Republican Morality ?

Congress gives itself a raise, but what about the minimum wage ?

Posted 6/19/2006 10:02 PM ET
I read with interest the article about members of the House of Representatives and Senate accepting their "automatic" pay hike ("House lawmakers accept $3,300 pay hike," USATODAY.com, June 13).
While all Americans would love to receive guaranteed pay hikes, the reality is that for most working American families, pay has not risen nearly as much as their costs have, if at all. For example, the minimum wage has not been raised since 1996, when Congress last passed legislation raising the hourly rate to $5.15 per hour (effective in 1997). Based on a 40-hour work week, this amounts to $10,712 per year, considerably lower than the poverty level. Members of Congress earned an annual $133,600 at the time the minimum wage was last raised. With their new raise to $168,500 per year, this represents a 26% pay hike over the past 10 years, compared with a 0% increase in the minimum wage.

I find it most astounding that Republican members of Congress squeal loudly about the inability of companies to pay a higher minimum wage to their employees, yet these same representatives feel no compunction about doling out taxpayer money to line their pockets further.

Maybe it's time to tie congressional pay raises to comparable percentage raises in the federal minimum wage.

Steven P. Alpert

Suffern, N.Y.

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-19-letters-ethics_x.htm
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June 22, 2006, 1:46AM

GOP-led Senate kills effort to raise the minimum wage

By DAVID ESPO
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday, rejecting Democratic claims that it was past time to boost the $5.15 hourly pay floor that has been in effect for nearly a decade.
The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval under budget rules and came one day after House Republican leaders made clear they do not intend to allow a vote on the issue, fearing it might pass.
The Senate vote marked the ninth time since 1997 that Democrats there have proposed — and Republicans have blocked — a stand-alone increase in the minimum wage.

source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/3991478.html
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Republican House Speaker Hastert and two other Republican Congressmen accused of using pork to enrich themselves financially
by John in DC - 6/22/2006 02:03:00 AM

Oh for simpler times when Denny was a great late-night dive.

From the Wash Post:
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.

A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns.

source: http://americablog.blogspot.com/
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Man indicted in phone jamming case will argue Administration approved election scheme

John Byrne
Published: Friday July 7, 2006

The fourth man indicted in a New Hampshire phone-jamming scheme -- in which Republican operatives jammed the phone lines of Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts in a 2002 Senate race -- will argue at trial that the Bush Administration and the national Republican Party gave their approval to the plan, according to a motion filed by his attorney Thursday.

Shaun Hansen, the former owner of the company that placed hang-up calls to jam Democratic phone lines, was indicted in March for conspiring to commit and aiding and abetting the commission of interstate telephone harassment relating to a scheme to thwart get out the vote efforts on Election Day, 2002.

His lawyer's motion signals that Hansen intends to argue that he was entrapped because the Administration allegedly told his superiors the calls were legal. The filing indicates, however, that Hansen does not have firsthand knowledge of Administration intervention.

Hansen’s lawyer offered an inside look of his defense strategy in yesterday's filing: his client will assert that he believed he was acting on behalf of the government and the Republican Party through his work with GOP Marketplace, the company which subcontracted the phone jamming efforts.

"Mr. Hansen may assert that the government, or an agent therof, actually induced the offenses with which Mr. Hansen is charged, and was not otherwise prediposed to commit," Hansen's lawyer Jeffrey Levin writes.

"Mr. Hansen may asserts [sic] the defense of "derivative entrapment" in which the government uses a private party as its agent," Levin adds.

Phone calls lead to White House

Phone records show hundreds of phone calls from the New Hampshire Republican Party and convicted phone jammer James Tobin to the White House Office of Political Affairs during the time the scheme was being planned and carried out.

The Republican National Committee, which shelled out millions to defend Tobin, has said it is "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

According to AP, "The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush's presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people."

A liberal political action group, Senate Majority Project, also uncovered that GOP Marketplace, which subcontracted out the hang-up calls to Hansen’s Mylo Enterprises, was partly owned by Mississippi Governor and former RNC Chair Haley Barbour.

Repeated hang-up calls that jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center helped secure the victory of Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) over Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in November 2002, 51 to 46 percent.



source: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Man_indicted_in_election_day_phone_0707.html