News Round-Up, Monday, May 21, 2007

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McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) has an important article on the success Karl Rove and his minions have had in suppressing legitimate votes, all in the name of faux voter fraud.

ThinkProgress: TSA Confiscates Congressman’s Last Meal During Food Stamp Challenge Stupid, stupid TSA liquids rules. Did they think Congressman Ryan was going to blow up the plane with a jar of peanut butter? I can't wait until saner minds prevail. The confiscation of liquids is just as stupid as the 15 years that we endured the Lockerbie questions. (Did you pack your own bag? Has your bag been out of your possession at any point? Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry anything? Arrgh.)

Great anti-war piece in the Chicago Sun-Times: Bring troops home now (hat tip, Suburban Guerrilla)

TalkLeft: Here Come The Detention Camps: Immigration Legislation No wonder George W. Bush supported the new immigration compromise legislation; it lets him build more gulags.

Brilliant at Breakfast: Why can't a First Lady have a career? Michelle Obama has left her job at a Chicago hospital.

Best health care system in the world, my ass: The LA Times reports the heartbreaking story of a woman who was allowed to die writhing in pain in a hospital ER in Los Angeles County. They had told her to leave and call her own doctor in the morning.

The Boston Globe reports on the resuscitation of a (southern hemisphere, really lost) albatross that was found in a field in Maine.

The WaPo discovers left blogtopia; better late to the party than never, I guess.

Congressman McGovern Leads Fight to Increase Food Stamp Budget

I love my Congressman. Jim McGovern (the original sponsor of the House bill to ending funding for the Iraq war) is also co-Chair of the House Hunger Caucus. He and his co-chair, Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) are both eating on a food stamp budget for a week. They challenged other members of Congress to join them (here's the letter they sent out, pdf link) but only two have joined them: Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Tim Ryan (D-OH).

McGovern has a video on his blog of his speech on the House floor describing the challenge.

The average food stamp recipient gets $21 a week; that's $3 a day, or $1 per meal. I'm frugal, but I spend that in a week on vegetables alone. You can't buy fresh vegetables on that budget; most of your food is going to be cheap grains and proteins.

McGovern and his wife, Lisa, did their food shopping for the week with help from Toinette Wilson, a D.C. resident and mother of three who relies on food stamps. Wilson gave him some tips, but it was still a struggle, he said.

"No organic foods, no fresh vegetables, we were looking for the cheapest of everything," McGovern said. "We got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat -- the fattiest meat on the shelf. I have high cholesterol and always try to get the leanest, but it's expensive. It's almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food stamp diet."

WaPo: FOOD STAMP CHALLENGE
Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn't Buy a Lot of Groceries

Congressional Food Stamp Challenge

Congressman Ryan has posted his grocery receipt on his blog, along with this explanation of what he bought and how he's feeling:

Today I began the Food Stamp Challenge. I took the subway to Safeway, where I picked out the $21.00 of food that I’ll be living on for the next week. $20.66 bought me:

One bag of corn meal- $1.43

Two jars of strawberry preserves- $4.00

One jar of chunky peanut butter- $2.48

Two boxes of angel hair pasta- $1.54

One can of coffee- $2.50

Three jars of tomato sauce- $4.50

Two cartons of cottage cheese- $3.00

One loaf of wheat bread- $.89

One clove of garlic- $.32

Obviously, $21.00 doesn’t go too far, especially when it comes to variety. I'm starting to understand that living on such a tight budget doesn’t allow a person to get the balanced diet they need, I wasn't able to get much protein and produce was almost completely out of the question.

So far today I have eaten a quarter container of cottage cheese, one and a half peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had one cup of coffee. It still amazes me that so many Americans live like this every day. I already notice a difference in my energy level. After only a day on this diet, I’m tired and hungry, but I’m looking forward to talking to people about my experience, and making people aware of the millions across the country who deal with this every day.

Others participating around the country:

Oregon governor Theodore R. Kulongoski:
NYTimes: Statehouse Journal
A Governor Truly Tightens His Belt

Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., and a dozen other community leaders:
Salt Lake Tribune: Eating a week on the cheap

New York City Councilor Eric Gioia
New York City Hunger Blog: Life On Food Stamps Weighs On Councilman Gioia

Hard to Keep Up

Republican shenanigans are too numerous to catalogue. I'll try, but these are the tip of the iceberg.

Once again, Bush is sending troops into Iraq without the necessary armor to protect Humvees from IEDs.

And when those soldiers are wounded as a result of Bushco's incompetence, the Pentagon is now refusing to let VA doctors see medical records from field treatment for the poor kids they're treating at Walter Reed and other US hospitals. Sick bastards.

Dick Cheney's son-in-law scuttles chemical plant security.

Nevada Governor investigated for receiving 'gifts' from contractors.

Alaskan Congressman uses false Lincoln quote (published in the Washington Times this week, also) on the floor of the House.

The Justice Department's top environmental prosecutor signed a consent decree with ConocoPhillips. Problem? She was dating their top lobbyist, and they just bought a house together.

As an antidote to all this bad news, I recommend watching Ohio Representative Tim Ryan's speech on the floor of the House yesterday, at this diary on dailykos. Now that's how I want Democrats to respond. Tough and on point.

[Republicans try to shout him down with a parliamentary question}
I will not yield.

Now let me speak to the resolution. This is very simple. It says two things. We support our troops and we do not support escalation. It's very simple. And here's why.

We have already done this. Mr. Speaker; we've already done this, we've already tried the escalation, and it HAS. NOT. WORKED. From November to January '05, we escalated by 18,000 troops, boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 17%. From June to October of '05, we increased by 21,000 boots on the ground, and the number of dialy attacks increased by 29%. And from May to November of '06, 17,000 more boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 80%.

This escalation has not worked, and it will not work. The number of insurgents has increased from 5,000 in '03 to between 20,000 and 30,000 in October '06.

So this is very simple. And I wanna make just a few more points Mr. Speaker, and one is this: with the last vote for the war, no matter which party you are in or how you voted, we assumed that the President and the Secretary of Defense would send our troops over there with the proper equipment. But with this escalation, Mr. Speaker, we know that the 21,500 troops that are going to go over there will not have the proper Humvee kits, up-armor for their Humvees, they won't have the proper jamming devices or enough of them, and the won't have have the number of trucks that they need. Period, dot. You now know it.

So if you vote against this resolution, you're voting to send our troops over there without the proper equipment. Before it could be excused. Because we trusted the president and assumed, but now we know.

And finally, Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot over the past couple days about the American Revolution, and the Civil War, and World War Two. Well Mr. Speaker, our President today is not Washington, he is not Lincoln, and he is not Roosevelt. And so I think our Republican colleagues should take the advice of the Secretary of Defense, and that is YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE PRESIDENT YOU HAVE. You don't go to war with the President you wish you had.

I yield back the balance of my time.