Things Congress Didn't Do This Week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan bill to extend the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a crown jewel of the U.S. civil rights era, was unexpectedly and indefinitely delayed on Wednesday amid objections from some southern Republican lawmakers.

(Who needs voting rights anyhow when you have Diebold and Republican Secretaries of State making that decision for you? Voting ‘Right’, not voting ‘rights’, I assume. Now why would Republicans oppose renewing the Voting Rights Acts, especially after having pushed through HAVA? Or is it because they pushed through HAVA?)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday defeated a proposal pushed by Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage in increments from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour by January 1, 2009.

(Didn’t they just give themselves a $3300 per year raise? What the fuck is wrong with these people? The minimum wage has been stagnant for 10 years, and even if there are few people actually working for that wage, why wouldn’t Republicans in Congress at least show some solidarity or compassion for hard working Americans. The answer is found in corporate opposition to anything that forces a better wage standard for anyone other than CEOs and shareholders. Greedy assholes!)

Senate conservatives OK contract corruption:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060620/cm_thenation/1593962

The Senate voted 44-52 today to kill legislation that would have created a special committee to “investigate the awarding and carrying out of contracts” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even conservative “straight shooters” like John McCain and Chuck Hagel voted against oversight.

(It is amazing to me how fast and loose the Congress is with our tax dollars. The administration of ‘fiscal conservatism’ votes to allow unregulated and unaccountable spending of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars. Dick Cheney is in charge folks and there is no way that Cheney or Rumsfeld want anyone snooping around their financial dealings. Greedy Assholes!

John McCain is NOT a “straight shooter”. He is an admitted adulterer who cheated on his wife several times and then dumped her after she had already raised his children as he languished in a North Vietnamese prison. One cannot even discern where McCain is politically, and I think he blows with the wind. This easily explains his sudden leap to the far right religious voting block when he formerly disavowed himself from them in 2004.)