Franken. From what I can tell this is all pretty good, and I hope that it will encourage Clear Channel, which owns the Air America affiliate here in Madison, to put some effort into building up the station by getting local programs back on the air, specifically Lee Rayburn on weekday mornings.

The Huffington Post is pretty high profile and it attracts a huge number of trolls, making the comments on their stories often more entertaining than the stories themselves. Nothing gets the trolls more fired up than the trials and tribulations of Air America, so if you read the story be sure to check out a few of the comments as well.

Miss Bush's SOTU Address? Watch It Here

And be sure to catch the Democratic response afterwards...

A Soup and Salad Analysis of Madison Politics

Analogies are fun, and sometimes they can be a useful way to explain complex ideas. Here's how I see the conflict between Progressive Dane and the Dane Dems expressed in terms of soup and salad. Yes, it's silly and oversimplified, but it also gets to the heart of the matter. Please feel free to weigh in on this in the comments.

Once upon a time there was a soup store (the Dane Dems). They were part of a huge national soup franchise that sold reasonably good soup, and by virtue of their sheer size they dominated the market. So one day a salad store (Progressive Dane) opened up across the street. The founders of this new store had looked at the market and recognized that, despite its size, the soup store just wasn't filling people's desire for salad (consistent support for progressive candidates, involvement in local issues, membership participation in critical decisions, and providing the best possible support to candidates). Therefore they believed there was enough room for them to jump into the market.

The soup store ignored the salad store for a while, but eventually the soup store manager noticed that a lot of people who came in to buy soup would then go across the street to buy salad, and some people just bought salad without buying any soup at all! This made him really mad.

He figured that the money customers spent on salad could have been used to buy more soup, and therefore he reached the somewhat justifiable conclusion that the salad store had been cutting into his profits.

So the manager came up with a brilliant strategy. He decided that the answer was to harass his customers if they bought salad:

"What the hell's the matter with you? You want salad with our soup? Isn't our soup good enough for you? If you buy salad I never want to see your sorry ass in here again!" (unless you can muster a two-thirds vote at a membership meeting)

Naturally this had an effect on customers and profits. Unfortunately it wasn't entirely positive.

Now, it seems to me that in this sort of situation it would be far wiser for the soup store to either cut a deal with the salad store or just start selling salad itself.

But what the heck do I know about soup and salad.

SOTU - How Bush Could Save His Legacy

The Future of Cuba

God, I hope not...

Should Peg Lautenschlager Run For DPW Chair?

Judging by the results of a recent Democracy for Wisconsin online poll, Peg certainly would have a lot of support if she did:

What would you like to see Peg Lautenschlager do next?

45% - Run for Wisconsin Dem Party Chair in '07
24% - Run for Congress against Tom Petri in '08
18% - Retire from politics (trolls and the Governor's staffers?)
9% - Run for AG in 2010
3% - Run for Governor in 2010

This indicates that a pretty hefty chunk of the party's most active progressive base wants Peg to pull a Howard Dean and run for chair. Given Peg's frosty relationship with Doyle, and therefore much of the party establishment, it would be an interesting race, but I think she would be unbeatable. And with her solid progressive roots, proven management skills, and work ethic, she could really whip the party into shape.

The only problem is convincing Peg of all this. She hasn't exactly expressed much interest yet from what I can tell. So if the idea of Peg doing for our state party what Dean did for the DNC intrigues you, it might not be a bad idea to her know...

Best Quote Ever

An oldie but a goodie...

The Republican Party of WI Must Be Broke

What else could possibly explain why they're using an unregistered piece of $35 shareware to create their press releases? Heck, even I can afford thirty-five bucks to publish documents without a big fat disclaimer announcing to the world that I'm too cheap to buy the software I'm using.

This is pretty funny. As part of my research on the Steve Kagen stuff I found this Republican Party press release. It's a fairly well written if standard attack piece. Nothing surprising there. But even though it seemed to be one page long, as a good press release should, there was a second page that looked blank. Curious, I scrolled down, and saw the following notice:

This document was created with Win2PDF available at http://www.win2pdf.com.
The unregistered version of Win2PDF is for evaluation or non-commercial use only. This page will not be added after purchasing Win2PDF.

It's a shame to see a once-proud organization like the RPW reduced to this sad state of affairs. Perhaps one of my kind readers would be willing to send them a small donation to help in this moment of crisis.

Or not.

--------------------------

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Van Hollen Did What?

J.B. Van Hollen is getting off to an interesting start as Wisconsin Attorney General. One of his first actions after taking office was to falsely take credit for eliminating the position of solicitor general:

Van Hollen said he hasn't made any major policy changes yet, but
that he has eliminated the position of solicitor general, as promised
in the campaign. The job coordinated legal matters with attorneys
general in other states. Van Hollen said he would continue to work
with other states but said there was no need to have a specific
position to do that.

There's just one little problem with Van Hollen's claim. There was no solicitor general's position for him to eliminate. Peg Lautenschlager got rid of it months ago.

There's some interesting background to this issue. During his campaign Van Hollen used the solicitor general's position as an example of unnecessary and wasteful bureaucracy that he was going to clean up, and implied that he was going to save taxpayers' money by doing so.

But solicitor general was basically just a formal title, not a funded position, and while promising to eliminate it might have made a good campaign sound bite, doing so neither saves any money nor reduces the workload within the DOJ. This was simply a baffle 'em with bullshit issue that Van Hollen knew he could get away with because the public didn't have a clue.

It's unfortunate that one of our new AG's first actions is to fib about something as silly as this. I understand he wants to show he's keeping his campaign promises, particularly since many of them, such as reducing the backlog in the crime lab, are largely beyond his control. But I'd be much more impressed by an honest AG than one willing to lie to score cheap political points.

Steve Kagen - True to Form

It seems Dr. Steve Kagen, WI 8th CD Representative, just got himself in the news (read to the bottom) for being an asshole:

Newly elected Rep. Steven Kagen, a rich allergist who self-financed his campaign in Wisconsin, by his own account taunted President and Mrs. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove during a White House function for new members of Congress in December.

Kagen told a group of activists that after he found himself in the restroom with Rove, he blocked the White House deputy chief of staff's departure by holding the door closed. According to Kagen, he then said: "You're in the White House and you think you're safe. . . . My name's Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass."

The new congressman said he said separately to both Bush and Cheney: "Thank you for coming to Green Bay. I couldn't have won without you coming." Kagen also said he approached Laura Bush and purposely called her Barbara, the name of the president's mother. Kagen's remarks were reported in "The Scene," published in Appleton, Wis.

Granted nobody deserves it more than Rove, and I can understand Kagen's comments to Bush and Cheney, but deliberately insulting the President's wife is shameful. Not that I'm surprised. Here's what I wrote about Kagen in a post about his race last September:

...I've met and talked to Steve Kagen, and in my opinion he's an arrogant jerk. I'm not at all convinced he's anything close to being a progressive, and I think a lot of good Democrats in the 8th CD are in for a rude awakening.

Looks like I read Kagen pretty well. Unfortunately I suspect he's going to piss off a lot of people in a big hurry, and probably not just on the Republican side of the aisle. Going around deliberately making personal enemies is generally bad practice in politics.