ABCNEWS.com : Senate Approves Pay Increase for Itself

”At a time when our country is facing record annual deficits, this automatic stealth pay raise system is absolutely wrong,” said [Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis]. He has a policy of returning to the Treasury any pay he receives above his salary at the beginning of his six-year term.

With the raise, lawmakers will have received five straight pay increases totaling $21,000, he said. …

”I think that our representatives of government deserve a pay raise consistent with the work that we’ve produced,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

”This is not a pay raise. This is an increase that’s required by law,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

Stevens’ remark may win the prize for disingenuous crap. Alaskans: boot Stevens! mjh

Senators vote to raise their pay by $3,400

”How can Congress give itself a $3,400 pay raise while nearly 9 million people are unemployed, and 2 million have been out of work for more than half a year?” Feingold asked.

Senators vote to increase their pay by $3,400 Jan. 1

”In this time of out-of-control federal deficits, it is essential to put the interests of taxpayers ahead of our self-interest,” said Sen. John McCain, AZ-R, who is running for re-election next year.

House Leaders Are Pushing to Cut Corporate Taxes

House Republican leaders are nearing agreement on a bill to give nearly $60 billion in additional tax breaks to corporations, brushing aside Democratic complaints that the measure would deepen the federal budget deficit. …

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy research group, said preliminary tax data for this year indicated that corporate taxes accounted for just 7.4 percent of total tax receipts, down from about 21 percent of total receipts in the 1960’s.

I was sure there would be no more talk of new tax cuts until after 2004. But maybe the Republicans sense the end is near and they need to raid the Treasury completely while they can. mjh

Rare Candor by Eleanor Clift

”When you tell everybody everything is going fine and internally you have doubts, it raises questions about credibility,” says a Senate Republican.

Rumsfeld and Bush are cut from the same cloth. Neither can bear to admit a mistake. That’s why Rumsfeld’s memo conceding mixed results in the war on terrorism is so remarkable.

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: Rumsfeld’s war-on-terror memo

PCWorld.com – More Patriot Act Amendments Unveiled

A bill introduced in the House this week suggests six main amendments to the Act, including oversight of online and telephone surveillance methods adopted by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Called the Security and Freedoms Ensured (SAFE) Act, House Resolution 3352 is nearly identical to one introduced in the Senate last week.

Class-Action Legislation Fails in Senate

Senate Democrats effectively killed a measure on Wednesday that would push certain class-action lawsuits out of state courts and into the federal judiciary, handing President Bush and the Republican leadership a significant defeat. … President Bush has made changes in tort law a big feature of his agenda in Congress, and it is a staple of his speeches.

Bush and his supporters are usually anti-Federal, pro-States’-rights. Or is that just another deception? mjh

In Florida Right-to-Die Case, Legislation Puts the Constitution at Issue

In enacting a tightly focused, one-time-only law that effectively reversed a series of court decisions allowing a Florida man to withdraw life support from his brain-damaged wife, the Florida Legislature has created a constitutional crisis, legal scholars said yesterday.

”Courts get to decide particular cases, not legislatures,” said Steven G. Gey, a law professor at Florida State University. …
Continue reading Another Constitutional Crisis brought on by the Radical, Intrusive Right →

Scorning the Courts in Florida

Drawing the line between life and death is one of society’s most challenging tasks. Florida’s courts discharged that duty admirably when they ruled that Terri Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state for 13 years, should be allowed to die. But the State Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush have mocked the courts’ careful deliberations and embarked on a ghoulish medical journey by directing that her feeding resume. The courts should reaffirm Ms. Schiavo’s right to die in peace. …

The Florida courts approached the matter with the gravity it deserves. … The Florida Legislature, prodded by the religious right, hastily passed a law authorizing the governor to order the feeding of patients in a vegetative state who lacked living wills. … The new law infringes the right to die that the Supreme Court recognized in 1990.

George Bush is part of the religious right; Jeb Bush is jumping to their call. You want four more years of that? mjh