Letter to Senators Voinovich and DeWine

Mr. Senator,

I encourage you to vote against any energy bill that would open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge up to drilling. Furthermore, the concept of a $100 rebate, that would be taxed as income later, smacks of an election year stunt and is fiscally irresponsible. Both of these provisions should be removed from or not included in legislation.

Rather than further enabling oil companies who based on current profit reports certainly don't need our help. The Senate's time would be better spent in ascertaining why the oil companies profits gains are outpacing the rise in oil prices and in encouraging real investment in technologies such as the conversion of water to hydrogen for use in combustion engines.

Thank you,

You can write your Senators by clicking the link on the left.

It's the last train to nowhere and it's leaving...

My apologies to The Monkees or whoever wrote "The Last Train to Clarksville". But it appears someone is trying to top The Bridge to Nowhere. By about $100 billion, with a "B".

Flap over pet projects roils GOP
By Gail Russell Chaddock, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Remember Alaska's "bridge to nowhere"? It's about to be topped by what critics call Mississippi's "railroad to nowhere," which is quickly becoming the poster child for excessive spending by the Republican-controlled Congress.

The project, which was added to a $106.5 billion emergency defense spending bill in the Senate, would relocate a Gulf Coast rail line inland, to higher ground. Never mind that the hurricane-battered line was just repaired at a cost of at least $250 million. Or that at $700 million, the project championed by Mississippi's two US senators is being called the largest "earmark" ever.

The controversy points to a deepening split in the GOP over whether to rein in spending in the face of wartime commitments and record deficits - and whether failing to do so threatens their majority in this fall's midterm elections.

Its sponsors say the motive is evacuation and safety. "Along the Coast, we too often seen motorists and pedestrians killed on the rails that have run parallel to our shores for more than a century," wrote Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) (R) of Mississippi in the Sun Herald newspaper Monday. Mississippi's senior senator, Thad Cochran, chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee, which drafted the bill.

But critics say it's also a bid to open land for developers to turn Mississippi's struggling Gulf Coast into Las Vegas South - and that emergency federal spending shouldn't pay for it, especially when Washington is on track to spend $371 billion into the red.Full Text

Congress

Congress is in recess for Easter. So there isn't much activity right now.

The Iran situation is heating up and reports of nuclear weapons, I refuse to call them tactical as the delivery might be precise but the fallout would still be widespread, are alarming but I would doubt that it is option #1. I do think that recent news articles about retired military personnel speaking out have more to do with proposed Iran plans than past actions in Iraq.

Primaries are sort of happening around the country. I say sort of because a lot of candidates are dropping out prior to the primary. Nothing like giving the people in political parties a choice. *sniff sniff* Yes, that is sarcasm.

Other than rhetoric, the politicians are on vacation. So, take a deep breath, relax and go have some fun. The fireworks show should start back up next week.

Senator McCain Courting Conservatives

Of course, I am not sure which conservatives these are. They look more like the religious type.

I will leave you to read the article on Forbes.com. Essentially, Senator McCain is starting early in Iowa(It is only 2006 right?). Part of his strategy involves mending fences with religious conservatives. These groups appear to be upset with the Senator because he doesn't sling enough poo at the Democrats, doesn't want to squash the rights of the minority party, wants to have more limits on campaign funding and is actually willing to work side by side with *GASP* Senator Ted Kennedy.

Maybe the Senator is actually trying to do his job. You know create legislation that is good for the whole country? Not just the ones that elected him. With regard to not abolishing the filibuster for judicial nominees, perhaps, the Senator et al realized that they might not always be the majority party...

Stay tuned.

Be Careful Senator McCain

McCain Softens Language on Jerry Falwell
WASHINGTON - Potential presidential candidate John McCain says he longer considers evangelist Jerry Falwell to be one of the "agents of intolerance" that he criticized during a previous White House run.

The Republican senator from Arizona will be the commencement speaker in May at Liberty University, the Lynchburg, Va., institution that Falwell founded in 1971.

"We agreed to disagree on certain issues, and we agreed to move forward," McCain said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

In 2000, as he sought the Republican nomination that eventually went to George W. Bush, McCain said: "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."

On Sunday, McCain said that Christian conservatives have a major role to play in the Republican Party, but added, "I don't have to agree with everything they stand for."Source

I would say that agreeing to deliver a commencement speech at Falwell's college would qualify as pandering, Senator.