List of Senators who voted Money for Big Useless F-22 Fighter but Against Jobs for Veterans

September 21st, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Economy | Legislation | Politics | War and Peace - (1 Comments)

Who “supports the troops?”

Let’s get right to the point. There are some members of the United States Senate who have done both of the following:

Vote Number 1: On July 21, 2009, some members of the U.S. Senate voted to spend $1.75 Billion buying more F-22 aircraft, an extremely expensive and useless weapon. A billion dollars will build the government just three, and the cost just begins there. At the time of the vote, the Washington Post revealed that the F-22 manages to fly just 1.7 hours on average before suffering a critical failure, and requires 34 hours of maintenance for every hour it flies. At the time of the vote, it had never hit its contracted reliability goals. It could not be flown reliably in the rain. It couldn’t even communicate with other planes. Three years after the vote, the F-22′s system for delivering oxygen to pilots still doesn’t work as well people said it should ten years ago; pilots are losing consciousness in the air. And the purpose of this expensive mis-built plane? To defeat the hypothetical next-generation aircraft of the Soviet Union, a country that no longer exists and that never actually deployed such an aircraft. What has been deployed is a whole lot of cash to support the congressional campaigns of sympathetic legislators.

Vote Number 2: On September 19 2012, some members of the U.S. Senate voted against the creation of a veterans job corps. The veterans job corps would have employed the people who are coming out of the military and being dumped into an absolutely dismal job market that has no capacity to hire them. The veterans jobs corps would not have been a welfare program but a jobs program, hiring veterans for jobs that don’t just deliver a paycheck but help the country through law enforcement, firefighting, historic preservation, resource management and conservation work.

The following are the members of the U.S. Senate who voted in favor of billions of dollars in contracts with giant military corporations for a useless F-22 fighter jet that didn’t work and which the country didn’t need, then voted against jobs for veterans doing useful work for America:

Senator Richard Burr (Republican-NC)
Senator Saxby Chambliss (Republican-GA)
Senator Thad Cochran (Republican-MS)
Senator John Cornyn (Republican-TX)
Senator Mike Crapo (Republican-ID)
Senator Charles Grassley (Republican-IA)
Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican-UT)
Senator Kay Hutchison (Republican-TX)
Senator Johnny Isakson (Republican-GA)
Senator Mike Johanns (Republican-NE)
Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican-KY)
Senator Pat Roberts (Republican-KS)
Senator John Thune (Republican-SD)
Senator David Vitter (Republican-LA)
Senator Roger Wicker (Republican-MS)

They voted to spend money on useless military contracts that lined big corporations’ pockets. They voted against money for useful jobs for veterans. Now you know where their priorities lie.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

They Pushed the Patriot Act Forward, and Data Privacy Day is Your Door Prize

May 24th, 2011 | Posted by Jim Cook in Homeland Insecurity | Legislation | Liberty | Politics - (1 Comments)

Over the last decade, the Patriot Act has allowed a wide net of surveillance, search and seizure to be cast over the United States, purposefully targeting innocent people not even suspected of criminal activity. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits that, but the government has proceeded regardless. Documents show that the powers of the Patriot Act are often abused. Although our national politicians justify the Patriot Act with vague claims about terrorists out to get us, Patriot Act powers are almost always are deployed for reasons unconnected to terrorism. Your information, your possessions, your communications are all subject to search, even if you haven’t done anything wrong. The Patriot Act takes your privacy away.

A full 74 Senators voted yesterday to let the blanket reauthorization of the Patriot Act proceed to its final stage in Senate, pushing the Patriot Act forward even though the bill they voted on makes absolutely no reforms to the law. Thanks to these 74, it’s likely that Patriot Act powers will be renewed for another four years.

I’m particularly interested in 9 of those 74 freedom-eroding Senators for something else they did. Four months before they voted to promote the passage of Patriot Act reauthorization, 9 Senators signed their names to officially support another bill, S.Res. 35. The official signed supporters of S. Res. 35 are:

Rep. Barbara Boxer (Democrat-CA)
Rep. Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-CA)
Rep. Kay Hutchison (Republican-TX)
Rep. John Kerry (Democrat-MA)
Rep. Patrick Leahy (Democrat-VT)
Rep. Mark Pryor (Democrat-AR)
Rep. John Rockefeller (Democrat-WV)
Rep. Olympia Snowe (Republican-ME)
Rep. Roger Wicker (Republican-MS)

S. Res. 35 went on to pass the entire Senate in a unanimous, unrecorded voice vote. It establishes January 28, 2011 as an honorary National Data Privacy Day, and on that day…

“encourages individuals across the Nation to be aware of data privacy concerns and to take steps to protect their personal information.”

Well, isn’t that sweet? While these Senators have voted to take away your data privacy, they’ve given you a day for you to think about that. What do we call that? A door prize or a white elephant?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Constitutional Amendment Proposed For Congressional Term Limits

November 11th, 2009 | Posted by Rowan in Legislation | Politics | Questions - (11 Comments)

Yesterday, Republican Senators Jim DeMint, Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn and Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced S.J. Res. 21., legislation that would create a new amendment to the Constitution. The amendment would limit the number of terms any individual could serve in the Senate to just two, and the number of terms any individual could serve in the House of Representatives to just three.

congress term limitsThat means that a Senate career could last only 12 years, and a career on the House could last only 6 years.

Some questions for consideration of this bill:

- What would the political advantage for the Republican Party be with this new arrangement?
- How would the amendment shift the balance of power between the three branches of government?
- Seniority would not be the criterion for committee leadership, so what would be?
- How would the role of big corporations and lobbying interests change with passage of the amendment?
- Would politicians become more or less beholden to their political party’s leadership?
- Would the amendment make it easier for candidates to run for Congress without spending large amounts of their own money, or would it make Congress even more exclusively a place for wealthy Americans to get elected to?
- Would this amendment increase or decrease accountability of politicians to voters?

, , , , , , ,

Kay Bailey Hutchison Wasn’t Accomplishing Much In Senate

July 29th, 2009 | Posted by jclifford in Election 2010 | Legislation | Politics | Republicans - (1 Comments)

This evening, Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced that she will not run for re-election in 2010. She’s not leaving the political process, however, but intends to run for Governor of Texas, with her campaign starting this autumn.

jcliffordConsidering her candidacy, the people of Texas might want to consider the half-hearted approach Hutchison has taken to her leadership responsibilities as of late. This year, Hutchison has grown detached from the legislative process, allowing herself to drift away from the center of action in the Senate. She hasn’t offered many bills of substance. S.903, a bill to permit a State to elect to receive the State’s contributions to the Highway Trust Fund in lieu of its Federal-aid Highway program apportionment for the next fiscal year, and for other purposes, is typical of the small scope of her recent work. In spite of Hutchison’s modest ambitions in the Senate, much of her legislation hasn’t gained the support of a single cosponsor. There isn’t even any link on Senator Hutchison’s official congressional web site to the legislation she sponsored in the current session of Congress. Apparently, she’s simply lost interest in the process.

What legislation Hutchison has been working on seems headed in the wrong direction. There’s S. 166, for example, a bill which is designed to help employers evade compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

All in all, Hutchison has taken a low-energy approach toward moving the country backwards. Texas needs someone with more energy as its Governor, even if the position is largely ceremonial.

, , , , ,